The Catsouras Photos, Privacy, and Privilege

The Catsouras' Car. We have made an editorial decision to refrain from publishing the photos of the dead girl.

The Story:
A Porsche. A girl. A tragic death.

For those who don’t know, Nikki Catsouras was a beautiful young girl who made a terrible error in judgment, and it cost her dearly. Nikki was a rich kid (which is relevant) who stole her dad’s Porsche to go for a joy ride. With cocaine in her veins, and fine German engineering at her fingertips, she drove her dad’s $90,000 sports car way too fast, and way too recklessly.

She flipped the car and smashed into a tollbooth. In an instant, a vehicle that cost as much as a decent house in Kentucky transformed into a twisted ball of useless metal. More tragically, the impact tore Nikki Catsouras’ body apart. Someone at the scene took a series of photographs. The most graphic photo shows the girl’s head split open, the brain cavity empty as the impact squashed it like an over-ripe piece of fruit. I will not link to the photos of her, but if you are desperately curious, it shouldn’t take too much research to find them. Before you run off to search, let me warn you: If you have a single shred of humanity in you, viewing the photos of this girl’s body will make you feel like you’ve been kicked in the stomach. Crying would not be an unpredictable reaction – not even from the most stoic individual. You will, most likely, wish that you had never seen it.

The tabloid speaks to the daytime television addled masses

Newsweek reported on the story:

The accident was so gruesome the coroner wouldn’t allow her parents, Christos and Lesli Catsouras, to identify their daughter’s body. But because of two California Highway Patrol officers, a digital camera and e-mail users’ easy access to the “Forward” button, there are now nine photos of the accident scene, taken just moments after Nikki’s death, circulating virally on the Web. In one, her nearly decapitated head is drooping out the shattered window of her father’s Porsche. (source)

Somewhat predictably, the Newsweek piece then descends into tabloid-esque fear mongering and carries the torch for shrill anti-speech advocates. The author obviously spent her share of time talking to the fear-mongering and panic industry leaders, as she seems to be one of the last people on earth who considers the ironically-named “Reputation Defender” company to be any kind of a source of reliable information. The author takes only a few paragraphs before she cheekily labels those who posted the photos with a nifty little title, “cyber-aggressors.” The author does not deign to seek out anyone who might have a balanced opinion.

Silverman channels Jefferson, Voltaire, and Brennan

Although Newsweek did not seek out anyone with an opinion based in both law and ethics, preferring those who are pimping their books or their worthless “privacy defense” services, those voices are out there. Suffolk University Law Student, Justin Silverman provides a thought-provoking uncomfortable defense of those who publish the Nikki Catsouras photos — embracing the “hate the speech, but love free speech” view.

Silverman admits that his first reaction was “[s]traight from the gut,” and that he felt that the photos should be taken down. However, like all ethical thinkers, he reflected upon his emotions and meditated on his position. Silverman, giving us a view into his First Amendment bona fides, found himself defending expression which he despises.

I now realize my first reaction was the wrong one. Unlike most stories, the lines here are blurred and emotion can trick you into thinking you are advocating the right thing. The right thing, in this case, is not what it first seems. It is to defend that website’s right to show the photos, however disrespectfully it chooses to do so.

According to the Newsweek story, the Catsouras family considers itself out of legal options. The photos are public record after all, released by the police and made fair game to all whom seek to publish them. The dead can claim no privacy rights, and the photos are of only Nikki. These are the realities of firm legal principles that protect the public’s right to know and make it easier for information to be distributed. (source)

Of course, Silverman still despises those who published the photos. Despite his willingness to defend their publication, as part of his general support for free expression, Silverman does not let us forget that where the law’s boundaries end, there is still plenty of ground covered by something called “ethics.” Silverman is palpably reluctant in his eloquent defense of the right to publish the photos. Nevertheless, while he judges the photographs to be without value, and lectures the reader on ethics, he stays true to his own. Silverman admits that despite his personal distaste for this particular expression, he understands why the right to publish these photos exists, and he vows that he will continue to defend that right.

It’s not a change in the law I advocate. It’s just a reminder that in some cases our rights come at a high cost to others. Though we are free to exercise our rights, we should do so with purpose, for a greater good.

