I recently posted about a law school course about wine, only to discover that it’s not all that unusual. That got me thinking fondly of my days in law school, where there were many unusual courses – probably due to the fact I went to Yale. I located my old course bulletins, and here are 10 of my favorite unusual courses from those bulletins.
In 1994, Congress passed a law called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), which requires telecommunication providers to build wiretapping and surveillance capabilities for law enforcement officials into their new technologies.
According to this article, the drab and dismal world portrayed in George Orwell’s 1984 was in part influenced by his bouts with illness:
Although the Supreme Court feels some pressure for consistency via precedent, it doesn’t seem to strive at all for consistency in interpretive approach. Thus, the Court’s opinions are all over the map when it comes to the method of constitutional interpretation. Sometimes the Court reads the Constitution broadly and dynamically; sometimes it interprets the Constitution narrowly; sometimes it becomes a textualist; sometimes it becomes obsessed with original intent. And all this can happen in the same year!
In his first post to the relatively new Chicago Law Faculty Blog(which has turned out to be a really interesting blog by the way), Professor Richard Epstein argues against my recent post about genetic testing in the workplace. Epstein disagrees with my general view that it is better to restrict employers from using genetic information in making employment decisions.
The AALS law teaching interview season will be commencing soon, and since a number of our readers will be interviewing for law teaching jobs, here are a few quick words of advice.
This week, IBM announced that it would not use genetic information in making any employment decision:
On October 10, IBM Chairman Sam Palmisano signed a revision of the company’s equal opportunity policy specifying that IBM would not “use genetic information in its employment decisions.” In doing so, Big Blue became the first major corporation to proactively take this position. “Business activities such as hiring, promotion and compensation of employees will be conducted without regard to a person’s genetics,” wrote Palmisano in a letter to employees announcing the change.
The Senate recently voted to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act. But nestled in the Act was an amendment by Senator Jon Kyl (R-Arizona) to add arrestee information to the national DNA database. The national DNA database, which is run by the FBI, is called the Combined DNA Index System (“CODIS”), and it includes DNA from over two million convicted criminals. This DNA is used to identify matches with DNA found at crime scenes.
Bird flu has now captured the attention of the news. While I’m generally not one to become overly concerned with Armageddon scenarios, a flu pandemic strikes me as a particularly realistic and frightening possibility. Pandemics occur periodically, and the experts all seem to be extremely concerned.
A glimpse into the not-too-distant future . . .
You’re driving along the highway. There is only light traffic on the road, and there’s not a cop in sight. You decide to give in to that dastardly rebel within and go 10 miles over the speed limit. You get to your destination without incident, a few minutes early. The sun is shining in the sky; there’s not a cloud in sight. It’s a happy day. Life is good.
But then a few weeks later, you discover that the day wasn’t as cheery as you had thought. That’s because you were caught for speeding that day. Your ticket arrives in the mail. But there were no police officers along the route, no speed traps, no surveillance cameras. How did you get caught?
You were ratted out, betrayed by a traitor in your car. No, not a secret agent, not a rat, not a mole. Instead, it was something you trusted the most, an inseparable companion . . . it was your cell phone.
According to the AP [link no longer avilable]: