law – kimi blog

20170109

Two Ruiz-Madden bills that provide help and identity to the homeless are now law in New Jersey

homeless not hopeless — Source: helpsfhomeless.org

09 January 2017

TRENTON – Two pieces of legislation sponsored by Senator M. Teresa Ruiz and Senator Fred H. Madden focusing on helping the homeless in New Jersey received was signed into law today.

“It must be a top priority of government to protect the health, safety and welfare of our residents,” said Senator Ruiz (D-Essex). “Providing basic government documents to those without a permanent residence free of charge is the right thing to do, since these documents are vital to accessing any number of services and to obtaining housing and employment.” read more

20150131

NJ’s Amistad Act calls for accurate history lessons in schools. Time to fund it.

The Amistad Act became law in New Jersey half a generation ago, which I learned today is long enough ago for young equal education activists to have never heard of it. “What’s that?” a young friend asked on Facebook when I suggested that we pressure state government to fund the Amistad Commission’s mandate to bring historically accurate curricula and books that teach the true roles African Americans and other ethnic minorities have played in the evolution of society both at home and abroad, to all K-12 classrooms. This knowledge is not currently being taught to our children but in New Jersey it ought to be, because state law calls for it. read more

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Some thoughts on copyright law – mine and others’

I came across a pretty interesting discussion on copyright law today, which was sparked by photographer Tony Bynum’s post on the illegality of using photographs found on the internet and copied. Yes, that’s right: we are supposed to get permission to use photographs and custom graphics by obtaining the creator’s verbal or written authorization or by paying … because all images are somebody’s intellectual or creative property and they’re protected by a body of law known as copyright law. Images are owned by their creator or the company they were working for when an image was created. read more

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Can you legally record a conversation in New Jersey?

You can legally record both phone and in-person conversations in New Jersey as long as one of the people in that conversation agrees to the recording of it – and it’s fine if the one person is you. State law makes the phone recording legal; and federal law makes the in-person conversation recordings legal. If you need guidance for your state, check the Digital Media Law Project website.

Digital Media Law Project tells us that New Jersey is a “one-party consent” law state as regards the recording of both phone and in-person conversations: read more

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Attend info session for NJ’s non-violent fugitive Safe Surrender program

Two information sessions for November’s Fugitive Safe Surrender program are being held 6:30-8:30pm on Thursday, Oct. 17 in Hackensack and Tuesday, Oct. 22 in Paterson, NJ. Faith workers, community and re-entry advocates, criminal justice students and attorney volunteers will want to attend a session to learn directly from experts handling the program, what it can do for non-violent offender law fugitives. Volunteer needs and opportunities will also be discussed. Law and criminal justice student volunteers will gain valuable insights into the legal system and CE credits will be issued to attorney volunteers. read more