And that being able to publish photos doesn’t mean that we should. (source)

Amen brother.

The academic circle jerk naturally disagrees with Mr. Silverman and wants big brother to put us under his loving protective arm. Dan Solove comments at Concurring Opinions:

the government has a duty to avoid unwarranted disclosure of personal information unless there is a countervailing interest that outweighs the privacy interest. In the Catsouras case, the disclosure of the photos was clearly unwarranted. The police department punished the dispatchers for the disclosure, indicating that the disclosure was not condoned. These facts indicate to me a rather compelling case under existing law that the California Highway Patrol is liable for violating the Catsouras’s constitutional right to information privacy.

“Constitutional right to information privacy?” Hold on. Let me check my Constitution. I must have a different Constitution than Mr. Solove. Now worry not, I’m not one of those “if it isn’t explicitly in the Constitution, it isn’t there at all” types. I agree that there is some constitutional right to privacy. “The First Amendment has a penumbra where privacy is protected from governmental intrusion.” Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965). However, a constitutional right to information privacy? I can’t go that far.

Nevertheless, I do agree that there should be a right to some form of information privacy. You should be able to feel secure that when the government gathers private information about you, it won’t then go broadcasting it around without some proper purpose. However, this is not private information. This is incredibly public information. If you do something in public, whether it is peeing on the sidewalk, flashing your genitals, tripping over stick, or dying in a horribly gruesome manner — that makes it public. That means that you have no expectation of privacy in that information. Just ask every girl who shows her tits at Mardi Gras and then finds her photos on the internet and every guy who gets arrested on COPS wearing one shoe and a dirty wife-beater.

What drives the publication of these photos? What drives the outrage?

I agree with Mr. Silverman that just because we can disseminate these photos doesn’t mean that we should. One would hope that human decency would compel people to refrain from exercising their right to distribute gruesome, gory, death-scene photos. I considered linking to them to prove a point or two, but my conscience wouldn’t let me. I simply feel too much compassion for Nikki’s parents to be part of the pornification of her death.

Accordingly, we have figured out that there was a legal right to publish these photos. We have also figured out that it was ethically objectionable to do so. This was someone’s daughter, and turning their death into mere voyeurism is simply disgusting. While I do not support the Catsouras family’s legal quest to bring the wrongdoers to justice (because I see no legal wrong in the publication), I can assure you that if I met the person who did publish them, I’d haul off and bust their teeth out and mail them to Nikki’s parents as trophies.

But, that leaves some questions about the human condition. Why have these photos, in particular, become such a target for voyeurism? And, this begs the corollary question: Why has the publication of these photos, in particular, inspired such outrage from the established mainstream media? Why such outrage from the legal academy that accomplished professors would place their very credibility on the chopping block and fall over each other to invent legal theories that even a law student knows are bunk — merely to support their emotional response?

I think the answer comes down to cultural class warfare.

Lets think about what is so different about these particular photos from other gory death photos. Are these the first photos to be splashed across the internet that show twisted and mangled corpses of someone’s loved ones? Someone loved this guy, and this guy too. Rotten.com is full of images of the dead and dismembered. There was no similar outrage when ice-packed Iraqi corpses were displayed for all the world to see. To this day, we can find photos of burned victims of Little Boy and Fat Man.

But this is different, isn’t it? But why?

This is different because it was a privileged, young, white, girl.

If that accident had been some poor black girl in a Chevy Lumina with duct tape on the fender and cellophane over the brake light, nobody would have given a shit. The photos might have made their way on to rotten.com, but nobody would have forwarded them, and nobody – especially not anyone who went to an Ivy League school – would have wasted the sweat on their fingertips by writing about it.

You have no idea who this girl is, do you? Click the image to find out.

Newsweek’s author and the academic circle jerk are offended because the Catsouras photos offend their notions of how the rabble should treat the privileged. You know exactly what I am talking about. That same privilege that made Natalee Holloway a TV news obsession because she was a privileged white girl on vacation in Aruba. Meanwhile, hundreds of black, hispanic, and just not-as-blonde, and most importantly — POOR — girls go missing in the United States every day. Greta Van Susteren could give a shit about them, but Fox News won’t ever let us forget that a rich blonde girl went missing in Aruba.

