Yelp for Jail?

According to a recent story by Jacob Gershman in the Wall St. Journal,

"If you happen to be spending some time at Theo Lacy jail in Orange County, Calif., you might be pleased to know that at least one visitor thinks it’s the “cleanest and best organized of all the jail facilities in the County of Orange.”

That’s not from an official government or legal advocacy report. It’s one man’s opinion shared on Yelp.

The popular review site has become a forum for lawyers, inmates and their family members to pan or praise prisons, reports the Washington Post. Thumbs up and down have been given to everything from the quality of mashed potatoes at the cafeteria to inmate conditions."

I know I typically provide a punchline to blurbs like this...but I think I will simply stand back and allow readers to come up with what they will on this one...

Lessons Learned from 1,000+ Posts, or: The Philosophy of Blawgconomics

I recently published the 1,000th post to Blawgconomics. While that might not be a lot in the big scheme of the millions of blogs, microblogs, news sites etc. which are available to anyone with an internet connection, and while there have been some reposts, reprints and brief blurbs along the way, that is no mean feat for a site which is (mostly) tended to solely by yours truly and which is composed mostly of posts which require at least a little time and effort.

One might assume that, with that much writing under my belt, that there would be some unifying themes, that I might have developed a voice, that readers could point to certain issues and say that they are indicative of the positions I typically take on matters, whether they be political, legal or economic in nature. To some extent, I think that is probably true.

I tend to look at legal and political issues through an economic lens (though not as vociferously as, say, strict adherents to the Chicago School might). I tend to value the rule of law, but also minimalism when it comes to establishing laws. I tend to value personal freedom above forced obligations to society. I tend to value less regulation over more regulation. I tend to hold fairly closely to the values of libertarians (or classical liberals in the European nomenclature).

However, I haven't, I think (and probably to my detriment as far as page views are concerned) taken to relying upon sticking to any polarized side of a political spectrum. If Republicans are acting stupidly, I am happy to reserve as much venom for them as I do for Democrats, my more natural political enemies in many ways. If Congress is trampling on liberties, I don't care about assigning blame, I care that it is happening. I don't care if it is the military industrial complex bossing around D's or R's, I care about how it impacts my day-to-day life.

In addition to not sticking to any side of the aisle in matters I explore, I also think that the extent to which I have found myself susceptible to shifts in opinion over time, due to critical thought or (more often) the invaluable prompts of readers, has been fascinating. It is all fine and good for me to rant about personal responsibility when discussing whether the government should forgive student loan debt, but it is another matter entirely when regular Americans respond to let me know their own stories, and why the system didn't work out for them.

I read about a recently-released study sometime over the past few weeks where it was found that the stronger people's opinions were on topics, the less likely they were to have really thought the issues through. I think I can probably provide some proof of that in the negative; the more I think about topics, the deeper I get into writing a post, the more likely it is that the punchline will change from my initial gut reaction. Or, even when I don't shift completely, I am usually able to throw a few counterpoints in that wouldn't have been otherwise immediately apparent to me.

I am happy with how this site has allowed me to develop and express my voice in a lot of ways that I probably wouldn't have been able to without it. I am also happy that, upon finding my voice, I have been able to see when it requires some modification. All in all, getting to 1,000 posts has been enlightening, interesting, thought-provoking, tiring, therapeutic, self-affirming, and clarifying, in the best sense of each of those words. I am certainly looking forward to another 1,000 posts, and hope readers will be as well.

Obama on the IRS

I wrote recently about why the IRS scandal is such a potential problem for the President. What follows are the President's recent comments on the scandal, via the WSJ:

THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon, everybody. I just finished speaking with Secretary Lew and senior officials at the Treasury Department to discuss the investigation into IRS personnel who improperly screened conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status. And I look forward to taking some questions at tomorrow’s press conference, but today, I wanted to make sure to get out to all of you some information about what we’re doing about this, and where we go from here.

