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Archive for May, 2006

Let Markets Help Criminal Defendants

posted by Dave Hoffman

ballandchain.jpgDan’s interesting post on plea bargaining made explicit the informational inequalities faced by criminal defendants and their lawyers. Indeed, one of the advantages public defenders have over private defense counsel is that they can more easily share information internally about the informal norms that “really” govern the system (judge sentencing practices; which cops tell what stories; which labs are sloppy; etc.) But even so, the instruments of law and order almost always will know more about the facts and the law than the defense, at least until the eve of trial and probably throughout the process.

That there are exceptions (Enron; OJ) proves the rule that informational asymmetry is a significant part of the prosecutor’s arsenal – indeed, this asymmetry justifies constitutional attempts to remedy the problem through mandatory discovery procedures. But I’m skeptical that legal rules alone are a panacea to structural problems. Why not try markets?

To be more concrete, the major decision that criminal defendants face is whether or not to plead guilty. The decision depends on a prediction about what will happen at trial. Assuming that defendants are risk averse, they will take pleas when rational actors would not, but generally will go to trial when the expected time served post-trial is less (by some margin) than the actual time proposed in the plea agreement. The problem is that (1) defendants are unsophisticated; (2) defendants’ lawyers are incented to push pleas; and (3) neither defendants nor their lawyers have as much information as prosecutors about likely verdicts.

If I were running a public defender service, I’d consider setting up an online prediction market for the conviction of my clients. Prediction markets did a fantastic job in the Enron trial. At the beginning of the trial, the odds of conviction were about 50% for each defendant; by the end, the odds were significantly higher. Now, I can understand why neither defendant would have pled facing a coin-flip’s chance at conviction. As I argued at the beginning of the trial:

I’d guess that the reason Skilling and Lay have not pled and Fastow has is demographics. Fastow is a young(ish) man, who can serve significant time and still emerge with earning power. Lay and Skilling don’t have the years left to do the time that the government (apparently) would find appropriate.

But for most criminal defendants, 50% odds would translate into a pretty hefty expected sentence that might make a plea more attractive. And, assuming that such markets would be sufficiently liquid, the predictions generated by traders ought to be both more accurate and less prone to bias than defense counsel’s odds. I imagine that the result would be a net decrease in pleas, and in the long term, as prosecutors reacted, less net jail time. That is, the current system is biased by risk aversion and agency problems – as others have observed – toward more jail. This effect may serve the forces of law and order, but it doesn’t necessarily serve the search for truth. Why not try something different?

Obvious objections: (1) the idea is “”utterly repugnant to a civilized society“; (2) thin markets are prone to manipulation; (3) incentives would increase to violate the attorney-client privilege; (4) it would look like public defenders are selling out their clients. Of these objections, I’d be most worried about #3.

Incidentally, if you are interested in thinking more about criminal law and the Enron trial, the Conglomerate is hosting what promises to be a great forum on the topic for the next two days. Check it out!

  May 31, 2006 at 11:30 pm   Posted in: Criminal Law, Economic Analysis of Law, Law Practice, Legal Ethics  Print This Post Print This Post   7 Comments

Whistleblowers and Stereotyped Cultural Norms

posted by Miriam Cherry

I’m a little slow to weigh in on this issue, but I just received the latest edition of the ABA Journal. This month, they have a story, “Culture Clash,” by John Gibeaut describing how Sarbanes-Oxley’s whistleblower provisions are causing trouble for foreign cross-listed companies. Ideoblog and Conglomerate have already provided some commentary about the article, which begins as follows:

Americans like to elevate whistleblowers to near folk-hero status, from Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers to Sherron Watkins, who exposed the Enron Corp. financial scandal that in 2002 moved Congress to pass the fraud-busting Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Indeed, Watkins shared Time magazine’s Person of the Year honors in 2002 with World Com Inc. whistleblower Cynthia Cooper and FBI agent Collen Rowley, who accused the bureau of mishandling information on suspected hijacking plotter Zacarias Moussaoui before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Say whistleblower in Germany, however, and the term most likely conjures up memories of the Gestapo, Adolf Hitler’s secret police. In France, the term evokes images of the Vichy regime’s collaboration with the Nazis and of neighbors ratting out one another.

I think that the beginning of the article relies on some flawed cultural stereotypes of both Europeans and Americans. Be that as it may, I would question the author’s proposition that American whistleblowers enjoy some sort of elevated status. About a year and a half ago, I wrote an article about (American) whistleblowers and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. In the article, I argue that whistleblowers are not being given enough protection. Not under state employment law, and not under Sarbanes-Oxley either. Studies – cited in my article – show in graphic detail that American whistleblowers end up unemployed, broke, divorced, and depressed.

