The Volokh Conspiracy
Sun Apr 24 04:47:22 EDT 2011
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The Amazing Variety of Robots in Photos - (Kenneth Anderson) Fun spread at the Atlantic of photos of many different kinds of robots. �Thirty three photos showing the amazing variety of robots and their uses�today.

Trek/Schlep in Nepal - (Stewart Baker) Next month, my son Gordon and I are continuing a long tradition of dubious hikes (see, e.g., our heat stroke hike out of Antalya, Turkey).  We’ll be trekking up into the Mustang region of Nepal.  Closed to outsiders for many years, Mustang borders Tibet and partakes heavily of Tibetan culture.  I’m writing about it here [...]

Why Do So Many People Believe in Political Conspiracy Theories? - (Ilya Somin) Belief in political conspiracy theories is widespread on both sides of the political spectrum. Some 45% of Republicans believe that Obama is not a native-born citizen and (presumably) that the Democrats have gotten away with covering up that fact. Similarly, 35% of Democrats believe that George W. Bush knew about the 9/11 attack in advance, [...]

Tyler Cowen on the Political Attitudes of Russian Jewish Immigrants - (Ilya Somin) In this post, Tyler Cowen asks why Russian Jewish immigrants tend to overwhelmingly support the GOP rather than the Democrats. The reasons are actually no mystery. As I have previously explained here and here, Russian Jews are hawkish on foreign policy and their experience with communism leads them to be suspicious of domestic [...]

First (?) Court Decision Applying Federal Anti-Libel-Tourism SPEECH Act - (Eugene Volokh) The case is Pontigon v. Lord (Mo. Ct. App. Apr. 19, 2011). The factual background: The appellant, Ms. Lord, is an American citizen, resident of St. Charles County, Missouri, who was born in the Philippines. The respondent, Leodegaria Sanchez, is Ms. Lord’s cousin, and a resident of Ontario, Canada, who was likewise born in the [...]

The NLRB’s Overreach - (Jonathan H. Adler) When I first read the WSJ editorial accusing the National Labor Relations Board of filing an unfair labor practice complaint against Boeing for deciding to build an aircraft assembly plan in South Carolina instead of Washington State, I was flabbergasted. According to the editorial, the NLRB filed the complaint because statements by Boeing executives [...]

Michigan Case Holding That Second Amendment Protects Stun Guns - (Eugene Volokh) Here’s the opinion in People v. Yanna (Mich. Cir. Ct. Apr. 21, 2011), the Michigan case that David Kopel mentioned. The court’s ruling was based solely on the Second Amendment, and not on the Michigan right to bear arms provision, likely because People v. Smelter, 437 N.W.2d 341 (Mich. App. 1989), held that the [...]

How We’ll Know When the Machines are Taking Over: - (David Post) Michael Eisen, over on “It is NOT Junk,” has uncovered a pretty remarkable phenomenon on Amazon. Looking for an out-of-print book on developmental biology, he saw that Amazon had 17 copies for sale: 15 used from $35.54, and 2 new from $1,730,045.91 (+$3.99 shipping). Hmm. The next day, the price had gone [...]

David Ignatius on Drone Warfare, and Slate’s William Saletan, Too - (Kenneth Anderson) Washington Post columnist David Ignatius has been publicly against drone warfare for over a year now, and his latest piece continues that stance.  Indeed, he describes them as an “addictive tool of national security policy” and says flatly that their deployment to Libya is a “rare error in judgment by Secretary Gates.” Ignatius’s argument in this [...]

Northwestern University Law Review Colloquy Symposium on the Constitutional Politics of the Tea Party Movement - (Ilya Somin) The Northwestern University Law Review Colloquy has posted a symposium on “The Constitutional Politics of the Tea Party Movement.” The symposium was organized by Richard Albert of Boston College, who arranged a panel on the subject at this year’s AALS conference and wrote an introduction available here. The symposium includes contributions by well-known constitutional law [...]

ACLU Fighting Attempts to Suppress Anti-Islam Speech - (Eugene Volokh) By the way, I should stress — especially given the criticism that I’ve seen of the ACLU from some commenters — that ACLU chapters deserve praise for defending the anti-Islam speech in the two incidents I blogged about today: The blocking of Terry Jones’ planned demonstration outside a Dearborn, Michigan mosque, and the firing [...]

