Quotable
“This is a great day for the constitution.” – Attorney Ryan Walsh
In March, a Brown County Circuit Court ordered Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich to disconnect three audio-recording devices that had been secretly installed in city hall.
The existence of the devices was made public at a Green Bay Common Council meeting on Feb. 7. Two weeks later, the Wisconsin State Senate and State Senator André Jacque sued the city over the devices.
The lawsuit claimed that installation of the devices violated Wisconsin’s electronic surveillance control law and the plaintiff’s First and Fourth Amendment rights.
Walsh represented the plaintiffs.
“The people of Green Bay have their city hall back,” Walsh said after the ruling.
Source: Wausau Pilot and Review
On the Radar
Homecoming for Ancient Artifact
A small ivory artifact nearly 3,000 years old has been returned to its rightful owners.
In March, FBI agents returned the artifact, named “Furniture Fitting with Sphinx Trampling a Youth,” to the Iraqi government.
The ivory figure, which measures 2 ¼ inches tall and 1 ½ inches wide, had been on display in a museum at Emory University in Atlanta. FBI special agents determined the artifact was the property of Iraq.
Representatives from the Penn Museum at the University of Pennsylvania helped the FBI confirm the authenticity of the artifact.
It is believed that the artifact was looted from the Iraq Museum in Baghdad shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Source: FBI
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Good Idea?
Generic Cheese?
A European trade group has lost a court battle to restrict use of the term “gruyere” to varieties of that cheese produced in France or Switzerland.
The Interprofession du Gruyère, which represents French and Swiss cheesemakers, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, after the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office refused to grant a trademark for the term “gruyere.”
The trade group lost in district court. In March, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld the district court’s decision.
The appeals court held that American consumers of cheese understand “gruyere” to refer to a type of cheese, and the term is therefore generic.
Source: The Guardian
By the Numbers
101
– The number of antisemitic incidents in Wisconsin in 2022
According to the Jewish Community Relations Council, the number of corroborated antisemitic incidents that occurred in Wisconsin last year rose 6.3%, to 101.
Jill Plavnick, who co-chairs an antisemitism task force, told attendees at a town hall meeting in Whitefish Bay in March that hate group activity rose by 83% last year.
According to Plavnick, antisemitic incidents in Wisconsin’s K-12 schools rose by 22%.
The council said that 2022 was the seventh year in a row marked by an increase in the number of antisemitic incidents in Wisconsin.
Source: WUWM 89.7
» Cite this article: 96 Wis. Law. 8 (May 2023).
