Computers, Freedom, and Privacy

I just wanted to announce that the preliminary program for the 2008 Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference (in New Haven, CT) has been announced. The theme this year is "Technology Policy '08," and it includes several topical panels for the election year:

Presidential Technology Policy: Priorities for the Next Executive
States as Incubators of Change
Activism and Education Using Social Networks
Network Neutrality: Beyond the Slogans

Discounted early bird registration closes this Friday, but general registration is open until 5/23. The conference is also looking for bloggers!

Posted by Frank Pasquale at 05:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference

As a member of the Program Committee, I just wanted to post this announcement for CFP. This has been a great conference and I'm sure this year's will be a terrific event. Note that the deadline for Panel, Tutorial, and Speaker proposals is March 21, 2008.

COMPUTERS, FREEDOM, AND PRIVACY: TECHNOLOGY POLICY '08
18th Annual CFP conference
May 20-23, 2008
Omni Hotel
New Haven, CT

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

This election year will be the first to address US technology policy in the information age as part of our national debate. Candidates have put forth positions about technology policy and have recognized that it has its own set of economic, political, and social concerns. In the areas of privacy, intellectual property, cybersecurity, telecommunications, and freedom of speech, an increasing number of issues once confined to experts now penetrate public conversation. Our decisions about technology policy are being made at a time when the architectures of our information and communication technologies are still being built. Debate about these issues needs to be better-informed in order for us to make policy choices in the public interest.

Open participation is invited for proposals on panels, tutorials, speaker suggestions, and birds of a feather sessions through the CFP: Technology Policy '08 submission page. More details below.

This year, the 18th annual Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference will focus on what constitutes technology policy. CFP: Technology Policy '08 is an opportunity to help shape public debate on those issues being made into laws and regulations and those technological infrastructures being developed. The direction of our technology policy impacts the choices we make about our national defense, our civil liberties during wartime, the future of American education, our national healthcare systems, and many other realms of policy discussed more prominently on the election trail. Policies ranging from data mining and wiretapping, to file-sharing and open access, and e-voting to electronic medical records will be addressed by expert panels of technologists, policymakers, business leaders, and advocates.

Suggested topics for discussion include:

* Information Privacy
* Anonymity Online
* Government Transparency
* Voting Technology
* Online Campaigning
* Social Networks
* Citizen Journalism
* Cybercrime & Cyberterrorism
* Digital Education
* Copyright and Fair Use
* Patent Reform
* Open Access
* P2P Networks
* Information Policy and Free Trade
* Media Concentration
* Genes & Bioethics
* Electronic Medical Records
* Web Accessibility
* Open Standards
* Network Neutrality
* High-Speed Internet Access Policy
* Freedom of Information
* Technology Policy Administration

Submission Deadlines:
Panel, Tutorial, and Speaker proposals: March 21, 2008.
Birds of a Feather Session (BoFs) proposals: April 21, 2008.

Panel, Tutorial, and Speaker proposals accepted by the Program Committee will be notified by April 7, 2008.

Registration available online here.

Posted by Frank Pasquale at 11:09 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Missouri v. Holland, in Missouri

I spent the end of last week at the University if Missouri-Columbia, attending a great conference organized by Peggy McGuinness, on the (in)famous case of Missouri v. Holland. There, of course, Justice Holmes wrote for the Supreme Court, holding that Congress could enact legislation otherwise beyond its constitutional authority, in furtherance of a duly-enacted treaty obligation.

With a great line-up of panelists and a fascinating set of underlying issues to explore, we had what I thought was a fantastic day-and-a-half of discussion. In particular, and perhaps appropriately, we spent a substantial amount of time assessing the continuing significance of the decision, given the dramatic expansion of Commerce Clause authority since it was handed down in 1920. There is, of course, the "loaded-gun" notion that the very availability of the expansive authority invited by the decision constitutes a substantial threat. Likewise, one might question whether the Court’s decisions in Lopez and Morrison augur a potential revival of Missouri v. Holland as constitutional doctrine.

From my perspective, though, the most fascinating element of our discussions concerned the ways in which Missouri v. Holland might be significant, regardless of its jurisprudential force. I was struck, for example, by one participant’s recollection of an occasion on which U.S. treaty negotiators’ attempts to assert constitutionally grounded federalism constraints as a basis to resist a proposal by their foreign interlocutors were parried with invocations of Missouri v. Holland.

More broadly, I was interested to think about what continuing significance the decision has, for how we conceptualize the relationship of international, national, and state law. In the scheme of jurisdictional interaction exemplified by Missouri v. Holland, international law functions as a kind of trump card – an Ace available to the federal government to coerce state authorities. If Missouri no longer captures the political economy of U.S. federal-state relations, however, as I argue in my submission to the symposium, we might do well to reconsider that traditional conception of international law as a threat to state authority, and federalism more broadly.

Posted by Robert Ahdieh at 05:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Criminal Law Conversations

Professors Paul Robinson (Penn. Law School) and Kimberly Ferzan (Rutgers-Camden School of Law) invite criminal law scholars from around the world to contribute to a peer-engaged project of criminal law "conversations" to be published collectively as a book. Concise "core" papers not to exceed 5000 words (approximately ten single-spaced pages) presenting a theory or position will each be followed by a number of short comments (normally no more than 800 words – approximately two pages or less), with a final reply to the comments by the original core paper author.

The goal of Criminal Law Conversations (CLC) is to promote thoughtful critiques of important issues. Too often opposing advocates talk past each other. CLC's web-based virtual "conversations" are designed to help opponents join issue. The website is not a blog but rather a vehicle for nominating and organizing the project's topics and contributors.

The selection of core texts will be made by the criminal law scholarly community at large, as people express interest in the topics on which they would like to comment. All scholars are invited to submit nominations for the subject of a "core text" based on either previously published articles or new material. All are also invited to submit comments on any one or more of the nominated core texts.