Koran-Burning New Jersey Transit Employee Gets Job Back + Back Pay + $25,000 Settlement - (Eugene Volokh) So reports the New York Daily News; for more on the story from when the transit worker was fired for burning pages from the Koran to protest a planned Islamic center near Ground Zero, see this post. The New York Daily News article reports that “The ACLU filed suit on Fenton’s behalf, and the [...]

[UPDATED TITLE:] Terry Jones Jailed, Apparently for Refusing to Promise Not to Demonstrate in Front of a Mosque [STILL FURTHER UPDATE: Released From Jail, Ordered to Stay Away from Mosque] - (Eugene Volokh) [Original title: Dearborn Jury Holds Terry Jones May Be Barred from Organizing Rally Outside Mosque.] So reports the Detroit Free Press: A Dearborn jury just sided with prosecutors, ruling that Terry Jones and Wayne Sapp would breach the peace if they rallied at the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn. Judge Mark Somers will now [...]

Stun gun prohibition violates Second Amendment - (David Kopel) So rules a state judge in Bay City, Michigan. According to the ruling, the regulation of stun guns would be constitutional, but not their prohibition. Other than Michigan, the only states that prohibit stun guns are New Jersey and Rhode Island. Eugene Volokh’s Stanford Law Review article, Nonlethal Self-Defense examines the Second Amendment issues involving stun [...]

Cert. Petition in Right to Carry Case - (David Kopel) Filed earlier this week by Stephen Halbrook, in the case of Williams v. Maryland. In short, Maryland bans all handgun transportation or carry without a permit, and has a permitting process which formally declares that it will deny permits to almost everyone. As the petition explains, “the Maryland State Police, the Maryland Handgun Permit Review Board, [...]

Standing in Connecticut v.�AEP - (Jonathan H. Adler) One of the issues in American Electric Power v. Connecticut is whether the state and environmentalist group plaintiffs can satisfy the requirements of Article III standing. One might have thought this issue was settled in Massachusetts v. EPA, at least with regard to the state litigants, but it was not. Although both cases [...]

The Cost of a Law Review Article? - (Kenneth Anderson) Hofstra’s Richard Neumann has made an estimate of the cost of producing a law review article by a professor at a top law school, and says it’s in the $100,000 ballpark.  Here is the National Journal article, reporting on a conference on the future of legal education. His estimate factors in the salary and benefits for [...]

Don’t Blame the “Speculators” - (Jonathan H. Adler) Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren explain why evil oil “speculators” are not behind the recent rise in oil prices. There is no need to repair to conspiracy to answer the question about why gasoline prices are going up. The loss of Libyan crude–about 2% of global supply–has reduced the amount of oil available in the [...]

Jury Trial Tomorrow About Whether Koran-Burning Pastor Has to Post a Bond for Security Costs Related to His Planned Rally - (Eugene Volokh) The Detroit Free-Press reports: Florida Pastor Terry Jones is expected to appear in court this morning for a jury trial that will determine whether he can hold a rally at the largest mosque in the�city.... Jones appeared in court Thursday and refused to post a bond for the massive security effort Dearborn says it would have to [...]

Vibrators - (Eugene Volokh) A post of InstaPundit’s reminded me of a couple of blog posts of mine from eight years ago; but this is an, er, timeless subject, so I thought I’d pose the question again (and back then we didn’t have comments). Let me remind people that this is a post about vibrators — I know not all [...]

Wisconsin Gets a Limited Hand Recount - (Jonathan H. Adler) The Journal-Sentinel reports that Wisconsin state Supreme Court Justice David Prosser and his challenger, Joanne Kloppenburg, have agreed to a partial hand recount covering select portions of the�state. Dane County Judge Richard Niess approved the deal Thursday, allowing the statewide recount to continue with the hand recount in the specific areas. Jim Troupis, an attorney for Prosser, [...]

Drones Over�Libya - (Kenneth Anderson) The US has now deployed armed drones over Libya, according to press reports. �Drone systems have been operating as surveillance systems for weeks now, but acting on a NATO request, the US has now put up at least two weaponized drones in the Libya conflict. The logic of this move is inescapable. �NATO countries launch air [...]

“Use Restrictions and the Future of Surveillance Law” - (Orin Kerr) The Brookings Institute recently sponsored a series of articles on how new technologies require new approaches to legal regulation in the area of civil liberties. My own contribution was recently posted here: Use Restrictions and the Future of Surveillance Law. You can see the rest of the essays here, by [...]

