Law Commons^™

In All Fairness: Using Political Broadcast Access Doctrine To Tailor Public Campaign Fund Matching, Andrew V. Moshirnia, Aaron T. Dozeman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Recent United States Supreme Court decisions have undermined the viability of campaign public financing systems, a vital tool for fighting political corruption. First, Citizens United v. FEC allowed privately financed candidates and independent groups to spend unlimited amounts of money on campaigning. Publicly financed candidates now risk being vastly outspent. Second, Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom PAC v. Bennett invalidated a proportional fund matching system whereby privately financed candidates’ or independent groups’ spending triggered funds to publicly funded candidates. These decisions effectuate a libertarian speech doctrine: all speakers, individual or corporate, must be absolutely unburdened. To comply with this approach, …

Regulating Robocalls: Are Automated Calls The Sound Of, Or A Threat To, Democracy, Jason C. Miller

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

African-American voters receive a phone message implying that they are not registered to vote. Others hear "an almost threatening male voice," a "fake New York accent," factual distortions about legislation, false endorsements from controversial groups, calls promoting one candidate claiming to be from his opponent, and a constant barrage of annoying phone calls designed to make voters think a different candidate was sponsoring them. These messages were delivered through automated political telephone calls, also known as robocalls. Robocalls are cheap and efficient--one can deliver a pre-recorded message through 100,000 automated phone calls in one hour for only $2000. Consequently, robocalls …

When Mobile Phones Are Rfid-Equipped - Finding E.U.-U.S. Solutions To Protect Consumer Privacy And Facilitate Mobile Commerce, Nancy J. King

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

New mobile phones have been designed to include delivery of mobile advertising and other useful location-based services, but have they also been designed to protect consumers' privacy? One of the key enabling technologies for these new types of phones and new mobile services is Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), a wireless communication technology that enables the unique identification of tagged objects. In the case of RFID-enabled mobile phones, the personal nature of the devices makes it very likely that, by locating a phone, businesses will also be able to locate its owner. Consumers are currently testing new RFID-enabled phones around the …

A New Frontier Or Merely A New Medium - An Analysis Of The Ethics Of Blawgs, Justin Krypel

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The purpose of this Note is to investigate those rules of ethics which interact with attorney blogs, placing a special emphasis on advertising rules. The central finding is that, under the Supreme Court's current First Amendment jurisprudence, attorney blogs (or, more cleverly, "blawgs") are not subject to regulation by the ethics codes of the ABA or the various state bars. Furthermore, if the Supreme Court were to, for some reason, construe blawgs as falling outside of First Amendment protection, evidence suggests that regulating this new medium would be neither desirable nor effective. Part II outlines the historical framework which underlies …

A Shadow Government: Private Regulation, Free Speech, And Lessons From The Sinclair Blogstorm, Marvin Ammori

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Because of the economics of online information, thousands who do not know each other can band together in hours, without previous organizational coordination or any persistent central coordination, to affect others and conform society to their idea of the social good. This changes the dynamic of political action and the ability of unaffiliated, lone individuals to respond to social acts where government and the market have not. Through ad hoc volunteerism, the Sinclair participants produced regulatory action against a private party with whom they were not transacting--because they believed government failed to do so. Although ad hoc volunteerism has received …

Why Did Voters Reject Michigan's Physician-Assisted Suicide Initiative?, Yale Kamisar

Articles

In November 1997, when Oregon voters reaffirmed their support for doctor-assisted suicide, some commentators called it a turning point for the "right to die" movement. But the lopsided defeat of a similar proposal in Michigan is a better barometer: in general, assisted suicide continues to fare badly in the political arena.

Why The Proposal To Legalize Physician-Assisted Suicide In Michigan Failed, Yale Kamisar

Articles

Some commentators and participants in the national debate over physician-assisted suicide (PAS) made much of the fact that in 1997 Oregon voters reaffirmed their support for assisted suicide by a much larger margin than the initial 1994 vote. The state legislature had put the initiative (which had initially passed by a 5149% vote) back on the ballot for an unprecedented second vote. This time the initiative was reaffirmed overwhelmingly, 60-40%. Barbara Coombs Lee, Executive Director of Compassion in Dying (an organization that counsels people considering PAS and one of the plaintiffs in Washington v. Glucksberg, 1997), hailed the second Oregon …

Fairness And Unfairness In Television Product Advertising, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The first section of this Note explores the impact of television product advertising on viewer attitudes. The next two sections set forth the statutory basis on which the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission could provide for the effective presentation of contrasting points of view on controversial issues implicitly or explicitly raised by television product advertising, could ensure that the implicit messages of such advertisements are delivered fairly and without deception, and could counter the adverse effects of such advertising. The purpose of these sections is not to predict actual regulatory behavior, for in fact the FCC and …

Corrective Advertising And The Ftc: No, Virginia, Wonder Bread Doesn't Help Build Strong Bodies Twelve Ways, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note will outline the development and theory of corrective advertising. In particular, it will discuss the residual effects of deceptive advertising, which are the basis for a corrective remedy. The Commission's statutory authority to require corrective advertising will then be explored: the analysis will compare corrective advertising with other types of affirmative disclosure required by the Commission and relate it to the present use of divestiture as a trade regulation remedy. Finally, the possible public benefit accruing from corrective advertising will be considered, along with some thoughts on what policies the FTC should pursue in order to maximize that …

The Right Of Privacy, Louis Nizer

Michigan Law Review

It is only during the last half-century that the law has recognized the "right to be let alone"-the right under certain circumstances to protect one's name and physiognomy from becoming public property.

No mention of such a right will be found in the works of the great political philosophers and tract-writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries-Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Spencer, Paine. In discoursing on "natural rights," "the state of nature," "social contract," and "the inalienable rights of man," they were concerned only with the power of the state to abridge the liberties of the people. Society had not yet …