Justice Elena Kagan pushes for US Supreme Court to adopt own ethics code; The Oregonian, August 3, 2023

 Maxine Bernstein, The Oregonian; Justice Elena Kagan pushes for US Supreme Court to adopt own ethics code

"U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan on Thursday said she hopes the nation’s high court will adopt its own code of ethics and that the nine justices are in discussions about doing so with a wide variety of opinions.

Unlike Justice Samuel Alito, who said last week that Congress lacks the power to impose an ethics code on the Supreme Court, Kagan countered that it does.

Yet she said she believes Congress has its limits...

Kagan said she’s hopeful the Supreme Court will adopt its own code of conduct and take the question about what Congress can or cannot do “out of play.”

“It’s not a secret for me to say we have been discussing this issue,” she said. “The nine of us have a variety of views about that.”"

No, Justice Alito. Congress should not butt out on Supreme Court ethics.; The Washington Post, July 30, 2023

Ruth Marcus , The Washington Post; No, Justice Alito. Congress should not butt out on Supreme Court ethics.

"Since 1948, Congress has required federal judges — including Supreme Court justices — to recuse themselves from deciding cases in which their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” Is that unconstitutional? Since 1978, it has required federal judges — including justices — to file financial disclosure forms. Is that unconstitutional? (The justices, including Alito, say they voluntarilyfollow those rules.) Since 1989, it has imposed strict limits on outside income and gifts for federal judges — including justices. Is that unconstitutional? Just last year, Congress amended the ethics rules to mandate that federal judges — including justices — promptly disclose their stock transactions. Is that unconstitutional?

Why would it be? The Alito argument, such as it is, proves too much. It would mean that Congress could not make it a crime for justices to accept bribes. And why would Congress have power to impose ethics rules on the executive branch but not on the judiciary — or are those unconstitutional, too?

We don’t want Congress punishing the court for issuing decisions with which lawmakers disagree. Respect for the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary counsels caution in this area. But it does not dictate hands off, no matter what Alito might wish."

Keeping true to the Declaration of Independence is a matter of ethics; Ventura County Star, July 2, 2023

Ed Jones, Ventura County Star; Keeping true to the Declaration of Independence is a matter of ethics

"How do we keep faith with Jefferson, Franklin and the other founders? Due to the imperfections in human nature, there is no foolproof way, but a good plan would be to have all levels of our government — national, state and local — adopt ethical training similar to that of elective office holders here in California. Periodically, they must participate in ethics training which assumes there are universal ethical values consisting of fairness, loyalty, compassion trustworthiness, and responsibility that transcend other considerations and should be adhered to. This training consists of biannual computer sessions in which they must solve real-life problems based on the aforementioned ethical values.

I believe a real danger for elected officials and voters as well is the idea that certain societal values are so vital, so crucial, that they transcend normal ethical practices. This might be termed an “ends — means philosophy,” the idea that the ends justify the means. Mohandas Gandhi, former leader of India, observed that “the means are the ends in a democracy and good ends cannot come from questionable means.” 

No matter how exemplary our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, we are still relying on human beings to fulfill their promise. Ever since the Supreme Court took the power of judicial review — the power to tell us what the Constitution means and, in the process, affirm certain laws by declaring them constitutional or removing others by declaring them unconstitutional — the judgement of nine people has had a profound effect on our society. Was the Supreme Court correct in 1973 by saying the Ninth Amendment guarantees pregnant women the right to an abortion, or was it correct in 2022 by saying it didn’t?

In the final analysis we must conclude that it will be well-intentioned, ethical citizens and their elected and appointed representatives who will ensure the equitable future of what Abraham Lincoln referred to as our “ongoing experiment in self-government.”"

UI professors violated ethics policy, free speech, investigation finds; The Daily Iowan, February 3, 2022

Rylee Wilson, The Daily Iowan; UI professors violated ethics policy, free speech, investigation finds

"An investigation found that three University of Iowa professors violated the university’s ethics policy after threatening a graduate student with discipline because of remarks he made that fellow students found to be homophobic.

Jacob Johnson, a second-year graduate student in the Occupational and Environmental Health department, lodged a formal complaint against the university in November, assisted by the Kirkwood Institute, a conservative public-interest law firm.

The complaint, written by attorney Alan R. Ostergren, alleges that Johnson’s due process rights were violated, and that the professors involved violated UI policies about academic freedom, and free speech rights provided by the Iowa and U.S. constitutions."

