- Drones in domestic policing a liberty danger, warns NYT [editorial, earlier]
- When prosecutors freeze bank accounts, high-level targets can’t hire the best lawyers to defend themselves. Regrettable unintended etc. [Silverglate]
- On criminalizing false statements to federal agents [Scott Greenfield vs. Bill Otis]
- “Congress Has Enough Time to Keep Spying on You, Forever” [Matt Welch; Cato video with Julian Sanchez]
- More on Philadelphia forfeiture [John K. Ross, Reason, earlier]
- Homeland Security program: “Public Buses Across Country Quietly Adding Microphones to Record Passenger Conversations” [Kim Zetter/Wired via Fountain]
- Does Brooklyn indictment signal U.S. claim of universal jurisdiction over acts hostile to its foreign policy, anywhere in world? [Eugene Kontorovich/Volokh]
Tagged as:
aviation,
forfeiture,
Fourth Amendment,
Philadelphia,
prosecution,
transit
Caleb Brown interviews me for Cato’s Daily Podcast on the subject of law enforcement drones, which I wrote about yesterday. You can watch here.
Also, check out recent columns on the subject by my Cato colleagues Gene Healy and Nat Hentoff. As Healy points out, elected officials such as Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-Va.) and Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) have made remarkably blithe statements in favor of drone use, even as a defense contractor is perfecting tiny mechanized spies-in-the-sky that weigh no more than a battery and can perch on window ledges taking pictures of what is inside. (Another drone capability: intercepting nearby wireless communications.) Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has emerged as a leading critic (“when I’m separating out my recyclables, I don’t want them having a drone to make sure I’m putting my newspaper in the proper bin.”) The AP’s Joan Lowy covered the controversy last month.
Meanwhile, the chief practical obstacle to widespread drone deployment over U.S. skies — Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval — was quietly gotten around this spring when Congress passed legislation directing the FAA to carve out an approved space for drones, a move that followed a strong lobbying push on the “pro” side and almost no organized opposition from privacy advocates, Fourth Amendment fans or anyone else (see T.W. Farnam’s excellent Washington Post account.) More on domestic drone lobbying from Andrea Stone at HuffPo and First Street Research.
Tagged as:
aviation,
Fourth Amendment,
police,
surveillance
We’re getting closer to that world very fast — and if you have Fourth Amendment qualms, maybe you’re the sort a drone-company exec responds to as follows:
“If you’re concerned about it, maybe there’s a reason we should be flying over you, right?” said Douglas McDonald, the company’s director of special operations and president of a local chapter of the unmanned vehicle trade group.
My new post at Cato at Liberty has much more (& Above the Law).
Tagged as:
aviation,
police,
privacy
- Prediction: Homeland Security to emerge as major regulatory agency prescribing security rules to private sector [Stewart Baker] Regulators fret: air travel’s gotten so safe it’s hard for us to justify new authority [Taranto via Instapundit] “Romney’s regulatory plan” [Penn RegBlog]
- Claim: frequent expert witness in Dallas court proceedings is “imposter” [PoliceMisconduct.net]
- “‘Temporary’ Takings That Cause Permanent Damage Still Require Just Compensation” [Ilya Shapiro, Cato]
- On the ObamaCare decision’s wild card, the ruling on “coercive” conditions on Medicaid grants under the Spending Clause [Mike McConnell, Ilya Somin] Ramesh Ponnuru argues that ruling is no victory for supporters of limited government [Bloomberg]
- D.C.’s historic Shaw neighborhood near Cato Institute narrowly escaped planners’ bulldozer [Greater Greater Washington, WaPo]
- Michelle Obama on the right track with an idea on occupational licensure but should take it farther [Mark Perry]
- Everyone’s a judicial critic: Auto-Correct proposes replacing “Posner” with “Poisoner.”
Tagged as:
aviation,
Cato Institute,
constitutional law,
Dallas,
eminent domain,
expert witnesses,
Mitt Romney,
ObamaCare,
regulation and its reform,
Richard Posner,
terrorism,
Washington D.C.
