Constitutional Law: February 2008 Archives
Not surprisingly, judges have not quite gotten a handle on this new fangled internet thing. Take for instance the injunction recently entered against the website Wikileaks. A Swiss bank named Bank Julius Baer with a branch in the
The latest controversy involves the posting of what the bank believes are private documents of its customers posted by a whistleblower to expose allegedly shady transactions. The federal judge issued first a temporary then a permanent injunction shutting down the site. The orders can not be construed as anything but prior restraints which, since the Pentagon Papers case, were supposedly almost impossible to obtain.
The delicious irony is that neither the Judge nor presumably the bank’s counsel understood that a domain name is just layman’s language for a website’s ip address which is a series of numbers separated by periods. Bloggers quickly posted the numbers, 88.80.13.160, so everyone can still access the site.
So it goes
Alan Milstein
Another day another senseless shooting on a school campus. The Supreme Court has the opportunity in the coming months to slow down the carnage. In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Court will interpret the meaning of the Second Amendment which reads: “A well regulated militia being necessary for the security of a
The question for the Court is whether that opening phrase has any meaning. The Court will consider whether the Amendment prohibits the District from banning handguns in a statute passed to reduce the amount of murders in our Nation’s Capital. Does the Amendment apply only to the right of states to arm militias in the form of police forces or the national guard or does it confer a right on every individual to own handguns, automatic weapons, and other firearms?
Numerous Friends of the Court have weighed in on both sides with more than one hundred briefs available over at Scotus. They range from briefs by Police Unions, District Attorney Associations, Historians, Physician and Public Health Groups, the NAACP , and the American Jewish Committee filed on behalf of the District of Columbia to those by the Bush Administration, the NRA, Pink Pistols, and Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership filed on behalf of those opposed to the handgun ban.
Here is a decision by the High Court which has the potential of creating real and historic change at a time when politicians seem incapable of acting.
Alan Milstein
Inevitable. Senator Arlen Specter's office confirms that the Senator is seeking a "sit-down" with Roger Goodell, the Commissioner of the National Football League to discuss what has now been dubbed "spygate", specifically, the New England Patriots purported "spying" on opposing teams to gain a strategic advantage in games and the NFL's response and conduct in the wake of that purported activity, including alleged destruction of data.
The Senator is the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the same Committee that investigates criminal conduct at the highest levels of government, including Watergate and Iran-Contra; conduct where the face of the nation was on trial. Now, the Committee is looking into the propriety of a football team and it's governing body. Don't misconstrue, there is a history of private litigants challenges to the conduct of the NFL in the civil controversy arena, but the Senate Judiciary Committee, perhaps the most prestigious sophisticated Congressional Committee in the United States government? Maybe the attention drawn to Senator Mitchell's investigation of Major League Baseball has something to do with it? To date, the New England Patriots have not commented on the media reports and no one within the organization has confirmed the number of videographers or rather, whether there was more than one "shooter".
John M. Hanamirian
