Google Scholar - Law: One small step that changed the world

With little fanfare, Google today took a big swing at the legal establishment, by giving the world free access to its own database of case law.  This is very big news.  In fact, it is so massively big I'm not sure we can quite appreciate it just yet, but I will certainly try. 

Yesterday, there were three major methods of reading a case.  You could look at a printed court reporter at a law library, or search through the online database of rivals Westlaw and Lexis-Nexis.  As you might imagine, using the online databases is significantly easier, but they came with a price.  As a current law student, I am paying for unlimited access to Westlaw and Lexis as a part of my tuition, but it is very expensive for lawyers or the common citizen (Lexis rates; Westlaw's lack of advertised rates).  This means that even if a common citizen had the knowledge to interpret the law, he could not afford timely access to it.  These factors together made it unlikely that a common citizen could represent himself pro ce in court in any reasonable manner.  That changed today.  The current stories are focusing on this, as it was the general gist of Google's press release.

But this change is just as significant, if not more significant, for lawyers and their clients.  Because together Westlaw and Lexis-Nexis have a monopoly, they could charge lawyers exorbitant amounts to access these databases.  These charges were passed onto the clients, increasing the cost of legal counsel.  This also means that pro-bono (public interest; no charge to client) legal work suffered.  The only way for a lawyer or a law firm to conduct pro-bono work was to pay Westlaw or Lexis out of pocket, or to go to the library and use books - an unappetizing prospect for any busy lawyer.  Because of these two reasons, pro-bono work has been limited in the past.  That changed today as well.

But without comparative analysis, this is all just speculation.  As an example, I was recently assigned to research a false imprisonment case in New York.  (example used with permission).  The case hinged upon whether the detention was done in a "reasonable manner" or a "reasonable time." If you do a search in New York jurisdiction for - "false imprisonment" "reasonable manner" and "reasonable time" - you get 15 results, all cases that I had previously read in Lexis-Nexis or Westlaw as a part of my research.  However, at present there are at least three ways in which Google Scholar - Law is currently inferior to Westlaw and Lexis.  It does not currently contain state or federal statutes, it does not contain summaries of the cases, and it does not say if the case has been overruled (although it does give links to all the cases that cited it so that you could do the work yourself).  I imagine that these oversights will be amended by the time that it is removed from "beta" status, hopefully by the time I join the job market as a lawyer. 

Today Google changed the way that Americans will practice law.  Even if Google Scholar - Law is currently somewhat inferior to its rivals, its low price will mean that it will be swiftly adopted, which will likely force Westlaw and Lexis-Nexis to push down their own prices, or become obsolete.  Today is a good day for the public, for lawyers and for our democracy.  And on a more personal note, I am very happy to say that my summer pro-bono work just got much easier.

What an honest American really thinks

I recently received a chain letter from a close family member, with the subject line "What an honest American really thinks" purporting to be by Andy Rooney.  It is hard to resist that title, isn't it?  Full disclosure, I am Hispanic and this particular family member is white.  I decided that rather than having a long discussion again, which I know would make the family member feel singled out, it makes more sense to make it a post, hopefully making it into one of those "teachable moments."  Anyway, the email itself is too long to do a full point by point debate, and it's laced with truisms such as "Guns don't make you a killer. I think killing makes you a killer," which few would disagree with.  Still, there are three important points that I would like to make.

First, a simple google search will show that this is a seven year old chain letter which Andy Rooney has disavowed. So at the very least, the author is not an "honest american;" he's not even honest about his identity. In fact, Andy Rooney want's to sue him for defamation. 

Second - one that hits a little closer to home - I disagree with the racial views especially as implicitly targeted at Hispanics with the language issue.  In an ideal world, would everyone speak the same language? Of course, mistranslation can be a big problem in international politics as well as daily life. However the phrase "[i]f you want to be an American citizen you should have to speak English" takes it a few steps further - it is pretty direct anti-immigrant rabble rousing. It is the logical equivilent to say if you don't speak English (implicitly if you speak Spanish), you're not worthy of citizenship. This rabble rousing has a negative effect on everyone who is Hispanic, be it for speaking Spanish, having a Spanish accent, looking Hispanic, or having a Hispanic name. I fit this category, and heck even my ethnically white spouse fits into this category too. The more anti-Hispanic sentiment increases, the harder it is for us to find jobs... there's no way to hide the second word in our resumes has to be a Hispanic surname.  In fact, I've even been in a job interview where the interviewer said "you don't sound Hispanic." This proves to me that in the new environment where job applications are just online, a Hispanic surname is an obvious obstacle.  But my spouse and I have discussed it, and we refuse to bow to external pressure and change our name.  Linking this back to my preferred field of international politics, changing our surname would be little different than a country conceding to a terrorist's demands - in a word, unthinkable.