  May 31, 2006 at 4:53 pm   Posted in: Civil Rights, Corporate Law, Employment Law, Securities  Print This Post Print This Post   4 Comments

Andy Warhol’s Electric Chair

posted by Miriam Cherry

My colleague Bennett Capers (Hofstra) has written a fascinating, and rather disturbing, article at the intersection of law and art. Writing about Andy Warhol’s Electric Chair paintings, he asks a series of probing questions – about who the viewer imagines in the chair, and about death as a public spectacle. In this excerpt, he talks more about presence/absence in the paintings:

ReSizedWarholElectricChair.jpgIn Warhol’s Electric Chair series, just as the condemned is both absent and present, so is the State – and this is comforting. Complicity is shared. No one is to blame. Our system of capital punishment thrives partly because of this (joint) presence and absence. The state is present in the very bureaucracy of execution, from the legislative decision to authorized capital punishment to the judicial sanctioning of death-authorized juries. At the same time, the state creates its own absence in diffusing authority among the cast of participants: legislators, prosecutors, jurors, trial and appellate judges, governors with their ability to grant clemency, the executioner himself. And this is what I mean by absence. To borrow from another commentator, the diffusion allows everyone to say, “I’m only doing my job. I’m just a cog in the wheel. I didn’t kill him.” The room is empty, even though it is full.

The article was recently published by the California Law Review.

Photo Credit: Andy Warhol, Electric Chair I (1971), Warhol Family Museum of Modern Art

  May 31, 2006 at 4:22 pm   Posted in: Articles and Books, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Culture, Law and Humanities  Print This Post Print This Post   2 Comments

European Court of Justice Strikes EU-US Agreement on PNR Data

posted by Francesca Bignami

The European Court of Justice dealt a blow yesterday to European Union and U.S. policymakers, with two important judgments on privacy and transatlantic relations. Back in 2004, the European Union and the United States signed an agreement guaranteeing the privacy of European airline passenger data when that data was transferred to the U.S. government. In European Parliament v. Council of the European Union and European Parliament v. Commission of the European Communities, the Court of Justice found that the Europeans did not have the power, under their constitutional rules, to enter into the agreement. Luckily for the airlines and the governments, the Court delayed the effect of its decision until September 30, 2006. Until then, European airlines will keep on being able to transfer their passenger data—and keep on being able to fly into American airports–without having to worry about breaking European privacy law. Afterwards, it could get complicated.

Read the rest of this post »

  May 31, 2006 at 3:35 pm   Posted in: International & Comparative Law, Privacy, Privacy (Law Enforcement), Privacy (National Security)  Print This Post Print This Post   5 Comments

Snuggly the Security Bear

posted by Daniel Solove

security-bear.jpg

For some privacy and national security humor, check out this animated cartoon, Snuggly the Security Bear.

  May 31, 2006 at 12:12 pm   Posted in: Privacy (Electronic Surveillance), Privacy (Law Enforcement), Privacy (National Security)  Print This Post Print This Post   No Comments

Six Flags Syndrome: Price Discrimination In Plea Bargaining

posted by Dan Filler

Six Flags.jpg Price discrimination occurs when any seller charges two different buyers a different price for the same product. Coupons are one obvious method of price discrimination. Airline advance purchase requirements are another. The term sounds ugly, but it’s basic marketing. One major area of price discrimination occurs between sophisticated and unsophisticated consumers. Uninformed car buyers often pay more for their autos than those who arrive with the newest pricing data from Edmunds. And while many web buyers routinely pay full price, others of us consult Coupon Cabin, Mom’s View, or XP Bargains before ordering online. We don’t do anything special for the discount; we just know enough to check for coupons.

In a blunt admission of price discrimination based on consumer sophistication, Six Flags’ VP for ticketing, Steve Brown, stated) “any guest paying full pirce at our parks is probably not doing their homework.”

Perhaps all is fair in love and sales, but what about plea bargaining? Would we feel OK if US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald announced that “anyone pleading to ten years on a marijuana charge probably didn’t do his homework”? As a public defender, I often discovered that a DA’s “best” offer wasn’t on the table initially. I had to request it. Sometimes I provided good reasons for a better deal – I cast the client in a new light, for example, or discussed an extenuating circumstance. But often I simply scrunched up my face and said “come on, you can do better than that”…and he or she would serve up a better offer. I understood the game; as a public defender, I played it every single day.

