Video Gamers Win in Court, Free Speech on Campus and the Impact of Biofuels
The state of California is ordered to pay video game makers $280,000 in legal fees over an unconstitutional law that sought to restrict game sales.
A federal court rules that Temple University’s speech code violates the First Amendment.
The governments of Malaysia and Indonesia announce a new partnership to increase biofuel production from palm oil.
1. TECHNOLOGY
The state of California is ordered to pay video game makers $280,000 in legal fees over an unconstitutional law that sought to restrict game sales.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Technology Policy Analyst Cord Blomquist on where the best video game ratings come from:
“We find that, while no media ratings system can or will ever achieve perfection, the best rating systems have three attributes: They attempt to describe, rather than prescribe, what entertainment media should contain; they are particularly suited to their particular media forms; and they were created with little or no direct input from government.”
2. LEGAL
A federal court rules that Temple University’s speech code violates the First Amendment.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Special Projects Counsel Hans Bader on the ironic twist to the verdict:
“The Third Circuit itself has often told private employers to ban racist and sexist speech from the workplace, effectively mandating the very speech codes in the private workplace that it forbids at public universities. […] As I have explained elsewhere, when a court or government agency tells a private employer to restrict employee speech to avoid liability, that pressure implicates the First Amendment, even though a private employer’s voluntary restrictions on speech would not. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has argued to the contrary, but its position is simply inconsistent with [existing case law].”
3. ENVIRONMENT
The governments of Malaysia and Indonesia announce a new partnership to increase biofuel production from palm oil.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis on the environmental consequences in nations like Indonesia:
“As a global warming policy, the biofuels craze is clearly counter-productive. For example, the Clean Air Task Force reports that in Indonesia, almost 12 million hectares of peat land have been drained, cleared, and burned, much of it to make room for palm oil plantations. In the process, about 2 billion metric tons of CO2 are released annually, making Indonesia the world’s third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind China and the United States.”