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Thursday, August 13, 2015

NC Legislature News

HB 760 is a NC regulatory reform bill. The bill passed the 3rd reading in the House on May 6th, 2015 by a 77-32 vote. The bill is now in the Senate, where it passed its first reading on May 7th, 2015.
 
Republican representatives Chris Millis, John Bell, and Dennis Riddell are the primary sponsors of HB 760. The bill also has support from the lobbyist group Americans for Prosperity, a group funded by the Koch Brothers.

HB 760 has multiple regulation reforms. For example HB 760 contains a section that eliminates a provision that requires non-profits to cover workers compensation insurance for volunteers. Additionally, HB 760 has language that would lower safety restrictions on riparian buffers for water supply quality.

However, Section 3B of HB 760, regarding renewable energy caps, is receiving most of the media's attention. HB 760 caps electricity bills to have a maximum fee of $12 annually for renewable energy costs. The bill also puts a freeze on Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard ("REPS") at 6% for 2016. Currently, NC was planning on growing its REPS to be 12.5% by 2020. Furthermore, HB 760 requires the NC Energy Council perform an electric grid study.

The proponents of HB 760 argue that the freeze will allow consumers to not be forced to pay additional costs for renewable energy that they may not be using. Currently, in an attempt to develop the renewable energy in NC, utility companies are forced to buy the energy generated from solar power companies and resell it consumers at lower or even negative rates.

However, opponents of the bill argue that this will eliminate jobs in renewable energy and harm the $5 billion dollar renewable energy sector in NC. Most opponents believe this is a great leap backwards from positive strides in clean energy away from dated fossil fuels.

The bill will still need to pass two more readings and be signed by Pat McCrory before it becomes law. The current NC legislative sessions is TBD, but it may take some time considering the NC General Assembly has yet to pass a budget.

Google accidentally reveals data on "right to be forgotten" requests

280,000 private individuals in Europe have made a number of requests to Google asking the company to remove certain web pages from its search results.

In May 2014, the European Court of Justice ruled that an Internet search engine has to consider such requests from a person about search results related to that person's name. Since that ruling, the number of privacy requests had been consistently climbing. This includes, but is not limited to a woman whose name appeared in prominent news articles after her husband died, seeking removal of her address and an individual who contacted HIV a decade ago.

Many people are trying to take advantage of this law by making requests to protect their privacy online. Unfortunately, Google accidentally published data after several of these requests had been made. This data covers more than 75% of all requests to date.


More emphasis has been added to the right to be forgotten requests released by Google, but the requests made by private individuals to protect their personal privacy have still been ignored.

This new development stresses the importance of Google being more open to the privacy requests it receives and how it processes information.

Urteil im Auschwitz-Prozess


Wir haben im Juli Newsletter über den Gerichtsprozess gegen Oskar Gröning, den sogenannten "Buchhalter von Auschwitz" berichtet.

In der Zwischenzeit wurde Gröning vom Landegericht in Lüneburg wegen Beihilfe zum Mord in 300,000 Fällen zu vier Jahren Haft verurteilt. Dieses Urteil wurde mit gemischten Reaktionen aufgenommen. Die Verteidigung hatte einen Freispruch gefordert.
Der Sinn des Verfahrens wurde oft hinterfragt, muss das nach 70 Jahren noch sein? Kann eine juristische Aufarbeitung erreicht werden? In seiner Urteilsbegründung beantwortete Richter Kompisch diese Frage: "Man kann auch nach 70 Jahren Gerechtigkeit schaffen und ein Urteil finden. Man muss es machen."

Eine Sprecherin von Yad Vashem erklärte, dass Urteil folge dem Grundsatz, "dass egal welche Rolle eine Person bei dem Morden gespielt hat, er oder sie Mordkomplizen waren und Verantwortung tragen." Zudem habe die Verhandlung eine Debatte über die persönliche Verantwortung des Einzelnen für die Schrecken der NS-Zeit angeregt.

Das Lüneburger Verfahren habe viel gebracht, betonten die Juristen. Dr. Christoph Rückel, Of Counsel bei BridgehouseLaw und ein Vertreter der Nebenkläger, sprach gegenüber der Frankfurter Neuen Presse von einer "überragenden Bedeutung" für die Zeugen. "Die Opfer haben wieder Gesichter bekommen."