So reads the headline to an ABC News story, and the first sentence reinforces this: “An Ohio man faces one month of jail time for teasing and taunting a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy after a video of the incident went viral.” But the sentence stems from two incidents, as paragraphs buried deeper in the […]
Archive | November, 2012
Egyptian Death Sentences for Those Who Involved in “Innocence of Muslims” — and Apparently for Several Uninvolved Coptic Activists
The AP reports that an Egyptian court has sentenced seven Egyptian Coptic Christians, plus American pastor Terry Jones, to death in absentia. (All are now outside the country, so the sentence won’t have any legal effect on them unless they return, or go to a country — likely a Muslim one — that is willing […]
Learn Liberty Academy
The Institute for Humane Studies has just rolled out a new online program called “Learn Liberty Academy.” It is set up to integrate IHS’s very popular “Learn Liberty” videos with webcast lectures and interactions with professors on various topics such as drug prohibition, poverty, that national debt, and other topics.
Final Version of “The Mosaic Theory of the Fourth Amendment”
The Michigan Law Review has posted the final version of my latest article, The Mosaic Theory of the Fourth Amendment, 111 Mich. L. Rev. 311 (2012), on its website. Here’s the abstract: In the Supreme Court’s recent decision on GPS surveillance, United States v. Jones, five justices authored or joined concurring opinions that applied a […]
A Chinese Analogue to the Kelo Case?
This recent Chinese case has attracted a lot of attention in both China and the West, and is drawing comparisons to the famous US takings case of of Kelo v. City of New London. The Huffington Post describes the facts as follows: In the middle of an eastern Chinese city’s new main road, rising incongruously […]
Do You Have to Be a Lawyer to Understand the Constitution?
Co-blogger Orin Kerr quotes Herbert Hoover’s statement that you don’t have to be a lawyer to understand the Constitution. Interestingly, the Supreme Court agrees. As Justice Owen Roberts put it in a unanimous 1931 decision, “[t]he Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and […]
If You Believe Blog Comment Threads, It’s Almost Disqualifying
Our Constitution is not alone the working plan of a great Federation of States under representative government. There is embedded in it also the vital principles of the American system of liberty. That system is based upon certain inalienable freedoms and protections which not even the government may infringe and which we call the Bill […]
New Book on Secession
The Right to Self-determination Under International Law “Selfistans,” Secession, and the Rule of the Great Powers, by Milena Sterio of Cleveland-Marshall (another piracy scholar, to boot). Looks interesting. Probably not timed to coincide with the American petitions…
Stewart Baker Touched a Nerve
Stewart Baker’s “Sex Secrets of the Security Line” (aka “50 Shades of TSA”) seems to have touched a nerve out there. Here are comments by Ken at Popehat, Scott Greenfield at Simple Justice, and Mark Bennett at Defending People. (Note: Credit for the “Fifty Shades of TSA” line goes to Max Kennerly.)
Looking for a Hanukkah or Christmas Gift?
With the holidays approaching, I thought I’d provide a friendly reminder that books by Volokh Conspiracy bloggers make great presents for that special legal theory nerd/historian/law student/libertarian/law geek/Second Amendment enthusiast/educated lay reader/etc. on your list. It’s also a nice way of showing appreciation for our bloggers. And some links for your convenience: Adler, ed., Rebuilding […]
The New Defense Department Directive on “Autonomy in Weapons Systems”
At almost the same moment that Human Rights Watch/Harvard Law School Human Rights Clinic released its report, “Losing Humanity: The Case Against Killer Robots,” which called for states to establish a treaty that would prohibit the “development, production, and use” of “fully autonomous weapons,” the Pentagon (under Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s signature) issued a DOD Directive, “Autonomy […]
Skepticism of Social Fact-finding in Constitutional Litigation
Here’s an interesting paper: Appellate Review of Social Facts in Constitutional Rights by Caitlin Borgmann, forthcoming in the California Law Review. This isn’t my area, so maybe my reaction is way off. But I think the major reason the law rejects clearly erroneous review of social facts is our suspicion that trial judges are not […]
Citizens United and the Fall of the Roman Republic
By Ilya Somin on November 27, 2012 7:49 pm in Election Law, Elections, First Amendment, Freedom of Speech, Restrictions on Campaign Contrbs. and Expenses
In a recent Slate article, Rob Goodman and Jimmy Soni claim that the history of the fall of the Roman Republic strengthens the case against the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United, which ruled that the First Amendment protects corporate and union political speech against restriction by government. The influence of money in politics, they […]
SSRN Censors Legal Scholarship Responding to A Theory of Law
It was inevitable that defenders of the status quo would use their powers to suppress the important revolutionary movement catalyzed by A Theory of Law. You can read about one suppression effort — blatant censorship by SSRN — over at Josh Blackman’s blog. SSRN’s stated excuse for its censorship would make Duchamp smile: “we are […]
“Tracing Your Digital Footprint on the Web”
I was on the Kojo Nnamdi show (on DC’s NPR station, 88.5 WAMU) this morning discussing Internet privacy and government surveillance with Julian Sanchez and Julia Angwin. It’s a one-hour program that was inspired by the Petraeus investigation but turned to many of the broader issues of online investigations and privacy. If you’re interested, you […]