Below are sample of e-Discovery Processing Tools, some are better than others and the price will vary radically. This list does not recommend or comment on any of these tools
Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT - News) announced that the corporation received a Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) to continue providing litigation support services to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The initial funding, extending a five-year eLaw association between Lockheed Martin and CFTC’s Division of Enforcement, is valued at approximately $2 million.
Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT - News) announced that the corporation received a Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) to continue providing litigation support services to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The initial funding, extending a five-year eLaw association between Lockheed Martin and CFTC’s Division of Enforcement, is valued at approximately $2 million.
At the risk of stating the obvious, CCTV in the UK is everywhere. With ANPR in the UK now live, “intelligent” CCTV being developed, some of which allows profiling of people. It is well reported that the UK is now the most watched country on earth, with a report 4.2 million cameras in the U (though this figure is probably not accurate )
Despite this, its still not enough for the government, and they are creating new laws (Closed Circuit Television (Monitoring and Promotion) Bill 2007-08) to ensure all of the CCTV cameras that councils have become available to police and central government.
The bill states that it will “impose a duty on public bodies to co-operate with the police and specified local authorities on the use of closed circuit television; to require certain users of CCTV to provide specified information to the police; to require insurance providers to promote the use of CCTV systems; and for connected purposes.”
This means that users of CCTV could, effectively, be called on to assist in the spying on the UK public.
The sponsor of the bill is 
Ann McKechin, pictured inset. Ann, a labour MP is not exactly a classic liberal. She voted strongly for ID cards, very strongly for anti-terrorism laws, and against an investigation into the Iraq war.
Following on from the previous articles, reporting on the numerous arrests of people in relation to taking photos in public areas, and the evidence from police forces to show that Photography is not a crime, more government plans have come to light.
On the 14th October 2008 Jaqui Smith stated, in questions about police arresting photographers, “the general position is that there is no legal restriction on photography in such places.”
This is the clearest sign yet that not only is photography not a crime, but no guidance for the police to arrest either.
Despite this the plight of the photographs has got worse not better. New laws being added to the Counter Terrorism Bill law make even more laws against spying:
Section 75 of the Counter Terrorism Bill states:
(1) A person commits an offence who—
(a) elicits or attempts to elicit information about an individual who is or has been—
(i) a member of Her Majesty’s forces,
(ii) a member of any of the intelligence services, or
(iii) a constable, which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, or
(b) publishes or communicates any such information.
This could well be regarded as taking photographs. For those who think that this is “fear mongering” a review of the previous posts show how often the laws have been mis-used, mis-interpreted, or even altered to fit the ever expanding needs of the government.
Why is this law being pushed through as an anti-terrorism law, rather than a national security issue? Are we no longer worried about the North Koreans, Libya, China, Russia, and Iran? Are there no standing armies anymore? Is everyone who attacks us a terrorist?
It is also alarming that now, in 2008, after 300 years of troubles with Northern Ireland, two world wars, and a 1,000 years of invasion attempts the government decides to create new laws to protect us from espionage. Have we been vulnerable for the past millennium? Do I need to buy extra locks for my doors?
If only the Russians had known they could have just asked for the launch codes, to illicit information, and there was no need to spy……If the KGB had known about this loop hole then the Ruskies may well have won the cold war!
With certain splinter groups of the IRA still functioning, we best keep this loop hole quiet until the Government can get this law approved and we can sleep well again.
Is photography illegal, not yet, but not doubt will be come illegal very soon.
(This law has not yet passed, but it will be come law, relatively unopposed.)
International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law – ICAIL
ICAIL is a conference, which is linked to the DESI group, that works on issues such as Formal Modeling of Electronic Commerce,.
ICAIL has been running since 1987, when it was first run in Boston and is due to have the 2009 conference in Barcelona
DESI – Discovery of Electronically Stored Information
This is a group, from around the world who have worked together on the problem of reviewing very large amounts of data – Including TREC and ICAIL
DESI I (2007) – http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~oard/desi-ws/
DESI II (2008) – http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/S.Attfield/desi/
The Current Climate
Earlier this year the UK’s ISPs have hand over information about names and addresses, following court action by those who feel their copyrights have been infringed, e.g the games and music industry.
