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September 2006

2005-2006 Supreme Court Update from ALR
The United States Supreme Court addressed many issues during its 2005-2006 term, including abortion and birth control, aliens, immigration and citizenship, antitrust, civil rights, copyrights and intellectual property, criminal law, and many others. This update from ALR summarizes the holdings of opinions (as well as grants or denials of petitions for certiorari) issued by the United States Supreme Court during its 2005-2006 term (in two parts). 

You can now access the complete collection of the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition online through HeinOnline. HeinOnline's new library module includes complete coverage of the annual Jessup Compendium since 1960, as well as two periodicals published by ILSA (which are also available in HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library collection).  Future releases in this library will include works related to Philip C. Jessup, as well as expanded coverage of the current content as it becomes available.

March 2006

CRS Analysis of the Patriot Reauthorization Act

New York State Judicial Directory
The Judicial Directory provides information about Judges of the NYS Unified Court System, including judges from the Court of Appeals, the Appellate Divisions, and the Trial Courts.  There is also an Administrative Directory of the court system's Executive Officers, Administrative Judges, and Supervising Judges.

U.S. Congress Votes Database
From the Washington Post comes the U.S. Congress Votes Database.  In one convenient place, researchers can learn of every vote taken in Congress since 1991.  For both Senate and House votes, “the Post has assembled detail and summary information about that vote and the members who took part.” In addition,the paper determines a majority position, if one exists, for Republicans and Democrats.  The database is organized by chamber and divided between current and prior Congresses.  Votes are categorized by narrowest and widest margin and late night votes.  A new feature provides votes by type, including impeachments, nominations, and treaties.  For each roll call vote, significant data is provided: the question voted on, category, vote description, vote type, result, and date and time.  Vote totals are presented according to several different categories.  Users can determine the vote profile by party, state, region,
gender, and even Baby Boomer status and astrological sign.  An important feature provides detailed voting profiles for each member of Congress.  The site also has an RSS feature to inform researchers of the most recent votes.  All in all, this is an informative, useful, and fun site. (from InSITE, a service of the Cornell Law Library, March 6, 2006)

February 2006

NYLS 3L Colleen Berry is one of a select number of student bloggers posting to the American Constitution Society's offical blog www.acsblog.org.  As the "Friday Editor," Colleen is responsible for content posted every Friday, including updates in law and policy, news roundups, and information about scholarly discussions.  Make sure to take a look at her posts!

Check out Wex, a collaboratively built, free legal dictionary and encyclopedia sponsored and maintained by the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School.

January 2006

askSam offers a free, searchable database of opinions by Judge Alito as well as transcripts of the January 2006 confirmation hearings.

The National Conference of State Legislatures has created a summary chart (with links) of state and federal electronic surveillance laws.  It includes descriptions of the Wire and Electronic Communications Interception and Interception of Oral Communications Act, USA PATRIOT Act, and other federal laws.

November/December 2005

Government Podcasts
The Free Government Information blog is collecting and making available podcasts (audio content delivered/downloaded to portable music players) from a number of federal, state, and local government bodies and officials.  Take a look, and then a listen.

The latest addition of the Congressional Directory, the official directory of the U.S. Congress, is now available online.  The Directory provides short biographies of each member of the Senate and House, listed by state or district; committee memberships, terms of service, administrative assistants and/or secretaries, and room and telephone numbers for members of Congress.  The Directory also lists officials of the courts, military establishments, and other Federal departments and agencies, including D.C. government officials, governors of states and territories, foreign diplomats, and members of the press, radio, and television galleries.

 

The President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform's Final Report, issued November 1, 2005

PandemicFlu.com The official U.S. government Web site for information on pandemic flu and avian influenza.

October 2005

The Making of Modern Law, an extremely valuable electronic resource recently added to the library's collection of online materials, provides access to over 22,000 legal treatises on US and British law published from 1800 through 1926. This service gives researchers access to critical legal history in ways not previously possible. It offers various retrieval and browsing options, including full-text searching on more than 10 million pages. Digital images of every page of every work can be viewed, printed or downloaded.

Celebration of Constitution Day
September 17 is Constitution Day (officially celebrated this year on September 16). Check out the web pages created by NARA (National Archive and Records Administration), the Law Library of Congress, and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

Iraq Draft Constitution
The full text of the constitution to be submitted to voters in October 2005.  Translated from Arabic into English and distributed by the Associated Press in pdf format. (From the University of Michigan Documents Center)