Finally, everyone has the right to say and believe whatever they want. The author is correct that he "[has] the right NOT to be tolerant of others because they are different, weird or tick him off" ... although the author does not have the right to defame Andy Rooney. Regardless, it is important to note that many - if not most - members of a racial group don't seek out to be lumped into a race. Instead, we have race thrust upon us by bigots such as this author - be it by skin color, accent or name. While it is obvious that the author "really thinks" these things, every time I receive an email like this I am disappointed to see that some members of my family believe in them enough to forward them to their friends and family.

It would be nice if everyone in the world was tolerant of each other, but being a student of realism, I doubt it will ever happen.  At the very least, these family members should realize that this rabble rousing has an effect on members of their own family, often even the ones that they are emailing. Maybe that realization will help grow a little more tolerance.

For my part, I hereby pledge not to let casual bigotry from my family pass without a confrontation, and I welcome others in my family to do the same. 

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Non Sequitur Post Script:  Seriously, and this goes to everyone out there - fact check your stories.  You can read wikipedia, and blogs and chain emails, but if it doesn't sound real then it probably isn't.  I personally limit my reading to articles have links to news sources - CNN, Fox News, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, NPR, BBC, Times Online - you know the news sources you've heard of before.  For the newer political claims, try the non-partizan Factcheck.org, they write articles exclusively on this sort of thing, and - like me - they vigorously cite all of their sources.  As their articles prove, they aren't a pawn of the Democrats or the Republicans.

Primetime Torture

I recently attended a human rights luncheon about the efficacy of torture. Among the many issues that were discussed, I still find myself thinking about one in particular, the role of torture in the media. For the past several years, the prevalence of torture in the media has been nagging at me. I was working at the FSU movie theater when the movie Saw came out, and I could barely stand to be in the same room as the preview. But Saw became a franchise, and spawned knockoffs such as the Hostel series. Critical movie critics soon dubbed it a new genre, a bit beyond your classic horror movie. For my part, I complained to anyone who would listen thesemovies had no reason being just Rated R, and certainly had no business being advertised on television.

But let's be honest, it wasn't just movies that were embracing torture as a new genre. Television jumped on the torture bandwagon as well. With Primetime Torture by HumanRightsFirst.org, I am happy to say that I now have a source which confirms my suspicions, that the amount of torture in the media greatly increased after 9/11. In addition, they make a very good point:

It used to be that only villains on television tortured. Today, “good guy” and heroic American characters torture — and this torture is depicted as necessary, effective and even patriotic.  Primetime Torture.

It doesn't matter if this increase in torture in the media was a cause or an effect of a shift in public opinion toward the use of torture, it legitimizes and furthers the acceptance of torture. I won't go so far as to say that this is a deliberate propaganda technique, but you've got to admit that it is subtly reminiscent of the "Two Minutes Hate" in George Orwell's 1984.

Wake up America, we're better than that.

An end to the Eastern Europe Missile Shield

I've discussed the Eastern Europe Missile shield once or twice in the past, and I'm happy to see it go as a part of our continued relationship building with Russia.

--

White House to Scrap Bush’s Approach to Missile Shield - NYTimes.com: "President Obama on Thursday announced a reconfigured system that won’t be based in Poland or the Czech Republic, and will be aimed at intercepting Iranian missiles."

A New Era - A New IRWatch

Well a lot has happened since my last post.  To make a long story short, I'm now a law student at one of America's top law schools for international law The American University - Washington College of Law in Washington, DC.  Because of this, I'm going to open IRWatch to issues of domestic law and politics.  I'm even considering slightly modifying the title - though I want to keep the abbreviation IRWatch and the irwatch.blogspot domain because I like brevity.  Any ideas?

Swine Flu - An Alternate Narrative

You would have to be living under a rock not to have heard about the H1N1-A or "Swine Flu," it's been heavily covered on every news outlet since it emerged. This latest flu is the latest example of how sensational American news has become, especially on international issues. But before I get to the Swine Flu, I’d like to mention a slightly older story that I find is a relevant back-story to the current debate.