But it is hardly surprising that privacy advocacy and privilege go hand in hand. The entire concept of a “right to privacy” grows from an 1890 Harvard Law Review article by Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis. They were not motivated by fear of an over-reaching government. They were motivated by a threat to their own privilege. In 1890, class divisions were far more distinct than they are today. The poor literally starved to death. Disease ran through American slums like fear of the Swine Flu runs through the advertising addled of today. Meanwhile, the wealthy lived in their Back Bay and Beacon Hill mansions, summered in Newport, and were far removed from the unwashed rabble that toiled for pennies a day so that the rich might keep their hands clean. Yet, when the rabble began to see how the “other half” lived in the gossip rags, the Brahmins were aghast. Did they not have a “right” to lord over the proles without the damn proles peeking in their windows? Warren and Brandeis certainly thought so.

The intensity and complexity of life, attendant upon advancing civilization, have rendered necessary some retreat from the world, and man, under the refining influence of culture, has become more sensitive to publicity, so that solitude and privacy have become more essential to the individual; but modern enterprise and invention have, through invasions upon his privacy, subjected him to mental pain and distress, far greater than could be inflicted by mere bodily injury.

Ah yes, the rhetorical device of claiming that mere words inflict more pain than bodily injury. Just once, I would love to hear someone say that and then slash their face with a razor blade to see if they really mean it, or if it is just academic circle jerking in action.

Brandeis and Warren trotted out rhetoric that sounds distinctly like the snooty whining of today’s Brahmins and over-educated do-nothings.

Nor is the harm wrought by such invasions confined to the suffering of those who may be made the subjects of journalistic or other enterprise. In this, as in other branches of commerce, the supply creates the demand. Each crop of unseemly gossip, thus harvested, becomes the seed of more, and, in direct proportion to its circulation, results in a lowering of social standards and of morality. Even gossip apparently harmless, when widely and persistently circulated, is potent for evil. It both belittles and perverts. It belittles by inverting the relative importance of things, thus dwarfing the thoughts and aspirations of a people. When personal gossip attains the dignity of print, and crowds the space available for matters of real interest to the community, what wonder that the ignorant and thoughtless mistake its relative importance. Easy of comprehension, appealing to that weak side of human nature which is never wholly cast down by the misfortunes and frailties of our neighbors, no one can be surprised that it usurps the place of interest in brains capable of other things. Triviality destroys at once robustness of thought and delicacy of feeling. No enthusiasm can flourish, no generous impulse can survive under its blighting influence.

Yes, if that looks familiar, you’ve been reading Cass Sunstein, Gail Dines, or Concurring Opinions. I don’t mock this, nor those authors, because I disagree with them. I actually agree 100% with the above paragraph. I fully believe that the idiots that slather across the landscape, driving at 45 miles per hour in the left hand lane, shopping at Wal-Mart, and very successfully passing their genes on to the next generation of Palin supporters and Octomoms are stupid and easily distracted and the world would be much better if they all read The Economist and Plutarch.

However, I’m different from the circle-jerk for two key reasons: 1) I can fully and publicly admit that I agree because I am a snob and I look down on 98% of mankind. 2) Despite the fact that I agree, I would not advocate for my views to be backed up by a change in the law. A citizen should be permitted to be an idiot if that is his choice. Where I part ways with Brandeis, Warren, and their intellectual descendants is when they call for the government to cure the ill. I say let the mouth-breathing NASCAR fans read their gossip magazines, watch their reality TV, and let them get off on watching the upper classes tear themselves apart. This, along with the opiate of religion, is what keeps them from rising up and cutting all of our throats. (By “our” I mean mine).

Lets face it, since the earliest of times, the lower classes have loved to watch their betters suffer. It provides a salve to the daily suffering that comes from being a low-life. If you live in some dump like Lakeland, Flori-duh, driving your crappy car to your crappy job and coming home to your crappy house and watch your crappy TV with your crappy stained t-shirt on while you look at your crappy ugly redneck wife and your stupid inbred redneck children, it must really suck. It must suck even more when you see that there are people like the Catsouras family: Dad worked hard, dad made lots of money, married a hot wife, and had three utterly beautiful daughters. Meanwhile, you’re eating pork rinds and beans in your fart shack of a dump, working at the plant, until it shuts down and your job gets shipped to Mexico. Then, you see the Catsouras family suffer — in large part due to their privilege. A rich kid’s drug (cocaine) plus a rich man’s car, in sunny Southern California, turns from the ingredients of a life that mocks your very existence into the components of a tragedy that lets you guffaw — that your kid won’t ever die like that, because you didn’t ever think too much of education or getting anywhere in life.

