Regulatory agencies have entered the space of copyright law and have tipped the balance of the intellectual property system. Now, it is somehow unclear that agency regulations designed to protect health, safety, and the environment have absolutely nothing to do with copyright law. As with many threats to the balance of intellectual property, Section 1201 is responsible for tipping the scale. By way of background, Section 1201 is the provision of the Digital Millennium Copyri

Judge William Pauley, ruling that the use of the stingray device was a violation of the Fourth Amendment, stated that “absent a search warra

The hardest part of drafting any new regulation is establishing a definition. In fact, most of the policy work is in the definition and ther

The fight over NSA surveillance is about to heat up again. This week, the House will consider a measure that would require the NSA and other government agencies to follow due process and obtain a warrant to collect the communications of American citizens. Through an amendment to H.R. 5293, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2017, the House could defund warrantless government searches of the database of information collected under Section 702 of the Foreign Intell

In a blow to Internet freedom, a federal appeals court has given a green light to the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Open Internet Order, a plan to impose net neutrality rules on the Internet. Most disturbingly, the ruling yesterday by a 3-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit affirmed the basis for the Order, the FCC's determination that it can apply utility-style regulations – intended for telephone companies under the Communications Act of 1934 – to land-based and wir

Given the harassment and everyday burdens that federal bureaucrats subject small businesses and families to, it seems obvious that decisions could be challenged by the basic process of judicial review. This right, however, was apparently not entirely evident. The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled unanimously in favor of property owners in a decision that weakens the EPA’s authority under the Clean Water Act. The ruling in United States Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co., Inc

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) hit a new low this month when they proposed a new rule that directly harms those that the CFPB was created to protect: the consumers. The proposed regulation would place severe restrictions on the use of arbitration in settling disputes, forcing consumer suits out of arbitration and into class action litigation. The studies and arguments the CFPB attempted to use in the proposal indicate that the CFPB is aware that it is harming

Wade Henderson and Curt Levey talked about President Obama’s nomination of D.C. Court of Appeals Chief Judge Merrick Garland to succeed the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, as well as the history of the nominating process.

The Committee for Justice wishes you a happy and healthy 2016 and thanks you for your interest in our work and your generous support throughout 2015. CFJ President Curt Levey participated in a December 15 panel discussion on the 15th anniversary of Bush v. Gore, hosted by the progressive American Constitution Society. The first interesting article on judicial nominations that we've seen in the new year is a January 3 Washington Post op-ed by Linda Hirshman, warning that "th