I just realized that there is so much noise about #Meta and very little about creating template legal policies that instances can adopt that prohibit commercial use of user data.
Whatever you think of defederation there are easy ways to do that. Legal policies on the other hand are complex and require expertise and often money.
Maybe #LawFedi can help crowdsource templates of strict noncommercial legal policies for the #Fediverse so instance admins do not have to figure it out themselves?
Meta blocked a story critical of its climate change ad policies on all of its platform. An independent journalist asked permission to repost the story verbatim on her substack. It was blocked too.
Honestly, the Supreme Court justices today sounded even more deranged and clueless than I even expected. They are just too worried about hypothetical future presidents to focus on the fact that we have a former president indicted for attempting to overthrow an election who is now running for reelection on an explicitly authoritarian, anti-democracy platform. 1/ #LawFedi
Just had an interesting phone call with a retired #attorney friend who is on a mission to teach every #judge in the US to identify veiled #SovereignCitizen rhetoric in their courtroom and respond appropriately instead of letting pro se defendants waste time, clog up the courts, and run up costs. I don’t understand why judges don’t already know this, but since they don’t, I’m glad my friend is on the case. She’s a 70-something 3x cancer survivor, and she’s not here for anyone’s nonsense! #LawFedi
U.S. #law schools should discourage students from applying for clerkships with #ClarenceThomas; faculty should refuse to recommend students for those clerkships; firms and other legal employers should refuse to hire people who have chosen to clerk for Thomas starting this year (when the large extent of his corruption became known). To do otherwise is to be complicit with Thomas’s unethical conduct. #LawFedi#LegalEthics#JudicialEthics
Despite the unanimity of the justices, I disagree with the Supreme Court’s judgment that states may not enforce section 3 of the 14th A. That judgment is the bottom line. But far more dangerous is the majority opinion, which includes discussion that goes beyond this bottom line. Five justices have tried to prospectively prescribe two requirements irrelevant to the Colorado case. First, they claim that only Congress, not the judiciary or executive branch may enforce section 3. 1/ #LawFedi
The State Bar Court of California recommends that John Eastman be disbarred. The opinion is impressive - detailed, clear, and absolutely firm that lying about law and fact to a court is disqualifying for membership in the bar. Equally firmly, the court finds that Eastman conspired to commit a crime with his client, Donald Trump, by conspiring to obstruct the electoral count for the 2020 presidential election. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24521262-eastman-decision-trial#LawFedi#LegalEthics#Jan6 1/
I see folks saying they are confident that ultimately this Supreme Court will reject Trump’s claim that presidents have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts. I’m not. I meant it every time I have said that Trump appointed Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney Barrett are almost certainly in the tank for him. Were they not, they’d be recusing themselves from all his appeals, as their participation certainly has, at the least, the appearance of impropriety. 1/ #LawFedi
The current Supreme Court has just granted cert in Anderson v. Griswold, a case from which at least two Justices should recuse themselves. Neither Clarence Thomas nor Amy Coney Barrett can participate with propriety. Barrett is even more compromised than Thomas when it comes to Trump. 1/ #LawFedi#AndersonvGriswold
I wrote something because I could no longer stay silent. I hope you won't either.
We hear echoes in 2023 America of the Nazi Party’s propaganda and the violence it wrought. Elie Wiesel, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor, said, “We must always take a side. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
I’ve finished reading the #FultonCounty#indictment, first time through. I’ll need to read it again to fully absorb it, but it is a crucial historical and legal document. Because #FaniWillis charged under #Georgia#RICO statute, the indictment fully captures how extensive and coordinated were the efforts of #Trump, #Giuliani, #Eastman, #Meadows and the rest. All the acts described in the RICO count have been reported, even been synthesized by journalists. But the discipline …1/2 #LawFedi
Before law school, Crystal Clanton lived for a year with Clarence and Ginni Thomas. Whatever else is off about Clanton (and there is evidence of more), that connection makes it unethical for C. Thomas to have hired her as a Supreme Court clerk. That is a position of public trust and just the appearance of awarding the post on the basis of a personal relationship is ethically inappropriate. Reporting on the situation: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/clarence-thomas-hires-clerk-crystal-clanton#LawFedi#JudicialEthics
“The two stories—political corruption and political cases—are so inextricably connected…. It’s the political and financial dirty work of two decades, coming to light in the span of one year, that the court has brought on itself at the moment in which it should have been beyond reproach.” @Dahlialith turns her eagle eye to the maelstrom engulfing the U.S. Supreme Court. Highly recommend. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/12/supreme-court-trump-cases-democracy-disaster.html#LawFedi
Hi #LawFedi & #lawprofs. Given the exodus of #legalacademia and #lawtwitter from our usual hangout, we thought we should make an account here. Please be gentle with us as we get used to posting (tooting?) on this platform. 🙂
Now the New York State Court of Appeals has ordered the #fraud trial against #Trump to proceed, starting Monday, some observations about the terrific opinion the trial judge, Arthur Engoron, handed down earlier this week. Full text of opinion is at https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/trump-judges-ruling/ce6de7d636227e1b/full.pdf. Law has long had to grapple with falsehood , deceit, and gross inaccuracy of all kinds. Deployed by able jurists, it is well up to the task of dealing with Trump tactics in a way that other fields are not. 1/ #LawFedi
Here is a statement from a West Virginia Linguistics professor whose entire department has been eliminated. It provides additional context to the Provost's decision to cancel 38 majors and the tenure and untenured faculty lines associated with them.
Here’s an excellent article about important lawsuits just filed on behalf of Uvalde families who lost loved ones to a mass shooting there. The families, represented by the same attorney who represented the Sandy Hook families, are suing Daniel Defense, the maker of the AR-15 used by the shooter, as well as the publisher of Call of Duty video games and Meta. (I am quoted in the story.) https://wapo.st/3R1Y9LA#LawFedi#GunViolence