- “People’s Rights Amendment” paves way for government control of media and trampling of many other rights. Is your Rep a sponsor? [Volokh, more, Somin]
- Indian skeptic charged with blasphemy for revealing secret behind “miracle” of weeping cross [Doctorow] “Arab world’s most famous comedian” jailed in Egypt on charges of “insulting Islam” [Volokh]
- “Is the Real Intent of Cyber-Bullying Laws to Eliminate Criticism of Politicians?” [Coyote]
- Timothy Kincaid: why I oppose the California “don’t say ex-gay” therapy-ban bill [BTB]
- More on unreasonable IRS demands of tea party groups seeking nonprofit status [Stoll, Anne Sorock/Bill Jacobson, Houston Chronicle, earlier]
- Denmark Supreme Court, 7-0, strikes down conviction of Lars Hedegaard for criticizing Islam in own home [Mark Steyn] Institute of Public Affairs launches campaign to defend free speech in Australia [Andrew Bolt case earlier] Free speech in Britain looking the worse for wear [Cooke, NRO] Belgian court throws out lawsuit seeking ban on allegedly racist “Tintin” comic book [Volokh] Group files criminal complaint against Swiss magazine over cover story on Roma crime [Spiegel]
Tagged as:
Australia,
Belgium,
bullying,
Denmark,
free speech,
hate speech,
India,
Switzerland,
United Kingdom
- Keeping prosecutors busy? Georgia lawmaker files bill that would make Internet defamation a crime [Fulton County Daily Report]
- Sarkozy calls for law banning visits to pro-terror websites [Ken Paulson, First Amendment Center]
- “Ron Paul Campaign Drops Effort To Identify Anonymous Videographer” [Paul Alan Levy]
- Playboy caused how many divorces? Junk science in the service of big-government conservatism [Andrew Stuttaford, NRO] How Santorum’s plans to get porn off internet go beyond GWB’s [Josh Barro] Contra Santorum, “arrival of Internet was associated with reduction in rape incidence” [Steve Chapman]
- “Brian Deer and the British Medical Journal File An Anti-SLAPP Motion Against Andrew Wakefield” [Popehat]
- Iowa passes law penalizing animal rightsers who spy on farms [Reuters, earlier] Illinois turns thumbs down on “ag-gag” proposal [Steve Chapman]
- “What’s happened to free speech in Britain?” [Alex Massie, John O'Sullivan/NRO, earlier here and others]
Tagged as:
animal rights,
France,
free speech,
Iowa,
libel slander and defamation,
online speech,
Ron Paul,
terrorism,
United Kingdom
- Shame on DoJ: “Systematic concealment” of evidence when feds prosecuted Sen. Ted Stevens [WaPo, Caleb Mason/Prawfs] NYT notes feds’ losing streak in Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prosecutions [NYT, our latest]
- Italy: tax officials stop luxury cars, demand drivers’ most recent tax returns [Secular Right]
- Pinterest: casual users (perhaps especially casual users) might be opening themselves to copyright liability [DDK Portraits, WSJ Law Blog] And in case you needed a reminder not to publish photos grabbed from random web sources… [Webcopyplus]
- In new Atlantic special report, Philip K. Howard collects papers on outdated government law and regulation from contributors Robert Litan, Julie Barnes, Mark Warner, Jim Cooper;
- Institute for Justice sues IRS over its new licensing requirements for tax preparers [Ilya Shapiro and Chaim Gordon/Cato, Paul Caron/TaxProf, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Barton Hinkle]
- “It is acceptable to refer to all court proceedings as a ‘trial,’ because seriously, you ever sat through one of those things?” [@FakeAPStylebook]
- Christopher Booker series on child-snatching by UK authorities [Telegraph: first, second, third]
Tagged as:
Child Protective Services,
humor,
Italy,
Philip K. Howard,
photography,
prosecutorial abuse,
taxes,
taxpayers,
United Kingdom
Sad, inevitable, or both? “I can’t fight Hollywood,” says the mistress of the pub and music venue in the south of England, which has operated for 20 years and has now drawn a legal threat from a California firm that owns many Tolkien rights. [BBC]
Tagged as:
copyright,
United Kingdom
