The Law

Here is a concise guide to federal statutes.

• Statutes at Large
• US Code

After Congress passes law, the bureaucracy drafts rules:

• Federal Register
• Code of Federal Regulations

Then the courts may act

• The Structure
• Guide to Supreme Court decisions

"The Lecture" from Anatomy of a Murder (start at 20:00). They show this scene in law schools.

Nobel Peace Prize

Privacy on Facebook

In class we briefly mentioned the privacy implications of using facebook. While there are a lot of ways that your information can "leak" to those you never intended to get it, one of the seemingly most innocuous is through facebook quizzes. The ACLU put together a quiz demonstrating the privacy vulnerability involved in quizzes.

As they put it

Even if your Facebook profile is "private," when you take a quiz, an unknown quiz developer could be accessing almost everything in your profile: your religion, sexual orientation, political affiliation, pictures, and groups. Facebook quizzes also have access to most of the info on your friends' profiles. This means that if your friend takes a quiz, they could be giving away your personal information too.

If you want to see it for yourself, you can try their quiz

Czar Wars

This past week, we discussed "czars." Almost on cue, a subcommittee of Senate Judiciary took up the issue. According to The New York Times:

Senator Russ Feingold held his promised hearing on the constitutionality of so-called czars in the Obama administration on Tuesday afternoon, winnowing away at a list of criticized appointees in his effort to examine whether the Senate’s advise-and-consent role was being circumvented by the executive branch. Next up is a hearing a week from Wednesday, when the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee takes up the issue, too, zeroing in a little differently on the number of so-called czars and a slightly expanded number of appointments during President Obama’s tenure. When Senator Feingold, who is chairman of the Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, opened his hearing, he called it “unfortunate” that the White House had refused to send a representative to talk about the issue before the panel. “It’s also a
bit ironic,” Senator Feingold noted, “since one of the concerns that has been raised about these officials is that they will thwart congressional oversight of the Executive Branch."

One of the witnesses was CMC alum Matt Spalding. You may read his testimony here.

Presidential Immunity from Prosecution While in Office

Re: Criminal prosecutions of top executive officials

Recent scandals in Italy bring to the forefront the difference between the American Constitution and those of other countries. Amar says that the "basic structure [of the Constitution...affords] a sitting president temporary immunity from ordinary criminal prosecution during his term of office." The New York Times reports, however, that the Constitutional Court of Italy ruled unconstitutional an Italian law "granting the nation’s four highest office holders immunity from prosecution while in office." The court declared that the law "[violated] the clause in the [Italian] constitution granting citizens equality under the law."

The law in question has been in contention since Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi passed it through Parliment in 2008. The New York Times reports that "lawyers for Mr. Berlusconi argued that the prime minister could not govern if he was constantly fighting his own legal battles," a nod to the fact that the Prime Minister is the defendant in several corruption trials. Amar's statement that an American president receives immunity because he is "expected to preside continuously" complements this argument. Unlike in Italy, however, the American president is "vested with the powers of an entire branch" (emphasis mine). Italy has both a President of the Council of Ministers (i.e. the Prime Minister) and a President of the Republic.

The Presidency

The Gulf of Tonkin Incident:




From the LBJ tapes.

A do-nothing president?

Check out the Saturday Night Live skit of Obama listing all the promises he has supposedly failed to keep while in office:



But most of these accusations were a stretch. Did Obama say he'd get us out of Iraq by October? No. CNN did a story on the skit and found that SNL was only right about Obama not closing Gitmo. Obama ordered it closed by January 2010, although Secretary Gates has said they won't make that deadline.

Here's the CNN clip: