Protecting privacy hinges on reining in companies

Christopher Hoofnagle writes for San Francisco Chronicle, July 28, 2013

We have to limit the ability of firms to collect and maintain data. Firms take the same position on privacy as the NSA: They believe that collecting data does not raise any privacy interest; only the use of data can create a privacy problem. This is an appealing but dangerous position. It leaves personal information in the hands of institutions desperate to monetize it, with little ability for individuals to prevent or even detect objectionable uses of data.

Detroit: What a city owes its residents

Michelle Wilde Anderson writes for Los Angeles Times, July 24, 2013

What belongs on our list of minimum standards for a city? Detroit invites us to have a public conversation about what services and public spaces we expect from city governments for human dignity and for humans to flourish. We have a chance to say that no one should have to wait hopelessly for an ambulance, that a violent crime in a neighborhood every few hours is intolerable.

PolitiFact: Senate approved Bush second-term nominees much faster than Obama’s

Anne Joseph O’Connell cited in Tampa Bay Times, July 19, 2013

With the guidance of Anne Joseph O’Connell, associate dean at the University of California-Berkeley Law, we searched the nominations database at the Library of Congress. We found that the Senate has confirmed 68 of Obama’s nominees. By this point in the 109th Congress, the Senate had confirmed 129 of Bush’s nominees, nearly twice as many.

Five myths about presidential appointments

Anne Joseph O’Connell writes for The Washington Post, July 19, 2013

Our Constitution says presidents must execute laws passed by Congress. But what if the Senate won’t approve the people supposed to do the executing? A stalemate over this quandary ended this past week when Senate Democrats and Republicans struck a deal to confirm some of President Obama’s stalled nominees to agencies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But before we move on from this crisis, let’s tackle some misunderstandings about presidential appointments.

What China’s wrongful convictions mean for legal reform

Stanley Lubman writes for The Wall Street Journal, July 17, 2013

Two prominent judges have recently issued sharp critiques of China’s judicial system, leading to optimism in some quarters that long-awaited legal reforms could finally be on their way…. Advocates of legal reform are right to feel encouraged. The high positions of both judges and the directness of their comments suggest that higher authorities approved their views. But, as is often the case, there are caveats.

IRS issues guidance on employer mandate delay

David Gamage quoted in Tax Analysts, July 15, 2013 (registration required)

“The problems that the employer mandate is designed to address, stemming from employers that drop unhealthy or low-income workers, should generally take more than a year to manifest,” said Gamage.

Why California won’t build prisons to ease inmate overcrowding

Barry Krisberg quoted in The Sacramento Bee, July 14, 2013

“What we’re seeing is not only a California trend that has been going on for about 20 years, but it’s a national trend,” said Barry Krisberg…. “Every single public opinion poll that’s been done over the past 20 years, nationally and in California and other states, shows the public is not interested in increasing the corrections budget.”

Disabling democracy

John Yoo co-writes for The Wall Street Journal, From the City Journal, July 11, 2013

The media reaction to the Supreme Court’s two rulings on gay marriage last week focused largely on just one of them: the verdict striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Relatively little attention was paid to the other, a decision on California’s Proposition 8. But that decision could have greater consequences—not only in the Golden State, where it hobbles direct democracy, but in every other state that uses popular initiatives to overrule the governing class.