Secrecy and Democracy: Who Controls Information in the National Security State?

Abstract:

In national security matters, we give executive officials largely unchecked power to conceal from the public and even from Congress whatever information they choose to consider sensitive. We thus disconnect part of the essential machinery of democracy. Secrecy is nothing new, but in an era of transnational terrorism and expanded conceptions of what “national security” means, secrecy’s potential for eroding checks and balances is growing, even under a President ostensibly committed to greater openness in government. Democratic values and sound national security policy both suffer as a result.

This Article argues that information access is central to legitimate governance and that in matters involving classified information, we have needlessly constrained democratic processes, as a result of misdirected fears and misplaced reverence for executive expertise. Many capabilities necessary for sound secrecy decisions can be found only in Congress or the courts.

Discomfort with the executive information monopoly is increasingly evident in judicial decisions and legislative initiatives, but these acts of resistance remain halting and uneven. This Article attempts to give coherence to the often-tentative efforts by the other branches to claim a coordinate role. Building on congressional and judicial strengths, it develops an oversight framework more consonant with our constitutional design – an information democracy that combines robust national security safeguards with maximum feasible transparency and accountability.

Source: New York University Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

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“The Sole Right...Shall Return to the Authors”: Anglo-American Authors’ Reversion Rights From the Statute of Anne to Contemporary U.S. Copyright

Abstract:

This study of author’s reversion rights begins with the Statute of Anne and the debates that led up to the adoption of section 11, which vested in the author a second fourteen-year term, provided he or she was still alive at the end of the initial fourteen-year term. The study then will address the impact of the author’s reversion right on publishing practice and authors’ welfare in the United Kingdom through the eighteenth century to the demise of the reversion right in 1814. We will suggest that the apparent lack of use of the reversion right by authors in the eighteenth century was a result of a host of factors, including but not limited to the common (but by no means universal) contractual practice which purported to confer on a publisher the entirety of an author’s rights. In addition, we call attention to the multiple and shifting interpretations of what was required by section 11, as well as the social and economic limitations on an author’s capacity to take advantage of the reversion. The second half of this study turns to the law and publishing practices in the United States, where reversion rights have proved more enduring if not always more beneficial to authors.

The study concludes that history and practice suggest at best inconsistent achievement of reversonary rights’ aim to offset the author’s weaker bargaining position by assuring her a future opportunity to make a better deal. Legislators might improve the reversion rights regime, but it is not clear that authors’ lots will accordingly ameliorate. Substantive regulation of contracts of transfer, rather than rights to terminate those transfers, may offer the preferable path to ensuring meaningful and effective protection of authors’ interests in reaping the fruits of their intellectual labors.

Source: Columbia Public Law & Legal Theory Working Papers

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American Policing at a Crossroads

Abstract

As victimization rates have fallen, public preoccupation with policing and its crime control impact has receded. Terrorism has become the new focal point of concern. But satisfaction with ordinary police practices hides deep problems. The time is therefore ripe for rethinking the assumptions that have guided American police for most of the past two decades. This essay proposes an empirically grounded shift to what we call a procedural justice model of policing. When law enforcement moves toward this approach, it can be more effective, at lower cost and without the negative side effects that currently hamper responses to terrorism and conventional crime. This essay describes the procedural justice model, explains its theoretical and empirical foundations, and discusses its policy implications, both for ordinary policing and for efforts to combat international terrorism.

Source: New York University Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

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Postsecondary Institutions and Price of Attendance in the United States

This First Look presents findings from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) fall 2009 data collection, which included three survey components: Institutional Characteristics for the 2009-10 academic year, Completions covering the period July 1, 2008, through June 30, 2009. and data on 12-Month Enrollment for the 2008-09 academic year. These data were collected through the IPEDS web-based data collection system.

Source: National Center for Education Statistics

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NBER paper Does Culture Matter?

This paper reviews the literature on culture and economics, focusing primarily on the epidemiological approach. The epidemiological approach studies the variation in outcomes across different immigrant groups residing in the same country. Immigrants presumably differ in their cultures but share a common institutional and economic environment. This allows one to separate the effect of culture from the original economic and institutional environment. This approach has been used to study a variety of issues, including female labor force participation, fertility, labor market regulation, redistribution, growth, and financial development among others.

Source: National Bureau of Economic Research

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On Political Corruption

Abstract:
This Essay takes Citizens United as a launching point to revisit the central Buckley v. Valeo paradigm and examine what possibilities for reform remain to redress the vulnerabilities of democracy before the powers of the purse. Beginning with Buckley, the Court recognized that contributions had the unique potential to corrupt the political process. Revisiting the contribution process and the concept of corruption may yield a better handle on what should be the sources of concern in the financing of electoral campaigns. The inquiry begins with the contested terrain over the nature of political corruption. Once the Supreme Court announced in Buckley that the concern over corruption or even its appearance could justify limitations on money in politics, the race was on to fill the porous concept of corruption with every conceivable meaning advocates could muster. Citizens United categorically rejected the rationale of Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce that corruption ensues from the electoral distortions caused by differences in wealth. Citizens United also rejected any attempt to draw the lines of participation at persons versus corporations based upon similar access to wealth. But what is the remaining corruption concern?

