Media Mentions

After four years of false starts and strife over privacy protections, the Senate passed legislation by a vote of 74 to 21 on Tuesday that would help companies battle a daily onslaught of cyberattacks. But there is one problem with the legislation, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, or CISA: In the years that Congress was debating it, computer attackers have grown so much more sophisticated — in many cases, backed by state sponsors from Shanghai to Tehran — that the central feature of the legislation, agreements allowing companies and the government to share information, seems almost quaint...“I think the fruits of detecting signatures and patterns of broad attacks are already picked,” said Jonathan Zittrain, a Harvard law professor. “The biggest threats,” he said, are far more customized, “with elements of social engineering or betrayal of an employee with access to data or code.”

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. Should law schools admit students who are statistically uncertain to pass the bar on the basis of their standardized test scores? A growing conventional wisdom says no. The worry is that such students will build up large amounts of debt that they won't be able to pay back if they don't become lawyers. This view assumes that it's up to the law schools to make the threshold decision paternalistically, “saving” naive college graduates from pursuing the dream of becoming lawyers when there’s no guarantee that they'll succeed. It treats standardized test scores as destiny and correlation-based studies as gospel.

At a time of substantial change in legal education and the profession—in which the careers of law-school graduates develop in increasingly varied, often global, professional contexts—Harvard Law School (HLS) kicked off its “Campaign for the Third Century” on Friday, October 23, with an afternoon of speeches and panel discussions that hinted at some of these transformations in practice and pedagogy. Later, during a gala evening dinner featuring speeches by Harvard president Drew Faust and HLS dean Martha Minow, campaign co-chair James A. Attwood Jr., J.D.-M.B.A. ’84, announced a campaign goal of $305 million, of which he said $241 million (79 percent) had already been raised in “the silent phase.” Minow announced a campaign-leading $15-million gift from Michael R. Klein, LL.M. ’67; the school will soon add his name to what is now the Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Two Harvard Law graduates are taking on the justice system by focusing on local courts and policies that often land the poor in jail. Traveling to Tennessee, they aim to end private probation abuses. [Including interview with intern Mark Verstraete `16.]

For months, supporters and detractors of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan have been debating whether the carbon reductions are too stringent or not tough enough; whether it will compromise reliability; whether it will save struggling nuclear power plants. With Thursday’s publication of the rule in the Federal Register, another question took center stage, one whose answer could make the others academic: Does EPA have the legal authority to do what it did?...Panel moderator Kate Konschnik, director of the Harvard Environmental Policy Initiative, disagreed, saying that EPA has previously issued rules that “caused certain units to shut down.” “In particular, that was squarely at issue in a D.C. Circuit case about the cement kiln industry in the 1970s — that one type of cement plant would cease to exist because of the standards,” she said.

He is a luminary in the world of cyberlaw, a star Harvard professor with a résumé a hundred pages thick, and a sensation on the thought leader circuit. But even though he has raised more than $1 million for his presidential bid, Lawrence Lessig, who is mounting a quixotic campaign for the Democratic nomination, is struggling to get noticed...“Larry’s a terrific guy, but I don’t think that because you have a very important project, that therefore you should be in charge of all the millions of things the president is in charge of, including foreign policy,” said Charles Fried, a conservative Harvard Law School professor who gave Mr. Lessig $100 anyway. Alex Whiting, a Harvard Law professor who was best man at Mr. Lessig’s wedding, was surprised last summer when they sat on a boat in New Hampshire and his old friend revealed his plans to run for president. While highly intelligent, he said, Mr. Lessig does not have the chatty demeanor of a regular politician, and Mr. Whiting said he worried about the toll the campaign could take. “I think it’s been frustrating for him,” Mr. Whiting said. “He’s brilliant and offers new ways of thinking about familiar problems, but ideas don’t always carry the day.”

