My friend and ardent civil libertarian Harvey Silverglate describes what he calls the “The Slow Death of Free Speech at Harvard” at Minding the Campus. Interesting historical analysis.
Archive | November, 2013
Irish Constitutional Convention Recommends Referendum on Changing Blasphemy Ban to “Incitement to Religious Hatred” Ban
The Irish Constitution expressly prohibits blasphemy; the Irish Constitutional Convention has just voted to recommend a referendum on replacing this provision with a ban on “incitement to religious hatred,” though delegates were split on whether there should be a statutory blasphemy ban as well: Voting yesterday on whether the offence of blasphemy should be kept […]
Chief Justice Roberts Cites a Law Review Article in Marek v. Lane
Remember all of the recent discussion about the uselessness of law review articles, and the way nay-sayers like to invoke Chief Justice Roberts’s remark about “the influence of Immanuel Kant on evidentiary approaches in 18th-century Bulgaria”? Today the Chief Justice issued an opinion respecting the cert denial in Marek v. Lane, a challenge to the […]
Another Unanimous Summary Reversal for Judge Reinhardt
Today’s iteration of a longstanding Supreme Court tradition is Stanton v. Sims (per curiam), a qualified immunity decision summarily reversing Judge Reinhardt’s decision in Sims v. Stanton, 706 F.3d 954 (9th Cir. 2013) (Reinhardt, J., joined by Silverman and Wardlaw), a slightly earlier version of which you can find here. For those interested, here is […]
My Talks about “Great Powers” and Eminent Domain Next Week
Next week I’ll be giving two talks about my most recent article (and I think it’s my best!) — Rethinking the Federal Eminent Domain Power. Here’s Ilya’s JOTWELL post about the piece. (Even if you think you don’t care about the federal eminent domain power, I promise it’s far more interesting than that, since it’s […]
Viri Clarissimi
I just recently learned that, in the Roman Empire, our very own abbreviation “VC” stood for “vir clarissimus.”
Why Engaging in More Counterterrorism “Capture” Ops Makes Them Less Feasible Over Time
By Kenneth Anderson on November 2, 2013 9:20 pm in Counter-Terrorism Policy, Drones (UAVs), National Security, Targeted Killing, Uncategorized, War on Terror
(Special note: Lawfare, where I serve as His Serenity, Book Review Editor, is absolutely delighted VC’s own Orin Kerr has agreed to post there when the Spirit of National Security Law moves him.) Over at Lawfare, I have a longish post about the declared US government policy of preferring capture operations over kill operations where […]
Are Only “Substandard” Plans Being Canceled?
The WSJ has an article today on how President Obama could have “parsed” his words better when it came to his claim that if you like your health insurance, you can keep it. But the WSJ article seems awfully credulous about the supposed “parsing” that the Administration’s spinmeisters are putting on it. Apparently, what the […]
Australia Anti-Discrimination Law and BDS at the University of Sydney Center for Peace and Conflict Studies (UPDATED)
[I’ve rewritten this post to eliminate unwieldy updates and improve it–I relied too much on an incomplete account from Ha’aretz–but I’ve preserved the original at the end for anyone who’s interested.] An Israeli NGO, Shurat Ha’din, is suing an Australian academic, Jake Lynch, director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University […]
Interim Police Chief Threatens Police Attention for Those Who Advocate for Drug Legalization
Ken White (Popehat) has the details, with the text of the chief’s Facebook comments. Pretty appalling. Thanks to Charles Chapman for the pointer.
A Poor Rationale for Banning Organ Markets
At National Review, Wesley Smith has a post criticizing a Canadian proposal to pay kidney donors. He supports banning such payments because they would “exploit” the poor: The drive to turn living human bodies of the poor and destitute into natural resources for the well off continues…. If organs can be purchased like a steak […]
Yelling “Toy Guns” on a Crowded Facebook Page
From an East Haven, Ct. Police Department press release: On October 22, 2013, Angelo Appi (DOB 1-3-1967) turned himself into the East Haven Police Department on an arrest warrant charging him with Breach of Peace in the Second Degree. The arrest warrant originated from an incident that took place the previous day in which Appi […]
VC Bloggers on Twitter
Back in March, I decided to try Twitter again. It seems to have stuck this time. I’ve tweeted about 550 times, around twice a day. Some of my tweets are only links to blog posts, so it’s stuff you’re getting by reading the VC. But I’ve found that Twitter is also useful to link to […]
Two Posts at Lawfare
I recently mentioned how much I like the Lawfare blog. That post led to an invitation to write for Lawfare, and I’ve decided to post there on occasion on national security law issues. My tentative plan is to link to those posts from here when I do. In that spirit, here are my first two […]