The book collection will be assembled by late 2009. Oxford University Press has expressed an interest in publishing the volume. In addition, there will be a permanent CLC website that contains core texts and commentaries not included in the published volume. The permanent website also will allow the future submission of comments on the published volume’s contents, and may be used to produce subsequent collections.

The selection of core texts and responses will be coordinated by the CLC webpage.

Posted by Daniel J. Solove at 01:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Event on Online Reputation and Legal Practice

Carolyn Elefant (a blogger who blogs at Legal Blog Watch and MyShingle) has organized the following event for next Thursday, January 24th:

Practicing Law in the E-Court of Public Opinion: How the Internet Can Make or Break a Lawyer’s or Law Firm’s Reputation and What You Can Do about It

In the Internet Age, lawyers and firms are subject to unprecedented public scrutiny. Popular websites like Above the Law provides gossip and behind the scenes news from large law firms, while Avvo allows clients to post their opinions about their attorneys. You’ll hear how the web can affect lawyers’ reputations, for better or for worse, identify ways to respond to threats to reputation and use the Internet to your advantage and learn about relevant legal concepts like First Amendment, libel and privacy law that relate to your ability to protect your reputation. We’ll have a panel of nationally recognized speakers as well as law firm marketing personnel (TBD) who will offer practical tips on guarding and promoting your reputation on line.

Speakers:
David Lat, Editor in Chief, AboveTheLaw.com
Mark Britton, CEO, President, Co-founder, Avvo.com
Andrew Mirsky, Mirsky & Company Law Offices
Jonathan Frieden, Principal, Odin, Feldman & Pittleman, P.C.

Moderator: Carolyn Elefant, Law Offices of Carolyn Elefant, www.myshingle.com
Date /Time: Thursday, January 24, 2008 /12:00 pm - 2:00 pm (Please bring your lunch.)
Location: D.C. Bar Conference Center, 1250 H Street NW (Metro Center)

More information, including how to register, is available at Carolyn's blog.

Posted by Daniel J. Solove at 06:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Future of Federal Courts

In an earlier post, I offered some modest praise of the AALS annual meeting, as a potential venue for legal scholars to explore topics of interest beyond their core research areas. In between my efforts to actualize that theory at the recent annual meeting, though, I also attended several sessions of quite direct interest.

Among the latter, one of my favorites was a panel organized by the Section on Federal Courts, on The Federal Courts and the International System. Besides Ernie Young, who served as moderator, the panel included A.J. Bellia, Curt Bradley, Henry Monaghan, and Trevor Morrison, as well as Sarah Cleveland, who was invited to speak for the "international law" crowd. (As Sarah pointed out, Curt is also an international law scholar, if not the designated internationalist that day.)

Much of the discussion focused on the many intersections of international law and federal jurisdiction in recent years, including the succession of enemy combatant/military commission cases, the Supreme Court's OT 2005 decision in Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon, and its impending decision in the fascinating case of Medellin v. Texas - a complex intertwining of international and federal courts law that only a law professor could dream up, and even then, only as an exam question. Naturally, the nature of customary international law as federal or state law was discussed as well, if only for a bit.

At Ernie's prompting, though, the panelists also took up - in sometimes heated discussion - the necessary and appropriate content of the standard Federal Courts course, given the self-evident "internationalization" of the federal courts. To what extent, the panel explored, do international law, international courts, and international questions belong in the Federal Courts canon? Naturally, the Hart and Wechsler casebook - arguably the keeper of that canon - was a focal point for much of this discussion.

In essence, the question boiled down to the wisdom - and viability - of bringing international law and courts into the Federal Courts curriculum. The panel itself clearly had mixed emotions, with Henry Monaghan expressing the greatest doubts on both counts, if particularly on the viability of fitting it all in, and Curt Bradley perhaps most vocally in favor of greater inclusion.

I was particularly struck by Judith Resnik's question from the floor, though, which queried how a modern-day version of the course in Federal Courts could exclude international law and courts or, for that matter, tribal courts operating within the United States?

This seemed to resonate most with my own sense of the question. What, I wondered as I listened to the discussion, should we understand as the heart of a present-day course in federal courts? Ernie Young, in a forthcoming piece in the Emory Law Journal, which he delivered at a symposium on The New Federalism: Plural Governance in a Decentered World, an event co-sponsored by the Center on Federalism and Intersystemic Governance I co-direct at Emory, describes federal courts law as being about "managing jurisdictional conflicts and developing rules for remedies and choice of law." If so, with the growing number and influence of international tribunals, isn't the natural - perhaps inevitable - evolution of the standard Federal Courts course to bring them into the mix?

Posted by Robert Ahdieh at 06:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Call for Papers: CILS Conference on Civil Society and the Governance of Multimodal Communication

My colleague, Michael Rustad, asked me to announce a conference on The Internet: Governance and the Law, "Civil Society and the Governance of Multimodal Communication," to be held at McGill University, MONTRÉAL, Canada, October 26-29, 2008. Here is the call for paper abstracts:

The Center for International Legal Studies in cooperation with McGill University and the Suffolk School of Law invites abstracts for papers on the role of civil society in the formulation, adoption and implementation of policies, regulations and laws affecting multimodal communication by governments and international organizations. At the conclusion of the Geneva phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), civil society was called upon to play an active role in the development and implementation of national strategies affecting multimodal communication. This post-Tunis Internet governance conference invites papers broadly addressing the topic of civil society and the Internet. The name of the presenter/s and his/her/their affiliation/s as well as the thematic focus of the proposal should appear on the top right-hand corner of the abstract. Send abstracts of 500 words or less and requests for further information to:

Manuela Ines Wedam
Law Conference Coordinator
CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL LEGAL STUDIES
PO Box 19
5033 SALZBURG
Austria
Fax: +43 662 83539922 or +1 509 3560077
manuela.wedam@cils.net

Deadline for the receipt of abstracts is 14 April 2008. Each abstract must be accompanied by the author’s curriculum vitae and a biographical sketch of 300 words or less.

