Most defense attorneys enter into joint-defense agreements with the understanding that even if one of the signatories decides to withdraw from the agreement and cooperate with the government, the confidentiality provisions survive. Two recent decisions ' by the Eleventh Circuit and the Northern District of California ' have called provisions like these into question: <i>United States v. Almeida</i>, 341 F.3d 1318 (11th Cir. 2003); and <i>United States v. Stepney</i>, 246 F. Supp.2d 1069 (N.D. Cal. 2003). Any defense attorney who is considering entering into such an agreement should think twice &amp;emdash; especially if some party may choose, down the road, to cooperate with the government.

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When management or the Board of Directors suspects possible misconduct within the company, they cannot respond with sound business judgment unless they have good information about what happened. In serious cases, they probably need outside counsel to investigate, report, and recommend remedies. The government has long encouraged companies to disclose the results of these internal investigations by offering the hope of leniency in charging or sentencing. On Sept. 22, 2003, the Attorney General added a "stick" to this "carrot" approach when he announced the Justice Department's new policy of charging the most serious criminal offenses that are readily provable, with a limited exception in cases where a defendant provided substantial assistance.

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Attorney General John Ashcroft said recently that law-enforcement agents had arrested 125 suspects in a crackdown on Internet crimes ranging from hacking to fraud to selling stolen goods. The seven-week cybercrime sweep involved police from Ghana to Southern California and uncovered 125,000 victims who had lost more than $100 million, he told a news conference.

In deciding to review the constitutionality of the Child Online Protection Act, the U.S. Supreme Court will revisit Congress' efforts to protect children…

The latest on legislation affecting the Internet.

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The Internet has made commerce as close and as quick as a mouse click, but it has also caused a dramatic increase in e-identity theft. Due to the passive approach taken by Federal and state authorities toward combating it, legal practitioners must use statutes designed to eliminate unlawful actives associated with e-identity theft, to eradicate the theft itself.

In a bold experiment, Stamford, CT-based General Electric Commercial Finance is buying outside legal services over the next 2 years through reverse-auction bidding ' in Internet chat rooms ' this month.

There must be something in the fiber-optic cable in Philadelphia. Why else would the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit be such a hotbed for Internet policy making? For Stefan Presser, the longtime legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, it is a hotbed blooming with work. Presser is a member of the legal team that filed a lawsuit against Pennsylvania attorney general Mike Fisher in September. The suit challenges a statute that allows the AG to force Internet service providers to block particular Web sites from being viewed by Pennsylvania residents that his office alleges contain child pornography.