Are Speed Cameras Accurate? - (Jonathan H. Adler) The Washington Times has an interesting report about a Maryland business owner who has used a computer analysis to beat five camera-generated speeding tickets. Mr. Foreman, the owner of Eastover Auto Supply in Oxon Hill, examined dozens of citation photos of his company’s trucks that were issued along a camera-monitored stretch of Indian Head Highway his [...]

“Kloppenburg’s Folly” - (Jonathan H. Adler) After falling several thousand votes of the incumbent, Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate JoAnne Kloppenburg has requested a statewide recount. Given that she came within 0.5 percent of the leading candidate (although just barely) she is entitled to a “free” recount. The editors of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel think this is a “mistake” and note [...]

Is FWS Asked to List Too Many Species? - (Jonathan H. Adler) The Fish and Wildlife Service claims it is overwhelmed by requests to list additional species as “endangered” or “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. The NYT reports: The federal Fish and Wildlife Service is in emergency triage mode as it struggles with an avalanche of petitions and lawsuits over the endangered species list, the chief tool [...]

Journalists Apparently Being Investigated for “Denigration of Greek National Symbols” - (Eugene Volokh) Another charge appears to be defamation — as best I can tell, of the country of Greece generally. From Spiegel Online: It was supposed to be a provocative piece of journalism and a tongue-in-cheek comment on German concerns about a European Union bailout for debt-ridden Greece. But the Feb. 22, 2010 cover of the weekly [...]

Interview with Cato’s Ilya Shapiro on the legal challenges to the new federal health control law - (David Kopel) Ilya Shapiro is senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute and editor-in-chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review. On Monday, I interviewed him for 39 minutes about Cato’s litigation program on constitutional issues, his traveling the country during the last year to debate the health control law, and the constitutional issues involved in [...]

Prosecutor Seeks Prior Restraint of Koran-Burning Pastor - (Eugene Volokh) Reuters reports: A Detroit prosecutor has filed a petition in district court to stop a Florida fundamentalist Christian preacher, who recently caused riots in Afghanistan after he burned a Koran, from holding a rally outside a large Michigan mosque. Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said the threat of violence was too great to allow Terry Jones [...]

Istanbul Airport Bleg - (Ilya Somin) During our long-delayed honeymoon in May, my wife and I will be visiting Istanbul, along with several locations in Greece. Among globe-trotting readership, I’m sure there are at least a few people who have been to Istanbul. I hope one of you might be able to answer the following question: Is Istanbul one of those [...]

Case Western Welcomes New�Dean - (Jonathan H. Adler) Earlier today Case Western Reserve University President Barbara Snyder announced the appointment of Lawrence Mitchell as the next Dean of the CWRU School of Law. Mitchell is currently the Theodore Rinehart Professor of Business Law, and Executive Director of the Center for Law, Economics & Finance (C-LEAF) at the George Washington University School of [...]

More on AEP v. Connecticut Oral Argument - (Jonathan H. Adler) Last night I reviewed the transcript of the oral argument in American Electric Power v. Connecticut, which poses the question of whether several states (and private groups) may sue the nation’s largest utilities for contributing to the “public nuisance” of global warming under federal common law. I agree with most commentators that things don’t [...]

Fourth Circuit Blocks Prosecution Effort to Double-Count Misdemeanor E-Mail Hacking To Make It A Felony - (Orin Kerr) Federal criminal law has two overlapping misdemeanor criminal offenses that prohibit hacking into an e-mail account. The first, 18 U.S.C. 2701, specifically prohibits hacking into an e-mail account stored on an ISP’s server. The second, 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(2), generally prohibits hacking into any computer, which will always be implicated when a person hacks into [...]

Law Professor Calls for Ban on Koran Burning - (Eugene Volokh) See this article by Prof. Liaquat Ali Khan (Washburn University School of Law), who also supports broader bans on “defamation of religions”; thanks to Peter Wizenberg for the pointer.

In New York Wednesday and Thursday - (Eugene Volokh) I’m speaking in New York (1) today at noon, on a panel put on by the Columbia Law School Federalist Society on Snyder v. Phelps (together with Fordham Prof. Benjamin Zipursky, who I think will disagree with me), and (2) tomorrow at 4 pm, to give a talk organized by the NYU Law School Federalist [...]