The argument presented is that the corruption concern is really a concern with ensuring public – rather than private – outputs from the policy making process of government once in office, rather than when candidates stand for election. The argument rests heavily on the idea that the threat to democratic governance may come from the emergence of a “clientelist” relation between elected officials and those who seek to profit by relations to the state. This reorientation toward corruption in the outputs of policy making suggests effective solutions to address the financial vulnerabilities of democracy compatible with the Court’s strong constitutional stance in Citizens United. Specifically, the focus is on mechanisms to empower democratic participation in two ways, one by inducement, one by prohibition. Counterintuitively, the inducement looks to increasing the amount of contributions to campaigns to alleviate some of the concerns over political corruption, while the prohibition seeks to bar those in a position to distort public policy – such as government contractors – from providing support to candidates’ campaigns.

Source: New York University Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers. Paper 216.
http://lsr.nellco.org/nyu_plltwp/216

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Student Victimization in U.S. Schools

This report uses data from the 2007 SCS to examine student criminal victimization and the characteristics of crime victims and nonvictims. It also provides findings on student reports of the presence of gangs and weapons and the availability of drugs at school, student reports of bullying and cyberbullying, and fear and avoidance behaviors of crime victims and nonvictims at school.

Source: National Center for Education Statistics

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The Experience of Tenure-Track Faculty at Research Universities: Analysis of COACHE Survey Results by Academic Area and Gender

A new report by COACHE reveals evidence of major differences in work satisfaction between faculty in different academic areas and between men and women within many of those areas. In surveys of untenured assistant professors at research universities, faculty in the physical sciences and humanities were among those satisfied with more aspects of their work lives, while faculty in education and the visual and performing arts were satisfied with the fewest aspects. In additional analysis, COACHE researchers found that gaps in satisfaction between women and men were most prevalent in the social sciences.

Source: Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education.(COACHE)

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Latinos: Discrete and Insular No More

Abstract:

As part of this symposium to celebrate the publication of a Latinos and the Law casebook by Richard Delgado, Juan Perea, and Jean Stefancic, this Essay considers why the time is ripe for bringing Latinos out of the casebook squibs and into the canon. The primary answer is: numbers. As Latinos become an increasingly large segment of the U.S. population, understanding how they fit into American history and how their presence has shaped the law's development becomes central to understanding the nature of our polity. But the growth of the Latino population into a dominant minority (and an outright majority in some jurisdictions) raises a new set of questions: what happens to our conceptions of rights and responsibilities when a minority starts to take on the characteristics of a majority, or an outright majority ceases to exist? Our conception of the category "Latino" and its place in our politics and constitutional jurisprudence must change as the population grows in size and importance. This Essay explores how and why.

Source: New York University Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

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America's Children in Brief: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2010

The Forum's signature report, America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, provides annual updates on the well-being of children and families in the United States across a range of domains.

The 2010 Childstats website includes 68 tables and 59 figures that describe the population of children and depict their well-being in the areas of family and social environment, economic circumstances, health care, physical environment and safety, behavior, education, and health.

Source: Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics

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May it Please the Senate: An Empirical Analysis of the Senate Judiciary Committee Hearings of Supreme Court Nominees, 1939-2009

Abstract:

This paper examines the questions asked and answers given by every Supreme Court nominee who has appeared to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee since 1939. In doing so, it uses a new dataset developed by the authors. This database, which provides a much-needed empirical foundation for scholarship in emerging areas of constitutional law and political science, captures all of the statements made at the hearings and codes these comments by issue area, subissue area, party of the appointing president, and party of the questioning senator. The dataset allows us to quantify for the fist time such things as which issues are most frequently discussed at the hearings, whether those issues have changed over time, and whether they vary depending on the party of the appointing president and the party of the questioning senator. We also investigate if questioning patterns differ depending on the race or gender of the nominee. Some of our results are unsurprising: for example, the hearings have become longer. Others, however, challenge conventional wisdom: the Bork hearing is less of an outlier in several ways than is frequently assumed, and abortion has not dominated the hearings. We also discover that there is issue area variation over time, and that there are notable disparities in the issues addressed by Democratic versus Republican senators. Finally, we find that female and minority nominees face a significantly different hearing environment than do white male nominees.

Source: UGA Legal Studies Research Paper No. 10-12. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1630403

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Tackling inequalities in life expectancy in areas with the worst health and deprivation

Introduction:

The Department of Health has made a serious attempt to tackle health inequalities across England. But, having set a target in 2000 to reduce health inequalities, it was slow to take action and health inequalities were not a top priority for the NHS until 2006.

The NAO report found that, although life expectancy overall has increased, the gap in life expectancy between the national average and the Government’s dedicated “spearhead” areas has continued to widen. The Department will not meet its target to reduce the health inequalities gap by 10 per cent by 2010, as measured by life expectancy at birth, if current trends continue.

