I’ve seen some chatter on the internet about the possibility of a member of Congress disclosing classified information. For example, the Hill discusses this Rolling Stone interview in which Senator Ron Wyden said that he considered (and apparently rejected) disclosing classified information about NSA activities on the floor of the Senate. How would this work? […]
Archive | August, 2013
California Law School Claims First Amendment Right Not to Report Bar Passage Rates
By Jonathan H. Adler on August 17, 2013 2:29 pm in Academia, Bar Exam, Freedom of Speech, Law Schools, Legal Profession
The WSJ Law Blog reports that the Southern California Institute of Law claims that it cannot be required to disclose the bar passage rate of its graduates as a condition of accreditation. Such a requirement, SCIL claims, runs afoul of the First Amendment. Southern California Institute of Law is suing bar association officials for requiring […]
Third Circuit Denies En Banc Petition in Contraception Mandate Case
This week, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit voted 7-5 to deny a petition for rehearing en banc in a private for-profit employer’s challenge to the federal contraception mandate in Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. HHS. As SCOTUSBlog notes, this creates a circuit split between the Third and Tenth Circuits on […]
Say You’re a Lawyer Whose First Name Is “Judge” or “Justice”
Do you have an obligation, whether of professional ethics or just of human ethics, to stress in various contexts (demand letters, advertisements, campaign literature, op-eds, and the like) that you’re not actually a judge, whether current or retired? What if someone is citing your law review article; does he have an obligation (of whatever sort) […]
Wall Street Journal Op-Ed: Two Presidents, Two Suspensions
By Nick Rosenkranz on August 17, 2013 8:48 am in Constitutional Law, Executive Branch, Habeas, Health Care, Obama, Presidency, Separation of Powers
My op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal compares Obama’s suspension of the ObamaCare employer mandate with Lincoln’s suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. Both Presidents were constitutional lawyers; both Presidents unilaterally suspended the law; and both suspensions were constitutionally dubious. But what they did next could not have been more different. The op-ed is […]
Nice New Fair Use Decision
From Kiennitz v. Sconnie Nation LLC (W.D. Wis. Aug. 15, 2013): The Mifflin Street Block Party is an annual event that began in May 1969 as part of the student protest movement on the UW–Madison campus. At that time, Paul Soglin was a student protest leader at UW–Madison and a Madison alder. Soglin attended the […]
Second Circuit Affirms Conviction Despite “Insufficient” Evidence at Trial
It’s not every day that you read a published appellate opinion that says “evidence at trial in this case was not sufficient to satisfy the jurisdictional element of the offense of conviction,” and then goes on to affirm the conviction. But that’s what happened in the Second Circuit’s decision Wednesday in United States v. Corey […]
Apply for the Stanford Constitutional Law Center Academic Fellowship
These days it has become more and more common for those who are interested in becoming law professors to pursue an academic “fellowship” first, spending 1-2 years in the academy reading and writing before going on the tenure-track job market. (As many as 78% of last-year’s tenure-track hires had a fellowship, according to Prawfsblawg.) To […]
Second Amendment Secures Some Right to Carry Loaded Firearms in Public Places
So states State v. Christian (Ore. Aug. 15, 2013): [W]e conclude in the first instance that the ordinance [limited carrying] does, to some extent, burden protected conduct falling within the scope of the Second Amendment’s guarantee. [Footnote: … Although Heller did not define the scope of the right to self-defense outside the home, we read […]
“NSA Broke Privacy Rules Thousands of Times Per Year, Audit Finds”
Bart Gellman has a big story at the Washington Post about another Snowden-leaked document, this time an internal NSA audit of some of its surveillance practices. Also of great interest is this internal document offering a description of the FISC opinion that found some of the NSA practices unconstitutional — apparently a problem with the […]
The World According to Americans, 2012
Click here for close-ups. Laugh out loud (well, chortle out loud) funny. Thanks to Bored Panda and GeekPress for the pointer.
George Shultz on the Failure of the War on Drugs
Former Reagan Administration Secretary of State and George Shultz has an interesting article on the failure of the War on Drugs: I have been concerned about the drug issue since I became secretary of labor in 1969, my first cabinet position in the Nixon administration…. One day Pat [Moynihan] and I were driving together to […]
One Man’s Terrorist…
Ha’aretz: The Israeli ambassador in Stockholm, Isaac Bachman, speaking to Swedish government radio Tuesday, compared Israel’s release of 26 Palestinian prisoners to releasing right-wing extremist Anders Breivik, who was responsible for the massacres on the Norwegian island of Utøya in 2011…. The ambassador’s remarks have caused a storm in Sweden, and have garnered harsh criticism […]
Riding a Bicycle Isn’t Protected Expression for First Amendment Purposes
From Damon v. Huckowicz (D. Mass. Aug. 9, 2013): Consistent with his view that bicyclists have the right to use public roads in the same manner as motorists, Plaintiff, since the Summer of 2005, often rode in the center of the travel lane. He also believes that this practice is often safer than riding closer […]
Lower Court Interpretations of Davis v. United States, 131 S.Ct. 2419 (2011).
In Davis v. United States, 131 S. Ct. 2419 (2011), the Supreme Court considered what remedies are available when appellate courts hand down Fourth Amendment rulings expanding Fourth Amendment rights beyond the state of prior caselaw. When that happens, the officer may have taken steps that were thought to be lawful at the time but […]