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. Can an American detained and allegedly tortured by the FBI at black sites outside the U.S. sue for damages? A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said no last week, on the ground that the violations of the citizen’s rights took place abroad. The distinction is mistaken, and the decision is wrong. The Constitution should protect the rights of U.S. citizens against the illegal actions of U.S. government no matter where they happen to be.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein: At least in theory, one of the best ways for Congress to protect consumers and investors is by requiring companies to disclose information. Credit card providers must inform you about potential late fees; new cars are sold with fuel-economy stickers; calorie labels are being required at chain restaurants. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau even has a slogan, which orients much of its work: Know Before You Owe. Last August, an unreasonably aggressive ruling from a three-judge panel of a federal court of appeals cast doubt on the constitutionality of such disclosure requirements. The full court is now deciding whether to review the panel’s decision. If it refuses to do so, the Supreme Court should intervene.  

United Auto Workers has ratified a new contract with Fiat-Chrysler. It was settled across a conference table, in a time-frame agreeable to both parties. But, it hasn't always been that way. ... GOLDSTEIN: The main thing the strikers wanted was for the company to negotiate with them on things like seniority and benefits, what we think of today as basic union stuff. A few weeks after the governor called in the guard, the company agreed. The strike was over. The Flint strike set off this huge wave. Over the next few years, industry after industry was unionized. This big swath of the economy was transformed. Richard Freeman, a labor economist at Harvard, says this is the way union growth tends to happen in the U.S. and around the world. RICHARD FREEMAN: When unions go up, they go up in a really sharp, you know, boom, bang.

An op-ed by Berkman Center Faculty Associate Josephine Wolff: This was among the head-scratchers to emerge from the news this week that teenage hackers had gained access toCIA director John Brennan’s unfashionable email account, yielding more than 2,500 email and instant message addresses for high-ranking government officials. But the more important question is why the boundaries between personal and work email accounts appear to be so porous in the upper echelons of the government.There are plenty of reasons to care when government officials use their personal email accounts for work-related activities, particularly when it comes to transparency and accountability. Journalists may not be able to gain access to emails sent from personal accounts under the Freedom of Information Act, and communications meant to be public record can stay under wraps.

...Now, a cache of 55,000 photos smuggled out of Syria last year provides a glimpse into the apparent systematic torture and death of 11,000 civilians between 2011 and 2013 inside two military police facilities in Damascus, one of which is less than a mile from the presidential palace. It’s estimated that 300,000 other prisoners remain in Assad-controlled jails. Thirty of the images are on exhibit in Lewis 202 at Harvard Law School (HLS) through Nov. 4. It’s only the third time the photos have been displayed in the United States, following showings at the United Nations headquarters and in Congress. ...The panel was moderated by Professor Susan Farbstein, co-director of the International Human Rights Clinic at HLS, and sponsored by the Human Rights Program, the Office of Public Interest Advising, and HLS Advocates for Human Rights.

President Obama calls the death penalty "deeply troubling," but he still has not changed his position in favor of using it for particularly heinous crimes. In an interview Thursday with the Marshall Project, Obama said, "At a time when we’re spending a lot of time thinking about how to make the system more fair, more just, that we have to include an examination of the death penalty in that.” ... Charles J. Ogletree Jr. — a prominent death penalty opponent who was a law professor of the president and first lady Michelle Obama when both were students at Harvard Law School — has also urged Obama to alter his position. "He's not there yet, but he's close, and needs some help," Ogletree said in an interview with The Washington Post earlier this year.

Forget about trying to get any work done on Thursday: the Internet Cat Video Festival is returning to Boston. The festival comes to the Berklee Performance Center for the second straight year to showcase a collection of amusing and adorable cat clips. ... The event is produced by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. This year’s videos were curated by Will Braden, creator of the popular Henri le Chat Noir videos on YouTube. Harvard professor Jonathan Zittrain will serve as the event’s emcee. “Why did I agree to do this? Because it’s a fun thing,” says Zittrain, an admitted dog owner who specializes in cyber law and policy. “Whatever we’re worried about, there are always cat videos to watch. And I’m grateful for that.”

Harvard Law School raised $241 million of its $305 million of its goal during the quiet phase of its capital campaign, which launched with fanfare on Friday evening. Titled the “Campaign for the Third Century,” the fundraising effort will focus on clinical education and financial aid for students. The Law School recently finished a capital campaign in 2008, when it raised $476 million, surpassing its $400 million goal. Because of the proximity to its last fundraising drive, the Law School is the last of Harvard’s schools to launch its part of the University-wide Harvard Campaign, which kicked off publicly in 2013 and seeks to raise $6.5 billion.    

