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Full-Text Articles in Law

Prying, Spying, And Lying: Intrusive Newsgathering And What The Law Should Do About It, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky Dec 2014

Prying, Spying, And Lying: Intrusive Newsgathering And What The Law Should Do About It, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky

Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky

The media's use of intrusive newsgathering techniques poses an increasing threat to individual privacy. Courts currently resolve the overwhelming majority of conflicts in favor of the media. This is not because the First Amendment bars the imposition of tort liability on the media for its newsgathering practices. It does not. Rather, tort law has failed to seize the opportunity to create meaninful privacy protection. After surveying the economic, philosophical, and practical obstacles to reform, this Article proposes to rejuvenate the tort of intrusion to tip the balance between privacy and the press back in privacy's direction. Working within the framework …


Incendiary Speech And Social Media, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky Dec 2014

Incendiary Speech And Social Media, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky

Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky

Incidents illustrating the incendiary capacity of social media have rekindled concerns about the "mismatch" between existing doctrinal categories and new types of dangerous speech. This Essay examines two such incidents, one in which an offensive tweet and YouTube video led a hostile audience to riot and murder, and the other in which a blogger urged his nameless, faceless audience to murder federal judges. One incident resulted in liability for the speaker, even though no violence occurred; the other did not lead to liability for the speaker even though at least thirty people died as a result of his words. An …


Medium-Specific Regulation Of Attorney Advertising: A Critique, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky, Tera Jckowski Peterson Dec 2014

Medium-Specific Regulation Of Attorney Advertising: A Critique, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky, Tera Jckowski Peterson

Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky

In 2006, the Florida Supreme Court added a "licensing" scheme for attorney advertising on television or radio to its existing panoply of attorney advertising regulations. The new rule imposes a prior restraint on all radio and television ads by Florida attorneys: every ad must run the gauntlet of the Bar's censors prior to airing, and the ad may not air unless its content meets with the approval of the censors. Not content with its foray into regulating the broadcast medium, the Florida Supreme Court is now poised to add a rule that will regulate attorney speech on the Internet much …


Brandenburg And The United States' War On Incitement Abroad: Defending A Double Standard, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky Dec 2014

Brandenburg And The United States' War On Incitement Abroad: Defending A Double Standard, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky

Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky

While it is perfectly legitimate for the United States to attempt to persuade foreign citizens and media not to engage in advocacy of violent acts, the administration's rhetoric suggests that the United States expects foreign governments to take action against speech that would be protected by the First Amendment in the United States. What explains this apparent hypocrisy? Is this simply another example of the United States touting democracy at home while supporting despotism abroad? Or is the Brandenburg incitement standard so socially and culturally contingent that it is not appropriate for export, at least to the Arab Middle East? …


Public Forum 2.1: Public Higher Education Institutions And Social Media, Robert H. Jerry Ii, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky Dec 2014

Public Forum 2.1: Public Higher Education Institutions And Social Media, Robert H. Jerry Ii, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky

Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky

Like most of us, public colleges and universities increasingly are communicating via Facebook, Second Life, YouTube, Twitter and other social media. Unlike most of us, public colleges and universities are government actors, and their social media communications present complex administrative and First Amendment challenges. The authors of this article — one the dean of a major public university law school responsible for directing its social media strategies, the other a scholar of social media and the First Amendment — have combined their expertise to help public university officials address these challenges. To that end, this article first examines current and …


Intrusion And The Investigative Reporter, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky Dec 2014

Intrusion And The Investigative Reporter, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky

Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky

In an award-winning series of Houston Chronicle articles, reporter Nancy Stancill uncovered shocking conditions in Texas nursing homes. 7 However, reforms were not implemented until 20/20, following Stancill's lead, conducted a three-month, undercover investigation of the treatment of elderly residents at Texas state and private nursing home facilities. By employing subterfuge to gather news, the 20/20 reporters enhanced the immediacy and credibility of the resulting story. As one journalist argued, "[Jiust describing the conditions wouldn't have cut it. They had to be seen." Using the 20/20 case as a paradigm, this Note argues that, in order to distinguish protected newsgathering …


Silencing John Doe: Defamation & Discourse In Cyberspace, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky Dec 2014

Silencing John Doe: Defamation & Discourse In Cyberspace, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky

Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky

John Doe has become a popular defamation defendant as corporations and their officers bring defamation suits for statements made about them in Internet discussion fora. These new suits are not even arguably about recovering money damages but instead are brought for symbolic reasons-some worthy, some not so worthy. If the only consequence of these suits were that Internet users were held accountable for their speech, the suits would be an unalloyed good. However, these suits threaten to suppress legitimate criticism along with intentional and reckless falsehoods, and existing First Amendment law doctrines are not responsive to the threat these suits …