A federal judge in San Francisco has found that the Defense of Marriage
Act (DOMA) violated the rights of a federal employee who was denied the
opportunity to enroll her wife in the health benefits program available
to opposite spouses of federal judiciary employees. DOMA prohibits the
recognition of same-sex marriages for purposes of federal benefits. The
judge in the case determined that DOMA violated the plaintiff's right
to equal protection under the Fifth Amendment by failing to recognize
her lawful marriage to a same-sex spouse.
The Obama Administration has already announced that it considers DOMA discriminatory and has opted not to enforce it.
The White House has issued a set of non-binding principles regarding the
use of personal information online. President Barack Obama
simultaneously urged companies to implement the principles, calling them
"a dynamic model of how to offer strong privacy protection and enable
ongoing innovation in new information technologies." President Obama
also expressed his intent to work with Congress to codify the principles
into law.
Supporters of California's voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage have
filed a request to have an 11-judge panel review the decision of a lower
three-judge panel that declared Prop 8 unconstitutional. The
petitioners argue that the lower panel applied Supreme Court precedent
incorrectly and erred in determining that Proposition 8 did not
reasonably relate to a rational state interest.
The FBI has released its dossier on Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple
Inc. who died on October 5, 2011. The dossier includes documents compiled in 1991 as the
federal government considered Jobs for an appointment to the President's
Export Council under George H.W. Bush, as well as documents from a 1985 investigation of a bomb threat against Jobs. The dossier predates Jobs' return to Apple Inc. in 1996. The release comes as the result of a request under the Freedom of Information Act.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed the decision of the
lower court which held that Proposition 8, California's voter-approved
ban on same-sex marriages, violates the Equal Protection Amendment of
the United States Constitution. The Ninth Circuit declared that the
state had no legitimate justification for the ban, which it said "serves
no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and
human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially
reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of
opposite-sex couples."
Facebook has filed its long-anticipated S-1 form in preparation for an initial public offering of stock. While the filing does not list the specifics of the offering, it does contain details of the inner workings of the social networking company that were previously unavailable to the public.
