- You might as well live: estate and inheritance tax make it highly inadvisable to die as a Maryland resident [TaxProf]
- “Foreclosures: The Chickens Come Home to Roost” [Calvert Institute, earlier]
- Courts task force created earlier this year will study costly and open-ended Civil Gideon proposals [courts]
- For your own good: state’s commissioner of financial regulation goes after banks that service payday lenders [Funnell]
- Governor candidates angle for union support, bids include “greater use of collective bargaining agreements on state construction projects” [WaPo]
- Really, it won’t kill you to respect people’s consciences on Frederick County boards and commissions [Bethany Rodgers, Frederick News Post on Pledge of Allegiance controversy, update, Ken at Popehat (“Freedom of conscience is like the good couch in the living room; it’s there to be had, not to be used.”), Gene Healy background] About time: city may ease restrictions on bed and breakfasts [Jen Bondeson, Frederick News Post]
- Only a handful of states join Maryland in policy of unionizing home child carers [Go Local Providence, more]
Facebook to let school officials flag “questionable” posts for takedown
That’s the gist of an announcement this morning from the office of Maryland attorney general Doug Gansler, following on the passing into effect of the state’s groundbreaking “cyberbullying” law, which I criticized earlier this year. The National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) is involved too in the Educator Escalation Channel, which will start with a pilot Maryland program. Gansler says those targeted for post takedowns will include Facebook users who are “not committing a crime… We’re not going to go after you, but we are going to take down the language off of Facebook, because there’s no redeeming societal value and it’s clearly hurting somebody.” Although the rationale is to protect Maryland juveniles from unwelcome and hurtful online communications, the initial press reports offer no indication that the Facebook users whose speech is targeted for takedown will necessarily be other Maryland juveniles.
What could possibly go wrong? I’ve got some thoughts on the question at Cato at Liberty. More: Scott Greenfield (“Facebook becomes the agent of the state. … Welcome to the start of something big.”)
Three new books
No fewer than three friends of Overlawyered (and I’m probably forgetting some) have new books out on constitutional law and political theory. Clark Neily has just published Terms of Engagement: How Our Courts Should Enforce the Constitution’s Promise of Limited Government (more), Ilya Somin has just published Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government Is Smarter (review), and Josh Blackman has just published Unprecedented: The Constitutional Challenge to Obamacare (review; triple mini-review by Tim Sandefur of all three books with preview of two more). Congratulations to all!
Free speech roundup
- University of Montana professors who refuse Title IX training to be reported to federal government [FIRE, more, Missoulian] Professor yanked from public-university classroom over offensive out-of-class tweet [Popehat, Peter Bonilla/FIRE]
- Preacher/historical fantasist/horrible human being Scott Lively has probably accomplished more actual evil in life than the picketers of the Westboro Baptist Church, yet it raises disturbing First Amendment questions to let him be sued in U.S. court for having urged foreign governments to be more oppressive [NBC News]
- Speaking of wacky preachers, Florida sheriff says Terry Jones arrested for unlawful fuel transport and open gun carry, not because anyone disagreed with his speech [Orlando Sentinel, Volokh]
- Critical speech annoys elected officials and that’s one reason we keep having to fight about campaign regulation [Barton Hinkle, Brad Smith on McCutcheon case, Ilya Shapiro on Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus]
- Minnesota: “Ban on ‘Advis[ing or] Encourag[ing] … Another’ to Commit Suicide Violates First Amendment” [Eugene Volokh] Pennsylvania: “Crime to ‘Disparag[e]’ an Under-18-Year-Old ‘With Intent to Harass’?” [same] Liking Facebook page presumptively protected speech [same] Veto override fails, so Missouri won’t enact proposed ban on publishing names of gun owners or concealed carry permit holders [same, followup]
- Danish-Iranian artist convicted of “racism” after critical comments re: Muslim men [Copenhagen Post via @ClaudiaHajian]
NY AG cracks down on fake consumer reviews
Jack Shafer has a few thoughts:
Schneiderman mustn’t neglect the product endorsement industry. Do those celebrity endorsers really love the product or service as much as they say they do? … Fake reviews on Yelp, properly considered, are Yelp’s problem, not the state of New York’s. Let the Yelp people clean up the sewer. And the attorney general? Aren’t there any genuine crimes in the state for him to investigate?
