Today’s Links: March 12, 2012

OPINION

LAWRENCE HUNTER: “Justice Antonin Scalia: Man on the Obamacare Margin”
“Hayek explained why conservatives are so lame at protecting individual rights: Despite conservative rhetoric extolling ‘limited government’ and ‘freedom,’ the animating forces behind conservative ideology are authority, control and coercion, not liberty. […] This pretty much sums up the predicament America finds itself in when it relies on conservatives to limit grasping and overweening government to protect individual rights and prevent the state from tyrannizing the people. Specifically, it reveals the difficulty conservative justices such as Antonin Scalia will have bringing themselves to overturn ObamaCare.”

MATTHEW YGLESIAS: “Louis Vuitton’s Campaign Against Free Speech”
“Part of America’s trend over the past couple of decades toward insanely overbroad readings of intellectual property concepts has been a trend toward firms trying to assert that their ownership of trademarks constitutes some kind of wide-ranging repeal of the first amendment. Thus, Luis Vuitton has decided to send a cease and desist order to the University of Pennsylvania Law School over the poster you see on the left.”

JAY MICHAELSON: “Is it Fair to Punish Dharun Ravi Because Tyler Clementi Died?”
“The facts are not in dispute; only the motivations. In other words, not only is the entire case taking place in Dharun Ravi’s head, but Ravi is on trial for what all of us feel from time to time: prejudice against those who are different from us. Why? Because while Ravi is on trial for invasion of privacy, the more serious offense with which he is charged is ‘bias intimidation,’ a hate crime. If all Ravi did was film Clementi in bed with another man, it’s a minor offense. If he did so in order to harass Clementi for being gay, he could get 10 years in prison.”

NEWS

LAW ENFORCEMENT – Berkeley Police Chief Sends Sergeant to Reporter’s Home to Request Story Changes
“Minutes after reading a late-night news story online about him that he perceived to be inaccurate, Berkeley Police Chief Michael Meehan ordered a sergeant to a reporter’s home insisting on changes, a move First Amendment experts said reeked of intimidation and attempted censorship.”

INTERNET – Mozilla CEO: Don’t Understand the Internet? Then Get Out Of Government
“The Internet is a way of life for billions of people but some in Washington still don’t seem to get it, Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs said on Saturday. ‘If you don’t understand the Internet, you don’t have any place in government,’ he told an audience at the annual South by Southwest conference in Austin.”

FIRST AMENDMENT – 12-Year-Old U.S. Girl Suing School Over Facebook Comments Row
“In the Minnesota case, the 12-year-old girl, known only as RS, is said to have been punished by teachers at Minnewaska Area Middle School for things she wrote on Facebook while at home, and using her own computer. The ACLU is arguing that her First and Fourth Amendment rights, which protect freedom of speech and freedom from illegal searches respectively, were violated.”