Lawrence Lessig

The court battle between the cellphone industry and Berkeley, Calif., which wants notices posted at the point of sale, exposes flaws in the U.S. legal system. The battle was covered in an extensive article in Newsweek Nov. 3 by Ronnie Cohen. ...Lawrence Lessig, attorney for Berkeley, says it is a matter of "free speech" and companies are discouraging governments from imposing regulations by filing First Amendment lawsuits that are prohibitively expensive to defend.

The list is long and shameful. The Wachovia Bank helped launder hundreds of millions for Mexican drug cartels. Wells Fargo illegally created nearly two million fake accounts and then charged customers service fees for them. ...Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard professor who specializes in the study of corruption and had a quixotic run for the 2016 Democratic presidential candidacy, said in an interview with the Star, “This is business as usual. It is deeply corrupt, but it’s not criminal. This is why the system needs to change.” The regulation of the American financial system is a series of shifting parts that includes the Federal Reserve, Treasury and several other agencies. The Senate is supposed to oversee this complicated machinery through the 22-member banking committee. “The American system is made deliberately to have a number of overlapping veto points,” Lessig said. “So all (the banks) have to do is capture one of those veto points and they can make sure that nothing gets into legislation. In fact, control over a veto point gives tremendous power over questions of staffing and personnel as well.”

In the back of the Apple Store in Berkeley, California, at the end of the bar where those “geniuses” repair iPhones and MacBooks, is a placard with this warning: “If you carry or use your phone in a pants or shirt pocket or tucked into a bra when the phone is ON and connected to a wireless network, you may exceed the federal guidelines for exposure to RF radiation.” Read the safety instructions in the manual, it tells consumers. Or else. ... CTIA hired Theodore Olson, a former solicitor general who argued the case that put George W. Bush in the White House and is considered one of the nation’s most effective U.S. Supreme Court advocates. Berkeley is represented by Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard law professor and cyberlaw expert who last year ran for president as a Democrat to push for an overhaul of campaign finance. The two are now jousting over the Berkeley ordinance in federal court.

This year, Dorothy E. Roberts ’80, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a leading scholar on legal and biosocial theory, is…

In the back of the Apple Store in Berkeley, California, at the end of the bar where those “geniuses” repair iPhones and MacBooks, is a placard with this warning: “If you carry or use your phone in a pants or shirt pocket or tucked into a bra when the phone is ON and connected to a wireless network, you may exceed the federal guidelines for exposure to RF radiation.” Read the safety instructions in the manual, it tells consumers. Or else. The Apple Store posted the notice to comply with a Berkeley city ordinance—the first in the nation—requiring retailers to alert consumers to the federal guidelines for safe cellphone use...Berkeley is represented by Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard law professor and cyberlaw expert who last year ran for president as a Democrat to push for an overhaul of campaign finance. The two are now jousting over the Berkeley ordinance in federal court. Lessig, who helped craft the Berkeley ordinance in a way that he hoped would withstand a cellphone industry lawsuit, is not charging the city for his services. He volunteered because he believes corporations discourage governments from imposing regulations by filing First Amendment lawsuits that are prohibitively expensive to defend, he tells Newsweek. “I’m a constitutional scholar, and I am very concerned,” he says.

Nina Paley’s breakout came when her animated rendition of the classic Indian epic Ramayana, called Sita Sings the Blues, racked up nearly a million views on YouTube. Roger Ebert, the famed film critic, gave the “whimsical” film a resounding four stars, while others dubbed the movie a cultural “tour de force” and the “Greatest Break-Up Story Ever Told.” Yet rather than collecting her bounty of advertising revenue and relishing her overnight fame, Paley waived all copyrights to her masterpiece — and instead copylefted, all wrongs reserved. “The law is an ass I don’t want to ride,” says Paley. Apparently neither do a growing number of other artists...Meanwhile, the costs of copyright are hidden but steep, argues Lawrence Lessig, Harvard Law professor and co-founder of Creative Commons. The regime quashes inspiration in a world where no one can build off another’s work without paying them an arm and a leg in licensing fees.

