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Co-blogger Nita Farahany takes issue with “many parts” of my post defending the morality of designer babies against claims that they would lead to unjust inequality. I always welcome a good debate. But, in this case, virtually all of the things she “takes issue” with are not actually things I said in my post. First, […]

Not a line I expected to read in a brief, but there it is, in the state’s brief in Watson v. State (Ga. Oct. 21, 2013). (The state’s argument was that, while such behavior is constitutionally protected, the particular solicitation in that case was not; the Georgia Supreme Court disagreed.)

NIST has revised the draft cybersecurity framework that it released in August.  What it published today is a  “preliminary cybersecurity framework.” After comments, a final framework will be released in February. I’ve been very critical of the draft released in August.  NIST clearly worked to address the criticisms.  The result is a mixed bag, but […]

According to the French Republican calendar, tomorrow (which we know as Wednesday, October 23, 2013) is 2 Brumaire CCXXII — and since Brumaire is the second month of the calendar, it’s a date that can be written 2/2/222. Since it’s the second day of the month, the day of the week is Duodi, and the […]

I agree with Charles Krauthammer that the Redskins should be renamed out of common courtesy. I also think the name should reflect something unique or at least prominent about the team’s metropolitan area. You can call the team the “Lobbyists,” the “Government Contractors,” the “Domestic Spies,” the “Corrupt City Officials,” the “Partisans,” the “Thirtysomething Housemates,” […]

The Bluebook editors are working on their 20th edition, and have put up a user survey to get input about what ought to be done. If you use the Bluebook and have thoughts about it, this is your chance to submit them. (For those who don’t know, the Bluebook is the leading legal citation formatting […]

There’s a lot of talk in the press these days about how hard it is for the federal government to do IT right and how the blame for the failures of the healthcare.gov website should fall on the federal procurement system, not the federal managers.  As someone who advocated enthusiastically for federal use of relatively […]

I’m a much bigger fan of Girl Talk, whom I’ve blogged about before, than of current copyright law, so it’s hard to resist a chance to talk about both.  Girl Talk (actually a fellow named Greg Gillis) produces delightful mashups of hip-hop and classic rock that shed new light on both. Since Girl Talk relies […]

I’ve been critical of the claim that European privacy law offers more protection against government surveillance than American law.  Apparently not critical enough.  An Ars Technica reporter with a pro-privacy inclination decided to seriously investigate using a German email system to get the benefits of European privacy law. His tale of disillusionment revealed three privacy deficits […]

I’m the coauthor on a brand new paper just released today by the Ottawa-based Macdonald-Laurier Institute, “Credit Where It’s Due: How Payment Cards benefit Canadian merchants and consumers, and how regulation can harm them.”  The report is co-authored The report is co-authored by myself, Ian Lee, Geoffrey A. Manne, and Julian Morris.  

Understanding of the law and confidence in one’s conclusions about it are inversely related.

Everyone has been so distracted by the government shutdown and before that, Edward Snowden and the NSA, that you probably missed the first real-time study of eavesdropping on the brain that was just published. Before you get too excited, you should realize that the particular technique described in this paper is unlikely to spawn a […]

News has been trickling out over the past few weeks about the extraordinary data-mining operations that Randy noted awhile back. At least when the NSA snoops it is doing so to prevent terrorism (which, I hasten to add, doesn’t mean that it should be allowed to do so).  It isn’t clear why the CFPB needs […]

I’d like to offer readers a short quiz on judicial independence. Imagine a field where liability is common but damages vary widely — patent law, perhaps, or disability claims.  In this field, there is a specialized court that has attracted Congressional and press criticism because it rules for the plaintiff 99% of the time. Stung by relentless […]