Department of Justice

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The Department of Justice recently indicted four men—two of whom are located in Canada and two in New York—for a mass-mailing scheme that bilked thousands of senior citizens out of tens of millions of dollars.

According to the indictments, the accused Canadian fraudsters sent mail to thousands of elderly individuals whose names and addresses they…

Last week, authorities from the United States, United Kingdom and Canada accused a well-known hacker group tied to the Russian government, APT29 a/k/a Cozy Bear of using malware to exploit security vulnerabilities to enable it to steal COVID-19 vaccine research from companies located in these countries working to develop a vaccine. This was after a…

In its second quarter Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, Allscripts addressed its announced agreement in principle with the Department of Justice (DOJ) to resolve investigations into certain alleged practices of Practice Fusion, an electronic health records (EHR) vendor acquired by Allscripts in February 2018 for $100 million. Allscripts indicated the agreement is still subject to…

In the Federal Reserve’s July 11, 2019 White Paper, “Synthetic Identity Fraud in the U.S. Payment System, A Review of Causes and Contributing Factors,” the authors conclude that synthetic identity fraud is a serious and growing problem for the U.S. payments ecosystem that can only be addressed by a collaborative effort among all payments…

The Department of Justice (DOJ) recently announced two high-dollar False Claims Act (FCA) enforcement actions involving allegedly fraudulent arrangements tied to the implementation and use of electronic health record systems (EHRs). The respective settlements enable recovery by DOJ of over $100 million, and immediately precede the government’s recent proposal of new rules to promote the…

On April 30, 2018, a Massachusetts physician was convicted of a criminal violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), as well as one count of obstruction of a criminal health care investigation, in a Massachusetts federal court. The convictions relate to the purported sharing of confidential patient information by the…

Last month, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) received recommendations regarding remote identification of drones in a report from the unmanned aircraft  Identification and Tracking (UAS ID) Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC). One of the topics at issue: whether we need remote identification (ID) of all drones in the national airspace. Beyond the FAA, the Department of…

In an order issued on October 16, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in United States v. Microsoft Corporation, a case with potentially far-reaching implications for the privacy of electronic data maintained by technology companies across the globe.

The case, which Robinson+Cole has previously discussed here, here, and here, arises from a warrant obtained by the Department of Justice (DOJ) under the Stored Communications Act (SCA).[1] The SCA was enacted in 1986 to protect the privacy of electronic communications, including by extending privacy protections to electronic records analogous to those afforded under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.[2] In relevant part, the SCA requires a governmental entity in most instances to secure a warrant in accordance with the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to compel disclosure of electronic communications stored by a service provider.[3]
Continue Reading Supreme Court to Hear Microsoft Emails Case

The U.S. Supreme Court recently indicated that it will consider the federal government’s petition for a writ of certiorari in United States v. Microsoft Corp. at its conference scheduled for October 6, 2017. United States v. Microsoft is a “cutting edge” case that concerns the ability of law enforcement to obtain electronic documents stored abroad…