Gay and Lesbian Mass Wedding Held in New Mexico

More than 70 marriage licenses were issued Tuesday to same-sex couples in Albuquerque.

More than 100 people lined up outside the county clerk’s office in Albuquerque to get marriage licenses Tuesday morning, the day after a state district judge ruled that same-sex marriage was legal.

The crowd cheered as the first couple â€" Patricia Catlett, 61, a graphic designer, and her partner of 25 years, Karen Schmiege, 69, a retired librarian â€" received their license in Bernalillo County, according to The Associated Press. By noon, KRQE News 13 reported, a mass wedding was held in Albuquerque’s Civic Plaza.

First couple to be issued a marriage license today in Bernalillo County! http://t.co/pkgoaHK9FU

â€" DPNM (@NMDEMS) 27 Aug 13

Clerks in two other counties in New Mexico have also agreed to begin issuing licenses to same-sex couples.

Couples at mass, same-sex wedding in Albuquerque, NM. http://t.co/syZW2RL9g1

â€" Tristan Ahtone (@Tahtone) 27 Aug 13

As The Santa Fe New Mexican reported, the clerk in Doña Ana County decided last Wednesday to begin issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples. Two days later, a judge in Santa Fe ordered that county’s clerk to issue them as well, in response to a narrow request that the state recognize a dying woman’s marriage to her longtime partner on a death certificate. Then, on Monday, Judge Alan Malott of State District Court ordered the clerk in Bernalillo County, which includes Albuquerque, to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, ruling that the state’s constitution prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

In response, Maggie Toulouse Oliver, the Bernalillo County clerk, posted on her Facebook page:

I’m very happy and proud to finally be issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in Bernalillo County. Furthermore, I am beyond relieved to have some judicial guidance in this matter that immediately resolves the conflict that existed between state law and our state constitution. Marriage is a fundamental civil right that should be acknowledged and respected at all levels of government. Judge Malott’s ruling today has made it clear that the fundamental assumption of that civil right outweighs other technicalities and concerns.

But Judge Malott’s ruling does not apply to all New Mexico counties, according to state officials. And Republican lawmakers said they would propose legislation to block county clerks from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Tips, sources, story ideas? Please leave a comment or find me on Twitter @jenniferpreston.

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Researcher Controls Another Person’s Brain Over the Internet

Researchers at the University of Washington have successfully connected two human brains over the Internet.

In an experiment called “Direct Brain-to-Brain Communication in Humans,” the scientists involved in the research were able to send a brain signal through the Internet to control the way another researcher, seated in a separate area of the university campus, moved his hand.

The two researchers involved in the project, Rajesh Rao and Andrea Stocco, connected their brains by slipping on a hat that included a “magnetic stimulation coil,” which can read and stimulate the brain. Mr. Rao then sent a signal to Mr. Stocco’s brain, forcing him to move his right index finger to hit the “fire” button in a computer game.

As I’ve reported in my Disruption column, scientists have been building technologies that will allow people to interact with our computers using their brains, or control or even communicate with other human beings, just by thinking about it.

Technologists have been working for years to create brain-computer interfaces, which will allow us to interact with our smartphones and computers simply by using our minds. There are gadgets that exist today that can read our thoughts and allow us to do things like dodge virtual objects in a computer game.

Earlier this year, Dr. Miguel A. Nicolelis, a neuroscientist at Duke University, successfully connected the brains of two rats over the Internet, allowing them to communicate with their minds so when one rat pressed a lever, the other did the same. Scientists at Harvard Medical School have also created a brain-to-brain interface in a lab that enabled a human to move a rat’s tail just by thinking about it.

The University of Washington’s researchers used electroencephalography, or EEG, to record brain activity noninvasively and then “stimulated” the brain using a technology called transcranial magnetic.

Facebook Releases Report on Government Requests

Facebook on Tuesday for the first time released a report showing the number of requests about its users that it has received from government agencies around the globe.

