Human Rights

• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius apologized today for the intentional infection of hundreds of people in Guatamala with gonorrhea and syphilis by U.S. Public Health Service researchers more than sixty years ago.

Criminal Law

• Two officers have been charged with perjury with regard to the killing of a man outside of New Orleans’ convention center in the Hurricane Katrina aftermath.

• A judge in Maryland has thrown out wire tapping charges against a motorcyclist who filmed his traffic stop by a Maryland State Trooper.

• The Rights Woking Group has released a report that documents the pervasive quality of racial profiling in America.

Women’s Rights

• The GAO has found female managers to not only be underrepresented in management, but to make only 81 cents for every dollar earner by male managers.

Health Care

• Governor Schwarzenegger signed new health care legislation in California, making California “the first state to create an insurance exchange under new federal health care reform”.

LGBT Rights

• Michigan’s Assistant Attorney General, Andrew Shirvell, will be taking a “voluntary leave of absence” following the widespread reporting of his attacks on the openly gay student body president of the University of Michigan.

• Two students face charges of privacy invasion in the tragic case of the Rutgers University student who committed suicide this week after those students allegedly broadcast his sexual encounter with another man to the Internet. Prosecutors are exploring possible charges under New Jersey’s hate-crimes law.  The New York Times provides a list of tools that can prevent homophobic bullying.

• U.S District Judge Vaughn Walker, author of the opinion striking down Prop 8 in California, will retire in February. In somewhat related news, President Obama is pushing the Senate to speed up the pace of judicial confirmations.

Free Speech

• The Wall Street Journal has an article that focuses on the upcoming free speech cases.

Privacy

• Glenn Greenwald sharply criticizes President Obama on privacy as the president’s administration seeks legislation that would make it easier to wiretap the Internet.

Campaign finance

• Lawrence Lessig has an article in today’s Washington Post on the flaws in campaign finance system.

Technology

• Wired highlights the technology and civil rights cases coming before the Supreme Court this fall.

• With an Open Internet bill failing in Congress, pressure continues to mount on FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to move on broadband reclassification and neutrality rules before the end of the year.  Art Brodsky of Public Knowledge has a great article on the topic over at Huffington Post.

• The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act, a bill that would have required Internet intermediaries to block  users from certain websites “dedicated to infringing activities”, has been delayed until the next session of Congress. However, the Obama administration is now asking those intermediaries to voluntarily block Internet users from those sites.

• The Progress & Freedom Foundation, the Washington-based libertarian technology policy think tank, closed this week.