But it turns out that clients – and more importantly lawyers – are often surprisingly unsophisticated in the negotiation process and will not demand the best posible offer. I’m reminded of a friend who was handling his first serious felony. His client faced a mandatory 6 year bid for the gunpoint robbery, but the DA was offering 10 years. My friend planned to ask for seven years. After we talked, I explained that in my jurisdiction (we were in different states), a first time offender facing these charges would usually receive the mandatory minimum. I encouraged him to ask for six years. And that’s exactly what his client got. But if he’d asked for seven years – his initial plan – the client would have served an extra year.

So should prosecutors “take advantage” of unsophisticated opponents by jacking up offers?

Read the rest of this post »

  May 31, 2006 at 12:00 am   Posted in: Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Economic Analysis of Law  Print This Post Print This Post   7 Comments

Filling Ken Lay’s Chair

posted by Jason Mazzone

The Department of Economics at the University of Missouri-Columbia has an opening: the Kenneth L. Lay Chair in International Economics. The Chair was endowed in 1999 but so far there have been no takers. With Ken off to the Big House, the odds of filling the Chair have dropped even further.

Which raises an interesting question: which endowed Chairs (if any) would law professors refuse? The Martha Stewart Chair in Business Ethics? The Fred Phelps Chair in Family Law? The Roger Taney Chair in Law and History?

Would Dan Solove, for example, take the Michael Hayden Chair in Privacy Law? What if it came with a fat salary, no teaching requirements, and a guarantee to increase blogger readership ten fold?

  May 30, 2006 at 9:45 pm   Posted in: Current Events  Print This Post Print This Post   3 Comments

Terrorists Among Us

posted by Jason Mazzone

All of the 9/11 hijackers were foreigners, admitted into the United States on non-immigrant visas. Since 9/11, therefore, there has been substantially increased attention to policing the borders—on the theory that terrorists can’t strike here again if they can’t get in.

The British Government has just published its Report of the Official Account of the Bombings in London on 7th July 2005. Much of the report emphasizes how the young suicide bombers who struck the London transit system last summer were second-generation British citizens. They had lived their entire lives in Britain, in ethnically mixed neighborhoods, and attended British schools. One of the bombers had worked as a government bureaucrat and done volunteer work with disadvantaged youth. Another worked with special needs children at a local primary school. A third was an avid sportsman and worked in his father’s fish and chip shop. The men were not well off but nor were they destitute. Their Muslim communities provided them with resources and support.

“Why did they do it?” asks one major section of the government report.

There are no clear answers—nothing in the report that explains why one morning these British men blew themselves up and killed dozens of commuters and injured hundreds more.

According to the report, the men were serious about their religion—but then so are thousands of other members of the very same community. The men spoke out about politics at times but, of course, plenty of people do that.

Some evidence suggests that a local gym the young men attended attracted people with radical views. A local bookstore was rumored to stock radical writings and DVDs. The men liked to go on camping trips—leading to speculation that the trips were training programs. The report finds little significance in any of these things. The men had visited Pakistan with their families. Again, though, many Britons make the very same trip.

The report reaches some chilling conclusions. “The case demonstrates,” it says, “the real difficulty for law enforcement agencies and local communities in identifying potential terrorists.” There was “little in the backgrounds” of the London bombers to “mark them out as particularly vulnerable to radicalization.” On the whole, the men were “well integrated into British society.” While they may have experienced moments of “instability” there was nothing “extraordinary” about their life circumstances.

  May 30, 2006 at 9:12 pm   Posted in: Current Events  Print This Post Print This Post   One Comment

Sex change and inmate rights

posted by Kaimipono D. Wenger

And now, from the Department of Most-Likely-to-Make-Your-Conservative-Cousin’s-Head-Explode, comes this one. The headline pretty much says it all: “Convicted Killer Asks Judge to Force State to Pay for Sex Change.” The news story delivers on the promise of the headline, too:

A man serving a life sentence for the murder of his wife is asking a federal judge to order the state to pay for a sex-change operation for him, saying that denying him the surgery amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. . . . Kosilek sued the Department of Correction for the second time last year, saying that numerous psychiatrists who had examined him — including two of the DOC’s own experts — had determined that a sex-change operation is “medically necessary.” “We ask that gender identity disorder be treated like any other medical condition,” said Kosilek’s attorney, Frances Cohen.