Lawrence Lessig is a professor at Harvard Law School, a leading advocate for campaign finance reform, and short-lived presidential candidate. He was also, in the view of the Clinton campaign, circa August 2015, a “smug,” “pompous,” loathsome guy whom a reasonable person might wish “to kick the shit out of on Twitter.”...On Tuesday, these private barbs became public, thanks to WikiLeaks. And so, as Lessig made his way to New York to see his sick father, his inbox filled up with notifications about how much Neera Tanden once claimed to despise him. Reading through the email, Lessig was outraged — on Tanden’s behalf. Per Lessig’s blog: I’m a big believer in leaks for the public interest. That’s why I support Snowden, and why I believe the President should pardon him. But I can’t for the life of me see the public good in a leak like this — at least one that reveals no crime or violation of any important public policy.

On Aug. 11, 2015, the news media picked up on the plans of Larry Lessig, the Harvard Law professor and anti-corruption activist, to run for president in the Democratic primaries. Neera Tanden, the president of the Center for American Progress, apparently was not pleased. “You know what average Americans need?” Tanden appears to have written in an email allegedly obtained in a massive hack of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's account. “The smugness of Larry Lessig.”...“I can’t for the life of me see the public good in a leak like this — at least one that reveals no crime or violation of any important public policy,” wrote Lessig. “We all deserve privacy. The burdens of public service are insane enough without the perpetual threat that every thought shared with a friend becomes Twitter fodder. Neera has only ever served in the public (and public interest) sector. Her work has always and only been devoted to advancing her vision of the public good. It is not right that she should bear the burden of this sort of breach.”

A federal appeals court questioned during a hearing Tuesday whether the city of Berkeley is unduly discouraging customers from buying cell phones by requiring retailers to warn them about the possible radiation effects of carrying switched-on phones close to their bodies...“If we interpret this (ordinance) as warning that cell phones are unsafe, I don’t see that you have defended it,” Judge Michelle Friedland told Berkeley’s lawyer, Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard law professor...Lessig replied that the federal agency had labeled its standards as safety measures and required cell phone manufacturers to include them in their manuals with each sale, the same message that Berkeley is conveying to consumers. “The FCC has never said that cell phones are safe” in all uses, Lessig said. “We should be allowed to rely on the FCC’s judgment.”

High-profile appellate advocates faced off Tuesday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in a fight over how and when local governments can force businesses to make statements about the safety of their products. Arguing on behalf of a wireless industry group, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher's Theodore Olson asked a Ninth Circuit panel to block a Berkeley law requiring retailers to warn customers against keeping cellphones too close to their bodies. Olson claims that the compelled commercial speech violates the First Amendment and, if allowed to stand, would spur the creation of a patchwork of local rules. Meanwhile, Berkeley's lawyer, Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig, argued that the city ordinance only calls for retailers to make factual statements echoing language the Federal Communications Commission already requires manufacturers to include in cellphone use manuals...Lessig, who helped the city craft the language of the law and has signed on to defend it pro bono, pointed out that the disclosure only points to language that cellphone manufacturers themselves are required to put in user manuals. "Our position is that we are relying on a regulation of the FCC," he said. Local governments, he said, shouldn't have to fund research to retest industry-established standards in order to compel safety disclosures by industry.

Conservative groups pushing for a constitutional convention are just six states short of their goal. Thirty-four states are needed to call a constitutional convention under Article 5of the Constitution. So far 28 states have adopted resolutions for a constitutional convention to consider an amendment that requires a balanced federal budget, the New York Times reports. ... Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig isn’t worried about a runaway convention. “The very terms of Article 5 state that proposals aren’t valid unless they’re ratified by three-fourths of the states,” he tells the Times. “There’s no controversial idea on the left or the right that won’t have 13 states against it.”

Conservative groups pushing for a constitutional convention are just six states short of their goal. Thirty-four states are needed to call a constitutional convention under Article 5 of the Constitution. So far 28 states have adopted resolutions for a constitutional convention to consider an amendment that requires a balanced federal budget, the New York Times reports. ... Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig isn’t worried about a runaway convention. “The very terms of Article 5 state that proposals aren’t valid unless they’re ratified by three-fourths of the states,” he tells the Times. “There’s no controversial idea on the left or the right that won’t have 13 states against it.”

