Posts about the First Amendment by Professor Daniel J. Solove for his blog at TeachPrivacy, a privacy awareness and security training company.
Timothy Zick recently blogged about a lawsuit by a parent of a deceased soldier against a fundamentalist religious group that protested near the funeral. The religious group has been protesting near several funerals for soldiers, and their message is particularly offensive: The group claims that the soldiers died as punishment for a society that permits […]
As there are tons of new scholarly works in the privacy law field each year, I thought it might be useful to point out a few books and articles that I found particularly interesting and useful from the past year. This post will cover only those books and articles published in 2006.
A bill in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Free Flow of Information Act, endeavors to create a federal privilege for journalists — a shield from being forced to identify anonymous sources. According to a Washington Post editorial in support of the bill:
In ACLU v. NSA, –F.3d — (6th Cir. 2007), a panel from the 6th Circuit held that the ACLU and other plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the Bush Administration’s warrantless wiretapping program conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA). NYT coverage is here. According to the sketchy details known about the program, the court noted, […]
It seems to happen way too often. Despite policies and laws that forbid law enforcement officials from mentioning the names of suspects who are not yet formally accused or even arrested, leaks invariably seem to happen. The leaks can wreak havoc in the lives of those whose names are mentioned. Many of these people wind […]
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in a recent decision — Commonwealth v. Long, — A.2d —-, 2007 WL 1574157 (Pa. 2007) — concluded that the First Amendment requires public disclosure of jurors’ names. This is an issue that the U.S. Supreme Court has not yet addressed. According to the court:
Professor Anuj Desai (U. Wisconsin Law School) has posted his forthcoming article, The Transformation of Statutes into Constitutional Law: How Early Post Office Policy Shaped Modern First Amendment Doctrine, on SSRN. Anuj’s paper is a fascinating history of the early Post Office and how statutory protection of letters influenced constitutional law. From the abstract:
Typically, when we think of the constitutional criminal procedure that regulates government information gathering, we think of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. But many government investigations involve collecting information about speech, association, religion, and the consumption of ideas. The NSA surveillance of telephone calls, for example, involves speech. National Security Letters can be used to […]
Earlier today, a federal district judge struck down the Bush Administration’s NSA surveillance program which involved intercepting international electronic communications without a warrant. The opinion is available here. I have not had time to read the opinion carefully yet, but I am especially intrigued by the court’s use of the First Amendment as one of the […]
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit recently upheld New York City’s program of random searches at subways. The case is McWade v. Kelly, No. 05 6754 CV (2d Cir. 2006). The program was initiated after the London subway bombing. Back in December, 2005, a federal district court upheld the searches, which are conducted […]