A group claiming to be descended from the Knights Templar, which was suppressed in the year 1307 under orders from Pope Clement V, has “filed a lawsuit against Benedict XVI calling for him to recognise the seizure of assets worth 100 billion euros (£79 billion).” (Fiona Govan, “Knights Templar heirs in legal battle with the Pope”, Telegraph, Aug. 4; NewsHoggers, Aug. 4 (noting unlikelihood that claim of descent can be adequately demonstrated)).
In NYC: gun rights discussion at NYCLU Tues. evening
For readers in the New York City area: Tomorrow evening (Tues.) I’m going to be one of three persons discussing the Constitution’s Second Amendment, and the Supreme Court’s Heller decision recognizing that it protects an individual and not merely a “collective” right, at a monthly meeting of the New York Civil Liberties Union. Details here. Also offering their views will be NYCLU’s Arthur Eisenberg, a proponent of the collective-rights view, and Damon Root of Reason magazine, who discusses the event here. There will even be pizza and refreshments.
BitTorrent throttling and cable bandwidth lawsuits
Class action lawyers have sued Comcast for throttling users of the bandwidth-intensive P2P application BitTorrent, and the Federal Communications Commission by a 3-2 vote has declared the cable provider’s practice unlawful. (UPI, Aug. 3; Janko Roettgers, “The FCC Rules Against Comcast. Now What?”, NewTeeVee.com, Aug. 1). But Insight Communications CEO Michael Willner defends the general need for some practice of this sort (Jul. 28; via Class Action Blawg):
[A reader/commenter who has filed a class action suit against Comcast suggests] building whatever capacity needed to give consumers all they use. I’d love to do that but it’s a self defeating process for any ISP with relatively high upload speeds to do so.
Here’s why. My company is accountable to the nearly half million broadband customers on our network. But when we provide relatively high upload speeds (1 meg and better), Internet users all over the world are directed by their P2P software to come to us before they go to slower providers. Within a few days, we simply are unable to handle the load leaving unmanaged consequences to take over, slowing everyone on our network no matter what they are doing. We could add more and more capacity, but the cycle simply starts all over again, bringing even more people to our network for uploads. We never get to the point where we would be able to build enough upload capacity to accommodate everyone from New Zealand to New Brunswick.
So we really only have two choices: We can limit all of our customers’ upload speeds making our network far less attractive to the downloader in New Zealand. That is the net effect of what DSL does. Or we can allocate a disproportionately large amount of upload capacity to our heavy upload users, but limit it fairly.
On some possible technical fixes, see Iljitsch van Beijnum, “IETF: find more peer-to-peer bandwidth, but use it sparingly”, Ars Technica, Aug. 3.
Banning menthol cigarettes?
In a daring journalistic departure, yesterday’s New York Times “Style” section piece actually interviewed some people who use the product. (Mireya Navarro, “Take Away Their Menthols? Is That Cool?”, Aug. 3). The paper’s coverage a week ago, by contrast, hewed more strictly to the favored narrative of the “tobacco control” crowd, vilifying as corrupt black members of Congress not yet ready to jump on board in banning a product very popular with their constituents. (Stephanie Saul, “Blacks in Congress Split Over Menthol Cigarettes”, Jul. 25).
Update: Suit against 8 year old skier settled
“Stifling free speech — globally”
Canada’s speech-tribunal censorship, writ large? “A coalition of Islamic states is using the United Nations to enact international ‘anti-defamation’ rules”. Among entities to protected from such “defaming”: religions.
Susan Bunn Livingstone, a former U.S. State Department official who specialized in human rights issues and also spoke to the July 18 congressional gathering, said the developments at the UN are worrisome. “They are trying to internationalize the concept of blasphemy,” said Livingstone at the panel. She contrasted “the concept of injuring feelings versus what is actually happening on the ground — torture, imprisonment, abuse.” And, she added, “They are using this discourse of ‘defamation’ to carve out any attention we would bring to a country. Abstractions like states and ideologies and religions are seen as more important than individuals. This is a moral failure.”
