Persistence of tyranny
https://www.popehat.com/2018/02/15/the-persistence-of-tyranny/ Tyranny is our capacity to rationalize exceptions to rights for our enemies. Tyranny is our willingness to dismiss violation of rights as...
View ArticleOwnership
https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2012/06/virtual-real-estate/ Ownership is somewhat of a gray area, both with physical and virtual real estate. I use the term loosely here. Ownership depends on how...
View ArticleSection 230
The first [section] is definitional. … The second subsection provides direct immunity~ US Supreme Court Justice Thomas from,...
View ArticleFreedom
There are two kinds of freedom. Freedom fromto (positive freedom). The splitting of freedom into this binary framework can be traced at least back to Kant, was articulated by Erich Fromm in his 1941...
View ArticleNice. Attorney General Says President Can Kill Citizens
… Just to review, the Attorney General just said yes, the President does have “the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, and without trial.”...
View ArticleA Grain of Salt
If the FBI, and CNN, and NBC, and the New York Post, and the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and All Of Us, could get the Atlanta bombing so tragically wrong in 1996, they, and we, can do it today. In...
View ArticleAbout the Aaron Swartz Case
http://www.popehat.com/2013/03/24/three-things-you-may-not-get-about-the-aaron-swartz-case/ There are three things people get wrong about the prosecution and heartbreaking suicide of Aaron Swartz. Two...
View ArticleThe NSA Behemoth
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/13/nsa-behemoth-trampling-rights The spate of new NSA disclosures substantially raises the stakes of this debate. We now know that the intelligence...
View ArticleA new deal for copyright
http://www.locusmag.com/Perspectives/2015/01/cory-doctorow-a-new-deal-for-copyright/ If you have to understand the law to read a book, we have failed. If you have to enter into a contract – any...
View ArticleThe individual and the herd
The Individual and the Herd Here’s what it boils down to: Human beings are simultaneously individuals and members of society, not fundamentally one or the other. Some issues (like free speech) are...
View ArticleI Stand, Despite
I stand loving America, aware that I often fall short of what that love should mean. When I say I love America I mean I love certain shared values and founding ideals like the rule of law and equality...
View ArticleHillary Clinton, the Sixth Amendment, and Legal Ethics
I’m a criminal defense lawyer. I’ve represented people by appointment and voluntarily, and I’ve represented people accused of all sorts of things. I’ve made vigorous use of my client’s constitutional...
View ArticleLawsplainer: The Ninth Circuit and Compelled Speech
When a court applies scrutiny, it’s holding the government’s justification for a challenged law to a standard. How tough the standard is depends on the nature of the law and how the plaintiff says...
View ArticleSheer nonsense from the jump
This is sheer nonsense from the jump. Americans don’t have, and have never had, any right to be free of shaming or shunning. The First Amendment protects our right to speak free of government...
View ArticleCriticism
Ours is the age of criticism. Religion and law try to escape from criticism, religion by saying that it is divine and law by showing that it is powerful. But some suspicions arise from this escape,...
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