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April 30 roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 04:10:12 +0000

Because Washington knows best: “U.S. ban sought on cell phone use while driving” [Reuters, earlier here, here, here, etc.] More here; and LaHood spokesman says Reuters overstated his boss’s position.
Janice Brown’s Hettinga opinion: Lithwick can’t abide “starkly ideological” judging of this sort, except of course when she favors it [Root, earlier] At Yale law conclave, legal establishment works itself into hysterical froth over individual mandate case [Michael Greve] And David Bernstein again corrects some Left commentators regarding the standing of child labor under the pre-New Deal Constitution;
Latest antiquities battle: Feds, Sotheby’s fight over 1,000-year-old Khmer statue probably removed from Cambodia circa 1960s [VOA, Kent Davis]
Sebelius surprised by firestorm over religious (non-) exemption, hadn’t sought written opinions as to whether it was constitutional [Becket, Maguire] Obamanauts misread the views of many Catholics on health care mandate [Potemra, NRO]
“20 Years for Standing Her Ground Against a Violent Husband” [Jacob Sullum] How Trayvon Martin story moved through the press [Poynter] And Reuters’ profile of George Zimmerman is full of details one wishes reporters had brought out weeks ago;
Coaching accident fraud is bad enough, making off with client funds lends that extra squalid touch [NYLJ]
Kip Viscusi, “Does Product Liability Make Us Safer?” [Cato's Regulation magazine, PDF]

Tags: antiquities, Catholic Church, cellphones, claims fraud, constitutional law, Dahlia Lithwick, Martin-Zimmerman case, product liability, self-defense

April 30 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

State Department restricts imports of Greek coins

Walter Olson — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 05:16:30 +0000

It’s another big step forward for the notion of “cultural patrimony,” in this case humoring the whims of foreign governments that wish to suppress private ownership of long-collected everyday antiquities. [Peter Tompa/Cultural Property Observer; my take]

Tags: antiquities

State Department restricts imports of Greek coins is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Antiquities law ensnares coin collectors

Walter Olson — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 13:34:22 +0000

As I note at Cato, antiquities law has been expanding to restrict private ownership of more and more ancient artifacts. The latest targets are numismatists; more on that in an op-ed that I published last week in the Examiner.

Tags: antiquities, WO writings

Antiquities law ensnares coin collectors is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Prison for unauthorized use of “Smokey Bear” image

Walter Olson — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 05:17:20 +0000

Great WSJ article on the unending proliferation of federal crimes, with appearances by a family that ran into a law making it a felony to dig for arrowheads on federal land, Bobby Unser and his snowmobile-astray ordeal, and a man effectively ruined by the $860,000+ cost of successfully defending himself against a federal charge of violating Russian hunting regulations.

“Most people think criminal law is for bad people,” says Timothy Lynch of Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. People don’t realize “they’re one misstep away from the nightmare of a federal indictment.”

More: from Tim Lynch, and (via PoL) Josh Blackman, William Anderson/Regulation mag.

Tags: antiquities, crime and punishment, environment, extraterritoriality, prosecution

Prison for unauthorized use of “Smokey Bear” image is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Timeless mysteries of rights-assertion: images of Stonehenge

Walter Olson — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 05:20:35 +0000

“English Heritage claims it owns every single image of Stonehenge, ever” [Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing, TechDirt]

Tags: antiquities, copyright, United Kingdom

Timeless mysteries of rights-assertion: images of Stonehenge is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“A Case in Antiquities for ‘Finders Keepers’”

Walter Olson — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:12:56 +0000

John Tierney at the Times makes the case against heritage repatriation laws.

Tags: antiquities

“A Case in Antiquities for ‘Finders Keepers’” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Whatever is Greek, wherever in the world, we want back.”

Walter Olson — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:39:55 +0000

Why does the idea of cultural property have so many advocates? “It seems to establish a bulwark against the plunder of antiquities.” And yet how quickly it’s turned into a way of looting premodern artifacts from Western owners whose claim of title is stronger than that of foreign governments or indigenous/Indian tribes. “But if cultural property really did exist, the Enlightenment museum would be an example of it: an institution that evolved, almost uniquely, out of Western civilization. And the cultural property movement could be seen as a persistent attempt to undermine it. And take illicit possession.” (Edward Rothstein, “Antiquities, the World Is Your Homeland”, New York Times, May 27).

Tags: antiquities, Europe, Indian tribes, international law

“Whatever is Greek, wherever in the world, we want back.” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Who Owns Antiquity?”

Walter Olson — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 00:08:13 +0000

About time someone stood up to the demands against Western museums and collectors for repatriation of “cultural patrimony” lawfully obtained at the time (Eric Ormsby, “Treasures on Trial” (review of new James Cuno book), WSJ, Apr. 26; Kerry Howley, Reason “Hit and Run”, Apr. 24; earlier coverage).

Tags: antiquities

“Who Owns Antiquity?” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Egypt wants to copyright pyramids, Sphinx

Walter Olson — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 09:52:51 +0000

Under the proposed law, backed by Supreme Council of Antiquities chief Zahi Hawass, persons around the world would be forbidden to make copies, even for private use, of the country’s famous monuments, scarabs and other Pharaonic survivals. “His comments came only a few days after an Egyptian opposition newspaper, Al-Wafd, published a report complaining that many more tourists each year travelled to the pyramid-shaped Luxor hotel in Las Vegas than to Luxor itself. The newspaper proposed that the US hotel should pay some of its profits to Luxor city.” However, Hawass said that copies of pyramids and other objects that were less than “exact” might escape a royalty obligation, which might get the back of the U.S. one dollar bill off the hook. (Rory McCarthy, “Egypt to copyright the pyramids and antiquities”, Guardian, Dec. 27; “Egypt to copyright pyramids”, AFP/Google, Dec. 26; AP/IHT). More: Coleman.

Tags: antiquities, copyright

Egypt wants to copyright pyramids, Sphinx is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Eyesore preservation

Walter Olson — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 00:29:37 +0000

The brutalist-modern Third Church of Christ Scientist is one of the most widely disliked buildings in Washington, D.C., not least by its own congregation, which groans at the impracticalities of maintaining the concrete monstrosity: “According to one church official, you’ve got to build scaffolding just to reach some of the [light] bulbs [to change them].” But Washington’s local architectural-preservation authorities forbid the congregants from replacing the building, which dates all the way back to 1971. (Charles Paul Freund, “A Brutalist Bargain”, American Spectator, Dec. 18).

Tags: antiquities, churches

Eyesore preservation is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system