Advisory program committee:
James Archibald, Department of Translation Studies, McGill University
Dennis Campbell, Center for International Legal Studies
Richard Gold, Centre for Intellectual Property Policy, McGill University
Michael L. Rustad, Intellectual Property Law Program, Suffolk University School of Law

Posted by Jeff Lipshaw at 07:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

AALS: A Modest Dissent

Many thanks to Dan for the welcome, and to all the Concurring Opinion permabloggers for inviting me to visit. As a long-time reader, I'm glad to make my first - and hopefully not last - foray into the blogosphere here.

In posts preceding the recently concluded Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Annual Meeting, Brian Leiter and Orin Kerr respectively questioned the intellectual content, and suggested the underwhelming quality, of AALS conference programming - or at least that part of the "programming" that occurs in the hotel's ballrooms, as opposed to its lobby and various hallways, and at an array of nearby restaurants and bars. This critique is hardly unique to them, moreover. Rather, it seems to constitute the conventional wisdom.

Having spent almost three days last week not simply "at AALS" in the abstract, but actually at the conference site (I'm close enough to the City not to have devoted time to shopping and sightseeing), I thought I would devote my first post to offering a modest dissent from the Leiter, Kerr, et al. critique.

Of course, there is the standard defense of the AALS annual meeting as an occasion for systematic schmoozing - a species of speed dating for law professors. (On this count, I might note that this year's venue - the Hilton New York - had some real strengths. One could basically set oneself on an infinite loop up and down the escalators at either end of the second and third floor (see the 3-D tour) - where most of the schmoozing took place - for the entire weekend.) But a defense of schmoozing would be too easy: What's not to like about it? Instead, I want to suggest that AALS may have merit of the intellectual variety, notwithstanding Brian and Orin's critique.

In essence, this possibility turns on the distinct nature of the intellectual payoff that one might get from AALS, versus the specialist meetings of scholars (e.g., the American Law & Economics Association (ALEA); Law & Society) that Brian highlights as alternative, more intellectually stimultating venues for legal academics to meet. I emphatically agree that the latter offer far better occasions to engage with cutting-edge scholarship - and, in light of the critique of AALS as a schmooze-fest, with cutting-edge scholars - in one's field. I have long described ALEA as one of my favorite conferences, given a combination of its content and format, and also enjoy the annual meetings of the American Society of International Law and the American Society of Comparative Law.

Perhaps the AALS offers intellectual benefits of a different variety, however. Thinking about the Leiter, Kerr, et al. critique of the AALS annual meeting as I reviewed the weekend's schedule, I was struck by my ability to identify a substantial number of sessions I was interested to attend, and individual panelists I was interested to hear.

Reviewing my various markings and notations, further, I realized that the panels highlighted often fell well beyond my research interests in the substantive areas of corporate and securities law, contracts, and international trade, and in institutional implications of administrative law, regulation theory, and federalism. Among other sessions, I'd marked panels on judicial independence, empirical research, access to justice, disability rights, the Supreme Court's approach to religious doctrine, the future of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and the Fourteenth Amendment. (Apologies to the many other ones I also found interesting, but have left off this list...)

Perhaps, it occured to me, I was doing something different at AALS than I do at ALEA, ASIL, and other more focused scholarly gatherings. Perhaps I was feeding a different intellectual need. Perhaps, more specifically, the AALS annual meeting was an occasion to explore areas of general interest, lying beyond my areas of scholarly emphasis.

The AALS annual meeting, in this perspective, might be seen as a way to preserve some part of our generalist capacities as legal academics. Even as specialization - quite appropriately, in many respects - increasingly becomes the norm among legal academics, it might be that AALS offers us an opportunity to get a taste of other areas of research and study, be they one degree or many removed from our particular areas of research.

If so, it might help to justify the relatively more limited intellectual stimulation we get from AALS panels in our own field. As I heard it said repeatedly over the weekend - to one well-versed in the relevant subject, the content of most panels felt like a reporting of recent, yet familiar, research; like a review of old ground, etc., etc. To the relative outsider, however, the same panel may have offered a useful window of insight, into issues under discussion in the field.

To be clear, I do not mean to posit the foregoing as the intention of the AALS annual meeting organizers, or even as descriptive of the patterns of panel attendance, among the vast majority of AALS attendees. It might, however, constitute some defense of the AALS annual meeting - or at least something like the AALS annual meeting - as an intellectual venue for legal academics.

Posted by Robert Ahdieh at 11:05 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

AALS Foodie Travel Guide: New York City

AALS is going to be in New York City this year, and I can't wait. I used to live in New York City when I taught at Seton Hall Law School. For the fellow foodies among us, I thought I'd recommend a few of my favorite restaurants and food destinations:

The Modern
9 West 53rd Street (between Fifth and Sixth Avenues)
(212) 333-1220

Located next door to the Museum of Modern Art, The Modern is an amazing visual and culinary experience. It has a beautiful bar and a wonderful view of the museum's gardens. The food is creative and consistently wonderful. I typically get the tasting menu, and every course is a winner. The service is attentive without being intrusive. This place is as close to perfection as you can get.

Aquavit
65 E. 55th St. (near Madison Ave.)
(212) 593-0287

Aquavit's Scandinavian fare is spectacular. I never knew herring could be so good until I tried the amazing herring dish, in which herring comes in several varieties and preparations. It comes with a small glass of beer and an aquavit (a flavored liquor drink). All of the seafood is wonderful.