What do we think of these kinds of accounts? As someone who considers himself a left-leaning moderate, I haven’t yet arrived at any consensus on this story.

Read the rest of this post »

  May 30, 2006 at 8:15 pm   Posted in: Administrative Announcements  Print This Post Print This Post   7 Comments

This Post Will Be Barely Illuminating

posted by Dave Hoffman

Thanks to a reader of my recent paper on puffery, I recently came across the work of Andrew Ward and Lyle Brenner, Accentuate the negative: The positive effects of negative acknowledgment (forthcoming 2006; presentation link here). It is a neat paper, that examines the extent to which we credit messages that contain obvious warnings of their fallibility, and like messengers who introduce themselves with self-deprecation. Obviously, the study of deflation is less developed that that of optimism – and puffery – but it is an odd finding nonetheless that we seem to want any sales message except the unvarnished truth. I wonder if how the law can best take into account this psychological part of consumption. If we feel less cheated by, say, the purchase of stock which has been exposed as partly susceptible to a downturn through strategic pessimism, should the anti-fraud regimes of the ’33 and ’34 Acts account for this feeling?

More generally, it strikes me on first glance that the negative attribution effect may help to explain otherwise strange corporate events like the success of the self-deflating google IPO. (For Vic F’s branding theory, see this post; Ribstein’s comments here.)

It also helps to explain the odd persistence of the “shameless self-promotion” tag to law article announcement posts, even when the promotion benefits friends. Bill S., at TOTM, recently lamented this phrase, and said that “I don’t feel at all ashamed of doing this nor do I feel it is unseemly. Hence, I propose we drop the custom of including a “shameless self-promotion” reference when engaging in self-promotion.” I think Bill is leaving some money on the table here. Deflation, like puffery, moves flawed products.

  May 30, 2006 at 8:15 pm   Posted in: Economic Analysis of Law  Print This Post Print This Post   One Comment

Gosh, Those Law Students Say the Darndest Things!

posted by Miriam Cherry

Grading this semester has been multiplied because of Hofstra’s large class size (118 students in my contracts section) and an extra class I was teaching at Touro Law Center. To console those of you who are also still grading, I offer the top funniest paper / exam lines during the time I’ve been teaching:

“Decisions are like snakes, they slip and slide next to morality and justice, changing with time.”

“The common law is like a baby. It grows and grows until someone comes along and stops it.”

“The most impotent doctrine in contracts is lack of consideration.”

And, finally, from a seminar paper that discussed women’s rights in law & literature:

“The feminist movement began climaxing in the mid-1800s, and continued building, with varying levels of excitement, until the 1960s.”

To quote humorist Dave Barry, “I am not making this up!” I realize that I may be encroaching on Reader’s Digest territory, but anyone else find some humorous exam lines?

  May 30, 2006 at 6:56 pm   Posted in: Law School, Law School (Teaching)  Print This Post Print This Post   5 Comments

Extended Stay

posted by Miriam Cherry

My guest stint has been extended for a couple more weeks (thanks everyone!). You’ll see more from me on employment law, contracts, information markets, some law and literature, and other sundry and assorted topics. Don’t worry, there will be plenty more bad puns too.

  May 30, 2006 at 6:54 pm   Posted in: Administrative Announcements  Print This Post Print This Post   No Comments

Starbucks, Meet Jennifer Aniston (Nude)

posted by Dan Filler

Dan S. has previously pondered the searches that land visitors to our fair blog. As he noted, Googlers in search of “Jennifer Aniston Nude” seem to arrive frequently to the cite. (What does a steamed up web traveler think, exactly when he – or she – beams on to Concurring Opinions? Where are the babes?)

It turns out that the search that sends the most Googlers to visit one of my entries is “Starbucks Secret Menu” – exactly the words in my post on the subject. The question is: why are they searching for this? Who are these conspiracy theorists, exactly, the ones who log on with the goal of learning more about what surely must exist: a secret menu at Starbucks? Are there other secrets in the menu? If you play the newest Starbucks “Joni Mitchell Chooses Her Favorite Bo Diddley Songs” CD backwards, will you hear her coo “turn me on, dead man?”

And how many of you will have to Google that last phrase just to decode my dated cultural reference?

  May 30, 2006 at 12:56 am   Posted in: Blogging  Print This Post Print This Post   5 Comments

The NSA Phone Call Database: The European Perspective

posted by Francesca Bignami

Had a European government, instead of the Bush administration, created the NSA’s call database, would that government be in violation of European privacy law? I think so, for the reasons I explore below.

