There are some great discussions over at PrawfsBlawg about teaching criminal law. Russell Covey wonders why so many professors bother to teach the Model Penal Code (MPC):
In reading the mainstream media accounts, one would get the impression that Senator Specter’s NSA surveillance bill is a compromise with the Administration, a way to limit Executive power, and that the Administration is reluctantly capitulating to judicial oversight.
Jack Balkin has some insightful analysis of the Senator Specter’s NSA Bill over at Balkinization:
Remember well over a year ago, when last February ChoicePoint announced it had a major data security breach? Since then hundreds of breaches have been announced — over 200 instances involving data on 88 million people. Several bills were proposed in Congress; many Senators and Representatives quickly emphasized the importance of privacy and data security. And after all this time, what has Congress produced? Nothing.
Orin Kerr has an interesting post with excerpts from a debate between Stephen M. Feldman and Richard Seamon about the legal academy. Fedman writes that law schools ought to become even more interdisciplinary than they already are: “Interdisciplinary scholarship, done well, can generate creative methods and original insights in previously stale areas of thought.” Seamon, in contrast, observes:
Over at the Conglomerate, Professor Eric Goldman’s paper, A Coasean Analysis of Marketing, is being workshopped in the Conglomerate’s Second Annual Junior Scholars Workshop. Professors Peter Huang and Frank Pasquale (previously a guest blogger here at Concurring Opinions) are providing commentary.
NSA warrantless wiretaps. NSA collection of phone records. CIA gathering of financial records.
The stories are endless. To help out reporters, I thought I’d just write a quick and easy template to make reporting a little bit easier. So here it is:
Apparently, warrantless wiretapping and gathering of phone call records just aren’t enough to quench the Bush Administration’s thirst for data. Now we learn that the government has gathered massive quantities of financial records. The New York Times reports:
I was watching a show on CNN about people in need of organ transplants going to China for organ donation tourism. China harvests organs from prisoners it executes, sometimes without their consent, and then offers them to “tourists” who come in need of transplants.
Today’s Washington Post contains an interesting article about identity theft. Some identity thieves enlist unwitting employees of financial institutions into supplying them with personal information:
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