Sushi Yasuda
204 East 43rd Street (between 2nd and 3rd Avenues)
(212) 972-1001

Sushi Yasuda is my favorite sushi restaurant in NYC. For sushi, it is better than the famed Nobu (which although famous for sushi, stands out more for its tapas-style small seafood dishes). And unlike Nobu, the reservationist at Yasuda actually picks up the phone! Chef Yasuda is a sushi purist (no dragon rolls or spider rolls here), but his sushi is all remarkably fresh and creamy. He doesn't just offer tuna or salmon or eel, but has scores of different kinds of each type of fish, caught from all over the world. The best thing to do is get a seat at the sushi bar with Chef Yasuda himself, who will tell you the life story of every fish and take you on a sushi-tasting adventure like no other. Beware, though, that the sushi slides down your throat more easily than a scoop of pudding, and you'll quickly lose track about how much you've eaten, to the chagrin of your dean.

Grom
2165 Broadway (between 76th and 77th Street)
New York, NY 10024
(646) 290-7233

The best gelato I've tasted outside of Europe. Imagine if you could condense all the creaminess and yumminess of ice cream into a concentrated dose half the size, and then you can begin to imagine what this tastes like.

Zabar's + H&H Bagels
80th & Broadway

The best bagel and lox combination is a hot H&H bagel with fresh Nova from Zabar's. Don't get the prepackaged lox -- be sure to order it from the counter. And then go across the street to H&H to get your hot bagel.

Other recommendations: Babbo, Eleven Madison Park, Union Pacific, Bolo, Le Bernadin, Fresh, Craft, Nobu, Tabla, Tomoe Sushi

Posted by Daniel J. Solove at 01:05 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Reputation Economies Symposium

I'm currently at the Reputation Economies Symposium at Yale Law School. The conference has been quite good.

Professor Rebecca Tushnet (Georgetown) is liveblogging the conference, and I found her account of my panel to very nicely summarize what was said. For those who are interested in the conference but unable to be here today, you should read Rebecca's terrific account over at her 43(B)log:

Panel I: Making Your Name Online (Bawens, Ghosh, Hoffman, Masum, Noveck)

Panel II: Privacy and Reputational Protection (Acquisti, Citron, McGeveran, Solove, Zittrain)

Panel III: Reputational Quality and Information Quality (Gasser, Goel, Kirovski, Kuraishi, Prakash)

Panel IV: Ownership of Cyber-Reputation (Clippinger, Goldman, Sutor, Thompson, Tushnet)

UPDATE: Eric Goldman and Michael Zimmer also have good recaps.

Posted by Daniel J. Solove at 02:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Yale Law School Conference on Online Reputation

On December 8, 2007, Yale Law School's Information Society Project will be holding a conference about online reputation called Reputation Economies in Cyberspace. I'll be participating in the symposium and will be talking about my book, The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet. Other participants include Alessandro Acquisti, Michel Bauwens, Danielle Citron, John Clippinger, William McGeveran, Urs Gasser, Rishab A. Ghosh, Ashish Goel, Eric Goldman, Auren Hoffman, Darko Kirovski, Mari Kuraishi, Hassan Masum, Beth Noveck, Vipul Ved Prakash, Bob Sutor, Mozelle Thompson, Rebecca Tushnet, and Jonathan Zittrain.

From the symposium press release:

How do you know whom to trust when you shop online or search for information on the Internet? How do businesses, individuals, and information sources manage their online reputations?

Leading information experts, scholars, technologists, activists, social entrepreneurs, and industry representatives will consider these questions at the “Symposium on Reputation Economies in Cyberspace” taking place Saturday, December 8, at Yale Law School, 127 Wall Street, New Haven. The symposium, open to the public, is hosted by the Information Society Project (ISP) at Yale Law School.

“A new generation of web tools based on collaborative participation and information sharing is becoming mainstream,” said ISP Executive Director and Lecturer in Law Eddan Katz. “This symposium will provide an excellent opportunity to discuss publicly, for the first time, the legal implications of these tools.”

“Reputation economies in cyberspace have a broad effect on the ways in which we study, conduct business, shop, communicate, create, or even procreate,” said Shay David, Microsoft Visiting Fellow at the ISP. “By bringing together leading scholars from industry and academia, this interdisciplinary landmark event will further our understanding of reputation economies’ impact on technology and society.”

Panel discussions throughout the day will address a range of topics, including: What are the new norms for cyber-reputation? How do these depart from offline models? How is participation in a cyber-reputation system related to anonymity and privacy? How can we assure quality in online reputation systems? Who owns one’s online reputation? Can online reputation be transported from one system to another?

Among the distinguished experts participating on the panels are Michel Bauwens of The Foundation for Peer to Peer (P2P) Alternatives; Daniel J. Solove ’97, associate professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and author of The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet; Mari Kuraishi, president of the GlobalGiving Foundation; and former Federal Trade Commissioner Mozelle Thompson, a member of Facebook’s Privacy and Safety Team.

The “Symposium on Reputation Economies in Cyberspace” is sponsored by Microsoft Corporation. The cost to the public is $95 and includes lunch; Yale students and faculty may attend free of charge. To register or for more information, including the complete schedule, visit http://isp.law.yale.edu/reputation.

The Information Society Project (ISP) at Yale Law School was founded in 1997 by Professor Jack Balkin to study the implications of the Internet, telecommunications, and the new information technologies on law and society. More information about Yale ISP is available at http://isp.law.yale.edu/.

The symposium website is here.

Posted by Daniel J. Solove at 09:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

An Example of a Well-Planned and Run Single Topic Conference

Eric Goldman and Santa Clara University School of Law just conducted Trademark Dilution: Theoretical and Empirical Inquiries. Rebecca Tushnet has posted summaries of the proceedings at her blog and one can see the substance of the talks there. What impressed me was that the conference brought in a range of views and had little redundancy despite the single topic approach. Indeed, with academics (from law and other disciplines) and practitioners offering views and counterviews the picture of the impact of new legislation, the history of the doctrine, the theoretical foundations of the doctrine, and the way that business views the area of the law was rather full. In addition, the panel topic selection and the strict adherence to time (enough to present but still have questions) allowed for a good exploration of ideas. None of this post suggests that other conferences with simultaneous panels are bad. Rather, the well-executed, single topic conference offers the possibility of reflection on a topic for a whole day. The danger in either format is dead panels. In a single topic format that danger seems higher. Still, Prof. Goldman and the staff of Santa Clara's High Tech Law Institute did a great job avoiding that possibility and put on an informative, great conference.