“A retired semi-professional footballer who claims his faith ruined his chances of playing for Manchester United is suing the Baptist Church for £10 million.” Arquimedes Nganga “quit the sport aged 25 when he converted to the Baptist faith. He said: ‘I could definitely have had a long career in the Premiership’” had he not given it up. [Evening Standard]
Tagged as:
churches,
damage theories,
sports,
United Kingdom
Creative application #95,724 of international human rights law: maybe it turns out to ban U.S.-style factory farming. Activists are urging the Derbyshire county council in England to deny planning permission to a large hog facility on the grounds that it violates local residents’ protected right to private and family life [Guardian]
Tagged as:
agriculture and farming,
international human rights,
United Kingdom
- Jackpot justice and New Jersey pharmacies (with both a Whitney Houston and a Ted Frank angle) [Fox, PoL, our Jan. 3 post]
- New Mexico: “Trial lawyers object to spaceport limits” [Las Cruces Bulletin]
- Dodd-Frank: too big not to fail [The Economist] Robert Teitelman (The Deal) on new Stephen Bainbridge book Corporate Governance After the Financial Crisis [HuffPo] Securities suits: “trial lawyers probably won’t be able to defend a defective system forever” [WSJ Dealpolitik]
- Uh-oh: U.K. Labour opposition looks at unleashing U.S.-style class actions [Guardian] “U.K. Moves ‘No Win, No Fee’ Litigation Reforms to 2013″ [Suzi Ring, Legal Week]
- More on controls on cold medicines as anti-meth measure [Radley Balko, Megan McArdle, Xeni Jardin, earlier here, here, here]
- Recognizable at a distance: “In Germany, a Limp Domestic Economy Stifled by Regulation” [NY Times]
- Fewer lawyers in Congress these days [WSJ Law Blog]
Tagged as:
Germany,
illegal drugs,
New Jersey,
New York Times,
pharmaceuticals,
regulation and its reform,
securities litigation,
Senate,
spac,
U.S. House of Representatives,
United Kingdom
- Melissa Kite, columnist with Britain’s Spectator, writes about her low-speed car crash and its aftermath [first, second, third, fourth]
- NYT’s Nocera lauds Keystone pipeline, gets called “global warming denier” [NYTimes] More about foundations’ campaign to throttle Alberta tar sands [Coyote] Regulations mandating insurance “disclosures” provide another way for climate change activists to stir the pot [Insurance and Technology]
- “Cop spends weeks to trick an 18-year-old into possession and sale of a gram of pot” [Frauenfelder, BB]
- Federal Circuit model order, pilot program could show way to rein in patent e-discovery [Inside Counsel, Corporate Counsel] December Congressional hearing on discovery costs [Lawyers for Civil Justice]
- Trial lawyer group working with Senate campaigns in North Dakota, Nevada, Wisconsin, Hawaii [Rob Port via LNL] President of Houston Trial Lawyers Association makes U.S. Senate bid [Chron]
- Panel selection: “Jury strikes matter” [Ron Miller, Maryland Injury]
- Law-world summaries/Seventeen syllables long/@legal_haiku (& for a similar treatment of high court cases, check out @SupremeHaiku)
Tagged as:
Canada,
climate change,
discovery,
environment,
global warming,
Hawaii,
humor,
illegal drugs,
jury selection,
low-speed auto collisions,
Nevada,
North Dakota,
oil industry,
patent litigation,
politics,
Senate,
United Kingdom,
Wisconsin
- “A 4-Page Playdate Waiver? Is This the New Normal?” [Lenore Skenazy, Free-Range Kids; our 2000 post on "Rise of the High-School Sleepover Disclaimer"]
- Spirit Airlines sets what it calls DOTUC fee, for “Dept. of Transportation Unintended Consequences” [Stoll]
- How fairly are fathers treated in family court? [Nina Shapiro, Seattle Weekly via Alkon]
- “‘Insider’ Trading by the Representative Plaintiff in Shareholder Litigation” [Bainbridge]
- “Donation controversy focuses attention on Madison County asbestos litigation” [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Chamber-backed LNL]
- Update: Appeals court reinstates Duluth doc’s defamation claims [DNT, earlier here, here, here; "bedside manner" criticism]
