Author Archive | Orin Kerr

While the recent case of Sue Niederer looks kind of bogus when put under the microscope, it is worth pointing out that other cases are not so bogus. In particular, this case from July looks like a legitimate case of a couple being arrested for their anti-Bush speech. The ACLU has recently brought a lawsuit […]

Tonight I attended a lecture by Justice Antonin Scalia, entitled The Courts and Democracy, hosted by the Ethics and Public Policy Center here in Washington, DC. Scalia hit on a number of his usual themes: the dangers of a living Constitution, the tension between democracy and expansive judicial interpretations of the Constitution, etc. But I […]

This is an update to yesterday’s post on Maureen Dowd’s Sunday New York Times column No Stars, Just Cuffs, about “Sue Niederer, 55, of Hopewell, N.J., [who] got handcuffed, arrested and charged with a crime for daring to challenge the Bush policy in Iraq.” It turns out that the charges against Niederer were dismissed by […]

Over at Legal Theory Blog, Larry Solum has a terrific post on why law professors ask hypothetical questions. If you’re a first-year law student, or just interested in legal education, be sure to check it out.

Maureen Dowd’s latest New York Times column, “No Stars, Just Cuffs,” describes what appears to be a terrible violation of the First Amendment:   In World Wars I and II, gold star mothers were the queens of their neighborhoods, the stars in their windows ensuring that they would be treated with great respect for their sacrifice […]

Reuters reports from India about a man who was denied an unusual bail request:   Court Denies ‘Sex Bail’ for Prisoner   AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) – An Indian court has refused to release a Muslim, charged over the train torching that triggered Gujarat’s Hindu-Muslim rioting two years ago, so he could go home to have sex with […]

From the Financial Times, an article on the possibility that the Bush Administration may be considering military strikes against Iran: US debates military strikes on ‘nuclear Iran’ The Bush administration’s warnings that it will not “tolerate” a nuclear-armed Iran have opened up a lively policy debate in Washington over the merits of military strikes against […]

I received a flood of mail about my earlier post on the blogosphere’s coverage of the CBS memos. Almost all of it said the same thing: the blogosphere’s coverage of the CBS memos is extremely important. The CBS memos raise the question of whether we can ever trust the mainstream press; they raise fundamental questions […]

The right half of the blogosphere is focused right now on the apparently forged CBS memos about W.’s military service; Instapundit is covering it from every angle. I can see why it’s an appealing story: if you have a choice between blogging on Iraq and poking fun at Dan Rather, the latter is much more […]

A few weeks ago I posted a link to a new article of mine available on SSRN, The Fourth Amendment and New Technologies: Constitutional Myths and the Case for Caution, forthcoming in the Michigan Law Review. My very brief reply article is now available on SSRN, as well: Techology, Privacy, and the Courts: A Reply […]

From the New York Times, an article entitled “C.I.A. Unit on bin Laden Is Understaffed, a Senior Official Tells Lawmakers“:   Three years after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency has fewer experienced case officers assigned to its headquarters unit dealing with Osama bin Laden than it did […]

on the election and the war in Iraq here.

Thanks to the wizards at the Associated Press for the insight.

Guestblogging over at The Leiter Reports, Jessica Wilson offers advice to Palestinians and supporters of Al Qaeda on how to respond to the military aggression of the Israelis and the United States. She writes: I am not a wise person, though I aspire to be. But I know how a wise person responds to aggression. […]

The October 2004 Vanity Fair has hit the newsstands, and it offers an insider’s view of what happened in Bush v. Gore. (It’s not online, unfortunately; yes, I actually had to plunk down $4.50 for a very glossy paper copy.) To be more precise, the article offers the view of a group of the law […]