Criminal Communications

“We're making the ability to intercept communications with a court order increasingly obsolete.”

–Andrew Weissman, general counsel of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

The 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act requires telephone and Internet providers to install surveillance capabilities on their networks and equipment at the FBI's request. But the law doesn't apply to companies that provide email, cloud or online chat services, meaning that the FBI is limited in its ability to monitor communications on services such as Gmail, Google Voice, Skype or DropBox.

At a luncheon for the American Bar Association, Weissman argued that the agency's inability to monitor such sites in real-time is preventing it from effectively fighting terrorism.

Chocolate Chips

“Strong intellectual property and patent rights in the United States are critical to fulfilling our mission.”

–Richard Marsh, general counsel of Myriad Genetics Inc.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, which centers on whether human genes are patentable or unpatentable “natural law.” The two genes at issue, which Myriad isolated, are linked to increased hereditary risk of ovarian and breast cancer. Justice Antonin Scalia seemed to side with Myriad and expressed concern that, without the incentive that patents provide, companies will cease to research such genes.

But Justice Sonia Sotomayor, continuing the court's grand tradition of food metaphors, compared isolated genes to the ingredients in a batch of chocolate chip cookies. “I can't imagine getting a patent simply on the basic items of salt, flour and eggs, simply because I've created a new use or a new product from those ingredients,” Sotomayor said.