Bruce Kelly reports:
Allstate Insurance Co. is suing Ameriprise
Financial in a spat alleging Ameriprise is stealing Allstate’s confidential
information by recruiting the giant insurance company’s salespeople, known as
“exclusive financial specialists.”
Ameriprise is allegedly encouraging the Allstate sales agents to create
contact lists from customer information, use flash drives and
portable electronic devices to download client data, and then solicit Allstate
clients once they quit and move to Ameriprise, according to the complaint.
Read more on Investment
News. Ameriprise issued a statement
to the publication indicating it believed the complaint to be without merit.
[From the
article:
The complaint alleges violation of the Defend Trade Secrets Act,
tortious interference with business relationships and unfair competition.
In theory then, anything Utah requires a report on would
be part of the public record?
Leslie Francis and John Francis write:
Urgent public health crises
generate pressures for access to information to protect the public’s health. Identifying patients with contagious
conditions and tracing their contacts may seem imperative for serious diseases
such as Ebola or SARS. But pressures for
information reach far more broadly than the threat of deadly contagion. Such is the situation with the opioid
epidemic, at least in Utah, where a federal district court recently determined
that patients have no reasonable expectation of privacy in their
prescription records, which can be transferred to state agencies under
state public health laws.
Patients should know that their physicians are required by law
to make reports of these prescriptions to state health departments, the court
said. These reports to state agencies
can include abuse, various infectious diseases, possible instances of
bioterrorism, tumors, abortions, birth defects—and, in most states, controlled
substance prescriptions. Because patients should know about these reports, they
have no Fourth Amendment expectation of privacy in them. And, so, warrantless searches by the Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA) are constitutionally permissible. The Utah court’s reasoning potentially throws
into question the extent to which these reports may receive Fourth Amendment
protection.
Read more on Oxford
University Press’s Blog.
All those lawyers in Congress (and staff) and no one
noticed?
Rachel Blevins of The Free
Thought Project writes:
A bill that will allow homes to
be searched without a warrant was passed with overwhelming support by the
United States Congress, and signed into law by President Trump—and it happened
with no media coverage and very little fanfare.
On the surface, House Joint Resolution 76 looks harmless. The title of the bill claims that its purpose
is “Granting the consent and approval of Congress for the Commonwealth of
Virginia, the State of Maryland, and the District of Columbia to enter into a
compact relating to the establishment of the Washington Metrorail Safety
Commission.”
[…]
However, there is one major red
flag buried within the text of the bill that stems from the list of “powers”
given to the Washington Metrorail Safety Commission, and it violates one of the
basic tenets of the U.S. Constitution.
“In performing its duties,
the Commission, through its Board or designated employees or agents, may: Enter
upon the WMATA Rail System and, upon reasonable notice and a finding by the
chief executive officer that a need exists, upon any lands, waters, and
premises adjacent to the WMATA Rail System, including, without limitation,
property owned or occupied by the federal government, for the purpose of making
inspections, investigations, examinations, and testing as the Commission may
deem necessary to carry out the purposes of this MSC Compact, and such entry
shall not be deemed a trespass.”
The text gives the Commission the
authority to enter property near the Metro Rail System “without
limitation” and without a warrant, for the purpose of “making
inspections, investigations, examinations, and testing.”
Read more on The
Free Thought Project.
The roll
call shows that 5 legislators voted against the bill (all Republicans),
while 29 legislators did not vote on the bill at all. The bill had bipartisan support, passing
399-5.
Perspective. I
thought all those Smartphone users downloaded everything they could get their
hands on…
Majority of U.S. consumers still download zero apps per
month, says comScore
Apps are dominating consumers’ digital media habits, but
getting people to try new ones is still a tough sell. That’s the latest from comScore’s newly
released 2017 U.S. Mobile Apps Report, which finds that 57 percent
of consumers’ time spent using digital media is now taking place in mobile
apps. Of that, 50 percent is occurring
in smartphone apps versus only 7 percent for apps on tablets.
… A majority of
users (51%) still don’t download any apps in a month, says comScore.
Of those who download one or more apps on average in a
month (49%), 13 percent download just one app, 11 percent download 2 apps, 8
percent download 3 apps, 5 percent download 4 apps, 7 percent download 5 to 7
apps, and 5 percent download 8 or more.
Again, it’s millennials (18-34) who are driving much of
the interest in new app downloads, the report also finds. 70 percent say they’re always looking for new
apps to try, and they’re willing to pay.
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