Last week, while driving in Ketchum, Idaho, I was pulled over for speeding (driving 36 mph in a 25-mph zone.) The traffic stop proceeded along expected lines: the police car switched on its flashing red and blue lights as it sidled up behind me, I pulled over to the side of the road, the policemanContinue reading “Getting Pulled Over; A Teachable Moment”
Category Archives: Law and Legal Theory
A Constitution Should Help A Country Govern, Not Hobble It
My short essay ‘A Constitution Should Help A Country Govern, Not Hobble It‘ is up at Aeon Magazine. Comments welcome. (Many thanks to Sam Haselby, my editor at Aeon, for all his help.)
Talking About ‘Intellectual Property’ On ‘Counterpoint with Amanda Vanstone’
A week or so ago, I recorded an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation‘s Amanda Vanstone for her program Counterpoint (on the ABC’s Radio National.) Amanda and I discussed my recent essay in Aeon Magazine on why the general term ‘intellectual property’ should be discarded, and the why the very notion of ‘intellectual property’ beingContinue reading “Talking About ‘Intellectual Property’ On ‘Counterpoint with Amanda Vanstone’”
On Seeking Deliverance By Special Investigation
The Republic turns its lonely eyes to its hero, Bob Mueller, again. Thanks to the latest developments in the Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen cases, a new rash of analytical thinkpieces is upon us, all informing us in breathless tones about how the Mueller investigation is now moving into high gear, of how much legalContinue reading “On Seeking Deliverance By Special Investigation”
Copyright Reformers Do Not Advocate Plagiarism
If you are one of those folks who responds to any debate in the domain of copyright reform with one of the following responses (or some variant thereof), please cease and desist. You are revealing yourself to be a functional illiterate. Oh, so according to you, anyone should be able to take something written byContinue reading “Copyright Reformers Do Not Advocate Plagiarism”
Neal Katyal And George Conway’s Incomplete Legal Advice
In an Op-Ed for the New York Times, Neal Katyal, the “acting solicitor general under President Barack Obama and…a lawyer at Hogan Lovells,” and George Conway III, “a litigator at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz,” argue that Donald Trump’s appointment of Matthew Whitaker as the the Acting Attorney General is unconstitutional. Roughly, according to the AppointmentsContinue reading “Neal Katyal And George Conway’s Incomplete Legal Advice”
Leaving Facebook: You Can Run, But You Can’t Hide
I first quit Facebook in 2010, in response to a talk Eben Moglen gave at NYU about Facebook’s privacy-destroying ways; one of his most memorable lines was: The East German Stasi used to have to deploy a fleet of undercover agents and wiretaps to find out what people did, who they met, what they ate,Continue reading “Leaving Facebook: You Can Run, But You Can’t Hide”
Studying Ancient Law In Philosophy Of Law
This semester in my philosophy of law class, I’ve begun the semester with a pair of class sessions devoted to ancient law: Mesopotamian, Biblical, and Roman. (My class is reading excerpts from a standard law school textbook: Jurisprudence Cases and Materials: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law and Its Applications by Stephen E. Gottlieb, Brian H. Bix,Continue reading “Studying Ancient Law In Philosophy Of Law”
Thinking Of Autonomous Weapons In ‘Systems’ Terms
A persistent confusion in thinking about weapons and their regulation is to insist on viewing weapons in isolation, and not as part of larger, socio-political-economic-legal-ethical systems. This confusion in the domain of gun control for instance, inspires the counter-slogan ‘guns don’t kill people; people kill people.’ Despite its glibness–and its misuse by the NRA–the sloganContinue reading “Thinking Of Autonomous Weapons In ‘Systems’ Terms”
Ken Englehart’s Exceedingly Lame Argument Against Net Neutrality
Over at the New York Times, Ken Englehart, “a lawyer specializing in communications law, is a senior adviser for StrategyCorp, an adjunct professor at Osgoode Hall Law School and a senior fellow at the C. D. Howe Institute” offers us an astonishing argument suggesting we not worry about the FCC’s move to repeal Net Neutrality.Continue reading “Ken Englehart’s Exceedingly Lame Argument Against Net Neutrality”
Samir Chopra 