I’ve reviewed the Treasury Department watchdog’s report, and the misconduct that it uncovered is inexcusable. It’s inexcusable, and Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it. I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in any agency, but especially in the IRS, given the power that it has and the reach that it has into all of our lives. And as I said earlier, it should not matter what political stripe you’re from — the fact of the matter is, is that the IRS has to operate with absolute integrity. The government generally has to conduct itself in a way that is true to the public trust. That’s especially true for the IRS.

So here’s what we’re going to do.

First, we’re going to hold the responsible parties accountable. Yesterday, I directed Secretary Lew to follow up on the IG audit to see how this happened and who is responsible, and to make sure that we understand all the facts. Today, Secretary Lew took the first step by requesting and accepting the resignation of the acting commissioner of the IRS, because given the controversy surrounding this audit, it’s important to institute new leadership that can help restore confidence going forward.

Second, we’re going to put in place new safeguards to make sure this kind of behavior cannot happen again. And I’ve directed Secretary Lew to ensure the IRS begins implementing the IG’s recommendations right away.

Third, we will work with Congress as it performs its oversight role. And our administration has to make sure that we are working hand in hand with Congress to get this thing fixed. Congress, Democrats and Republicans, owe it to the American people to treat that authority with the responsibility it deserves and in a way that doesn’t smack of politics or partisan agendas. Because I think one thing that you’ve seen is, across the board, everybody believes what happened in — as reported in the IG report is an outrage. The good news is it’s fixable, and it’s in everyone’s best interest to work together to fix it.

I’ll do everything in my power to make sure nothing like this happens again by holding the responsible parties accountable, by putting in place new checks and new safeguards, and going forward, by making sure that the law is applied as it should be — in a fair and impartial way. And we’re going to have to make sure that the laws are clear so that we can have confidence that they are enforced in a fair and impartial way, and that there’s not too much ambiguity surrounding these laws.

So that’s what I expect. That’s what the American people deserve. And that’s what we’re going to do.

Thank you very much.

Mitt Romney on The Tonight Show

Mitt Romney recently sat down with Jay Leno to chat about some of the big news stories of the day from the IRS scandal to Benghazi to the economy to the AP tapping debate. The video from that interview is in two parts below:

 



A Plug...

When frequent contributor and collaborator Jerry Newhall recently asked for some space on this page for a plug, I was more than happy to oblige. A plug!?! some might say. But not to worry dear readers, he isn't shilling anything dodgy like internet gambling...

As a periodic contributor to BlawgConomics, I've shared my ruminations on subjects from zombies to handbags. And as regular readers know, I'm currently hard at work alongside the Esteemed Editor on a paper examining the nature of Bitcoin. I thought readers might be interested in my take on another intersection of law and technology, criminal copyright.

Along with a sagacious coauthor, I recently accepted an offer from the North Carolina Journal of Law and Technology to publish our article "Criminal Copyright Enforcement Against Filesharing Services." A working draft of the full paper is available on SSRN, but I wanted to summarize the highlights for BlawgConomics readers. (And of course am very interested in reader comments.) From the abstract:

"The high-profile prosecution of the popular online storage website Megaupload for criminal copyright infringement is the latest in a series of recent criminal prosecutions of online filesharing services. But what pushes a legitimate online file-storing business over the edge to criminal enterprise? How might criminal copyright enforcement differ materially from civil enforcement?

This article answers these questions and suggests guidelines for prosecutorial discretion. After a condensed history of criminal copyright law, we explain why "secondary" theories of infringement apply in the criminal, as well as civil, context and why the DMCA "safe harbor" defense is a red herring in criminal copyright actions. We then propose guidelines for prosecutors to consider before bringing a criminal enforcement action against filesharing services including limiting prosecutions to theories of liability already established in civil case law, and targeting only those filesharing-service operators that openly defy civil enforcement actions."

But most important of all, we managed to find a way to cite Batman: Detective Comics. No mention of zombies, but hey, you can't always have it all...

If the Gun Rights Debate Isn't Interesting Enough for You Yet...