A year ago the D.C. Circuit told the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) that it needed to go through notice-and-comment rulemaking for its controversial program of full-body scanners at airports. The rulemaking process is intended to ensure that the agency lays out clearly the factual, legal and policy basis for its actions, with a chance for opponents to lodge objections and establish a basis for judicial review. As my colleague Jim Harper points out, the agency has dragged its heels about doing this — a sort of passive resistance it would probably not tolerate from the hapless citizens stuck in its lines. TSA screening is one of the most widely resented governmental intrusions on the individual citizen of our era. Shouldn’t we all demand that the federal government demonstrate adequate justification for imposing it? [Cato at Liberty and Ars Technica; Consumerist; Constitutional Law Prof, 2011] (& welcome National Review “Web Briefing” readers; John LaPlante, Detroit News “Water Cooler”)
Tagged as:
aviation,
D.C. Circuit,
regulation and its reform,
terrorism
The Texas School for the Deaf flies its non-local students to their family’s homes each weekend for free, and saves the frequent flier miles for purposes such as buying air tickets for chaperones. A woman identified as D.G. sued, saying the benefit of the miles should go to her daughter, but her lawyer says she’s dropping the suit in view of the big public outcry against it. [Claire Osborn, Austin American-Statesman; followup, Ken Herman]
Tagged as:
aviation,
schools
“Issues surrounding liability and law, rather than technology, now appear to be the biggest obstacle to autonomous vehicles.” [Ryan Avent via Alex Tabarrok]
Tagged as:
aviation,
traffic laws
You shouldn’t have let my common-law husband and his drunken coterie onto your charter flight, they were too obviously a safety hazard, alleges the suit, filed in a British Columbia court. [CNN]
Tagged as:
aviation,
Canada
- Mortgage robo-signing settlement not actually as punitive toward the banks as you might think, succeeds in sticking costs onto various parties not at table [FT, more (US taxpayers could wind up covering much of write-down costs through HAMP program); Felix Salmon (write-downs of underwater mortgages should not be assessed at face value); Mark Calabria, Cato and more, Bloomberg (banks managing to offload much of the cramdown onto investors such as pension funds); Daniel Fisher/Forbes one, two, three (banks get covert benefits, politicos get social engineering and fees -- shades of the collusive tobacco settlement!); Above the Law (Schneiderman steers money to legal services programs); Linette Lopez, BI (banks still exposed on many issues). More: Hans Bader, John Steele Gordon.
- "Burned at mediation by my own Facebook post" [Stuart Mauney, Abnormal Use]
- As anti-discrimination law advances, religious liberty retreats [Roger Pilon, Cato] Two views on the birth control mandate [Cathy Young, David Henderson] More: Adler, Frum.
- Motel Caswell case from Tewksbury, Mass. heads to court, could test forfeiture law [Balko] More: Washington Post editorial.
- Which is more unreasonable, OSHA regulation or FAA’s? Open to dispute [John Cochrane, Grumpy Economist]
- Indiana becomes a right to work state. On to Michigan next? [Shikha Dalmia, Reason]
- Warning! Tale of trial psychologists in wizard garb comes from a sinister source, namely me ["In the News," forensic psychologist Karen Franklin, handsome illustration swiped from Cato site]
Tagged as:
aviation,
banks,
discrimination law,
Facebook,
forfeiture,
Indiana,
labor unions,
Michigan,
mortgages,
OSHA
- Educator: please don’t bring lawyers to parent-teacher meetings [Ron Clark, CNN] Steve Brill: what I found when I investigated NYC teacher “rubber rooms” [Reuters] “The Six Dumbest Things Schools Are Doing in the Name of Safety” [Cracked] School waterfall liability [Lincoln, Neb. Journal-Star]
- As predicted: “Dodd-Frank Paperwork a Bonanza for Consultants and Lawyers” [NYT]
- “Running out of common drugs” [Josh Bloom, NY Post] Pharmaceutical shortages: the role of Medicare price controls [Richard Epstein, Hoover; earlier here, here, etc.]
