Last Friday the Ninth Circuit decided United States v. Cotterman, a case on the border search exception to the Fourth Amendment. The en banc court held that manually searching for files through a computer is allowed at the border, but that “forensic examination” at the border requires reasonable suspicion. As the Court put it, “a […]
Archive | March, 2013
Clearing the Air in the Faculty Lounge
Today all of The Faculty Lounge’s permanent bloggers posted a notice stating that none of them have ever disclosed identifying information about anonymous or pseudonymous bloggers to any third party. The post comes in response to allegations by Paul Campos that someone at TFL had given such information about a pseudonymous commenter to Brian Leiter. […]
The Antitrust State Action Doctrine and State Licensing Boards
Since I’ve been spending time recently, in the wake of FTC v. Phoebe Putney, posting on the antitrust state action doctrine (see, e.g., here and here), here’s a student comment from a recent issue of the University of Chicago Law Review, called The Antitrust State Action Doctrine and State Licensing Boards, by Ingram Weber. Here’s […]
Authorizing the Strike on al-Awlaki
The NYT has a very interesting story on the targeting of Anwar al-Awlaki for a drone strike. Of particular interest is the story’s account of the efforts by academics-turned-government-lawyers to ensure that targeting al-Awlaki would be legal. Here’s a taste: David Barron and Martin Lederman had a problem. As lawyers in the Justice Department’s Office of […]
International Criminal Court Jurisdiction Over Israeli Settlements
I have put up a new working paper on SSRN, entitled Jurisdiction Over Israeli Settlement Activity in the International Criminal Court. It is not about the legality of settlements. Rather, it is about whether repeated and growing threats by Palestine and its supporters to make an international case out of it are consistent with the […]
The Daubert Counterrevolution
I’ve posted this paper on SSRN. It’s forthcoming in the Notre Dame Law Review. It’s become common for people to post papers on SSRN only when they are “done,” so as to show off their best work. But I’m actually really interested in comments on this one, and the final version isn’t due to the […]
>100 Christian Homes Burned in Pakistan Because of “Allegations That a Christian Man Made Remarks Against … Mohammed”
CNN reports: [Pakistani Christian] demonstrators denounced the burning of more than 100 homes of Christians on Saturday — a spree spurred by allegations that a Christian man made remarks against the Muslim prophet Mohammed. Some of the hundreds of protesters Sunday threw stones at police, saying the government failed to adequately protect Christians, Lahore senior […]
Color Me Skeptical
Co-blogger Jonathan Adler quotes Professor Herbert Hovenkamp of the University of Iowa Law School, below, as stating: The overwhelming majority of my colleagues believe in diversity in faculty hiring, and I believe most would include ideological diversity of both right and left. Some would regard diversity more as a “tie breaker” for choosing among people […]
Iowa’s Prof. Hovenkamp Comments on Dismissal of Ideological Bias Suit
The University of Iowa College of Law’s Professor Herbert Hovenkamp, offers the following statement on the dismissal of Teresa Wagner’s lawsuit against the school alleging ideological bias in hiring. While the Wagner viewpoint discrimination trial involving the University of Iowa College of Law has generated considerable attention, the only principals who have spoken to the […]
Ideological Bias Suit Against Iowa Law Dismissed
Teresa Wagner sued the University of Iowa School of Law alleging she was passed over for a faculty position due to ideological bias. The jury rejected some of her claims but deadlocked on another. On Friday, a federal district court dismissed Wagner’s one remaining claim and rejected Wagner’s motion for a new trial. Here are […]
“Wayne County Judge Continues to Defy the First Amendment”
I had hoped to blog on this case in detail myself, but haven’t had a chance, so I thought I’d quote Paul Alan Levy (Public Citizen): A status conference was held today in connection with Maged Moughni’s motion to vacate the impermissible prior restraint that Judge Kathleen McDonald issued a month ago, forbidding Moughni to […]
Interesting Ninth Circuit En Banc on Computer Searches, Of Course Citing Orin
The decision is today’s United States v. Cotterman (9th Cir. Mar. 8, 2013) (en banc). An excerpt from the court’s summary; note that most border searches can generally — for historical reasons — be done even without individualized suspicion, but here the court required such suspicion for computer searches: [A] border search of a computer […]
En Banc Ninth Circuit Holds That Computer Forensic Searches Are Like “Virtual Strip Searches” And Require Reasonable Suspicion At the Border
Today the Ninth Circuit handed down its long-awaited en banc decision in United States v. Cotterman, a case on the lawfulness of searching a computer at the border. (My prior posts are here, here, here, and here.) Today the Ninth Circuit announced a special rule for computer searches: Although a “review of computer files” can […]
“Economics of the Undead: Blood, Brains & Benjamins”
My friend Glen Whitman passes along this Call for Abstracts: Call for Abstracts Economics of the Undead: Blood, Brains & Benjamins Glen Whitman & James P. Dow, Editors The editors seek abstracts for essays exploring the relationship between economics and the undead, especially zombies and vampires. The chosen essays will appear in a collection to […]
“The Economics of Legal Education: A Concern of Colleagues”
I recently joined a large-ish group of law professors in signing this letter submitted to the ABA Task Force on Legal Education on the future of legal education.