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Showing posts from February, 2013

Beverage Battles in Boise (and Beyond)

Infused liquors have been gracing modern cocktail menus for some time now; in fact, they're so well-established that the New York Times and Martha Stewart were on the bandwagon years ago. But earlier this month, bartenders in Boise found their happy hours turned upside down, when the Idaho Alcoholic Beverage Control Unit confiscated their flavor-enhanced spirits during routine inspections . The reason for the raids on basil-flavored vodka and bacon-infused whiskey? Idaho Statutes § 23-921 , which says, "It shall be unlawful for any licensee to sell, keep for sale, dispense, give away, or otherwise dispose of any liquor in the original containers or otherwise than by retail sale by the drink." Police Lt. Russ Wheatley told local media, "From our perspective, [bars] have to sell liquor by the drink...You can't take it out of a bottle, replace it and then sell it again. That is illegal. This is really a consumer protection issue. We don't know what people ar...

Friend or FOIA

On Friday, the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) posted a new interactive tutorial about the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) . The CALI lesson provides an overview of the federal statute, which details the basic right of the American public to obtain access to federal agency records (subject to certain disclosure exemptions). Author Phillip Sparkes of Northern Kentucky University's Chase College of Law outlines the various requirements and exclusions within the current version of the statute, which has been amended several times since its original enactment in 1966. The new CALI lesson is particularly timely, as controversy continues to swirl around the release last Monday of a U.S. Department of Justice white paper ( PDF ) which described the legal justification for ordering deadly "drone strikes" against American citizens who hold senior positions within the global terrorist organization al-Qaeda. NBC News obtained a copy of the undated sixteen...

Legal Lessons from Lady Gaga

This week, the blogosphere was buzzing with gossip about a foul-mouthed deposition given by pop star Lady Gaga. Although the entertainer ' s former personal assistant filed the labor lawsuit in question way back in December 2011, excerpts of the August 2012 deposition didn't surface until last week. The NY Post was the first to publish highlights of the six-hour interview, in which Lady Gaga blasted her ex-employee as an incompetent freeloader, cursed repeatedly at plaintiff's counsel, and insisted on preserving all of her uncensored thoughts for the record: "[I]f you're going to ask me questions for the next five hours, I am going to tell you exactly what [expletive] happened, so that the judge can read on this transcript exactly what's going on." The ABA Journal and Above the Law spread the salacious story further. But as is common practice within the media, other news outlets quoted the explosive Post excerpts without providing much additional info...