From the L.A. Times last week:

"Gun crime has plunged in the United States since its peak in the middle of the 1990s, including gun killings, assaults, robberies and other crimes, two new studies of government data show.

Yet few Americans are aware of the dramatic drop, and more than half believe gun crime has risen, according to a newly released survey by the Pew Research Center.

In less than two decades, the gun murder rate has been nearly cut in half. Other gun crimes fell even more sharply, paralleling a broader drop in violent crimes committed with or without guns. Violent crime dropped steeply during the 1990s and has fallen less dramatically since the turn of the millennium.

The number of gun killings dropped 39% between 1993 and 2011, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported in a separate report released Tuesday. Gun crimes that weren’t fatal fell by 69%. However, guns still remain the most common murder weapon in the United States, the report noted. Between 1993 and 2011, more than two out of three murders in the U.S. were carried out with guns, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found.

The bureau also looked into non-fatal violent crimes. Few victims of such crimes -- less than 1% -- reported using a firearm to defend themselves.

Despite the remarkable drop in gun crime, only 12% of Americans surveyed said gun crime had declined compared with two decades ago, according to Pew, which surveyed more than 900 adults this spring. Twenty-six percent said it had stayed the same, and 56% thought it had increased."

For any readers who haven't found the gun rights debate interesting, maybe that will do the trick?

Is Privacy Fighting Back?

I am very comfortable admitting that I am rarely in the vanguard when it comes to adopting technological innovations. I also tend to value privacy a bit more highly than the 50th percentile of Americans does. Based on those two facts, I will admit that I might not be the most neutral voice in the room when it comes to privacy concerns surrounding toys like Google Glass.

However, it appears I am not the only one who has reservations about glasses which can record anything from conversations to video...

Obamacare Woes for Democrats...

Many passionate arguments in support of universal healthcare rest on the notion that it is absurd that citizens of the most powerful, most wealthy nation in the history of the world cannot afford regular check-ups. While I agree, in theory, that people should be able to get the help they need when they need it, it is also true that healthcare does not exist in a vacuum, and that many historic factors, going back to when decisions on how to tax insurance benefits (and surely other data points even before then) occurred, have conspired to create the high-cost state of affairs which exists today.

The high costs, some of which Obamacare was ostensibly enacted to remedy, but which may just be added to by the legislation, have made the simple question of whether or not Americans believe health care should be universal much more complicated. In other words, in a question which should have been asked with more frequency in the run up to the historic vote, if we all get insurance, who is going to pay for it?

In general, and ceteris paribus, higher taxes mean that less jobs are available in a given economy when compared to that same economy with lower taxes. Of course one could argue that higher taxes mean more benefits, an ability for some people to forgo working, etc. However, protections can take time to enact, and, in any case, cost something themselves, whether in dollar or social cost terms. Taxes, while at some level beneficial, at higher levels are not.

And, despite the early claims of the Obama Administration to the contrary, several of Obamacare's provisions, particularly penalties for non-compliance, are taxes. Indeed, that very notion is what the Supreme Court relied on in upholding the bill. Therefore there are going to be costs. Among others, it seems that if companies are paying more to comply with the bill, or are paying taxes to avoid it, then less people will be employed.

While as a society we should ask ourselves questions like 'shouldn't everyone who wants health care be able to obtain it', shouldn't we also ask whether people who want to be productive should be able to? Shouldn't we wonder a little bit more about how providing health care without attacking some of the root causes for its astronomical costs will tax resources? Shouldn't we have attacked the front-end problems with health care before trying to fix the back-end? It seems to me we should have.

It also seems clear that, even among those who passed the bill 'we should pass to see what it contains', there is agreement with that theory. It could be a tough mid-term for the Democrats...

The Miranda Debate - Looking Elsewhere for Guidance

Miranda rights figured heavily in the aftermath of the capture of the Boston Marathon bomber. Regular readers might agree that any articles I might have posted on the topic would likely have been high on ranting (on which side, I am not quite sure) and which, despite my attempts at nuance, would have actually been a little manic (think of a Fox News anchor trying caffeine for the first time v. a MSNBC analyst buzzing on whatever it is they take).