The report covers the first six months of 2013, ending on June 30, and notes that government groups in 74 countries demanded information about more than 37,954 accounts on Facebook.

Almost half of all the requests came from the United States, the report said.

Facebook noted that a vast majority of the requests from government agencies relate to criminal cases, including robberies and kidnappings, but that in some instances the requests pertain to national security issues. The report does not break down the numbers of requests on particular subjects.

The requests about Facebook users often seek basic information, the company said, including a person’s name and when that person joined Facebook. But in some cases governments try to find a person’s IP address â€" which is related to location â€" or to seek actual content posted on Facebook.

“As we have made clear in recent weeks, we have stringent processes in place to handle all government data requests,” wrote Colin Stretch, Facebook’s general counsel, on the company’s Web site. “We scrutinize each request for legal sufficiency under our terms and the strict letter of the law, and require a detailed description of the legal and factual bases for each request.”

Mr. Stretch said Facebook fights many such requests, “pushing back when we find legal deficiencies” and trying to narrow what it considers broad or vague requests.

Facebook and other companies were caught off guard in June when a report from The Guardian said major technology companies were working with the National Security Agency to help the government secretly collect data on customers. Since then, major tech companies have tried to show that they are not aiding the N.S.A.

Microsoft and Google have also issued reports about the government requests for information they have received. Facebook said it planned to continue releasing these reports in the future.

‘Revenge Porn’ Could Be Criminal Offense in California

On a recent episode of “The Newsroom,” on HBO, the character Sloan Sabbith, a financial reporter, was mortified when an ex-boyfriend posted compromising pictures of her online, which then went viral. Her recourse - on the show at least - was to track down the offending creep and punch him.

If Ms. Sabbith were living in California, she would be closely following the deliberations of the state Legislature here this week. A proposal, to be debated Tuesday in the Assembly, could let victims of so-called revenge porn see their vindictive ex-lovers go to jail for up to a year.

The bill passed the state Senate earlier this summer. It would make it a criminal misdemeanor to post nude or revealing pictures that may have once been taken with a subject’s consent. The practice has become increasingly common, victims’ advocates say. And it poses a vexing legal question, pitting the rights of victims against the principles of free expression. Making matters more complicated is the fact that sites that host these user-generated images are usually immune from civil liability under federal law.

The California proposal is among a few state measures meant to designate revenge porn as a specific crime. New Jersey has one on the books. Florida floated a similar bill earlier this year, which free-speech advocates decried as overly broad. The California proposal, in its current form, differs in that it has been amended to specifically address people who distribute images “with the intent to cause serious emotional distress.”

The measure covers photos and video recordings of a person in “a state of full or partial undress in any area in which the person being photographed or recorded has a reasonable expectation of privacy.”

The question, though, is whether a new practice, enabled by the Internet, deserves a new law - or whether instead existing statutes provide enough protection.

“I’m unclear exactly how much ground the new law would cover that isn’t already covered by existing laws, such as anti-harassment/anti-stalking laws,” said Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University, who has warned against newly criminalizing new online behaviors, “As usual, one of the key questions is how existing law has failed and what behavior is being newly criminalized.”

The American Civil Liberties Union opposed the measure when it was originally introduced and has said nothing about the latest amendments.

Its advocates argue that a specific statute is necessary because existing anti-stalking and harassment laws generally cover a repeated pattern of posting such images, and not one particular instance, which itself can be damaging. What’s more, they say, making the posting of these images a punishable offense under a new law would send a message to police and prosecutors. “It signals taking the issue seriously, that harms are serious enough to be criminalized,” said Danielle Citron, a law professor at the University of Maryland.

As for free expression, she argued that the law should distinguish between images that are meant to be public - protest art, for instance, which should get the highest First Amendment protection - and those that are meant to be private, like nude pictures.

