Lloyd v. Hardesty (Cal. Ct. App. May 31, 2013) (nonprecedential); for more on the factual backstory, see an earlier opinion in the case: The trial court entered a … restraining order prohibiting Wax from harassing Lloyd or her daughter. In particular, the court’s order provided that “(1) Wax ‘shall not make direct contact with [] […]
Archive | June, 2013
Foreigners and Foreign Law in American Courts: A Concrete Example
By Eugene Volokh on June 17, 2013 5:06 pm in Cultural Defenses, Islamic Law in the American Legal System
Why should foreign law ever be applied in American courts?, some people ask. Why should foreigners get the benefit of this law when they come to America? There are many answers to this, but I thought I’d offer a helpful illustration. The broad point is that, when American courts apply foreign law, they apply it […]
Muslim Cleric in Egypt Sentenced to 11 Years for Ripping up Bible, Insulting Christianity, and “Disturbing Peace and Security”
So reports Daily News Egypt: Coptic lawyer Naguib Gabriel had filed a complaint against Abu Islam, accusing the preacher of insulting the Christian faith and Egyptian women, specifically Christian women. Abu Islam, who owns Al-Omma satellite channel, tore a Bible apart on 11 September 2012 at a protest outside the US Embassy in Cairo against […]
Schoolteacher in Egypt Fined $14,000 for Allegedly Insulting Islam
Daily News Egypt reports: Demiana Abdel Nour, a 24-year-old social studies teacher in Luxor, was summoned by the public prosecutor on 8 May after parents of three students at Sheikh Sultan Primary School filed complaints claiming that Abdel Nour insulted Islam and the Prophet Muhammad by saying that the late [Coptic] Pope Shenouda III performed […]
Using Attribution to Deter Cyberespionage
Foreign Policy has published my article on how attribution can be used to deter foreign governments’cyberespionage. Excerpts below: The Obama-Xi summit in Sunnylands ended without any Chinese concessions on cyber-espionage. This came as no surprise; cyber spying has been an indispensable accelerant for China’s military and economic rise. And though Beijing may someday agree that […]
Dick Cheney Unintentionally Explains the Dangers of the NSA Surveillance Program
In this recent article, conservative columnist John Fund highlights some interesting comments by former Vice President Dick Cheney: On Sunday, former vice president Dick Cheney addressed the dilemma many conservatives face in assessing the revelations about the National Security Agency’s data collection. On the one hand, they are suspicious of the federal government. On the […]
The Ongoing Saga of the Private Property Rights Protection Act
By Ilya Somin on June 17, 2013 1:10 pm in Democracy and Political Ignorance, Political Ignorance, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
Last week, the House Judiciary Committee passed the Private Property Rights Protection Act, which would prevent local governments that engage in Kelo-style economic development takings from receiving federal economic development funds. As I explained in a post last year (which explains the bill in more detail), this legislation has been kicking around Congress since 2005. […]
School Excluding Anti-Religious Material from a “Limited Public Forum”
So allege the plaintiffs in Freedom From Religious Foundation v. Orange County School Board (M.D. Fla.), filed last week, and the letter from the school board — Exhibit A — bears this out. First, a bit of background. Some public schools have allowed religious groups to distribute Bibles at the school. This led to Establishment […]
Reading the Tea Leaves on the Supreme Court’s Outstanding Cases
With today’s decisions, there are three opinions left from the Supreme Court’s March argument sitting: Hollingsworth v. Perry (the Prop 8 case); United States v. Windsor (the DOMA case); and Mutual Pharmaceutical v. Bartlett (this Term’s pharma preemption case). There are three Justices who haven’t yet had opinion assignments from that sitting: the Chief Justice, […]
Julian Sanchez on Pilon and Epstein’s Defense of the NSA Electronic Data Collection Program
Last week, Roger Pilon of the Cato Institute and famed libertarian law professor Richard Epstein published an op ed defending the NSA policy of collecting data on millions of Americans’ electronic communications. Pilon and Epstein may be the only prominent libertarian defenders of the NSA on this issue; though, obviously, that doesn’t necessarily mean they […]
Still No Fisher, But Some Interesting Line-Ups
The Supreme Court issued five decisions today — Salinas v. Texas, FTC v. Actavis, Inc., Alleyne v. United States, Maracich v. Spears, Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council — but we’re still waiting for Fisher (and Shelby County and the same-sex marriage cases). Today still produced some interesting rulings, and some interesting line-ups as Justices Scalia […]
Matthew Yglesias on Superman and Opportunity Costs
Matthew Yglesias has a fun Slate piece on what Superman should do with his powers: I don’t want to offer spoilers for the new Superman movie, Man of Steel but suffice it to say that for a while in the film Superman is kind of bouncing around sporadically rescuing people from random accidents. And it’s […]
Kens on Rehabilitating Lochner
Paul Kens, a professor of political science at Texas State University, is the author of Lochner v. New York: Economic Regulation on Trial. I described the book in 2011 as “The last major scholarly work on Lochner to propound the traditional view of Lochner–that its origins lie in ‘laissez faire Social Darwinism’ and that its […]
Profile of Judge Ed Korman
By Nick Rosenkranz on June 16, 2013 11:05 pm in Constitutional Law, Constitutional Theory, Health Care, Originalism, Politicizing Science
The New York Times has a nice profile of Judge Ed Korman, the judge who faced down HHS in the Plan B case. See Jonathan Adler’s posts, here, here, here, and here. Whatever one thinks of the merits, it takes great fortitude for a district judge to stand up to a recalcitrant administration. As for […]
Did the Definition of “Pen Registers” Lead to the Goldsmith/Comey Threat to Resign in 2004?
In the Washington Post, Bart Gellman has a fascinating story on the NSA’s surveillance practices. There’s a lot to chew on in the article, but one interesting part is a discussion of the legal issue that led to the Goldsmith/Comey confrontation over the legality of NSA surveillance in 2004. Gellman writes: Telephone metadata was not […]