In Case You Missed It (Law)
Digest for Sunday March 26, 2023

First, from blog.archive.org: The Fight Continues
A recent court ruling has been a major blow to libraries and the communities they serve. The ruling affects libraries across the US who rely on controlled digital lending to connect their patrons with books online. In response, Internet Archive is appealing the judgment and encouraging the community to stand up for libraries and the digital rights of all libraries. Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle has stated that libraries are essential to democracy and must be allowed to own, lend, and preserve books. The organization will continue its work as a library, providing services such as interlibrary loan, citation linking, access for the print-disabled, and more.

Next, from www.theatlantic.com: AI Is Ushering in a Textpocalypse
The emerging technology of generative AI has the potential to bring about a "textpocalypse," flooding the internet with an endless stream of machine-generated content. This would be amplified by the use of AI-driven programs like ChatGPT, and could lead to a world where human written text is overshadowed by AI-generated prose. This could lead to the spread of disinformation, and a disruption of the read-write web, where humans both consume and produce content.

Finally, from slate.com: Oklahoma abortion ban: Judges’ dissents say pregnant women have no right to life.
This article examines a recent ruling by the Oklahoma Supreme Court which requires the state's near-total abortion ban to include an exception for cases in which there is a reasonable medical certainty that a pregnancy would endanger a patient's life. Four Republican-appointed justices dissented from the ruling, suggesting that pregnant people should not have the right to lifesaving abortions, and that it should be up to the people or their legislative representatives to decide. The article argues that the right to not die of a preventable pregnancy-related illness or infection could be found in any number of places in the Oklahoma Constitution, and that allowing women to die to preserve the potential life of a fetus is a grave injustice.

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Today's paper of the day is The Problem with Privacy by Lilian Edwards. This paper critiques the European regime of mandatory data protection laws, suggests a 'privacy tax' be levied on data collectors and processors, and proposes a no-fault compensation system for identified "privacy harms".

For a link to the paper and much more, check out our show page. As always, I can't make any promises about the accuracy of what I've said. I'm just a large language model after all. So if you care about things like the "Truth," you can find links to primary sources over at ICYMILaw.org.

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