A big shiny Porsche and a beautiful young pilot with cocaine in her system turns from an object of envy into a parable for how the rich and their decadence will destroy them — or at least make those who drive that Chevy Lumina feel better about their condition.

Well, if that’s the case, damn it feels good to shit on the Catsourases, doesn’t it?

And when the rabble shit on the Brahmins, the Brahmins look out for each other and call for changes in the laws.

I’m sad that the Catsourases are collateral damage in this perpetual play. I got chest pains reading about their plight. I’ve been there. My best friend died in a rather spectacular manner, and the douchebag who did it is regularly profiled in magazines and TV spots — and he rubs my friend’s death in my face every time he does it. My wife has gone so far as to forbid me to enter the guy’s home state, lest my Sicilian heritage rear its head.

But, I’m not prepared to turn my pain into the suppression of the dissemination of lawful material, nor do I want a new law named after my best friend. Shit happens. Sometimes, when shit happens, there is a camera, a witness, a compelling story, and then those of us who were just minding our own business have to suffer the feeling of an ice pick into our hearts every time the needle skips on the vinyl of life. Those with privilege want to use that ice pick to chip away at our constitutional rights – which only further entrenches their privilege. If we let them, by the time they are done, we will have a patchwork of laws created by extreme outlier incidents, pushed for by the overprivileged like me, the Catsourases, and the legal academy – ushered in by a wail of hysterical shrill cries from those who follow them over the cliff.

Then, the 99.99% of other incidents that happen in daily life would be governed by these outlier incidents – slowly turning our entire existence into one that mimics our time in the security line at the airport.

That is not a result I want to see.

Dissenting View – USNWR Rankings

Today is like Christmas for prospective law students — US News and World Report leak day. The USNWR ranking is flawed, like all ranking systems (ahem BCS), but Marc doth protest too much, methinks. The rankings serve a  legitimate and useful purpose – comparing law schools by employment prospects.

In order to get the discussion in focus, you have to know that my view is that some law schools are scams. This is apart from Marc’s woeful diagnosis of legal education generally. My view is that some law schools mislead law students into attending with the promise of jet-setting lifestyles, $160k ($145?) salaries, and guaranteed employment. With some law schools charging tuition upwards of $40k a year, students deserve to know exactly what type of employment scenario they are facing.

If you are a prospective law student, you should take a look at this chart. Half of law school graduates make less than $62k a year.  Average loans coming out of law school are about $76k.  If debt generally tracked the distribution of the salary chart, there wouldn’t be that much of a problem.  News flash: it doesn’t. 

Here is some of the underhanded bullshit out there. In this thread, the admissions dean for Drexel doesn’t provide employment data (and there isn’t any on their website) and refuses to engage in a debate over the “complicated issues regarding how law schools report employment data” while including a list of firms graduates have placed into. It’s like three-card monte. Don’t look for the employment statistics – just look at these firms. Where’s the lucky lady? Where’s the lucky lady? Then the cards turn over and instead of being out two bucks to a street con, you’re out 150k and have a size nine poop chute.

I’d like to know the class ranks and/or personal connections of the Drexel grads at those firms. I’d bet my nut sack the answers are “exceptionally high” and/or “well connected.” This is not the fate of some dude at the median at Drexel. What about that fucking guy, eh? Add in the obvious gambler’s bias of law students (we can all be top 5%, right?) and you have a lot of people getting reamed in the ass by Sallie Mae several months after graduation. That list gives prospective students a flawed perspective. Drexel is a newly-accredited law school. Tuition is $30,800. I make no conclusions regarding the quality of education (whatever that means) at Drexel, but graduates are staring at over 100k in debt. Shouldn’t they get accurate data on what their return on investment will be?

