A reader of my post about the N.Y. Times critique of legal education writes, in regard to the value of legal scholarship:
The Usefulness of Legal Scholarship
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The Relationship Between Theory and Practice
The longstanding attacks on legal scholarship all seem to assume a particular relationship between theory and practice, one that I believe is flawed. Recently, I responded to one such critique. There are others, with Justice Roberts and many other judges and practitioners claiming that legal scholarship isn’t worth their attention and isn’t useful to the practice of law.
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J.K Rowling, Defamation and Privacy Law, and the Chilling of the Media
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 weaker protection of free speech and much stronger defamation law. Although the UK has not embraced all of the privacy torts recognized in the United States, it has come close, recognizing a robust tort of breach of confidence. Despite the lack of a First Amendment equivalent, and the stronger legal liability for gossip and libel, the press in the UK seems anything but chilled or cowed. Consider J.K. Rowling’s recent testimony:
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On the New York Times and Legal Education
Much has already been written about David Segal’s article in the N.Y. Times, What They Don’t Teach Law Students: Lawyering. I join the strong critiques of this piece in condemning it as a lousy piece of journalism — more of a one-sided hack job, riddled with errors. It belongs on the op-ed page of a trashy paper.
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United States v. Jones and GPS Surveillance
The Supreme Court has long held that there is no expectation of privacy in public for the purposes of the Fourth Amendment. Because the Fourth Amendment turns on the existence of a reasonable expectation of privacy, the Court’s logic means that the Fourth Amendment provides no protection to surveillance in public. In United States v. Jones, the Court will confront just how far this logic can extend. FBI agents installed a GPS tracking device on Jones’ car and monitored where he drove for a month without a warrant. Jones challenged the warrantless GPS surveillance as a violation of the Fourth Amendment. The D.C. Circuit agreed with Jones. United States v. Jones, 615 F.3d 544 (D.C. Cir. 2010). Other federal circuit courts have reached conflicting conclusions on GPS, and now the Supreme Court will resolve the conflict.
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An Interview with Lior Strahilevitz about Information and Exclusion
Lior Strahilevitz, Deputy Dean and Sidley Austin Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School recently published a brilliant new book, Information and Exclusion (Yale University Press 2011). Like all of Lior’s work, the book is creative, thought-provoking, and compelling. There are books that make strong and convincing arguments, and these are good, but then there are the rare books that not only do this, but make you think in a different way. That’s what Lior achieves in his book, and that’s quite an achievement.
I recently had the opportunity to chat with Lior about the book.
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GPS Surveillance and the Fourth Amendment: Thoughts on United States v. Jones
In United States v. Jones, FBI agents installed a GPS tracking device on Jones’ car and monitored where he drove for a month without a warrant. Jones challenged the warrantless GPS surveillance as a violation of the Fourth Amendment. The D.C. Circuit agreed with Jones.
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Fourth Amendment Pragmatism Article Now Available
I just posted my new forthcoming essay on SSRN called Fourth Amendment Pragmatism, 51 Boston College Law Review __ (forthcoming 2010). Here’s the abstract:
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Rethinking the Concept of “Personally Identifiable Information” (PII)
Professor Paul Schwartz (Berkeley Law School) and I have just posted our new article to SSRN: The PII Problem: Privacy and a New Concept of Personally Identifiable Information, 86 N.Y.U. L. Rev. — (forthcoming Nov. 2011). Here’s the abstract:
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New Details in the Tyler Clementi Cyberbullying Case
There are some new details emerging in the Tyler Clementi cyberbullying case at Rutgers. The case involves freshmen at Rutgers University. Dharun Ravi used a webcam to film and broadcast online an intimate encounter between his roommate Tyler Clementi and another man.
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