EEOC v. Boh Brothers
EEOC v. Boh Brothers is a new Fifth Circuit en banc decision allowing liability on a theory of hostile workplace environment sex discrimination arising from crude and aggressive locker-room banter in an all-male workplace (on facts differing somewhat from those in Oncale v. Sundowner, the 1998 Supreme Court case countenancing such liability). The dissent by Judge Edith Jones, p. 46 at footnote 3, cites my “Sentence First, Verdict Afterward,” from the July issue of Commentary magazine, on the federal government’s unhealthy interest lately in developing legal doctrines that pressure private institutions into adopting speech codes aimed at protecting listeners’ sensitivities.
Don’t miss the “Etiquette for Ironworkers” parody legal memo on p. 58, either. How many dissents include a parody legal memo?
High court grants cert in Harris v. Quinn
The Supreme Court yesterday granted certiorari in Harris v. Quinn, a case raising potentially major issues of federal labor law and forced political association. Via SCOTUSBlog:
Issue: (1) Whether a state may, consistent with the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, compel personal care providers to accept and financially support a private organization as their exclusive representative to petition the state for greater reimbursements from its Medicaid programs; and (2) whether the lower court erred in holding that the claims of providers in the Home Based Support Services Program are not ripe for judicial review.
My colleagues at the Cato Institute filed an amicus brief seeking cert in the case. More: Will Baude.
It’s a “massive problem”…
… when regulatory/enforcement agencies generate their own budget from fines, notes Michael Greve, reflecting on the J.P. Morgan “London Whale” settlement and other matters:
Here’s where the $920 million [from the Morgan settlement] went: OCC, $300 million; SEC, $200 million; the Fed, $200 million. (The remainder went to the British authorities.) That much money, in a single action, raises the alarming prospect of agencies that become self-funding and, moreover, profit centers for a cash-starved Congress — through their enforcement activities. Here’s the blazingly obvious problem: most of the laws on the books are stupid and, when fully enforced, would land half of us in jail and the rest of us in bankruptcy. A principal way to check that problem is the appropriations process, which limits the enforcers’ budgets (and may influence their enforcement choices, for good or ill). When the money starts flowing in the other direction, all bets are off: you’re living under a NAFI regime.
NAFI is a term of art: it means “Non-Appropriated Funds Agencies”—outfits that are part of the government but financed not through congressional appropriations but through their own operations and revolving funds. The U.S. Mint is a NAFI. So is the Federal Reserve: it finances its budget from its earnings and then kicks the rest over to the Treasury. The CFPB has strong NAFI features: it simply sends a demand letter to the Fed, telling it how much money it wants (up to a certain percentage of the Fed’s earnings—above that level, the CFPB may receive appropriations). As noted, the Fed’s earnings don’t initially go into the Treasury and therefore aren’t appropriated from it.
The Securities and Exchange Commission hasn’t reached NAFI status yet, Greve writes, but not for want of trying.
Joseph Nacchio released from prison
“Prosecutors claim Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio was guilty of insider trading, and that his prosecution had nothing to do with his refusal to allow spying on his customers without the permission of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. But to this day, Nacchio insists that his prosecution was retaliation for refusing to break the law on the NSA’s behalf.” [Andrea Peterson, WaPo; earlier here, here]
Also on surveillance: “One NSA analyst was recreationally surveilling women for 5 years, until a girlfriend realized he was wiretapping her.” [Kevin Poulsen, Wired] “To boldly snoop where no snoop has snooped before” [Lowering the Bar on NSA grandiosity] No, it’s not creepy at all for the British government to put up big peeping-eyes posters to remind taxpayers they’re being watched [Telegraph last November]
Court: hacking, racketeering laws don’t cover e-personation of principal
Some students in Oregon apparently thought it would be funny to create Facebook and Twitter accounts posing as an assistant principal at the middle school, and “allegedly posted materials, including some which were obscene, that caused his reputation to be diminished. He brought suit against defendants and their parents, alleging claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and for defamation and negligent supervision.” Dismissing the lawsuit, the court cited precedent that violation of websites’ terms of use does not constitute a CFAA violation, and added as to the racketeering charge: “Congress did not intend to target the misguided attempts at retribution by juvenile middle school students against an assistant principal in enacting RICO.” [Venkat Balasubramani, Eric Goldman’s Technology & Marketing Law Blog; Matot v. CH (PDF), U.S. District Court, Oregon]