I’m not just picking on Drexel here. Tuition at New York Law School is $42,500. Look at this shit. 25% of NYLS’ 2007 reported their employment. That’s sketch in and of itself. The median salary reported by these graduates is $160k. I’d like to know the fucking mean. This isn’t a “complicated issue regarding how law schools report employment data.” Show me both fucking numbers. In fact, show me ALL the numbers. There are a whole crop of these law schools out that charge WAY beyond what they’re worth and then use crappy data reporting to hide the ball. It’s almost fucking criminal.

This is where the rankings come in. You can’t compare numbers from schools. At Michigan, where I attend, they report very similar employment data ($160k medians in most markets) for about the same tuition ($40k-ish). Anyone claiming that Michigan’s employment prospects are in the same galaxy as NYLS is smoking crack. There is so much manipulation of these  numbers that it’s almost impossible. Yes, I know that the same beefs apply to USNWR’s metrics but the rankings are a pretty decent indicator of the value of a school at some level. It’s an adequate starting point for those considering law school to know what type of prospects they will be getting for their cash.

Marc thinks that what really matters is “quality of teaching, mentoring, and faculty-student relations.” That’s a sweet thought and all, but none of those things pay the bills. I agree with Marc that those things are important too – I’m just not sure how you capture and report that data. The bottom line is the metrics that US News uses (academic reputation?) or that Marc suggests should be used (quality of teaching?) are unknowable. That basically leaves employability as the only decent way to compare law schools. Employability is probably a proxy for the values Marc lists above anyway. Since employability generally follows the same trajectory as these rankings why isn’t it a useful way to compare law schools?

Marc is right about one thing – the law school has control here. They can reduce the law student’s reliance on these rankings by providing transparent employment data and rethinking their obscene tuition to lessen the impact of not obtaining the optimal employment at graduation. Decisions based on “quality of teaching, mentoring, and faculty-student relations” are easier to stomach if you have an accurate picture of what the post-graduation scenario actually is. Until then, the USNWR is about as good as it gets.

Short Url: http://bit.ly/vnBEC

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Technorati :  Academics, legal education

The First Amendment Is Often Inconvenient… But That Is Besides the Point

Editorial and Comment by Zac “AGhostInTheSnow” Papantoniou

Ok, so we’re a little late on this one, but over the course of the last two weeks, Rogier van Bakel at the blog “Nobody’s Business” posted, commented on, and eventually “debated,” law professor Kristen Juras on the subtleties of the First Amendment.

Professor Juras is an assistant law professor at the University of Montana. Professor Juras has been in the news recently because she has a fundamental problem with the content of a weekly sex column featured in the “Opinion” section the University’s newspaper, the “Montana Kaimin,” and is written by a University of Montana senior, Bess Davis.

Professor Juras has publicly stated that the column is “embarrassingly unprofessional,” and that the subject of sex is “inappropriate for college students.” The professor also stated that the sex column not only, “. . . reflects poorly on the university’s School of Journalism and UM itself,” but also, “. . . affects my [Juras’s] reputation as a member of the faculty.” The Professor, after having her complaints in letters to the paper’s editor go nowhere, has now threatened to take the issue to the state legislature unless the newspaper establishes written policies for hiring columnists and reviewing content that could be deemed “controversial.”

While I certainly can’t agree with the Professor’s views and struggle to find the logic of her arguments, Professor Juras is nonetheless a member of the University’s community, and as such, she is free to express her view that the sex column takes up space that can be better used for other things. However, when Professor Juras was contacted by Rogier van Bakel, to respond to van Bakel’s initial post on Juras’s public threats to take her complaints to the Montana state legislature, not once does she suggest what a better use of such column space might be.

It’s perfectly reasonable for Professor Juras to have and express her opinion, but the Professor would be wise to educate herself with something Benjamin Franklin once wrote – “Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as publick [sic] liberty, without Freedom of Speech.”

If Kristen Juras were not a law professor, I would still vehemently disagree with her view on this issue. However, Ms. Juras is a law professor; and that makes me find her arguments and threats to seek legislative action, for suppressing the free dissemination of ideas and subjects with which she personally finds “inappropriate for college students” completely repugnant.