Why should anyone care that the outcome would have been so different under European privacy law? One reason for the comparison with Europe is that it enables us to understand better current developments in American law. It is striking how similar American and European data privacy law was in the early 1970s, how different it is today. The first European database privacy statutes of the 1970s drew on the U.S. Privacy Act of 1974. Alan Westin’s Privacy and Freedom, published in 1967, was read widely by both American and European policymakers. There are many reasons for the divergent paths of the two systems. This latest example of difference highlights one set of reasons: the President’s new constitutional powers in fighting terrorism, post-September 11. Congress, the courts, and the public might very well accept that the NSA program is legal, based on the President’s inherent authority as commander-in-chief. In Europe, that would not be possible.

A more pragmatic reason for caring about the different result under European privacy law is that it could undermine transatlantic cooperation in the fight against terrorism. Some European laws forbid the transfer of public security and law enforcement data to countries without adequate privacy protection. This latest revelation just reinforces the European view that U.S. privacy laws are inadequate—and therefore could make European governments reluctant to turn over information on European citizens to the American government in the fight against terrorism.

Read the rest of this post »

  May 29, 2006 at 3:51 pm   Posted in: International & Comparative Law, Privacy, Privacy (Electronic Surveillance), Privacy (Law Enforcement), Privacy (National Security)  Print This Post Print This Post   20 Comments

Introducing Guest Blogger Francesca Bignami

posted by Daniel Solove

francesca-bignami.jpgJoining us for a very brief guest stint is Professor Francesca Bignami of Duke Law School. Francesca writes about international and comparative law issues, and her work focuses on rights and democracy in the European Union.

Francesca receceived has an A.B. from Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges; an M.Sc. from Oxford; and a JD from Yale, where she was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. She clerked for Judge Stephen F. Williams, U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit; and served as a stagiare for Advocate General Philippe Léger of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. She also was a Fulbright Scholar at the European University Institute.

Francesca is Chair of the Rulemaking Advisory Group of the ABA Project on EU Administrative Law and is on the academic advisory board of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Francesca will be visiting us very briefly to post about the NSA surveillance program from an international law perspective. This is a dimension of the NSA surveillance issue that I have not yet seen addressed, and I’m really looking forward to Francesca’s insights.

  May 29, 2006 at 2:44 pm   Posted in: Administrative Announcements  Print This Post Print This Post   No Comments

The Election Lottery

posted by Jason Mazzone

Voter turnout in the United States is among the lowest of all democracies. While pointy-headed professors have offered various proposals for increasing turnout at the polls–mandatory voting (as in countries like Australia), internet voting, easier registration, and a national holiday so voters don’t have to take time off work–an opthamologist in Arizona has come up with a proposal that could have have mass appeal.

Dr. Mark Osterloh is leading a ballot initiative that would make available a $1 million prize in each election in the state. The prize funds would come from unclaimed state lottery winnings. Upon casting a vote, the voter would have a chance at the loot.

My guess, having seen hordes of people line up for hours for powerball tickets, is that a chance at prize money would bring some people to the polls who would otherwise stay away–but that $1 million is probably too low to have much overall effect.

  May 29, 2006 at 10:45 am   Posted in: Current Events  Print This Post Print This Post   4 Comments

An IPOD Top-10 List, and Other Diversions

posted by Dave Hoffman

Steve Bainbridge recommends that celebrities, politicians, and ordinary mortals create iPOD top-10 lists by accessing their 25-most played category. It is a troublesome metric for me. I wish I, like Nick Horby, spent time thinking about what music I like. But I don’t, so my iPOD tells me that I like eclectic, sometimes objectively weak, songs. But in the spirit of the news hole this holiday weekend, my top-10 list follows after the jump. Oh, and I’ll throw in a few lively sites that I read in the daily surf to divert you…

Read the rest of this post »

  May 29, 2006 at 12:01 am   Posted in: Weird  Print This Post Print This Post   3 Comments

Best Of Birmingham. Food, That Is.

posted by Dan Filler

Vulcan.jpg

It’s the long weekend, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to co-opt the Co-Op and do what so many of us have always wanted to do: announce our own Best Of list. Since I’ll be leaving Alabama in the next couple of months, I thought I’d share some of my own opinions about the good life in Birmingham and beyond. Admittedly, relatively few of our regular readers will be touring the Magic City in the next few weeks. But some will. And a surpsingly number of our visitors arrive via a search engine, rather than their morning web surf routine. So for anyone willing to listen, here are my opinions about food and cheer in Bama.