Complicating matters, nonconsensual pornography, as the practice is sometimes called, doesn’t involve only a victim and a perpetrator. One person might record the image with the subject’s consent and post without consent, while another entity can host it - several Web sites specialize in doing just that - and many other Internet users can in turn spread that image far and wide in a matter of hours, or less.

“It’s not entirely clear what the culpability of each of these actors are in many contexts, or if they should equally be held liable,” said Woodrow Hartzog, a law professor at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala. He suggested using other laws, like breach of trust, to go after the individuals who post the material.

Web sites that host these images have a strong ally in Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, which protects third-party platforms from liability for user-generated content. There have been efforts to weaken that immunity, most recently by a coalition of state prosecutors that urged Congress to amend the statute. They have been loudly criticized by some Internet free-speech advocates.

‘Revenge Porn’ Could Be Criminal Offense in California

On a recent episode of “The Newsroom,” on HBO, the character Sloan Sabbith, a financial reporter, was mortified when an ex-boyfriend posted compromising pictures of her online, which then went viral. Her recourse - on the show at least - was to track down the offending creep and punch him.

If Ms. Sabbith were living in California, she would be closely following the deliberations of the state Legislature here this week. A proposal, to be debated Tuesday in the Assembly, could let victims of so-called revenge porn see their vindictive ex-lovers go to jail for up to a year.

The bill passed the state Senate earlier this summer. It would make it a criminal misdemeanor to post nude or revealing pictures that may have once been taken with a subject’s consent. The practice has become increasingly common, victims’ advocates say. And it poses a vexing legal question, pitting the rights of victims against the principles of free expression. Making matters more complicated is the fact that sites that host these user-generated images are usually immune from civil liability under federal law.

The California proposal is among a few state measures meant to designate revenge porn as a specific crime. New Jersey has one on the books. Florida floated a similar bill earlier this year, which free-speech advocates decried as overly broad. The California proposal, in its current form, differs in that it has been amended to specifically address people who distribute images “with the intent to cause serious emotional distress.”

The measure covers photos and video recordings of a person in “a state of full or partial undress in any area in which the person being photographed or recorded has a reasonable expectation of privacy.”

The question, though, is whether a new practice, enabled by the Internet, deserves a new law - or whether instead existing statutes provide enough protection.

“I’m unclear exactly how much ground the new law would cover that isn’t already covered by existing laws, such as anti-harassment/anti-stalking laws,” said Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University, who has warned against newly criminalizing new online behaviors, “As usual, one of the key questions is how existing law has failed and what behavior is being newly criminalized.”

The American Civil Liberties Union opposed the measure when it was originally introduced and has said nothing about the latest amendments.

Its advocates argue that a specific statute is necessary because existing anti-stalking and harassment laws generally cover a repeated pattern of posting such images, and not one particular instance, which itself can be damaging. What’s more, they say, making the posting of these images a punishable offense under a new law would send a message to police and prosecutors. “It signals taking the issue seriously, that harms are serious enough to be criminalized,” said Danielle Citron, a law professor at the University of Maryland.

As for free expression, she argued that the law should distinguish between images that are meant to be public - protest art, for instance, which should get the highest First Amendment protection - and those that are meant to be private, like nude pictures.

Complicating matters, nonconsensual pornography, as the practice is sometimes called, doesn’t involve only a victim and a perpetrator. One person might record the image with the subject’s consent and post without consent, while another entity can host it - several Web sites specialize in doing just that - and many other Internet users can in turn spread that image far and wide in a matter of hours, or less.

“It’s not entirely clear what the culpability of each of these actors are in many contexts, or if they should equally be held liable,” said Woodrow Hartzog, a law professor at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala. He suggested using other laws, like breach of trust, to go after the individuals who post the material.

Web sites that host these images have a strong ally in Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, which protects third-party platforms from liability for user-generated content. There have been efforts to weaken that immunity, most recently by a coalition of state prosecutors that urged Congress to amend the statute. They have been loudly criticized by some Internet free-speech advocates.