Cross-posted at Madisonian.

Posted by Deven Desai at 11:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

New Summer Program

This is an exceptional new summer law study program open to both law students and interested law professors. Summer Study in Italy, will take place from June 6- July 21 2008. Three weeks in Rome follow by three weeks in Florence. Students will be lectured by Professor Chadsworth Osborne, Jr., and Hugo Valencia, and several esteemed representatives of the Italian legal system -- such that it is. Six hours of credit available from a choice of 4 courses. Groups outings will be arranged to important and historic sites. All inclusive tuition is $3000. This includes housing but not airfare and meals. However, the airfare should be highly discounted as you do not actually have to travel to Italy to participate. Video transmissions will include classes, meals, and all outings so you will be able to absorb the beauties of Italy while at home. Why eat at Italian McDonalds when the program permits you to stay at home and eat at your local McDonalds or any other restaurant of your choice. The program fillled quickly last year and was a huge success. Applications are found at Privilegelaw. See you in Roma!!

Posted by Jeffrey Harrison at 10:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The ACLU's "Declaration of First Amendment Rights and Grievances"

Last week, at a symposium held at American University, the ACLU unveiled a new report, entitled "Reclaiming Our Rights: Declaration of First Amendment Rights and Grievances." I'm proud to be able to note that one of my First Amendment students, Wash. U. 3L Sophie Alcorn, was one of the two principal authors of the report. The report lists a series of First Amendment grievances against the current government, and argue that we need to pay particular attention to First Amendment liberties, especially those related to the processes of self-government. The specific grievances, taken from the declaration, are as follows:

To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world that the United States government:

• Ignores its representative mandate by governing in the shadows.
• Maintains a surveillance society through warrantless wiretapping, opening mail, and spying.
• Secretly uses private parties to spy and seeks immunity to cover their illegalities.
• Silences dissent.
• Prevents citizens from petitioning their elected offi cials.
• Profiles individuals and denies freedom of movement based on association.
• Falsifies information to deny liberty.
• Overclassifies, reclassifi es, and impedes the lawful declassifi cation of documents.
• Prevents soldiers from communicating with their families and prosecutes their lawful speech.
• Silences whistle blowers.
• Censors the press, broadcast media, and Internet based on content.
• Prosecutes the press for revealing illegal programs.
• Obstructs oversight by elected officials.
• To preserve secrecy, places secret holds on bipartisan open government legislation.
• Funds religious programs.
• Furthers its ideological agenda by censoring the scientific community.

These are serious and wide-ranging allegations, and I have not studied all of them in detail. Moreover, the report is intended as a political advocacy document rather than a work of scholarship. But as I have argued elsewhere, I think the second and third allegations, that current law permits the government to "[m]aintain a surveillance society through warrantless wiretapping, opening mail, and spying" and "[s]ecretly use private parties to spy" are correct. Surveillance of our intellectual activities, either directly by the government or with the assistance of private sector intermediaries like ISPs and search engine companies is deeply corrosive to the intellectual liberty upon which a free and self-governing society must rest.

More generally, this is a very important document that is worth reading even if one disagrees with its allegations or conclusions. (If you do agree with the allegations, it might make for very depressing reading). In a time when the mantra of security is raised as a justification for surveillance and other inroads into intellectual and political liberties, it's essential that we talk about what those liberties are, why they are important, and to what extent (if at all) the needs of security justify their abridgement or restriction.

Posted by Neil Richards at 12:01 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

The Best Times of the Day to Fly

When is the best time of day to fly if you want the best chance for an on-time flight?

The answer is in today's Washington Post, which has an interesting set of charts in the metro section about airline on-time percentages by time of day. I looked for the article online and couldn't find it, so I'll just discuss it briefly here since the data is very interesting.

At the three DC-area airports (National, Dulles, and BWI), the trend is basically the same. Flights departing before noon have considerably higher on-time departure percentages (typically 85% or so) than flights departing in the afternoon and evening. After 4 PM, the on-time departure percentages get really dicey (between 40-50%). With only a few exceptions, the trend is a steady drop in on-time percentage throughout the day. One notable exception involves flights departing after 11 PM, where the on-time departure percentage suddenly shoots back up. Oddly, however, flights departing in the evening earlier than 11 PM have very low on-time percentages (39% from 10:00-10:59 PM at National, less than 50% at the same time at Dulles).

As for arrivals, the trend is basically the same, with arrivals in the AM being far more on-time (70-80%) than in the afternoon and evening (often 50% or below). Arrivals very early in the morning (before 7 AM), however, have lower on-time percentages, but flights arriving between 7 AM and noon are typically 80% on-time or higher.

I would assume that these trends are not unique to the DC area, but that's just my uninformed guess. I find the data interesting because it suggests that you're much better off flying in the morning.

There are more interesting stats in the article, but they mainly pertain to specific flights to-from DC that one should avoid. For example, avoid the US Airways 7PM flight from National to LaGuardia. It is late 88% of the time with an average delay of 65 minutes. Yikes! All of the chronically delayed flights are in the afternoon and evening, and most are flights by Comair and US Airways.

Posted by Daniel J. Solove at 11:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

An Angel (Investor) in Devil's Clothing

Today, the Conglomerate's Junior Scholars Workshop is discussing Darian Ibrahim's The (Not So) Puzzling Behavior of Angel Investors. I've offered some comments to the paper here; Larry Ribstein's comments are here; Barbara Black's here; and George Dent's here.

