The most recent newsletter from Daniel Munitillo discusses U.S. export law as it applies to code, and determines that, for the most part, U.S. export restrictions do not apply to open source software.

Why? The First Amendment.

Specifically, he states:

. . . [a]ny and all computer code not considered classified by, or, not for official use only (FOUO) of the United States Government, which is open source, freely and publically available, exchanged for any non prohibited end use is protected under the case law cited as free speech. The case law is clear*.

Export compliance is a pain for small companies. The fact that open sourced software is protected speech and thus not subject to standard U.S. government export compliance is yet one more reason in a long list of reasons why small companies should consider open-sourcing some or all of their code when evaluating their business options.

*In accordance with Junger v. Daley, 209 F. 3d 481 (6th Cir. 2000); Bernstein v United States, 922 F. Supp 1426 (1996), 945 F. Supp. 1279 (1996), and at 176 F. 3d 1132 (9th Cir. 1997); and Karn v United States Department of State, 925 F. Supp. 1, 9-10 (D.D.C. 1996), remanded, 107 F. 3d 923 (D.C. Cir 1997), Code is protected as free speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

There’s a debate going on right now. How long should the search engines be able to save your search data (associated with your IP address, or your cookie, or your unique identifier associated with your login to their services)? 6 months? 9 months? Less? More?

From a business perspective, this information is very useful. The longer, the better.  It helps potential business partners (service providers, product providers, advertisers, etc.) know what you are likely to want to see, buy, use, and potentially even contribute to the conversation. Of course, whether the search engines should be allowed to share this information at all is yet another conversation.

From a law enforcement perspective, the enforcers would prefer the everything be recorded in perpetuity, indexed, searchable, and admissable as evidence in prosecution. And let us not forget that in some scenarios, certainly, the pattern of behavior, searches, and information sought would be down-right bone chilling, and had someone been monitoring it, no doubt, they could have sounded the alarm prior to some horrific event.

The other side of the coin is that many of us have the occasional horrid thought, which results in the occasional questionable-looking search engine query, and really, we’d like that moment to be erasable instantaneously, not 6 or 9 months later. And why not?

From a privacy perspective, the preservation of and presentation of this information to third parties (even for *law enforcement reasons*) is quite scary.  If I searched for the failure rate of pregnancy tests a month ago, that’s a very indicative fact about me, as a person, or perhaps my friends and family. Should anyone have the right to know that I did that? If I searched for palliative treatments for a terminal medical condition, the search is similarly indicative and raises similar questions. Who truly deserves to know these intimate details about my thoughts and internal questions without my permission?

The EU, in general, has taken a stronger role in protecting the privacy of the individual on-line, than the U.S.

This results in situations like the recent decision by Microsoft to purge search data attached to IP addresses after 6 months, which is a significant improvement (from the end user “protect-my-privacy” standpoint) over Google’s policy of 9 months.

It’s an interesting thing to watch, because the current day-to-day operating privacy policy is being set far outside the world of the lawyers who litigate and fight for a living. And, as a lawyer who doesn’t fight, I think it’s a valid legal issue, but I’m observing that by the time the big companies deign to get the lawyers get involved (by buy-in and invitation), that very colorfully flagged ship will have sailed, most likely by necessity.

It will be a brave new world.

I’ve decided to start my own law practice.

I’ve given notice to the firm and have set my last day, but in the meantime, there are a ton of details to manage and things to do and learn. First, there’s leaving while preserving as much goodwill with the firm as possible. I’ve been pleased with how well this has been going, and have been impressed, yet again, with what a great group of attorneys I work with — they have been very encouraging and supportive. Then, there’s transitioning my existing clients to other attorneys at the firm who will replace me in a manner that is professional and leaves them with a good impression of me. And then, in the background, there’s all the stuff I need to get in place to actually get my own firm up and running…

Given that I need to have a digital social network in place to help recruit clients once my firm is up and running, Biting Tongue has finally ceased to be the main outlet for my written thoughts.

These days, I’m adopting a multi-pronged approach with Facebook, Twitter, and this professional blog as well.

A Legal Perspective on Inter-Personal Relationships

Often, when things go wrong between colleagues, friends, or family, one party says to the other, “I’m so sorry, but, I didn’t mean it. You know I didn’t mean to do it. Right? It was an accident!”

This statement is a plea for forgiveness, and a hope that all will return to normalcy.

In US common civil law, this statement would be a defense against intentional misconduct. But, it would be useless against a claim of gross negligence and negligence.

Gross Negligence is a conscious and voluntary disregard of the need to use reasonable care, which is likely to cause foreseeable grave injury or harm to persons, property, or both.

Negligence, rather, is a mere failure to exercise reasonable care.

In our inter-personal relationships, I fear we are often too binary — looking for intentional harm or assuming that without intention, the non-harmed party must be innocent.

But if we adopt the US common civil law standard, if we are careless with those we should be caring for, then we are responsible for the harm we cause them by our carelessness.

And, if (for whatever reason) we consciously and voluntarily disregard the need to use reasonable care in our relationships (for example, when the other party has asked us to pay attention to something that hurts them and we choose not to pay attention to it in our treatment of them), then we are grossly negligent, and we are even more culpable for their harm than if we just failed to exercise reasonable care.

If 2009 taught me anything, it was that I needed to stand up for myself when people (professionally, personally, and in the family) were harming me without intention. On accident.

They didn’t mean it. They were not bad people. I love them.

But, at the end of the day, even if the other party doesn’t mean it, if their actions harm you, they harm you. And, we all have a duty to avoid negligence (and gross negligence) when it comes to care of ourselves.

Remnants of the Summer Garden

Early this week, I had a cold. So, quite reasonably, brother banned me from visiting. Instead, once I felt better but still had the sniffles, I started to transition the summer garden to the winter garden (while sneezing — have I mentioned I’m allergic to dust? Yeah… gardening makes perfect sense…).

Due to the end of the tomato plants, we have green tomatoes that didn’t quite ripen. We selected 2 pounds of the biggest firmest beauties for deep fried slices sometime this week. So, now, we’re just trying to figure out what to do with the rest. We are evaluating between Arvay’s Chow-Chow, or our friend S’s aunt’s pickled green tomatoes, or dilled green tomatoes, but we certainly have enough:

Tonight, after a day at the hospital with bro, I let off some steam (literally) by canning okra pickles, green tomato pickles, cucumber pickles (3 different styles), eggplant pickles, tomato sauce, and just good old-fashioned skinned tomatoes (sorted by color). So far, we are pleased with the results:

And finally, in “oh-happy-day” news, we have lots of sprouts in our flat from the winter gardening class at Love Apple Farm:

Other than that, I must admit, there is very little to report.