2019: The Year of the Wolves Can the Constitution withstand the partisans?; The New York Times, December 31, 2018

David Brooks, The New York Times; 2019: The Year of the Wolves

Can the Constitution withstand the partisans?

"The story reminds us how thin the crust of civilization really is. It reminds us of what otherwise good people are capable at moments of severe stress and crisis, when fear is up and when conflict — red in tooth and claw — takes control."

If Trump is cornered, the judges he disdains may finally bring him down; The Guardian, November 24, 2018

Walter Shapiro, The Guardian; If Trump is cornered, the judges he disdains may finally bring him down

"Concepts like democracy, a free press, due process, an independent judiciary and the rule of law are lost on Trump. As far as his understanding goes, the constitution might just as well be carved in cuneiform characters on stone tablets."

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: what sports have taught me about race in America; The Guardian, August 28, 2018

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, The Guardian;

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: what sports have taught me about race in America

"Athletes who speak out are proclaiming their loyalty to a constitution that demands equality and inclusiveness, not to the government officials who try to undermine those ideals by silencing its critics."

The First Amendment doesn't guarantee you the rights you think it does; CNN, August 8, 2017

A.J. Willingham, CNN; The First Amendment doesn't guarantee you the rights you think it does

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances

That's it. That's the entirety of our Constitution's First Amendment, the central animus of our American way of life that gets dragged out every time someone's banned from Twitter.

There's a lot going on in those few sentences, and it's important to know when and how it applies to common situations -- and, equally as important, when it doesn't.

Let's look at some common First Amendment arguments; illuminated and debunked by a constitutional expert."

Make This Obstruction Thing Go Away; Slate, June 22, 2017

Dahlia Lithwick, Slate; Make This Obstruction Thing Go Away

"Much has been made of the fact that Trump fired his FBI Director James Comey either because of Comey’s Russia investigation or not because of it. Much has been made of the fact that he fired Sally Yates because he didn’t like the advice she offered about Michael Flynn and that he fired U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara because Bharara wouldn’t return his phone calls. Trump also makes endless businessman-y noises about his plans to fire Rod Rosenstein; Robert Mueller; and his attorney general, Jeff Sessions. And in the meantime, he surrounds himself with other lawyers, many of whom have no experience in government service but seemingly infinite experience in emptying his ashtrays. The personal attorneys he’s recently brought on to deal with the FBI investigation (which he claims doesn’t exist, incidentally) include a fellow who appears to be engaging in the same branding and get-rich side gigs that Trump dabbles in himself and another lawyer who was on the losing side of the massive Trump University suit for which the president had to pay $25 million to settle claims from students who alleged they’d been defrauded. Nobody should be surprised, then, that Trump’s personal lawyer is now doing work that should be done by the White House Counsel’s office. We also shouldn’t be surprised that some of the Trump ashtray-emptiers now have to hire their own ashtray-emptiers. Nobody’s ever said “no” to those guys either.

This pattern goes a long way toward explaining why most serious Washington lawyers want nothing to do with the president’s dubious criminal defense dream team. Lawyers who have been trained to answer to the Constitution first and their wealthy clients far later don’t want to be in the position of having to tell the world’s largest preschooler that sometimes no bendy straw for the juice box really means no bendy straw for the juice box."

Company sued EFF over “Stupid Patent of the Month;” EFF now flips the script; Ars Technica, April 13, 2017

Cyrus Farivar, Ars Technica; 

Company sued EFF over “Stupid Patent of the Month;” EFF now flips the script

"The Electronic Frontier Foundation has sued an Australian company that it previously dubbed as a "classic patent troll" in a June 2016 blog post entitled: "Stupid Patent of the Month: Storage Cabinets on a Computer."

Last year, that company, Global Equity Management (SA) Pty. Ltd. (GEMSA), managed to get an Australian court to order EFF to remove its post—but EFF did not comply. In January 2017, Pasha Mehr, an attorney representing GEMSA, further demanded that the article be removed and that EFF pay $750,000. EFF still did not comply.

The new lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco on Wednesday, asks that the American court declare the Australian ruling unenforceable in the US. Why? According to the EFF argument, the Australian ruling runs afoul of free speech protections granted under the United States Constitution—namely, that opinions are protected.

GEMSA attorneys have threatened to take this Australian court order to American search engine companies to deindex the blog post, making the post harder to find online."