Archive | July, 2007

This statement was released in May, but I just learned about it: [1.] The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), acting on a complaint by China, this afternoon withdrew the general consultative status of Liberal International, a United Kingdom-based body that had won that status in 1995. By a vote of 13 in favour to 3 […]

Commenter PGofHSM puts it well, responding to people who don’t just complain about current speech restrictions, but argue that somehow we once had free speech but don’t any more: I’m still trying to figure out when the golden age of political free speech was. A worthy challenge, I think. Let’s even set aside sexually themed […]

I just got my hands on my copy of Krattenmaker & Powe’s Regulating Broadcast Programming, a very good book on the subject. A few highlights: The Radio Act of 1927 authorized licensing decisions based on the content of the speech (despite its provision supposedly banning “censorship”). By 1930, the Federal Radio Commission was restricting what […]

reports the New York Times; this also shows that checkers is guaranteed to be a draw if both players play optimally. Of course, it must also be the case that chess played optimally is a draw, that chess played optimally is a win for white, or that chess played optimally is a win for black […]

In my post below I describe the libertarian take on war to be undertheorized. Two VC readers independently pointed me to two different articles by libertarians in a symposium on “War and Liberty,” published in The Reason Papers. Though quite different from each other, both offer the type of effort I was calling for. I […]

Today’s Washington Post has a fascinating report about Ali Al-Marri, the subject of the Fourth Circuit’s recent decision on the government’s power to detain enemy combatants.

Kevin Poulsen has an interesting piece at Wired.com on a recent criminal case in which the government obtained a search warrant and remotely installed spyware on a target’s computer. The program reported back a wealth of information on how the computer was being used, including IP addresses, the MAC address, etc.. No contents of communications […]

The Washington Post has a front-page story reporting the Bush Administration’s view that once the President has ordered a subordinate to exert executive privilege, a U.S. Attorney can’t bring a criminal case against that subordinate when Congress refers the case to the U.S. Attorney for a contempt prosecution. It’s not clear to me if “can’t” […]

I hesitated writing my WSJ op-ed, Libertarians and the War because I knew it would provoke a strong reaction from antiwar libertarians, many of whom have been my friends and colleagues for a very long time. That it did. Therefore, I am grateful for the many emails and blog posts thanking me for pointing out […]

This recent survey conducted in Iran claims that most Iranians believe that their authoritarian government is actually largely democratic, support the government’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons, and are hostile to the United States (hat tip: Jeffrey Friedman).It is perfectly possible that these poll results really do reflect the majority opinion of the Iranian public. […]

The California Supreme Court issued an interesting decision this week on the enforceability of liability waivers in standard form contracts. At issue in City of Santa Barbara v. Superior Court, — Cal.Rptr.3d — (2007 WL 2027806), was a release from liability for “any negligent act” signed by a parent as part of an enrollment contract […]

A commenter on the NBC must stop running Fred Thompson Law & Order thread writes, And they must also cease broadcasting any movies where Fred was an actor, such as The Hunt For Red October where he was a carrier admiral. Because we don’t have freedom of speech in America any more. The first paragraph […]

Valerie Plame Wilson and Joseph Wilson sued Vice President Dick Cheney and several other Executive Branch officials for their alleged complicity in the disclosure of Valerie Plame’s work for the CIA. Today, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed the claims. The opinion is here. Howard Bashman rounds up preliminary news coverage […]

Opponents of the use of the Due Process Clause to protect substantive rights, notably Robert Bork (see, e.g., Coercing Virtue p. 55), trace the origins of “substantive due process” to Scott v. Sandford. This is disingenuous (or perhaps ignorant) on two levels. First, there is ample evidence that Scott did not originate that the concept […]

or else face the obligation to give rival candidates equal time? The answer is yes, under 47 U.S.C. § 315(a): If any licensee shall permit any person who is a legally qualified candidate for any public office to use a broadcasting station, he shall afford equal opportunities to all other such candidates for that office […]