Forgive me for being churlish, curmudgeonly, even, but Apple Inc. has thus far fired far wide of the mark in its dispute with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. What’s at stake in the iPhone controversy is far more significant than balancing privacy and security.
The federal government’s posture in this case comes dangerously close to repealing the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The Thirteenth? Which one is that?
Let me recite the heart of it verbatim for you: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for...
February 28, 2016
Framing the dispute between Apple Inc. and the Federal Bureau of Investigation as the need to balance security and liberty tilts the debate in favor of the government. A more candid framing destroys the government’s assertions: the conflict pits slavery against freedom. Who favors slavery?
Why isn’t anyone talking about the 13th Amendment in this debate about what the government can, and cannot, compel people to do?
Enacted in the wake of the Civil War, the amendment is simplicity itself: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except...
February 23, 2016
Antonin Scalia’s death doesn’t just yield a vacancy on the United States Supreme Court; it provides an opportunity to re-examine the role of the Court in American life, and to ask fundamental questions about how we decide what is, and is not, just.
No sooner had word been publicized that Justice Scalia had died than presidential candidates weighed in on whether President Barack Obama should nominate a replacement, or should defer to the next president. President Obama put a quick end to speculation about his intentions, announcing that he will...
February 14, 2016
The public at large rarely gets a glimpse behind the curtain of justice, and thus can’t appreciate the ugly reality of the criminal justice system. Sadly, defendants are often punished for relying upon the very rights we say we revere. Nowhere is this more evident than in imposition of what defense lawyers call the “trial tax.”
Among the rights guaranteed to a person accused of a crime is the right to present a defense, and the right to a public trial. Defendants enjoy a presumption of innocence. Indeed, jurors are sometimes told that the presumption of innocence alone...
February 3, 2016
January 28, 2016
Odds are, you have never visited someone imprisoned for life, or for many decades. Prisoners are outcasts, beloved, if at all, only by their...
January 26, 2016
Utopian or dystopian?
You decide. But consider seriously the question: The Muslim Brotherhood forms a new a political party in France, and, in...
January 18, 2016
Just why the office of the chief state's attorney is hell-bent on killing people is one of those deeper mysteries I am destined never to understand....
January 6, 2016
The trouble with appeals to heaven is the answer might disappoint. For the folks who’ve commandeered the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in...
January 6, 2016
It is the day before Christmas, and I should be scurrying around, doing my last minute shopping, and letting the holiday spirit overcome me all at...
December 30, 2015
At year's end, it is sometimes customary to name a person of the year, so let me add my nominee: Aylan Al-Kurdi. Odds are, you never learned his...