These companies try and track those using file sharing technologies such as bit torrent or other peer to peer programs. What the investigators end up with is an IP address, e.g they can show that 81.112.50.32 has been sharing specific music files.
As the IP address are, generally, from home users, they only reveal the company providing the line, e.g BT, not the end user.
The IP address does not identify the person who was actually using the IP address at a given time. In addition to this most home IP addresses are also dynamic, which means that different people can have the same IP address at different times.
The only people who can resolve the IP addresses to a given person are the ISPs. E.g BT can identify who had IP address 81.112.50.32 on Saturday 25th October 2008 and who had it on June 1st 2008.
The ISP will not provide this information by a simple request, but they need to be compelled by a court order. Which is what happened earlier this year, and thousands of home addresses were resolved from IP addresses, by the ISPs. It is suggested that up to 25,000 home addresses were identified as part of these court orders.
Once the investigators and their employers e.g BPI (British Phonographic Institute), games industry, etc, had identified the home addresses these companies took different actions.
Some companies wrote to the home address trying to “educate” the users. Others wrote, via the solicitor Davenport Lyons, to the registered owners of the IP addresses identified and demanded that the users pay a £600 fine or face additional action.
Where do you stand?
So, the games and music industry is now getting tough. But where do you stand?
Firstly any firm is on a very sticky wicket if they try and issue a fine based purely on an IP address. It is entirely unreasonable to suggest that you can identify a user from a IP address. For example, a house with one computer may have multiple users. A home may have a family computer, the father pays the bill but its the son who is down loading the music (without his father’s knowledge). The father can not be held reasonable for that action any more than he can if his son goes out and steals a car.
Secondly most homes now have multiple computers, and the IP address just shows the house that was down loading music, and not which computer.
Think of a student house with 4 people living in it, one person pays the bill but another person down loads the music, one student can not be responsible for another, just because they live in the same house.
The first and second problem can be combined. E.g a house can have four people living it in, but the girl friend of one of the students stays over regularly and down loads music files, on her account on one of the computers in the house. Can the person who pays the bill in the house really be held responsible for the actions of the partner of a person he lives with? Of course not.
There is then the third option, insecure networks. Most routers come with wireless networks running as default and it is insecure. If your neighbor uses your network to down load music, should you be held responsible for this?
If the UK government cannot maintain control of critical information, how can a home user be expected to secure data?
Can they get more information?
As shown above the IP address is not enough to ensure a conviction/fine, the company would need to gain more information, from investigating the the suspected home computers. This is possible, legally.
A company, e.g BPI, could request an order/warrant to search a suspected house based on the IP address/home address provided previously, and that would could well be reasonable.
If that did occur BPI would need to get the order, then attend the address, make an exact copy of the suspected hard drive(s) and then take the data away for analysis. This sort of operation would be conducted by contractors, so it is entirely technologically and legally possible. But the cost of doing this would be so expensive, probably £10,000s on per address, that it would be cost prohobitaive on a massive scale. But, the BPIs and the like could consider doing this on a selective scale to send out a message – it depends on how much they value their PR.
Is it legal?
Currently the ISPs have passed over the information, via a High Court order, and so it is entirely legal.
There have been no morning raids or Anton Piller orders, at home addresses reported in the press so far, but they would also be legal if they did occur. The ICO has not commented on the issue either, again showing that this is legal in the UK and there is no objection.
However, on 29th January 2008 the European Court of Justice in the case of “Productores de Música de España Promusicae vs. Telefónica de España“ the ECJ stated that the provision of traffic information for civil reasons, i.e resolving the IP address to the home address, was not required by member states, but it could be required if necessary at a national level.
In this case the exact same court procedures started in Spain as they did in the UK: The music industry demanded information on users, from the IP addresses they had collected. The difference is that in Spain the ISP Telefonica refused to do this, stating that this information was there for criminal purposes only. Spain then referred the case to the ECJ for advice.
