Posts about the First Amendment by Professor Daniel J. Solove for his blog at TeachPrivacy, a privacy awareness and security training company.
When Donald Trump targeted the Communications Decency Act (CDA) Section 230, a debate about the law flared up. Numerous reforms were proposed, some even seeking to abolish the law. Unfortunately, the debate has been clouded with confusion and misinformation. Although I disagree with many of the proposals to reform it or abolish Section 230, I […]
In a high-profile privacy lawsuit, former pro-wrestler Hulk Hogan won a $115 million jury verdict against Gawker for posting his sex video without his consent. Hulk Hogan, whose real name is TerryBollea, brought a lawsuit for invasion of privacy and other torts. Under one of the main privacy torts — public disclosure of private facts […]
A common argument made to justify First Amendment restrictions on privacy torts and defamation law is that legal liability will chill the media. I am generally sympathetic to these arguments, though only to a point. I think these arguments are often overblown. An interesting point of comparison is the UK, where there is a much […]
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently upheld a school’s discipline of a student for engaging in off-campus cyberbullying of another student. In Kowalski v. Berkeley County Schools, — F.3d — (4th Cir. July 27, 2011), a student (Kara Kowalski) created a MySpace profile called “S.A.S.H.,” which she said was short for […]
I’ve been spending a lot of time lately focusing on privacy issues at schools. I find these issues fascinating, and I have been working on them in the trenches, as I created a company last year to provide tools and resources to schools to help them better address privacy problems and to develop a comprehensive […]
I’m pleased to announce the publication of my new book, NOTHING TO HIDE: THE FALSE TRADEOFF BETWEEN PRIVACY AND SECURITY (Yale University Press, May 2011). Here’s the book jacket description:
In his new book, The Fundamental Holmes: A Free Speech Chronicle and Reader (Cambridge University Press, 2010), Ronald Collins guides us through the free speech writings of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Ron is the Harold S. Shefelman scholar at the University of Washington School of Law and a fellow at the Washington, D.C., office […]
The NY Daily News reports on rumors of a potential $750 million divorce settlement proposal in the impending divorce of Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren:
My colleague at George Washington University Law School, Professor Dawn Nunziato, has recently published a provocative book about the First Amendment and the Internet — Virtual Freedom: Net Neutrality and Free Speech in the Internet Age (Stanford University Press 2009). Her book explains that, contrary to the prevailing understanding of the Internet as a haven […]
Jessica Bennett at Newsweek brought my attention to a story about the family of the killer whale trainer (Dawn Brancheau) who was killed while training the whale at SeaWorld: Brancheau’s family announced this week that they would seek an injunction to protect the release of the death imagery, captured by SeaWorld’s surveillance cameras on Feb. […]