Author Archive | Orin Kerr

In about two weeks, the Second Circuit will hold oral argument in the case of Hall v. Earthlink. In this case, an ISP cut off access to a customer’s e-mail account after wrongly concluding that the customer was a spammer. It took six days for the ISP to realize the error and apologize; rather than […]

Talkleft links to an interesting story about some Fourth Amendment cases currently winding their way through the lower courts. The question is whether the police need a warrant to swipe a person’s home doorknob with a drug-detecting cloth; the police then test the cloth to see if contains microscopic particles of a controlled substance. You […]

Gregg Easterbrook offers some thoughts, and Matthew Yglesias comments.

That’s the current ratio of Guantanamo detainees judged to be enemy combatants by the recently-enacted military tribunals versus those found not to be enemy combatants by the tribunals. For the story of the 1, see here.

Today, September 7, is a special day for 3L gunners around the country. It’s the day that students can begin applying for federal clerkships that will start next summer. Good luck, VC readers! For the latest updates, The Greedy Clerks Board will probably be a good place to check.

In news relating to the recent First Circuit wiretapping decision in United States v. Councilman (previous posts here and here), a coalition of privacy groups including the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and the American Library Association have just filed an amicus brief in favor of […]

The Ninth Circuit issued an interesting ruling on whether the existence of records indicating that a suspect joined a child pornography website creates probable cause to search the suspect’s home for illegal child pornography. I offer an analysis of the case for members of my computer crime update list here. My basic take: the court […]

Over at Begging to Differ, Venkat lists the anti-terrorism cases that DOJ has brought that somehow have ended up falling flat– via acquittal, dismissal of charges, and the like. If you broaden the category to terrorism cases both charged and uncharged, you might add the case of Yaser Esam Hamdi, who it seems will soon […]

At least it’s a start.

Although the facts of the case are still unfolding, it looks like the three men prosecuted for being members of an Al Qaeda-affilliated sleeper cell in Michigan may not have been helping terrorists at all — and that prosecutors illegally withheld evidence tending to show that from the defense.   In one of the most significant […]

Today the Federal Circuit decided Chamberlain Croup v. Skylink Technologies, also known as “the garage door opener case,” which considered several interesting and important questions about the scope of the DMCA. The Federal Circuit affirmed. From the opinion:    We conclude that 17 U.S.C. § 1201 prohibits only forms of access that bear a reasonable relationship […]

they just go on the web. Or so you might think after spending some time with The Living Room Candidate, which has collections of presidential campaign ads for every presidential election since 1952. I laughed my way through the Ross Perot ads from 1992, and found lots of other great stuff, too. (Hat tip: Is […]

Political conventions don’t generate any actual news these days, but look on the bright side: conventions are week-long campaign commercials that the major party candidates don’t have to buy. Not that the conventions themselves are free, of course; according to this website, the GOP convention is expected to cost around $64 million.

Who knows, this could be the next big story in the presidential campaign. Thanks to Wonkette for the link.

Tbogg has a moving post in memory of his father, who passed away on Wednesday. Thanks to TalkLeft for the link.