- DoT insists on exposing private flight plans online. Yoo-hoo, privacy advocates? [Steve Chapman]
- New class action law in Mexico includes loser-pays provision [WSJ]
- Newt Gingrich candidacy revives memories of his 1995 call for death penalty (with “mass executions”) for drug smuggling [NYT archive via Josh Barro; see also @timothy_watson "Sounds kinda like Shariah Law to me.")
- "Cy pres slush fund in Georgia under ethics investigation" [PoL]
Tagged as:
aviation,
class actions,
cy pres,
Georgia,
illegal drugs,
loser pays,
Mexico,
pharmaceuticals,
schools,
teacher tenure
The cost of buying a Piper Cub or similar sport/light aircraft has risen very steeply as measured in constant dollars or labor hours since 1947, in contrast to the cost of most other engineered goods. Economists David Henderson and W. Kip Viscusi know why.
Tagged as:
aviation,
product liability
- Paper by Lester Brickman previews his much-anticipated new book Lawyer Barons [Mass Tort Lit, SSRN] More: Sheila Scheuerman, TortsProf.
- “A Players’ Class Action Against the NFL for Concussions?” [Russell Jackson]
- C’mon, DoJ, stop spreading domestic violence myths [Christina Hoff Sommers, USA Today]
- “Historians as Experts: A Plea for Help” [Bill Childs, TortsProf; related, Nathan Schachtman]
- Might not really work, though: “A call for aviation liability reform in South Dakota” [PoL]
- “Chevron Turns Tables on Ecuador Plaintiffs; Sues Them” [WSJ Law Blog, ShopFloor, more, yet more, NYLJ]
- Hedge funder plays race card against NYC’s famed Dakota co-op. How plausibly? [Business Insider]
- N.C. official: citizen who challenged road plans might be practicing engineering without a license [N&O]
Tagged as:
aviation,
Chevron,
domestic violence,
expert witnesses,
football,
Lester Brickman,
real estate,
South Dakota
- Adventures of a 28-year-old California foreclosure attorney [McSweeneys]
- National Enquirer ruled eligible for Pulitzer Prize consideration for John Edwards coverage [ABC, Guardian]
- Las Vegas attorney agrees to plead to unspecified charges in tort-mill scheme initially described by prosecutors as massive [ABA Journal, earlier here and here]
- Expect demands for greater regulation of general aviation after Austin attack [Skating on Stilts]
- Dear firm colleagues: does Morocco has an extradition treaty with the U.S.? Need to know quickly [Lowering the Bar] Related on Scott Rothstein: do not purchase investment advice from persons with gold toilets;
- Is a Texas prosecutor seeking to criminalize workplace accidents? [Bennett, Defending People]
- Cold comfort dept.: lawprof tired of people carrying on about being dragged through litigation, it’s not as if they’re being held liable [Howard Wasserman, Prawfsblawg]
- Iceland’s free-press project “is largely symbolic – which is not to say unimportant” [N.Y. Times quoting David Ardia, earlier]
Tagged as:
aviation,
California,
crime and punishment,
mortgages,
Nevada,
Rielle Hunter,
Scott Rothstein,
workplace
California: “Stanley Hilton, 60, of Hillsborough, said in unique court papers that his wife of 13 years divorced him and took their young triplets with her last year because of ‘around-the-clock’ jet noise at SFO. …Hilton last week sued (PDF) SFO, Hillsborough, the counties of San Mateo and San Francisco, dozens of airlines and jet manufacturers, and the real estate agents and couple that sold him his home on Darrell Road for $1.475 million in April 2003.” Hilton, who is representing himself pro se, “is a former civil litigation attorney with a law degree from Duke University and was an active member of the State Bar of California for most of the past three decades, records show. However, the Bar said courts deemed Hilton ineligible to practice law in August.” [San Mateo County Times, SF Chronicle "The Scavenger", Lowering the Bar.]
Tagged as:
airlines,
aviation,
pro se,
San Francisco,
shotgun defendant selection
