6 notable GCs in the news
General counsel sound off about voter ID laws, X-rated litter, work visas and more
October 05, 2012 at 07:23 AM
6 minute read
The original version of this story was published on Law.com
“It's never OK to share information in an internal memo EVEN if the company issues public communications about the same subject. We will fire employees who leak company confidential information and we will avail ourselves of all other legal remedies to protect those confidences.”
–Ron Bell, GC of Yahoo! Inc., in a confidential memo to employees
Apparently angry that company employees had leaked yet another memo to the press, Bell issued a cautionary memo threatening leakers with firing and possible criminal prosecution. But his latest warnings clearly didn't have the desired effect on all employees, one of whom promptly leaked the communication to the media. The tech giant's battle against leaks has been going on for years: In 2009, ousted CEO Carol Bartz reportedly proposed a $1,000 bounty for information about the identity of workers sharing information with the press.
“It's a problem that's approaching dimensions of a genuine crisis.”
–Brad Smith, general counsel of Microsoft Corp.
In this economy, you're more likely to hear people complaining about a shortage of jobs than a shortage of workers. But that doesn't hold true in the tech world, where companies are producing twice as many jobs as there are qualified workers to fill them. To make matters worse, Smith said, there is currently a 65,000 annual cap on H-1B work visas, limiting the number of highly skilled overseas workers that employers can hire.
Microsoft proposed the following solution: Release 20,000 green cards and allow companies to pay $10,000 for each additional visa reserved for workers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. Then reinvest the fees in STEM education and job training programs for U.S. students and workers.
“If someone takes some material, regardless of what it is, and then walks down the street and decides to drop it, that's the person who is littering. That's the person that is responsible, not the person who gave it to them originally.”
–Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel of the Nevada American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
There are plenty of sinners in Las Vegas, but the city's government is going after more garden-variety wrongdoers: litterbugs. Tourists wandering the city's famed Strip are often approached by handbillers, who hand out cards advertising scantily clad exotic dancers. Although some tourists throw the X-rated brochures in the trash, others simply drop them on the sidewalk. In an attempt to solve the resulting litter problem, Las Vegas officials have passed a law requiring handbillers to pick up debris within a 25-foot radius on the sidewalk. The state's ACLU, though, says that the measure violates the First Amendment. Lichtenstein also predicted that police may find it difficult to enforce the law, as it requires handbillers to pick up the litter every 15 minutes.
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