The gist of my comment notes that Darian does a terrific job of showing that so-called angel investors' seemingly philanthropic behavior can be explained using traditional wealth-maximizing incentive theory. For example, angels may not seek to control start-ups with formal contract mechanisms because to do so would reduce those start-ups' abilities to find later VC investments and thus repay the angel investment. If this is a good model of angel behavior, the question I had was whether the law (or society more generally) ought to treat angels differently from other investors. I look forward to Darian's response to this comment, and the other really thoughtful critiques. If you at all interested in the law of entrepreneurs, this is a can't miss paper and workshop. Indeed, it has already inspired a really thoughtful comment by Jeff Lipshaw. Come on by!

Posted by Dave Hoffman at 10:57 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Two Interesting AALS Paper Calls

First, my apologies for the two-week hiatus, something bad enough for a regular blogger, but perhaps inexcusable from a guest (as Stephanie would say on Full House, "how rude!"). As I noted over at Prawfs, I blame a combination of packing, grading, and moving (three of my least favorite activities), but, c'est la vie.

Anyway, while I was away, two of the AALS sections to which I belong -- the Section on National Security Law and the Section on New Law Professors -- issued interesting paper calls for the 2008 AALS Annual Meeting. By way of disclosure, I'm on the reviewing committee for the New Law Professors. The National Security Law section call is available here; the New Law Professors' call is reprinted beneath the fold. Of course, I'm happy to answer questions about the topics.

It separately begs the question, though, of the role of paper calls in the annual meting... to me, it's a great way to add fresh (or at least unpredictable) insights to an issue where the temptation may be to go with the "experts," but I wonder if others have a different view.

More below the fold...

AALS Section on New Law Professors:
The Section on New Law Professors is sponsoring a Call for Papers. The authors of the selected papers will present their work as part of the section program at the Annual Meeting. The topic is “New Law Faculty as Catalysts for Change,” which is intended to add the perspectives of new law professors to the overall theme of this year’s conference, “Reassessing Our Roles in Light of Change.” We invite all “new” law professors (as defined below) to submit a paper on a topic with a connection to our theme. A Review Committee comprised of Section Officers and Executive Board members will select up to five of the submitted papers for inclusion on the program.

Deadline: To be considered in the competition, please send an electronic version to Professor Jennifer Kreder at krederj1@nku.edu no later than August 17, 2007. Please also send one hard copy of the manuscript postmarked no later than August 17, 2007 to: Professor Jennifer Kreder, NKU, Chase College of Law, Nunn Hall, Highland Heights, KY 41099.

Anonymity: The manuscript should be accompanied by a cover letter with the author’s name and contact information. The manuscript itself, including title page and footnotes, must not contain any references that identify the author or the author’s school.

Form and Length: The manuscript must be typed, double-spaced, on 8 1/2” by 11” paper in 12-point (or larger) type with ample (at least 1”) margins on all sides. Footnotes should be 10-point or larger. There is a 75-page limit.

Eligibility: Faculty members of AALS member and fee-paid schools who have been full-time law teachers for five years or fewer as of July 1, 2007 are eligible. (For these purposes, one is considered a full-time faculty member while officially “on-leave” from the law school.) Papers are not eligible for consideration if they will have been published before the annual meeting (papers accepted for publication prior to the meeting are eligible).

Statement of Compliance: Please include in the cover letter a statement verifying: 1) the author holds a faculty appointment at a member or fee-paid school; 2) the author has been engaged in full-time teaching for five years or fewer as of July 1, 2007; 3) all information identifying the author or author’s school has been removed from the manuscript; and 4) the paper has not been previously published and is not committed for publication prior to January 2008. The author must also agree to notify the section if and as soon as s/he learns that the submitted paper will be published before the date of the meeting.

Posted by Steve Vladeck at 12:01 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Scholar-ly Symposium

An announcement for our readers, from the University of Pennsylvania Law Review:

The University of Pennsylvania Law Review is pleased to announce its second annual Symposium Scholar Essay Competition. We are seeking essay submissions advancing a legal argument related to the 2007 symposium topic on “The Class Action Fairness Act of 2005.” The winning author will be published in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review’s Symposium Issue in Spring 2008, and the author will be invited to Philadelphia in late November 2007 to present the paper at the symposium.

The competition is limited to junior scholars -- law students and those who have graduated within the past five years. For more information, see this announcement file, or the Pennumbra website.

Posted by Kaimipono D. Wenger at 11:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Whither the Humanities?

Having just returned from the ASLCH conference this past weekend, the role of humanities in the world of the law has been greatly on my mind.

It was a great conference--I presented on a double panel entitled "Reconfiguring the Language of Rights," with Rose Cuison Villazor, Olati Johnson, Serena Mayeri, Melissa Murray, Frank Ravitch, Patricia Seith and Aric Short--and it was fascinating to be immersed in the world of the humanities again, something I have not much focused on since graduate school.

But the conference did make me wonder: will the role of humanities in the law ever be more than its current "Law and __" ghetto? In other words, will Law and Humanities ever be mainstreamed like Law and Economics? Should it be? I ponder this below....

For a while, of course, it did seem like Law & Humanities would go from margin to mainstream, particularly in the late eighties and early nineties. Everyone seemed to be publishing a book--Fish, Fiss, Delgado, Weisberg, etc--even Posner. And let's not forget the Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities. It was a heady time.

But fifteen to twenty years later, the whole Law & Humanities movement hasn't taken over the law in the way that it seemed it might. Certainly the disciplines of sociology and psychiatry have had their influences on legal scholarship, and there definitely are academics who focus on law & hum. But it's never had the sweeping domination that law & econ had on the academy, or that empiricism seems to be having now.

Why is that? I think that the humanities has much to offer the study of law, and not just in the token "Law and Literature" or "Law and Race" course. So many legal scholars, however, have disdain for the whole endeavor. Is it the jargon? The lingering effects of deconstruction? The resistance of what is still considered a "professional" education?

