Cultivated Compendium

One of the main challenges to actualizing the promise of electronic health records in improving patient care is that they are developed as part of proprietary systems and are not always interoperable. FierceHealthIT asks if a $11 billion contract to develop electronic health records for the Department of Defense could "be a game-changer for healthcare in the United States due to its sheer size and scope." The system will integrate a commercial electronic health records system to cover the DoD's nearly 10 million beneficiaries, FierceHealthIT reports.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has clarified that most of the rules of when liens are asserted by the government to recover the money spent on Medicaid health care for long-term care will apply to people who are getting Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act expansion, The Southern reports. States are entitled to asset recovery for all health care benefits, but CMS hopes that states will only impose liens and try to recover from estates for nursing home cases, The Southern also reports.

Separately, NJ.com reports that the "Affordable Care Act encourages states to expand their Medicaid rolls so single people and childless couples can now qualify if poor enough. That means thousands of newcomers to Medicaid may not realize that ultimately they may have to repay the piper."

Even though the Federal Aviation Administration restricts the use of unmanned aircraft for commerical purposes, enforcement is "scattershot," "emboldening even more drone operators," the Wall Street Journal reports. While regulation lags, Matt Waite, the journalism professor who runs a drone-journalism program, told the WSJ that the "'longer it takes to have the rules of the road in place, the more the technology advances and the cheaper it gets, the closer we get to some knucklehead doing something dumb and hurting someone.'"

Another little media law nugget: TV station KATV in Little Rock, Ark., was informed that using a drone to film the aftermath of recent tornadoes was an FAA violation but the station wasn't told to stop using drones, WSJ reports.  "The FAA said it regulates the use of drones, not how news organizations use footage," WSJ further reports.

The Pascua Yaqui is going to be the first American Indian tribe to prosecute a non-American Indian for domestic violence after the Violence Against Women Act was expanded to allow American Indian tribes to have that enforcement authority, the Washington Post reports. While the law is meant to address violent crimes inflicted on Native women by non-Native men, the law does not address every such circumstance: "While it covers domestic and dating-violence cases involving Native Americans on the reservation, the law does not give tribes jurisdiction to prosecute child abuse or crimes, including sexual assault, that are committed by non-Indians who are 'strangers' to their victims. In addition, the law does not extend to Native American women in Alaska," the Post reports.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has been the author of key gay rights opinions. He wrote the opinions in Romer v. Evans, holding that a Colorado constitutional amendment barring providing any special legal protection to gays and lesbians lacked a rational relationship to any legitimate governmental purpose, Lawrence v. Texas, holding that Texas' law against sodomy violated  substantive due process protection for consensual sexual conduct, and United States v. Windsor, holding that the federal Defense Against Marriage Act was unconstitutional. But opponents to same-sex marriage are now "seizing upon other opinions by Kennedy himself," the Associated Press reports: "It was Kennedy who last month defended the right of voters to decide sensitive issues, in a ruling that upheld Michigan's ban on taking race into account in college admissions. At least five states have invoked Kennedy's opinion in the Michigan case to argue that voters and elected officials, not judges, should choose whether same-sex couples can be married or have their marriages recognized within their borders."

Vox reports on three significant changes pending this summer that could change the media and the Internet forever:

One, will the U.S. Supreme Court let Aereo stream free broadcast television over the Internet?

Two, can Comcast buy Time Warner Cable?

Three, will the Federal Communications Commission vote to approve Internet "fast lanes" for companies that pay more?

"It is entirely possible that 2014 will end with the traditional cable bundle broken, a fundamental change to the free and open internet, and the emergence of Comcast as a telecom behemoth more powerful than the old AT&T even dared to dream. It is also possible the complete opposite of those things will happen," Vox's Nilay Patel writes.

The FBI and the Justice Department are seeking to change criminal rules to make it easier for law enforcement to hack into suspects' computer "for evidence when the "computer’s physical location is unknown — a problem that officials say is increasing as more and more crime is conducted online with tools to conceal identity," The Washington Post's Ellen Nakashima reports.

Here's the rule: http://www.uscourts.gov/uscourts/RulesAndPolicies/rules/Agenda%20Books/S...

Federal officials say that the rule change would not allow searches that aren't already permitted by law, the Post further reports.

The third state in the South has had its ban on same-sex marriage struck down, the Associated Press reports. The state judge ruled that, even under rational basis review, there is no reason gay couples can't marry and that the voter-approved amendment to the state constitution violates their rights, according to the AP. Oklahoma and Virginia are the other southern state that has had its same-sex marriage ban struck down.

Philadelphia Traffic Court judges facing federal charges for allegedly fixing tickets argue that an internal investigation influenced federal investigators in building their criminal case, the Philadelphia Inquirer's Jeremy Roebuck reports. Defense lawyers contend that their clients were promised that their statements to Investigator William G. Chadwick, who was commissioned to do the internal investigation, would remain confidential and they thus made incriminating statements, the Inquirer reports.

Another investigator Jessica Davis testified in federal court that they ensured their investigation was kept separate from federal law enforcement, the Inquirer also reports.

The federal judge has not yet ruled on the issue.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court will take up the first case in the country in which a Catholic Church was convicted of endangering children abused by other priests, The Legal Intelligencer's Zack Needles reports. The Pennsylvania Superior Court overturned Monsignor William Lynn's conviction because "the trial judge had refused to address the defense argument that a pre-amended version of Pennsylvania's law criminalizing endangerment of the welfare of children did not apply in the case," The Legal further reports. The high court granted allocatur on the issue of whether there was sufficient evidence to convict Lynn either as a principal or as an accomplice to endangering the welfare of children.