The ECJ agreed with Telefonica. Sadly the the UK ISPs are not inclined to defend their users as much as the other countries, but if an ISP did decided to make a stand for their users they are almost certain to win following the ECJ ruling.
The Norwich Pharmacal order is an exception to the general rule that only people who are actually named as parties to existing litigation are obliged to disclose documents and other materials relevant to the claims
For example: If X sues Y for fraud, X can usually only obtain relevant documentation from Y. However X cannot usually call for Z to provide documents, even though Z may have relevant or even key information. Z would normally only be obliged to produce this kind of information following a court order.
Original Case
Norwich Pharmacal Co. v Customs and Excise Commissioners [1974]
The Claimant was the owner and exclusive licensee of a patent for a chemical compound, furazolidone. Unlicensed consignments of the compound were imported into the UK, and constituted infringements of the patent. The Defendants had records of the identity of the importers. The Claimant had failed to determine the identity of the importers and brought a claim against the Defendants, for amongst other things, an order for disclosure of the names and addresses of the importers of furazolidone, the quantity imported by each importer and any other relevant documentation.
The Defendants objected to production of the documents on the basis that such disclosure would be injurious to the public interest because they contained confidential information.
The patent was assumed to be valid and the imported consignments, infringements. The Judge granted the order for disclosure. The Court of Appeal allowed the Defendants appeal and the Claimant appealed to the House of Lords.
Allowing the appeal and granting the order for discovery it was held that:
Recent Cases:
House of Lords in Ashworth Hospital Authority v MGN Ltd [2002]
“The Norwich Pharmacal case clearly establishes that where a person, albeit innocently, and without incurring any personal liability, becomes involved in a wrongful act of another, that person thereby comes under a duty to assist the person injured by those acts by giving him any information which he is able to give by way of discovery that discloses the identity of the wrongdoer.”
Smith v ADVFN PLC [2008] EWCA
The Court of Appeal considered the proper ambit of a Norwich Pharmacal order and, in particular, the coherency and quantity of the evidence supporting a Norwich Pharmacal order. The court held an applicant should be careful to provide the courts with a coherent body of data from which an allegation of wrong doing could properly be assessed.
The case gives valuable guidance not just on the nature, but also on the presentation of the evidence in support of a Norwich Pharmacal application. An indiscriminate and disorganised mass of material could be fatal to the application.
The case confirms that although Norwich Pharmacal relief is a useful tool in the litigation process, enabling a claimant to get documents and affidavits from a third party, it should be used with caution. If the claimant can get the documents from another source or by other means, the court will not grant the orders and the claimant may find itself facing the third party’s legal costs”. Source Freshfields
Additional Resources
The Mareva injunction (variously known also as a freezing order, Mareva order or Mareva regime), in Commonwealth jurisdictions, is a court order which freezes assets so that a defendant to an action cannot dissipate their assets from beyond the jurisdiction of a court so as to frustrate a judgment. It is named for Mareva Compania Naviera SA v International Bulkcarriers SA [1975] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 509, decided in 1975, although the first recorded instance of such an order in English jurisprudence was Nippon Yusen Kaisha v Karageorgis in 1975, decided very shortly before the Mareva decision; however, in the UK the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 now define a Mareva order as a “freezing” order. It is widely recognised in other common law jurisdictions and such orders can be made to have world-wide effect. It is variously construed as part of a court’s inherent jurisdiction to restrain breaches of its process.
It is not a security (Jackson v Sterling Industries Ltd), nor a means to pressure a judgment debtor (Camdex International Ltd v Bank of Zambia (No. 2)), nor does it confer a proprietary interest in the assets of the judgment debtor (Cretanor Maritime Co Ltd v Irish Marine Management Ltd). However, some authorities have treated the Mareva injunction as an order to stop a judgment debtor from dissipating his assets so as to have the effect of frustrating judgment, rather than the more strenuous test of requiring an intent to abuse court procedure. An example of the former would be paying off a legitimate debt (Iraqi Ministry of Defence v Arcepey Shipping Co SA), whereas an example of the latter would be hiding the assets in overseas banks on receiving notice of the action.