I'm delighted to report that Prof. Anuj Desai of the University of Wisconsin Law School will be guest-blogging this week about his articles The Transformation of Statutes into Constitutional Law: How Early Post Office Policy Shaped Modern First Amendment Doctrine, 58 Hastings L.J. 671 (2007) and Wiretapping before the Wires: The Post Office and the Birth of Communications Privacy, 60 Stan. L. Rev. 553 (2007).
I had read the two pieces and found them to be fascinating and eye-opening stories about how the legislatively defined structure of a particular institution -- the post office -- has influenced the development of judge-made constitutional doctrine. I then asked Prof. Desai whether he might guest-blog about the articles, and he graciously agreed. I'm much looking forward to his visit.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Legislatures, Institutions, and Constitutional Theory:
- The Post Office and the Origins of the Constitutional Principle of Communications Privacy:
- The Postal Monopoly and the First Amendment “Right to Receive” Ideas:
- Postal Subsidies for News and the “Unconstitutional Conditions” Doctrine:
- Hillary Clinton, the Post Office, and the Constitution:
- Anuj Desai Guest-Blogging:
Let me also suggest once again that you try to line up some people outside of the law. You lawyers need to connect to people who earn their living in the "real world" a little bit more, who manufacture things, grow things, transport things, and so forth, whose lives are constrained by the laws of physics and economics as much as by the laws of men. And those people need to connect to lawyers more, see how at least some of what they do is necessary and useful, learn more about how the law works, and why, and why what just seems reasonable and obvious to nonlawyers might not be either, at all.
Your blog is a good informal opportunity for that connection. I know as a scientist I've learned some interesting things about law and lawyers here, some of it to your (lawyers') benefit, some not. It's very educational, and why I come back. I can only imagine the value would be greatly enhanced if I could see the interaction between your Conspiracy, certain of your more balanced and informed commentapparatchiks, and a guest blogger from science, engineering, medicine, the military, Big Oil or Big Pharma, or any of the other areas where we have seen recent troubling intersections between law, public policy, and technology. I can also hope you lawyers might learn something interesting, too, about a world where what is matters more than what ought to be, and facts count for more than beautiful theories.
Give it a thought, huh? But thanks for the guest bloggers, no matter what.