Today’s (Sunday, Sep 8, 2013) New York Times has a story by Anne Eisenberg, “Preflight Turbulence for Commercial Drones.” The article combines two crucial topics in connection with drones (remotely piloted aerial vehicles, or unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs, but my advice to the industry and USAF is that the People Have Spoken, and it’s “drones”): […]
Author Archive | Kenneth Anderson
Kiobel, Followed by DaimlerChrysler: What the Roberts and Breyer Views on Jurisdiction over Foreign Corporations Share
(First, big welcome to the newest Conspirator, Will Baude!) A few months ago, in April, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Corp., giving guidance on the Alien Tort Statute. In this rather lengthy post, I’m going to explore some ideas I’m using in an essay on Kiobel for […]
The Multilateralist Blog Interview on How American Conservatives See the UN Today
David Bosco, who authors the outstanding “The Multilateralist” blog at Foreign Policy (where he is a contributing editor and who is also my American University colleague in the School of International Service), conducted an interview a few weeks ago with the Heritage Foundation’s Brett Schaefer and me on the United Nations. The idea was to ask how […]
Valley Fever
When one of my nephews fell ill with a strange pneumonia-like illness as a boy in the 1980s, his mother was told he had something called “Valley Fever.” My sister and her family lived in Bakersfield, California, and it was something I had heard of – my parents had lived there for a couple of […]
O Say Can You See
Happy 4th of July, everyone. This is a holiday in which I think about the Declaration of Independence, but sometimes find myself, like today, drifting to think about America’s national anthem. Views on the Star-Spangled Banner usually start – very sensibly – from the concession that as a piece of music, it’s mostly un-singable and […]
Getting the Details of Online Courses Right Is Likely to Be More Difficult Than Anticipated
I’m afraid I’ve been absent from blogging for quite a while, but am eager to pick it up again on a more regular basis … and one reason I’ve been away from blogging is some work on online higher ed. There’s a lot of discussion about MOOCs – Massive Open Online Courses – and while […]
The Case for Drones
By Kenneth Anderson on May 22, 2013 10:50 am in Drones (UAVs), Targeted Killing, Terrorism, War and Armed Conflict, War on Terror
Just in time for President Obama’s big speech Thursday at the National Defense University on counterterrorism policy and strategy, Commentary Magazine has made available early my June cover article, “The Case for Drones.” (Available free and not behind the subscriber wall.) It’s a long essay arguing that drones are both effective and ethical, and addressing […]
An Unidentified Senior Administration Official on the Leak Investigations at Lawfare
At the Lawfare blog, a communication from an unidentified “senior national security official” in the Obama administration on the leak investigation against Fox News’ James Rosen. It’s striking that a senior official would decide to communicate these views via a blog – though Lawfare (whose editor-in-chief is the former Washington Post journalist turned Brookings scholar […]
Eliminating the “C” in Law School Grading?
By Kenneth Anderson on May 12, 2013 2:28 pm in Academia, Law Schools, Legal Professor, Uncategorized
Via Paul Caron at TaxProfBlog and the Wall Street Journal Law Blog, a proposal by Joshua Silverstein, law professor at Little Rock-Arkansas William Bowen School of Law, to eliminate the “C” in law school grading. Here is the SSRN abstract for “A Case for Grade Inflation in Legal Education,” forthcoming in University of San Francisco […]
The IRS’ Inquiries into Conservative Groups [Post Pulled; See Note]
[Note: I’ve decided to pull this post about my experience with a conservative organization that had been contacted by the IRS about political activities because after further conversations with folks involved, I think the timing of letters from the IRS isn’t enough to connect this particular group, which has long had its tax exempt status, […]
A Cautionary Tale About Driving and Bar Fitness
Law students thinking ahead about not just passing the bar exam, but also the fitness and character requirements might take a lesson from a former student of mine. He contacted me with some alarm a few days ago to tell me that the Virginia bar committee that has to approve fitness and character of applicants […]
Bill to Be Introduced to Increase Armed Services Committees’ Oversight Over Special Operations
By Kenneth Anderson on May 9, 2013 9:48 am in Counter-Terrorism Policy, Drones (UAVs), Military, National Security, Targeted Killing, War and Armed Conflict, War on Terror
Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), member of the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, plans to introduce a bill that would increase Congressional oversight over kill-capture operations conducted outside of Afghanistan by the US military. University of Texas law professor Robert Chesney discusses the proposed legislation over at Lawfare, and gives a section by section commentary. Whether […]
Law Professor Salaries
Paul Caron at TaxProf Blog provides a table of law professor salary data reported by a handful of schools to the annual survey request from the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT); in addition to those reported salary figures (assistant professor, tenured professor, summer stipend), there are links to individual salaries at a number of […]
John Villasenor on Domestic Drones, Airspace Safety, and Privacy Protection
John Villasenor – a professor of engineering at UCLA and a Brookings Institution senior fellow – has a new article at Slate on the domestic use of drones. (The article part of a conference held yesterday at the New America Foundation in conjunction with Arizona State University on domestic drone policy, with many fine participants; […]
Self-Driving Vehicles – How Soon and Who Will Bear the Liability Costs?
Self-driving cars are receiving a lot of attention these days – partly as the technologies that make them possible advance and partly because, well, we the public are more aware of them and are realizing there is quite a lot to discuss regarding their regulation and use. As the technologies that appear to be making […]