Best Cafe – La Reunion. I’ve previously blogged about the virtues of Starbucks in a town like Birmingham. But I gotta tell you: charging a zillion dollars for wireless really steams me. La Reunion is funky, they inexplicably serve H&H bagels (prepared in NYC, cooked by Marcus Specialties in Birmingham, and offered, as far as I can tell, nowhere else in town), and the wireless is gratis. Also, it’s across the street from V. Richard’s, a gourmet market that offers the city’s best weekend breakfast.

Best Cafe Feature Big City Folk Didn’t Know Existed – The Starbucks Drive-Thru. Imagine this: a prof on spring break, a sleeping baby in the back seat, a Starbucks drive-thru, and the New York Times. Turn your uber-uncool Sienna van into a mobile cafe. Bukowski never had it so good.

Best Feature of Alabama Mealtime – Unlimited refills on all cold beverages. Virtually everywhere. And all restaurants – even chains – give in to the basic demand of all Alabama diners. Sweet tea. I mean SWEET tea. And yes, Virginia. You can order your tea half sweet, half unsweet. I do it all the time.

Best Sushi – Many people will recoil from the very notion of sushi in Alabama. And I did that too until I accepted that a) I was gonna be here awhile and b) its all flown in from far away anyway. Still, one of the more vexing restaurant phenomena in Birmingham is the standard attachment of sushi bar to Thai restaurant. And while Surin West, arguably the best Thai in Alabama (which is not saying that much), has decent sushi, I’ll give the nod to Sekisui. (You’ve got to visit the website just to hear the painful theme song.) Get this: Sekisui is a MEMPHIS (??!?) sushi chain that’s opened up shop in Birmingham. I wonder if Elvis might have been a tad more svelte if he’d dined on a bit of raw albacore once in a while. But no. Always peanut butter and banana.

Best Lox – Sam’s Club. Let’s face it. I could rename this entry “best reason to move to the northeast.” For those lox lovers who find themselves permanently in Birmingham, there’s always Noshville. Three hours away, that is.

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  May 28, 2006 at 8:53 pm   Posted in: Culture  Print This Post Print This Post   8 Comments

Spam. A lot.

posted by Kaimipono D. Wenger

spampic.jpg

We all know that comment spam is a problem for blogs. But just how much of a problem is it?

One data source is the spam-blocking website Akismet. Akismet checks all of the comments at its participating blogs. It uses algorithms to check for spam, and is aided by the collective spam designations of all of its participating websites. As a result, its database may give a good sense of how many comments are spam in the blogosphere in general.

What’s the percentage of blog comments that are spam, according to Akismet? Take a guess, if you’d like, and then click to go below the fold for the answer.

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  May 27, 2006 at 9:31 pm   Posted in: Blogging  Print This Post Print This Post   One Comment

Blogging Policies at Work

posted by Miriam Cherry

Speaking of the employment at will rule, (see post directly below), here’s an excerpt from the New York Times about blogging policies at work.

The vast majority of organizations don’t have policies in place,” said Jennifer Schramm, a workplace trends and forecasting manager at the Society for Human Resource Management in Washington.

The group found last year that only 8 percent of the 404 human resource professionals it polled had blogging policies, while 85 percent did not. (The other 7 percent did not know.)

Ms. Schramm said that is just as bad for the employee as for the employer. “Right now it is tough for individuals to know what is happening because so few organizations have a clear policy about employee blogging,” she said.

Of course, as long as there have been managers and underlings, there have been disgruntled workers gabbing around the water cooler or over drinks at happy hour. E-mail and instant messages are merely a quicker way to say, “You wouldn’t believe what a jerk my boss is.”

Blogging takes the grumbling to another level, but one that makes sense when considering how much of it is going on out there. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, about 11 million people have created blogs at one time or another.

A blog and a job don’t necessarily have to clash, some bloggers say.

The article goes on to describe how some have bloggers have decided to tone down their blogs, write about subjects other than work, or blogged anonymously. The article also describes how some employees simply don’t care about blogging policies – even if fired, they’ve gone on to make much more money because of the notoriety derived from blogging.

[Hat-Tip: Josh Rosenberg]

  May 26, 2006 at 11:57 am   Posted in: Uncategorized  Print This Post Print This Post   No Comments


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Authors

Daniel J. Solove
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