An op-ed by Michael Golden and Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig:  Over the last year, presidential candidates from both parties have ridden to great success the populist cry of a “rigged system” – in which billions of dollars in campaign cash have destroyed the very idea of a representative democracy. The American electorate has embraced this message. Donald Trump distilled the charge to a dozen words: “When you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to.” And in differing degrees and with different styles, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have both attacked the tight grip of campaign cash on the politics of our nation.But with three months to go before ballots get cast, only one of the two frontrunners – and her party – has unequivocally supported specific plans to solve these problems. And though the presidential race now dominates the media conversation, it is in Congress, which currently carries a 14 percent approval rating, where these solutions will matter the most. The polarization and paralysis on Capitol Hill, stemming from our rigged election system, prevents legislators from negotiating and compromising to make meaningful progress on the issues that Americans consistently prioritize.

A talk from the Aspen Ideas Festival about the state of America's democracy. Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig believes we've ended up with a democracy where there is unequal freedom to vote, unequal representation, and unequal status as citizens. The good news? He says it's completely fixable. Lawrence Lessig is professor of law at Harvard University. He spoke June 30, 2016 at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado.

An op-ed by Randy Barnett and Lawrence Lessig. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are disliked by more voters than any major-party nominees in at least three decades. Independents easily outnumber either Democrats or Republicans. And polls show voters overwhelmingly want another choice. There is no shortage of great leaders in the United States with integrity, strength and vision, but there is something standing in their way: A morass of state laws meant to keep particular Americans from threatening the two existing major parties. Fundamentally, these laws prevent rivals from emerging that might replace the existing non-responsive parties—the way the Republicans emerged to replace the Whigs over the issue of slavery. And like poll taxes and literacy tests, they unjustifiably block ballot access.

Brian Leiter has updated his list of the most-cited law faculty. Here is his list of the 10 most-cited law faculty in the United States, 2010-14, led by Harvard’s Cass Sunstein. Following Sunstein are Erwin Chemerinsky (UC Irvine), Richard Epstein (NYU, Chicago), Eric Posner (Chicago), Mark Lemley (Stanford), William Eskridge Jr. (Yale), Mark Tushnet (Harvard), Akhil Amar (Yale), Bruce Ackerman (Yale) and Lawrence Lessig (Harvard). Interestingly, three of the top 10 are in their 70s, three are in their 60s, and four are only in their 50s.

An op-ed by Lawrence Lessig. U.S. Rep. David Jolly, a Republican from Indian Shores, has generated enormous enthusiasm for his Stop Act — a proposal to ban members of Congress from personally asking people for money. "60 Minutes" did a special segment about the idea. That followed an incredibly powerful piece by comedian John Oliver describing with perfect clarity just how absurd the system has become. From my own survey of research, we know that members of Congress can spend anywhere between 30 percent and 70 percent of their time raising money. Even at the low end of that estimate, this should astonish anyone. Critics are wrong to call this a "do-nothing Congress." To the contrary, it does an incredible amount — of fundraising. That life of fundraising changes the members of Congress. How could it be otherwise? If you spent half of your time sucking up to powerful and wealthy people, you'd be changed, too.

Police arrested Harvard Law professor and former presidential candidate Lawrence Lessig last week during protests focused on campaign finance reform in Washington, D.C. Organized by the nonpartisan group Democracy Spring, a movement dedicated to campaign finance reform and supporting disadvantaged voters, the week-long sit-in protest in the nation’s capital came in the midst of this election cycle's primary season. ...“We have not embraced the fundamental fact that we need to change the way campaigns are funded,” Lessig said in an interview with the Young Turks posted over the weekend. “We need to spend public money on campaigns because whoever funds campaigns gets to call the tune.”

Police arrested hundreds of people protesting the influence of money in politics this week in Washington, D.C., but peaceful tangles with the officers were one of the group's main goals. U.S. Capitol Police arrested more than 900 protesters through Saturday afternoon. The mass demonstrations called "Democracy Spring" began Monday...Harvard Law School professor and former Democratic presidential candidate Larry Lessig was arrested Friday — for the first time ever. "I'm a law professor," he said Saturday. "I don't get arrested." But he made an exception for the issue that he based his short-lived campaign on: Campaign finance reform. "I’m so incredibly excited with the kind of passion and the mix of people that were there," said Lessig, noting it's spread beyond the usual "law geeks and intellectuals" who rally around campaign finance reform.