Naturally, I have a few pet theories, but I'd love to hear from others....

Posted by Laura Appleman at 11:19 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

If the Law is a[n] ass, what is the state?

The famous frontispiece to Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan depicts the head and torso of a long-haired, mustachioed man. Upon close scrutiny, it becomes evident that the man’s torso and arms are composed of tiny individual persons, crowded closely together and each looking toward the head of the composite Leviathan. The image suits Hobbes’s argument well. Hobbes argues that a sovereign should be understood as an artificial person, created by a social contract to represent each individual member of a political community. Of course, Hobbes also argues that the best sovereign is also a natural person: a single human individual who rules as an absolute monarch. But whether political sovereignty rests in a single monarch, in democratic institutions, or in some other form of government, Hobbes urges us to think of the state as a person. The metaphor is simple, accessible, intuitively appealing—and it may be inescapable. Long past the age of absolute monarchs, we still speak of states as entities that intend, and act, and are vulnerable in ways similar to the ways in which individual persons intend, and act, and are vulnerable. This conception of the state shapes American law in significant ways. For example, many questions of constitutional law turn on whether the state acted or what the state intended, and many scholars have noted incoherence in the jurisprudence of state action and state intention.

Maybe we just don’t have convincing ways of thinking and talking about states other than the language of personhood. I’m looking for alternatives, so please let me know if you have suggestions.

In a work in progress called Political Anthropomorphism, I try to escape the metaphor of the state as a person—or at least stand far enough from it to evaluate it critically. I’ll present this paper tomorrow at the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities, held this year at Georgetown Law Center in Washington, DC. I haven’t attended ASLCH before, but the program certainly looks enticing. Those interested in legal metaphors—the law is an ass or others—may want to attend Metaphors of Power / The Power of Metaphor, where I’ll discuss Political Anthropomorphism and my esteemed co-panelists will discuss the use of metaphors in the legal discourses of marriage, tort liability, and Native American rights to sacred sites or remains. Should be fun.

Posted by Alice Ristroph at 01:54 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Appleman on Blakely, Hidden Sentencing, and Retributive Justice

Last Friday, as part of the Works in Progress colloquia series at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, Laura Appleman of Williamette Law School (a current guest-blogger here) presented her forthcoming paper on Blakely, hidden sentencing, and retributive justice. Laura's presentation was as follows:

She began with the problem of hidden sentencing. The term covers different ways that punishment can be given outside the traditional judge and jury setting. Hidden sentencing includes restrictions imposed by parole, probation, or supervised release, and hidden sentencing decisions are typically made by administrators, not judges or juries.

From there, she turned to the recent changes in sentencing law in the past decade. Starting with Apprendi and Ring, and moving to Blakely and Booker, she noted that the Supreme Court has relied on a reinvigorated Sixth Amendment and has demanded that juries make factual findings that support sentencing increases.

From there, she turned to a discussion of what she calls "Blakely's animating principle" -- that any steps to increase the length or severity of a sentence must be decided by some aspect of the community. She situated this idea inside her own view of a new approach to retributive justice. She suggested that community involvement in retributive justice decisionmaking serves to legitimate and reinscribe community judgment.

Finally, she set out her vision of retributive justice. She suggested that the purpose of retribution is to balance burdens between the offender and the community. Retributive justice prevents the offender from elevating himself to a status higher than the community. Requiring community involvement in hidden sentencing helps the community right itself and shows that people's actions matter in the community.

Laura's talk was interesting and informative. I liked the focus on hidden sentencing, an area that is not often discussed. I think she's right that Blakely's animating principle suggests that hidden sentencing must be done with community involvement. And, of course, I'm already on the record as being in favor of a broader community role for the jury.

Posted by Kaimipono D. Wenger at 12:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Two Criminal Law Conferences

For those of you interested in either white-collar crime or prisoner re-entry, March is your lucky month! First, on Thursday, March 15 (i.e., THIS Thursday), Georgetown Law School, in conjunction with the American Criminal Law Review, will be hosting a symposium on "Corporate Criminality: Legal, Ethical, and Managerial Implications." Former Att'y General Dick Thornburgh will be giving the plenary address, Ed Meese opens and closes the conference, and Conglomerate superstar Christine Hurt will be discussing Regulation of Criminalization--so white collar crime wonks, this is the place to be.

A few weeks later, from March 30th- April 1st, Harvard Law School's Criminal Justice Institute will be hosting a conference on prisoner re-entry entitled, "Rethinking Re-Entry: Confronting Perpetual Punishment." The conference focus is on pursuing remedies that "reduce disparities and promote reintegration into communities for those who are involved in the criminal justice system." This is a "must-attend" for anyone who is interested in sentencing....

Posted by Laura Appleman at 09:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Virtual Women

Yesterday, the Virtual Women conference was held at Thomas Jefferson School of Law. It was the seventh annual Women and the Law conference for TJSL, and it was a good one. The keynote speaker was Rochelle Dreyfuss (NYU); panelists included Ann Bartow (South Carolina), the proprieter of Feminist Law Profs blog, Boatema Boateng (U.C.S.D.), Dan Burk (Minnesota), Carys Craig (Osgoode Hall at York University, Toronto), former Co-Op guest Christine Haight Farley (American), Michele Goodwin (DePaul), K.J. Greene (Thomas Jefferson), Eileen Kane (Penn State), Mary LaFrance (UNLV), Doris Estelle Long (John Marshall), Malla Pollack (American Justice), Cheryl Preston (BYU), and Rebecca Tushnet (Georgetown), as well as a panel of practicing attorneys. Kudos to conference organizers Julie Cromer and Sandy Rierson for putting together a great group.

With that line-up, it's no surprise that the conference is already being blogged. On her blog, Rebecca Tushnet has posted summaries and reactions for the first two panels. If you haven't already done so, you should take a look at Rebecca's posts on the conference: Panel 1, Panel 2 (part 1), Panel 2 (part 2), Panel 3, and the Keynote.