Simply saying that you support the First Amendment just doesn’t cut it; as a law professor, you more than most, should know and understand the dangers of institutional/governmental oversight on the press and while I must disagree with Rogier that your actions amount to “professional misconduct” – they are, to me, professionally reckless. As the wise Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy once said, “The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is besides the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech.”

HT to Rogier van Bakel at the blog “Nobody’s Business.” Read more of his initial post here and his second post, including Professor Juras’s response, here.

Screw U.S. News

Here is a hell of a news flash:

U.S. News doesn’t consider quality of teaching, practical skills training or faculty-student relations, while bar passage rate and placement have low importance in the U.S. News rankings. (source)

I am so tired of seeing law schools chase the U.S. News rankings. They mean nothing in terms of quality of education, yet they mean so much in terms of marketing. Why? Because law schools let them.

If I ever become dean of a law school, (which I probably won’t, but if I do…) when I get that U.S. News survey, I am going to gut a fish, wrap the entrails in the form, and send it back to them. Then I am going to focus on what really matters — quality of teaching, mentoring, and faculty-student relations.

Is the age of Big Brother P.C. over?

I’m not talking about Microsoft, I’m talking about political correctness. Yes, now that the dark ages of Bush conservative censorship are on the wane, we once again see the left wing anti-speech goblins rising from the muck.

Announcing the MTTLR Blog

Kurt Hunt, of the law student blawg, Clever WoT announces his latest project:

The Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law Review Blog (http://blog.mttlr.org),

D’Angelo v. School Bd. of Polk County

Florida is not the kind of place you move to for the public schools. Polk County, Florida? Yeah, ummm… lets just say that it is a struggle to keep creationism out of the science classes there.

Florida’s public high schools have some of the worst student retention rates in the country, with half qualifying as “dropout factories,” four times the national average, according to a new analysis of U.S. Education Department data.

[Johns Hopkins researcher Hopkins Bob] Balfanz says he has a hypothesis about why Florida’s numbers are so high: large schools and a focus on test scores. Schools with an average of 2,000 or 3,000 students are fairly common throughout the state, Balfanz said.

“That’s an easy place for kids to be anonymous. That’s a key driver of kids dropping out,” Balfanz said.

In addition, the state’s accountability is focused on test scores, he said. That includes passing the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, or FCAT, to earn a diploma. With the emphasis on test scores instead of graduation rates, schools aren’t heavily penalized for low retention rates, Balfanz said. (source)

“Regent-Gate” Update

David Lat over at “Above the Law” has an exclusive interview with Adam Key. The entire interview is worth reading, but here are some choice excerpts.

David Lat: In terms of coverage of the controversy, what facts or themes do you think have been overlooked?

Adam Key: A lot of people have missed the point about my First Amendment argument. I realize that Regent is not a state actor and I never tried to imply that it was. My First Amendment argument rests on ABA Standard of Accreditation 211(c), which states that religious law schools are permitted to enact policies “only to the extent that these policies are protected by the U.S. Constitution” and that they must be “administered as though the First Amendment of the United States Constitution governs its application.” Regent, as an ABA school, agreed to this policy and thus cannot enforce anything that infringes on the free speech rights of students.

The interview goes on to report that Mr. Key claims that he is filing a complaint with the ABA. If his answer is accurate (I have not researched it) then he might have a point.

David Lat: Okay, let me play devil’s advocate. It’s no secret that Regent is conservative, founded by Pat Robertson, etc. Why did you decide to go there, when there are so many other law schools?

Adam Key: I decided to go to Regent because, at the time I applied to law school in late 2005, it was the only ABA accredited Christian law school. Others schools like Pepperdine (which I also got into) and Baylor have religious affiliations, but are not “Christian law schools,” per se. I didn’t go there because of Pat Robertson, I went there because I wanted a legal education balanced with a Christian perspective. Instead, I’m getting an education in how evil so-called Christians can be to those who are different from them.

Earlier Posts on this Story

1. 
   Regent Law School Run by Censorship Monkeys — Go Figure
2. Regent “Censorship” Update

Jack in the Beanstalk is Real!

Well, not really. Nevertheless, if you ever teach at a community college in Iowa, be careful which fairy tales you talk about. Professor Steve Bitterman, a professor at Red Oak Community College received a pink slip for telling his students that he thought the story of Adam & Eve should not be “literally interpreted.”

