While calling it “artificial intelligence” is somewhat new, the use of algorithms in law enforcement has been going on for a while now, and nobody knows whether the cost/benefit analysis makes it worthwhile.

The Office of Management and Budget guidance, which is now being finalized after a period of public comment, would apply to law enforcement technologies such as facial recognition, license-plate readers, predictive policing tools, gunshot detection, social media monitoring and more. It sets out criteria for A.I. technologies that, without safeguards, could put people’s safety or well-being at risk or violate their rights. If these proposed “minimum practices” are not met, technologies that fall short would be prohibited after next Aug. 1.

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The past few years have been spent believing. Whether it’s believing in the tooth fairy or the reinvented version of reality that allows you to be a welcome member of your tribe, all you needed do was believe. You were entitled to your own truth if only you believed. You could be the good person and still hate as long as you believed. Problems existed or ceased to exist as long as you believed.

How’s that working out? Continue reading →

I looked back at my final post of 2022, Sins of Omission, corrected the typos out of compulsion, and pondered where we gone over the past year. It was a good post, and even today, it felt true. But much as the toxic American political climate hasn’t really changed much over the past year, and offers little promise of change in 2024, the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7th and its ensuing war in Gaza has bubbled up the fundamental differences between a liberal democratic nation and the swell of simplistic authoritarianism of the young.

Others in my position have adopted the woke view of the world, some because they needed the validation that comes from espousing the popular views of progressives, and others because they were never quite as serious as I thought. Or hoped. But how many more marches by  the young and unduly passionate who justify terrorism and suddenly find rape and murder acceptable when done by those their tribe tells them to favor? Continue reading →

A real estate agent friend told us that young home buyers were looking for the whitest white bread homes imaginable. “No wallpaper,” she explained. “White walls, white furniture, white bread.” What was it, I wondered, that made young people care nothing about style, history or varying from the plainest of vanilla? My real estate agent friend had no good answer, and said only “that’s what they want.”

In a column bearing the headline, “I want a city, not a museum,” Binyamin Appelbaum provides some insight into the plain vanilla mindset. Continue reading →

Over a late dinner last night, after learning that the Maine Secretary of State had determined that Trump was ineligible to be on the Republican primary ballot, I was asked why there could be any question as to the propriety of applying Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. I put on my lawyer voice and began explaining canons of statutory construction, the constitutional meaning of the word “officer,” and how there were two, and only two, positions in our government that were nationally elected, the president and vice president, distinguishing them from the expressly named elected officials in Section 3.*

As eyes glazed over, and head began to shake from side to side, Dr. SJ asked “How is it possible that the president, THE PRESIDENT, wouldn’t be included in Section 3?” As I was about to reply that “asking a question is not an argument,” a reply that has never caused Dr. SJ to feel warmly about me, another person at the table responded, “Why, since everybody but the MAGA crazies knows that Trump is a lying, venal, narcissistic ignoramus, can’t the Democrats just beat him?” Continue reading →

At Volokh Conspiracy, Orin Kerr raises an old question, first raised by Richard Posner 16 years ago.

Back in 2007, Richard Posner published a very interesting reflection on the state of the legal academy in the form of a memorial essay to his colleague Bernard Meltzer.  It’s a very brief essay, only 3 pages long.  But Posner’s essay laments the loss of the former generation of lawyer-scholars that used to populate law schools. In the old days, Posner says, there were lots of law professors who were superb lawyers steeped in lawyering. These days, Posner says, that model is largely gone.  Today’s professors see themselves as academics first and lawyers second.  Posner suggests that the best education and the best scholarship is a mix of the two.  Both the lawyer-model and the academic-model are useful in their own ways.  A student should get a healthy mix of the two, and scholarship of both kinds is very useful.

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There are strong arguments against the requirement of licensure for a great many occupations where the public may be at risk of harm but the requirement of a license serves more to preclude entry into the position than to save anyone from a dangerous charlatan. But does that apply to professionals, where the testing of educational and experiential requirements serve to provide some modicum of assurance that these people know what they’re doing?

And if a license is required, can someone testify in court as an expert even though he has no license? Eastern District of North Carolina Judge Richard Myers in Nutt v. Ritter held that he can. Continue reading →

It’s taken as a truism that more people voting is better for democracy. If it happens because more people want to vote, are willing to put in the effort to be knowledgeable citizens and participants in democracy, then there is a good argument that more is better. But more, if merely numbers of people who neither know nor care and either vote as they’re told or just check boxes across the ballot, maybe not.

But there is a separate problem, one that has long plagued local elections held on off dates and off years, as opposed to the elections we hear so much about, particularly when the presidency is up for grabs. Nobody shows for these orphan elections, held when no one is paying attention and we have other things to do that take precedence over voting for dog catcher, sheriff or justice of the peace. Well, not really nobody, but nobody outside a small circle of friends. And that small group decides who wins. The residents of a suburban cul de sac at the voting booth could swing the election, so few people vote. Continue reading →

Merry Christmas to all, and thank you for hanging out at SJ.

Whether it’s damaging beloved art or preventing ordinary, innocent, unrelated people from getting to work, the tactic of making people’s lives miserable for the purpose of forcing them to be aware of the cause of outrage has become “normalized,” the go-to tactic of the unduly passionate. You might be able to ignore their cries, but you can’t ignore their blocking a road. You might hate them for it, but they don’t care because they have seized control of your head by force. You might be furious, but to them, they own you and that, as far as they’re concerned, is good reason enough.

Does it matter what the cause is? Whether it’s Black Lives Matter or climate change or Gaza, the people suffering aren’t the perpetrators of whatever wrong is at hand, but ordinary folks who are going about their ordinary lives. Continue reading →