Posted by Kaimipono D. Wenger at 04:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Upcoming UCLA Con Law Conference, & My Paper on Prisoner/Student/Employee 1st Amdmt Claims

A few days ago I finished drafting my paper for this Friday's UCLA Law Review Symposium, Constitutional "Niches": The Role of Institutional Context in Constitutional Law". You can download my paper here; it's very much a draft, and I'll be busily working on the final version over the next two or three weeks, so I'd love any feedback!

For anyone interested in the topic and in/near L.A., the conference looks like a really tightly-packed day of Con Law bigwigs: Fred Schauer (whose work I really admire, though my paper notes an exception to one of his theses); Cynthia Estlund (the conference's resident employment law bigwig); John Yoo, formerly of the Bush Admninistration (will he offer more "tortured" interpretations of executive power and detainees' rights against torture?); Dawn Johnsen, formerly of the Clinton Administration (most likely to have her torture authorized by John Yoo?); and many others, but this list already is getting too long. Don't ask how I got into this crowd -- I'm just happy to be there; Paul Secunda and I feel like we'll be the kids at the grown-ups' table!

I haven't written a real abstract yet, but here's an informal one:

The paper notes Fred Schauer's criticism that First Amendment law gives too little consideration to how speech rights should vary in different institutions (e.g., government institutions sponsoring arts or election speech; obscenity/pornography being judged similarly whether in print, on the internet, over the phone lines) -- but the paper notes one area in which institutional context appears to be given too much consideration. Specifically, would-be speakers located within certain government institutions -- students in public schools, employees in government workplaces, and prisoners -- have far lesser speech protection; rather than apply heightened scrutiny to speech restrictions, courts substantially defer to those institutions' speech restrictions and actually apply different legal "tests" in each of the three contexts. Courts rarely explain why different tests apply in these areas, so the article, partly based on economic analysis, (1) tries to discern, as a descriptive matter, the reasons courts apply less speech-protective tests in these contexts and (2) criticizes those reasons as exaggerations of the uniqueness of the three institutions (schools, prisons, and workplaces), or at least finding that those reasons vary in persuasiveness among the three institutions. Ultimately, the article concludes that courts should apply not institution-specific legal tests, but standard heightened scrutiny, to speech rights claims in these institutions, just as it does under the Equal Protection Clause.

Posted by Scott Moss at 02:22 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Workshop Opportunities

The "Blogging and the New Professor" session was interesting and informative. I'll post some more detailed discussion when I'm not on a rent-a-terminal at the Wardman; for this post, I'd like to break out one point.

Larry Solum emphasized the importance of workshopping one's work. He noted that, if a professor can workshop her article at several schools, she may double or triple her article's real readership. And as we know, many schools offer ongoing workshop opportunities, often under titles like "workshop series," "colloquia series," "brown bag," or "works in progress series." Professor Solum emphasized the importance of workshopping one's work at those kinds of venues.

An audience member then asked the natural follow up question: Where does one find information about workshop opportunities, organizers and chairs?

Of course, some information about workshop series crops up online. Information is available on SSRN about some workshops. Announcements appear on individual blogs, and I know that workshop series are sometimes announced on Legal Theory blog. (Is there another clearinghouse that I'm unaware of?) The fact remains that many workshop opportunities are not widespread public knowledge. This post is one step towards reducing that information gap (and will follow in the tradition of the "Hiring chairs, please identify yourselves" line of posts).

So: If you are a chair or organizer of a workshop series or program at your school, please weigh in in the comments. Your name, your school, your contact information, any workshop goals or requirements your workshop series has ("we're looking for papers on mass torts" or the like). If you are not a workshop chair but your school has such a program and there is another chairperson you can point to, feel free to do that as well.

I'll start the festivities by noting that I am co-chair (along with current Co-Op guest blogger Deven Desai) of Thomas Jefferson's scholarship committee, and that we operate one such works-in-progress workshopping series. (Further details to follow in a blog comment.) Workshop chairs everywhere, identify yourselves! You have nothing to lose but your relative obscurity.

Hopefully, we can get feedback from enough workshop organizers to end up with a working (incomplete, but still quite helpful) list of workshop opportunities. I'll put that information into chart form in post updates, and keep it as updated as possible with occasional reminders.

Posted by Kaimipono D. Wenger at 10:46 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Good news and bad news

With regards to the scheduling of the AALS session on blogging and scholarship tomorrow today, I see both good news and bad news.

The good news is that it doesn't conflict with either Dan's privacy panel or Gordon and Scott's Wal-Mart panel. Whew! (It does, alas, clash with the "12 Angry Men" panel, meaning that 8:30 is the hour of "Solum or Solan -- pick your favorite Lawrence.")

The bad news is that the session starts at 8:30 . . .

. . . in the morning. Yikes!

Who forgot to tell the organizers that we bloggers need our sleep? (Markel? Didn't we task that one to you?) Does no one realize that bloggers like to party 'til the wee hours of the morning? Or that any attempt to extract information from a blogger in the early morning is likely to result in gibberish or worse? I'm not making this up -- note that one recent attempt to get information from a blogger in the early morning resulted in a cherry-picked list of bad puns. Alas, I suppose I have no choice but to bite the bullet and attend the panel -- and then to blog mercilessly about any evidence of panelists in pajamas, snores among the audience (I realize, these are not limited to the 8:30 sessions), or bad puns.

Oh, and Miriam, you should definitely remember to attend the privacy panel later on. You will So-Love what those speakers have to say.

Posted by Kaimipono D. Wenger at 01:02 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Ideas on Sharing Ideas

Last weekend, Seton Hall Law School hosted its first annual Employment and Labor Law Scholars’ Forum. My sense (hopefully not over-influenced by optimism bias, one of the many topics discussed) is that the participants foun