I told them it was an extremely meaningful story, but you had to see it in a poetic, metaphoric or symbolic sense, that if you took it literally, that you were going to miss a whole lot of meaning there. (source)

For this comment, Professor Bitterman lost his taxpayer-funded job teaching a Western Civilization course. So much for academic freedom, and so much for the First Amendment.

Scott Moss on the Imus Defamation Suit & Client Control

Professor Scott Moss of the University of Colorado has a great comment on the Imus defamation suit

This is a classic case of a plaintiff who’s justifiably enraged about something that’s not illegal (racist insults) and therefore filed a lawsuit dubiously asserting something that is illegal (false factual statements about sexual practices).

When I was a full-time plaintiff’s lawyer, I often had to talk clients off the ledge when they were upset at serious mistreatment but simply didn’t have any real legal claim to file in court, telling them, “Look, I know you’re upset about X, but you can’t sue for X; you can sue only for Y, and you can’t prove Y.” (I’m paraphrasing for brevity; I usually tried to express a little more empathy in such situations). (source)

America’s War on Sex

The American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists has named Marty Klein’s America’s War on Sex the “Sexuality Book of the Year”

Dr. Joy Davidson, who presented the award, called Klein’s work “frightening, funny, and a great read.” She underlined its achievement in presenting a clear picture of how the repression of various aspects of Americans’ sexuality—health care, education, entertainment, private expression, art, victimless crimes—is all related. The Theocratic Right, American government at all levels, and so-called “decency” groups are systematically undermining secular democracy as they work together to over-regulate sexuality.

Klein keeps a regular blog, Sexual Intelligence. I am a regular reader, and a big fan. Klein consistently and scientifically debunks the insanity that the erophobes try and cram down our throats in the culture wars.

Killer Teddy Bears! Libel Suits! Oh My!

I wish that I had the requisite volume of creative juices to make this stuff up. CNN reports:

A math teacher whose name is used in a student film featuring an evil teddy bear that orders other stuffed animals to kill a teacher is suing the four children who made it, alleging it defamed him.

Daniel Clevenger’s lawsuit, filed May 16 in Henry Superior Court, is the second round of legal action related to the 78-minute film “The Teddy Bear Master.”

Go ahead. Read that again. Yep, The Teddy Bear Master has spawned not one, but two lawsuits.

Patent Bar v. “Trademark Bar”

I have always found it annoying that no matter how smart you are, how much you might know, or whatever other circumstances might exist, lawyers are not permitted to take the Patent Bar exam unless they meet certain educational requirements that have NOTHING to do with patent law, nor to do with law at all. In fact, you can be admitted to the patent bar even if you don’t have a law degree, are not admitted to practice law anywhere else, or even if you are disbarred. The requirements are available here.

Essentially, it boils down to this: In order to be admitted to the Patent Bar, you need a bachelor’s degree (or about two years of course work) in some science or engineering field.

Why?

The assumption is that because drafting patent claims requires a fundamental understanding of the technology involved, only someone who has science or engineering background can do it. I strongly disagree with that assumption. The Patent Bar exam has no science or engineering questions on it, you can litigate patent cases in any court in the land without a Patent Bar admission, and I don’t know a single patent attorney who will claim that he or she needed that education in order to prosecute patent applications.

So, that’s annoying enough. I joust at enough windmills, so I’m not taking on that cause. For the time being, lets just accept arguendo that the Patent Bar requirements are well-founded.

Here’s the axe I am grinding — the false impression that licensure before the USPTO gives to lawyers and to the public.

New Cyber Law Blog

I would like to announce the launch of CyberLaw.org.nz, a new joint venture of InternetNZ and Victoria University School of Law in Wellington, New Zealand. Edited by Philip Greene, CyberLaw.org.nz hopes to develop into a source for information, articles, links, discussion, and other resources on topics relating to not just Internet law, necessarily, but all topics that relate to the Web, computers and information technology, intellectual property, media and communications, privacy, and related topics.

Lets all welcome this new addition to the IP and Internet Law blogosphere.

Academic Thought of the Day

I know it’s too small to read. Click it fool!