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. In an unusual, head-snapping reversal, Amazon.com has convinced a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to retract an opinion on its search results technique and replace it with a decision in its favor. To make the result even weirder, the single judge who flipped isn't a member of the 9th Circuit all. He’s a 78-year-old partly retired judge from the Western District of Michigan sitting by designation with the appellate court whose megacircuit covers the half-moon from Arizona to Montana. What gives?

Harvard is fertilizing a new crop of ideas to combat climate change. The Climate Change Solutions Fund will award grants of up to $150,000 each to stoke ideas for creative climate-related work in business, design, policy, public health, and the sciences. It was launched last year with $1 million from the office of President Drew Faust, who challenged alumni and friends to assist in raising $20 million for the fund as one pillar of a broader campaign to support the energy and environment...“This funding was a total game-changer for us,” said Emily Broad Leib, assistant clinical professor of law and deputy director of the Harvard Law School Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation, who was awarded a grant to reduce food waste. Leib has been able to make time for efforts to raise awareness of the issue through media appearances and by working with her students to make a short documentary about state expiration-date policies and the need for change at the federal level.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. Vincent van Gogh’s “The Night Cafe” will stay at the Yale University Art Gallery, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled this week, even though the Bolsheviks stole it from a private collector in 1918. The court said it has no authority to consider the validity of a foreign government’s act confiscating private property. So how come confiscated Nazi art, like the Gustav Klimt painting in the film “Woman in Gold,” can end up returned to its rightful heirs, while Soviet-confiscated art can’t? The legal answer turns out to be surprisingly convoluted. In essence, it’s this: The Nazis are different.

Without mincing words, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy disparaged the American criminal justice system on Thursday for the three prison scourges of long sentences, solitary confinement, and overcrowding. “It’s an ongoing injustice of great proportions,” said Kennedy during a conversation with Harvard Law School (HLS) Dean Martha Minow at Wasserstein Hall, in a room packed mostly with students...Kennedy, LL.B. ’61, whose views on the court reflect a preoccupation with liberty and dignity, has often been described as the high court’s swing vote on major issues. But during his talk with Minow, he said he hated to be depicted that way. “Cases swing. I don’t,” he quipped, as the room erupted in laughter.

In an hour long question and answer session at Harvard Law School on Thursday, United States Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy discussed a breadth of topics ranging from his time on the Court, concepts of dignity and freedom, and his own time as a student at the Law School...Dean of the Law School Martha L. Minow, who moderated the discussion, eventually opened up the event to questions from members of the packed crowd in Milstein Hall; Kennedy answered questions on campaign finance laws and recommended reading material, including Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.” When Minow asked him what he had learned as a Law School student, Kennedy again turned to humor to describe his studious days as a student. “I remember a lot of the cases I had in Law School better than cases I’ve worked with,” Kennedy said to laughs.

U.S. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus highlighted his efforts to reduce the incidence of sexual assault in the military to students, government officials, and veterans gathered to hear him speak at Harvard Law School on Thursday...Dean of the Law School Martha L. Minow praised Mabus and the Disabled American Veterans group for their efforts in helping veterans across the country and for their participation in events like Thursday’s. “Their commitment to raising awareness about the needs of veterans inspires us all,” Minow said.

When Harvard Law School publicly launches its capital campaign on Friday, kicking off an effort that aims to raise several hundred million dollars, it will continue a years-long attempt to rebrand itself. Instead of evoking the halcyon days of the donors’ student experiences as a way to entice them to open their wallets, according to Steven Oliveira, dean of development and alumni relations, the Law School will share another message: The school is very different now...The launch will also showcase the work of professors in new disciplines of law that may not have even existed when some of the donors were students. At a 90-minute panel discussion titled “HLS Thinks Big,” Law School Dean Martha L. Minow will moderate a panel of experts from fields like bioethics and internet law. I. Glenn Cohen, one of the professors who will speak on Friday, wrote in an email that he will discuss bioethics and health law. “As part of the campaign I do whatever I can to connect with alumni interested in these areas (health law, bioethics, food and drug law, biotechnology) and explain why this is such an exciting time for our students and our law school to be involved in these issues,” Cohen wrote.