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Privacy as secrecy and privacy as autonomy
The concept of “privacy”-as in “the right to privacy”-can be understood in a number of ways. This multitude of potential meanings and uses is partly why the concept is controversial, confusing, and perhaps even contradictory. Previously I have discussed the difference in perceptions of privacy in the 19th century, where the legal focus seemed to be more on “confidentiality” than what we have come to understand as “privacy” today. That is, the 19th century concern was with maintaining trust relationships between people rather than with protecting either secrecy or autonomy (although that is not to say that these were not valued).
November 2011 / 4 min.
Freedom of speech in the “Second Gilded Age”
In “Digital Speech and Democratic Culture: A Theory of Freedom of Expression for the Information Society,” Jack Balkin (of the blog Balkinization) writes about what he sees as the appropriation of free speech ideals by media corporations in an effort to maximize their capital investments.
November 2011 / 3 min.
Reading William B. Stoebeck’s “On the Reception of English Common Law in the American Colonies”
In 1968, William B. Stoebeck published “On the Reception of English Common Law in the American Colonies,” a discussion of how and when England’s common law came into use in the American colonies.
November 2011 / 5 min.
Robert Horwitz on the deregulation of American telecommunications
Robert Horwitz’s The Irony of Regulatory Reform: The Deregulation of American Telecommunications, published in 1989, explores in depth the issue of telecommunications regulation at a time when telecommunications was once again in transition.
October 2011 / 5 min.
Thinking about privacy and the First Amendment
This post is about Eugene Volokh’s article on free speech and privacy in relation to Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis’s 1890 law review article, “The Right to Privacy.” This highly influential piece advocated for “the fundamental right to be let alone.” But is it impossible to reconcile such a right with an equally compelling right to free speech?
October 2011 / 5 min.
Free speech and broadcasting: Cohen v. California and FCC v. Pacifica Foundation
Balancing strong First Amendment (“free speech”) speech protections with the desire to protect the delicate sensibilities of America’s youth is always a complex task. Two seminal Supreme Court cases-Cohen v. California and FCC v. Pacifica Foundation-illustrate the struggle the Court has had to find the right path.
October 2011 / 4 min.
Civil law and courts of equity: the common law is hybrid law
The Roman civil law tradition (which prevails in Europe) has had a larger impact on American jurisprudence than is generally acknowledged. Indeed, although the United States considers itself a common-law country, we in fact use a system that combines common (judge-made, customary, adversarial, precedent-focused) with civil (usually statute-based and inquisitorial) law, but which in England focused on “equity” or fairness and justice.
October 2011 / 3 min.
National identity through postal delivery of newspapers
In Spreading the News, Richard R. John writes about the development of the American postal system in the eighteenth century, and the police choices that leverages the system as a means of newspaper distribution.
October 2011 / 2 min.
Civil law’s influence on American common law: the appeal
In “Salamanders and Sons of God,” an article in The Many Legalities of Early America, Mary Sarah Bilder writes about the “Culture of Appeal in Early New England,” and situates the embrace of the right to appeal by New Englanders within the larger English and Roman legal tradition.
October 2011 / 3 min.
On the legal basis for English possession of North America
James Muldoon’s article in The Many Legalities of Early America, “Discovery, Grant, Charter, Conquest or Purchase,” discusses the surprising influence the Pope’s validation of Spanish and Portuguese possessions in the New World played in English justifications for their own American territory. But this justification was merged with an English focus on improvements to the land.
October 2011 / 1 min.