- U.K.: “‘Psychic’ Sally Morgan Sues Critics for £150,000 After Refusing $1 Million to Prove Her Powers” [D.J. Grothe, HuffPo] “She’ll be calling witnesses such as ‘an uncle, or father, or a man… with a b in his first name’.” [@thegagthief]
Tagged as:
airlines,
asbestos,
divorce,
family law,
libel slander and defamation,
Madison County,
recreation,
Seattle,
securities litigation,
United Kingdom
- Overseas press excoriates new FATCA tax-Americans’-foreign-earnings law; some foreign banks now turn away American customers [Dan Mitchell, Cato, Reason] “The Fatca story is really kind of insane.” [Caplin & Drysdale's H. David Rosenbloom, NYT via TaxProf] Will Congress back down? [Peter Spiro/OJ, more]
- Important new book from James Maxeiner (University of Baltimore) and co-authors Gyooho Lee and Armin Weber on what the U.S. can learn from legal procedure overseas: “Failures of American Civil Justice in International Perspective” [TortsProf]
- Don’t do it: British administration mulls further move away from loser-pays rule in search of — what exactly, a yet more Americanized litigation culture? [Guardian, Law Society]
- Apparently in Norway it’s possible to lose one’s kids by feeding them by hand [Shikha Dalmia, Reason]
- Financial transaction tax? Ask the Swedes how that worked out [Mike "Mish" Shedlock, Business Insider]
- Notes from conference on globalization of class actions [Karlsgodt] Related: Adam Zimmerman;
- “Another conviction in Europe for insulting religion” [Volokh; Polish pop star] Campus secularists’ speech under fire in the U.K. as “Jesus and Mo” controversy spreads to LSE [Popehat] British speech prosecution of soccer star [Suneal Bedi and William Marra, NRO]
Tagged as:
Child Protective Services,
Europe,
free speech,
hate speech,
loser pays,
Norway,
Sweden,
taxes,
United Kingdom
- “Hawaii may keep track of all web sites visited” [Declan McCullagh]
- NEA (and now Obama) answer to public education woes: lock the exits by hiking school-leaving age [Steve Chapman, earlier]
- On nomination filibusters, New York Times editorial policy has pulled a 360, not just a 180 [Whelan, 2003, 2005, earlier]
- English copyright ruling “creates ownership in the idea of a photo’s composition” [Doctorow, BB]
- New Maryland push for same-sex marriage will include stronger religious exemptions, a course I urged last year [Sun, my view] Detailed inquiry into the law of interstate marriage recognition and DOMA [Will Baude, Volokh]
- When lawyers face prison for the advice they give [Jack Fernandez, Zuckerman Spaeder via Legal Ethics Forum]
- FDA regulation of pharmaceuticals: “More reasons to discount adverse event reports” [Yeary, Drug & Device Law, the CPSC database analogy]
Tagged as:
copyright,
judicial nominations,
Maryland,
pharmaceuticals,
photography,
same-sex marriage,
schools,
United Kingdom
- Per Chevron, Kerry Kennedy getting undisclosed percentage of the take, potentially in millions, to side with plaintiffs in Ecuador suit [NY Post] Long New Yorker take-out on case [Patrick Radden Keefe]
- Freetail Brewing fields a nastygram: “How to Comply With a Cease-and-Desist Letter But Still Win” [Lowering the Bar]
- I.e. boycotts illegal? Odd Minnesota law bans economic “reprisals” based on “political activity.” [Volokh]
- “Chris McGrath v. Vaughan Jones: An Unpleasant Peek Into U.K. Libel Law” [Popehat; suit over science-and-theology book review] Related: “You Can’t Read This Book: why libel tourists love London” [Nick Cohen, Guardian, on his new book]
- Business experience isn’t be-all or end-all for presidential qualifications, but might avert some policy howlers [Kling]
- “Arbitration Is Here to Stay and One Lawyer Says That Is Good for Consumers” [Alan Kaplinsky interview, Mickey Meese/Forbes, PoL]
- Off-topic random thought: “Iranian nuclear scientist who moonlights in Broadway Spider-Man cast” must be world’s most uninsurable job description;
- “D.C. Lawmakers Propose Requiring Students to Apply to College” [Fox]
Tagged as:
arbitration,
beer and brewers,
Chevron,
Minnesota,
nastygrams,
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,
schools,
United Kingdom,
Washington D.C.