Whatever else it might have been, it seems almost certain that it would have been short on actual legal analysis. Luckily for readers, there are sites like Dorf and Volokh where they actually look at laws and court decisions when analyzing legal issues. Anyone who would like to take a look at some actual, thoughtful legal analysis on Miranda in the context of domestic terrorism would do well to visit those respective sites here and here.

Good Solar REIT Resources

Long time readers will know how much time and effort I have spent thinking and writing about the Solar REIT concept. Any one who shares my interest in the concept might be interested in a few resources I have uncovered recently.

Here is an interesting article on the concept itself.

Here is a brief paper where the S-REIT is described in the context of some other cutting-edge solar funding approaches.

Here is a good list of resources (with my research noted...though not for being 'best in class'!)

Here is the latest and greatest on the various requests which have been made of the IRS pertaining to the structure.

Interesting Feedback on a Post on the Law of Unintended Consequences

A regular reader recently commented (in person) that I had possibly gone too far in a post on a newspaper which purposefully published the names of some gunowners who were subsequently robbed. In the post, I followed what I thought was a perfectly logical path which suggested that a cause - the publishing of the names - led to an effect - the robbery - which was not only probable, but possibly intended. The punchline was that it was a post not about unintended, but rather intended, consequences.

The reader, whose judgment I value greatly, and is usually a voice of reason when I moot my more outlandish conspiracy theories, argued (if I might paraphrase) that the whole thing was instead most likely an unfortunate set of coincidences.

However, while I might have gone a bit far in suggesting that the editors of the paper intended for illegal activity to occur, my conclusions might not have been as incredible in nature as the reader suggested. The very publishing of the names and addresses of the gunowners was an act which was political in nature. In addition, it was an act which, even if not "intended" to provoke reactions from others in the community (shame? questions? avoidance?), was certainly of a nature which made such reactions probable.

And if it were probable that there would be reactions from law-abiding members of the community, wasn't is also possible that those who don't conform to society's rules and laws might react to the information as well?

I am not sure whether it is more or less polite to suggest that someone in the media had nefarious political ends in mind when doing something, or whether they were instead willfully blind to the very likely consequences of their actions. However, in either case, it seems to me that the newspaper was at least negligent. And we should expect more (mounting evidence to the contrary) from those who report the news.

Should Non-Citizens be Able to Vote in Local Elections?

I don't know if I can provide a good answer to the question posed by the title. On one hand, voting is certainly one of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, and citizenship only. On the other, it doesn't seem crazy to me think that people who pay taxes and live in a city should be able to have a say in how those taxes are used in that city.

One cannot stop there however; there also other complications inherent in the question. One side of the debate can make claims, in many cases justified, that allowing non-citizens to vote is really just a shameless vote grab. It is also fair to ask where the freedom to vote will end. In state-wide elections? Nationally?

The other side, again, in some cases justified, can claim vaguely nationalist or racist undertones in the rhetoric of those who are against the vote for non-citizens. Who has had the right to vote has also changed over time, that side would rightly say, and in saying so could point to times when property ownership, race, and sex were more important in the law's eyes than equality. Perhaps this is just the next step in that, to date, virtuous cycle they might say.

There are also broader questions on immigration policy, states rights issues (could states be forced to allow non-citizens to vote?) and fairness questions implicated in this conversation. One could even go to the other end of the spectrum and ask whether those who, in many cases, don't take advantage of the rights they do have to vote, have the right to tell others they cannot. All of these questions and topics are relevant, and this happens to be one of those situations where I can see some sense in just about all of them.

In any case, with the recent news that New York City is considering allowing non-US citizens to vote in local elections, it should be expected that this debate will be making its way to the forefront on the nightly news entertainment programs very soon. It should also be expected that the talking points about the topic will be expressed a bit more forcefully, unobjectively and venom-filled than they are above. I think it is safe to say that no one, citizen or not, will benefit from that...