Source: United Kingdom National Audit Office

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Assessing How Marijuana Legalization in California Could Influence Marijuana Consumption and Public Budgets

Summary:

To learn more about the possible outcomes of marijuana legalization in California, RAND researchers constructed a model based on a series of estimates of current consumption, current and future prices, how responsive use is to price changes, taxes levied and possibly evaded, and the aggregation of nonprice effects (such as a change in stigma). Key findings include the following: (1) the pretax retail price of marijuana will substantially decline, likely by more than 80 percent. The price the consumers face will depend heavily on taxes, the structure of the regulatory regime, and how taxes and regulations are enforced; (2) consumption will increase, but it is unclear how much, because we know neither the shape of the demand curve nor the level of tax evasion (which reduces revenues and prices that consumers face); (3) tax revenues could be dramatically lower or higher than the $1.4 billion estimate provided by the California Board of Equalization (BOE); for example, uncertainty about the federal response to California legalization can swing estimates in either direction; (4) previous studies find that the annual costs of enforcing marijuana laws in California range from around $200 million to nearly $1.9 billion; our estimates show that the costs are probably less than $300 million; and (5) there is considerable uncertainty about the impact of legalizing marijuana in California on public budgets and consumption, with even minor changes in assumptions leading to major differences in outcomes.

Source: RAND Corporation

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The Efficacy of Self-Funding a Political Campaign

Whitman and Fiorina take note: while candidates with big war chests hold a significant advantage over their opponents, the advantage is diffused when most of the money comes from a candidate's own pockets. The traditional advantages of being the top fundraiser in a race, or being an incumbent, don't confer the same level of success to self-financiers. That trend holds true for candidates from all parties. In fact, in the last nine years, only 11 percent of self-financed candidates won their races. Early primary results in 2010 show this trend may be continuing.

Source: National Institute on Money and State Politics

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Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Scholarly Research in Communication

This document is a code of best practices that helps U.S. communication scholars to interpret the copyright doctrine of fair use. Fair use is the right to use copyrighted material without permission or payment under some circumstances—especially when the cultural or social benefits of the use are predominant. It is a general right that applies even in situations where the law provides no specific authorization for the use in question.

This guide identifies four situations that represent the current consensus within the community of communication scholars about acceptable practices for the fair use of copyrighted materials.

Source: Center for Social Media Funded by the Ford Foundation through the Center for Social Media’s Future of Public Media Project

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Now available from Google Books : Ancient Greek and Latin Texts

As part of its mission to make the world's books searchable and discoverable, Google has digitized over five hundred ancient Greek and Latin books. We present them here downloadable as zip files of images and plain text, and as links to Google Books web pages where you can read them online in full or download PDFs. This collection was selected by Prof. Greg Crane and Alison Babeu of Tufts University, and compiled by Will Brockman and Jon Orwant of Google. Enjoy!

Link to Google Books Ancient Greek and Latin Texts.

Long-term unemployment experience of the jobless

Introduction:
By the end of 2009, the jobless rate stood at 10.0 percent and the number of unemployed persons at 15.3 million. Among the unemployed, 4 in 10(6.1 million) had been jobless for 27 weeks or more, by far the highest proportion of long-term unemployment on record, with data back to 1948. This brief report compares the incidence of long-term joblessness among different age groups during the current recession."

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

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United Nations Millennium Development Goals Report 2010

Background:

The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015 – form a blueprint agreed to by all the world’s countries and all the world’s leading development institutions. They have galvanized unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the world’s poorest.

This annual report presents the most comprehensive global assessment of progress to date, based on data provided by a large number of international organizations within and outside the United Nations system. The aggregate figures in the report provide an overview of regional progress under the eight goals and are a convenient way to track advances over time. The report is coordinated and published by the Statistics Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

Source: United Nations

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Do Minimum Wages Really Reduce Teen Employment? Accounting for Heterogeneity and Selectivity in State Panel Data

Abstract:

Traditional estimates of minimum wage effects include controls for state unemployment rates and state and year fixed-effects. Using CPS data on teens for the period 1990 – 2009, we show that such estimates fail to account for heterogeneous employment patterns that are correlated with selectivity among states with minimum wages. As a result, the estimates are often biased and vary with the source of identifying variation. Including controls for long-term growth differences among states and for heterogeneous economic shocks renders the employment and hours elasticities indistinguishable from zero and rules out any but small disemployment effects. Dynamic evidence further shows the nature of bias in traditional estimates, and it also rules out more negative long run effects. We do not find evidence of heterogeneous employment effects in different parts of the business cycle. We also consider predictable versus unpredictable changes in the minimum wage by looking at indexation of the minimum wage in some states.

Source: Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, UC Berkeley [via escholarship repository]

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Ernst & Young's European attractiveness survey Report

Ernst & Young's European attractiveness survey is based on a two-fold, original methodology that reflects, first, Europe's real attractiveness for foreign direct investors, based on Ernst & Young's European Investment Monitor (EIM), and second the ‘perceived’ attractiveness of Europe and its competitors by a representative panel of approximately 800 international decision-makers.

Source: Ernst & Young

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