One clever-sounding argument, featured on the front page of yesterday’s New York Times, is that while Israel has a moral right to retaliate against Gaza, it would still be a strategic mistake. The Gaza campaign will cause Palestinians to rally around Hamas, weakening the more moderate Fatah in the West Bank. In other words, Israel […]
Archive | November, 2012
The Right To Be … Oh, Forget It
The harshest blow yet has been struck against the European Commission‘s wacky “right to be forgotten.” What’s worse, the blow came from another European Union agency, the European Network and Information Security Agency, or ENISA. And, worst of all, ENISA trashed the right to be forgotten in the most innocent and most devastating way possible: […]
This Morning’s Story/Non-Story of E-mail Privacy Reform
This morning, Declan McCullagh posted a surprising story at CNET indicating that the Senate Judiciary Committee was about to vote on a law that would expand government power to obtain e-mails. The story began: A Senate proposal touted as protecting Americans’ e-mail privacy has been quietly rewritten, giving government agencies more surveillance power than they […]
Liberals, Conservatives, and “Hate Speech”
Over the last few days, I’ve posted several posts about liberal vs. conservative attitudes on a range of free speech questions, including “hate speech,” anti-religious speech, and more, both based on questions from the General Social Survey and based on an analysis of Supreme Court Justices’ decisions on these questions (whether from the 1970s to […]
Attitudes on Speech Restrictions Seemingly Reflect Education More Than Whose Ox Is Being Gored
As I mentioned before, the General Social Survey has long asked respondents the following questions (among many others): 76. There are always some people whose ideas are considered bad or dangerous by other people. For instance, somebody who is against churches and religion… a. If such a person wanted to make a speech in your […]
Director of Massachusetts Highway Safety Division Has Extensive Record of Car Accidents
It sounds like something from a bad libertarian parody of government. But it turns out that the Director of the Massachusetts state highway safety agency has a long record of traffic accidents and moving violations. She apparently got the job through political connections, even though she had no relevant expert qualifications for the job. But […]
Harvard Law Review Annual Supreme Court Issue
The issue is here. It features a Foreword by Pam Karlan, Democracy and Disdain, to which our co-blogger Randy Barnett responds with The Disdain Campaign and Steven Calabresi responds with The Constitution and Disdain.
The Conservative Future
David Brooks had a nice op-ed in the New York Times yesterday, contending that “if you go online, you can find a vibrant and increasingly influential center-right conversation.” Regarding “legal and free speech concerns,” Brooks mentions our very own — “unpredictable libertarian-leaning” — Eugene Volokh.
United States v. Stanley and the Fourth Amendment Implications of Using “Moocherhunter” To Locate the User of An Unsecured Wireless Network
In United States v. Stanley, 2012 WL 5512987 (W.D.Pa. Nov. 14, 2012) (Conti, J.), the district court evaluated a novel Fourth Amendment question: Does tracing the location of a user of an unsecured wireless network constitute a Fourth Amendment search? The court’s answer: No. In this case, a Pennsylvania state police officer investigating the distribution […]
FWT, aka “Frustration with Truncation”
BLT reports on Judge Laurence Silberman’s frustration with the excessive use of abbreviations in cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
A “Buffett Tax” Resolution
(1) Whereas, the U.S. government is in desperate need of revenue. (2) Whereas, Warren Buffett is worth tens of billions of dollars, almost all of which is destined for private foundations and thus will completely escape federal tax. (3) Whereas, Warren Buffett has publicly proclaimed that he is undertaxed. (4) Resolved, the U.S. government should […]
Liberal vs. Conservative Attitudes on Speech by Communists, Homosexuals, and Supporters of Military Dictatorship
By Eugene Volokh on November 19, 2012 7:10 pm in Freedom of Speech, Liberal vs. Conservative Attitudes on Free Speech
I blogged yesterday about liberal/conservative divides among General Social Survey respondents on free speech questions: For anti-religious speech, speech arguing that blacks are genetically inferior, and speech by anti-American Muslim clergy, liberals were somewhat more likely than conservatives to conclude that the speech should be protected, though the gulf wasn’t great, and both liberals and […]
Israel and Gaza
My thoughts are amply approximated by Richard Cohen’s column today.
Are Liberal or Conservative Justices More Likely to Protect “Hate Speech”?
By Eugene Volokh on November 19, 2012 6:02 pm in "Hate Speech", Liberal vs. Conservative Attitudes on Free Speech, Supreme Court
I blogged yesterday about whether liberal or conservative Americans are more likely to support protections for various kinds of speech, including speech arguing that blacks are genetically inferior — the General Social Survey question that’s most relevant to the debate about protection for supposed “hate speech.” It turns out that liberals are somewhat more likely […]
And Speaking of Libertarians, Conservatives, and Radical Copyright Reform
Following on what I posted earlier about the Republican Study Commission’s now-retracted Report on Copyright reform and what it might mean for a developing new consensus on the right about the failure(s) of current copyright policy. I should have noted there that the Mercatus Center is about to publish a book on this very topic […]