The fact that the resolutions keep passing, and that UN officials now monitor countries’ compliance, could help the concept of “defamation of religions” become an international legal norm, said Livingstone, noting that when the International Court of Justice at The Hague decides what rises to the level of an “international customary law,” it looks not to unanimity among countries but to “general adherence.” “That’s why these UN resolutions are so troubling,” she said. “They’ve been passed for 10 years.”
(Luisa Ch. Savage, Maclean’s, Jul. 23, via Rick Sincere). More from the author at her Maclean’s blog, with hundreds of reader comments, and from Somin @ Volokh.
Claim: Abercrombie wouldn’t hire hijab wearer
The apparel chain, famed for the immodesty of its catalogues and advertising, has an “Abercrombie Kids” division; the allegation is that one of its Oklahoma store managers didn’t think an Islamic religious headscarf would fit the desired employee image. The local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations says it has filed an EEOC complaint on her behalf. (PRNewswire/Breitbart, Jul. 31).
P.S. For another suit involving traditional Middle Eastern garb, see Jun. 17 (claim of right to wear loose-fitting garments around food machinery).
Void our AP test results? See you in court
Orange County, Calif.: “Educational Testing Service said Trabuco Hills High students were allowed to talk, use study aids and send text messages.” So it voided test results for about 400 of them, and is being duly sued by a lawyer representing some. (Seema Mehta, “Testing group reveals why it voided AP exams of about 400 students at O.C. high school”, L.A. Times, Jul. 24).
Update: Segway lawsuit against Disney
We missed this story in February, but a federal judge in Orlando threw out the suit (Nov. 13) claiming that Disney World discriminates against the disabled by not permitting Segway transportation devices. The judge didn’t reach the actual merits, but ruled that the plaintiffs hadn’t adequately established that they actually intended to visit the park. (UPI, Feb. 21).
Update to the update (5:30 p.m.): Matthew Heller of On Point News writes to say, “The Segway suit is actually alive and kicking. The plaintiffs filed an amended complaint and in May the judge denied a motion to dismiss, finding they had alleged ‘a specific intent to visit the Parks in the future.'”
Darrell McGraw and his outside counsel
Analyzing the upcoming race between the incumbent, Darrell McGraw, and his clean-government opponent, Dan Greear, the West Virginia Record has an extensive story on the West Virginia attorney general’s habit of giving lucrative no-bid contingency-fee contracts to his campaign contributors, as well as holding on to settlement money for his own personal slush fund. I am quoted at length and described as “widely regarded as one of the country’s leading voices in tort reform.” Also notable are quotes from another “Washington, D.C.-based lawyer who has written articles about the need for reform.” Kim Strassel also has a good piece on the subject in Friday’s Wall Street Journal:
To Mr. Greear’s advantage, his opponent is a case study of abuse in office. Mr. McGraw, in more than 14 years as West Virginia’s attorney general, has been a pioneer in the practice of filing questionable lawsuits against big companies, secretly doling out the legal work to outside trial lawyer friends who reap millions in fees. Those lawyers then turn around and donate heavily to Mr. McGraw’s re-election.
Polls show the public, in theory, disapproves. In a Tarrance Group survey last year, 75% of West Virginians think an attorney general should publicly disclose outside contracts with lawyers. Nearly 60% think attorneys should have to competitively bid for those jobs.
It’s this that motivates Mr. Greear. “I’ve watched what’s going on and thought: ‘If I were doing this to a client, I’d lose my law license.’ I don’t think any fair-thinking person can think this is good government, or good solid legal representation for West Virginia,” he tells me.
Also helping is that Mr. McGraw’s own sense of political immortality has recently landed him, and his state, in hot water. In 2001, he appointed four private law firms to sue drug companies for alleged deceptive advertising of OxyContin. Having forced a settlement in 2004, he handed his tort allies $3.3 million of the $10 million haul. Mr. McGraw had sued on behalf of state agencies (including the state’s Medicaid program) — yet his office kept the rest of the settlement money.
The federal government, which pays a significant portion of the state’s Medicaid bills, remains furious the program received none of the settlement, and is now threatening to withhold millions in Medicaid money. Mr. Greear is hitting hard on the uproar, using it to suggest Mr. McGraw has lost sight of why he’s suing companies, other than for the headlines.