Starting around 2006, a new national debate began on illegal immigration began, and throughout it all a few radical themes emerged. These themes were based on much older racial stereotypes, but in this case they were coated in a loose venire based on legal status. One of these themes emerged which is quite relevant to today’s topic - that Mexican illegal aliens are spreading disease into the United States.

Here we are today with a disease which seems to have begun in Mexico, which has spread into America. As you would imagine the anti-immigrant radicals are, as a friend put it, frothing at the mouth. This is because this international crisis conforms to the previous narrative, that Mexicans are bringing disease into America. But extremists aside, a slightly milder version of this narrative is still prevalent across the media – the Mexican people made a dangerous new flu and gave it to us.

It is important to remember that it has not been proven that H1N1-A came from Mexico, just that the first confirmed case is from Mexico, and an unexpectedly high majority of the deaths have been in Mexico as well.

I don’t pretend to be an expert on the flu, but I do watch international news very closely, and I am disturbed how one very important element of this story has escaped the attention of the vast majority of American mass media: since January, Mexico City has been under severe water shortages. For more than three months, Mexico City – the largest city in the world – has essentially been having rolling blackouts with its water supply.

“In some parts of the capital [Mexico City] washing hands has become a luxury. In recent months, some neighborhoods - all of them poor - have been without water service for two weeks at a time.” (NPR)

After quite a bit of searching online, I have been able to find no American news outlet other than NPR who has even related extreme water shortages in the world’s largest city to the outbreak of the new flu. Lack of water is a natural correlation, aren't you supposed to wash your hands and drink plenty of fluids? Regardless, now that the connection has been made, let me put forward an alternate narrative.

This flu season, a slightly new version of the flu virus emerges somewhere in the world. This flu has the exact same mortality rate as the standard seasonal flu, and so it doesn’t attract any attention . . . until people in Mexico City with the flu begin dying. Someone decides to do a genetic analysis of what what’s causing the illness and to his or her surprise, it turns out to be a new type of flu. Cautious governments around the world quickly react, fearing a 1918 style pandemic. The flu spreads like a pandemic around the world, but as it turns out this new version of flu is essentially exactly as dangerous as the normal flu. As world governments breathe a collective sigh of relief, the story begins to subside, all the while ignoring the true story. The Swine Flu panic began because the Mexican Government can’t provide for its citizens; the Mexican government - not the Mexican people - is at fault. While the Swine Flu crisis may have been resolved, the underlying problem remains – the Mexican people are dying because they don’t have access to clean water. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why they're trying to emigrate to America.

--
Update:
Laurie Garrett, a Pulitzer prize winning author on pandemics, made a comment that industrial pig farms in the United States are a more likely source for the origin of the swine flu.  (Video clip; after minute 4). "So take that Lou Dobbs."

Why torture should not be a partisan debate

As I mentioned in my previous post comparing the foreign policies of Bush (43) to Truman and Obama to Nixon, the two parties don’t have as consistent a position on policies as the pundits would have you believe ... which is one of the main reasons why I'm an independent. Regardless, today's case in point – torture. Did you know that it was Ronald Reagan who signed the UN Convention Against Torture Treaty? (US State Department) That's the law that outlaws "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment". And yet all of the defenders of America’s policy of torture are of Reagan’s party - the party that still considers Ronald Reagan it's greatest hero.

Don't get me wrong, I’m not naïve; the reason that right-wing pundits are defending this torture is because September 11 and its aftermath happened during a Republican administration. Does anyone really believe that the same pundits would be defending the torture policy if it were done during a Democratic administration?

Herein lies my point. It makes perfect sense that the Republicans Richard Cheney, Jay Bybee and John Yoo are defending the policy of torture – they were the enablers of that torture. They are also members of a previous Administration whose “approval rating is the lowest final rating for an outgoing president since Gallup began asking about presidential approval more than 70 years ago.” (Gallup - CBS News) But this does not mean that the debate needs to be a partisan one. During the 2008 Republican National Convention, there was quite a bit of buzz around how President Bush didn’t attend in person and how no one there would mention him by name. If it was alright for Republicans distancing themselves from an unpopular president, there is no reason why Republicans cannot distance themselves from an unethical policy of that president, which happened to also have been condemned by the great Republican hero Ronald Reagan.

If that argument doesn’t convince you, try looking at it this way. One of the criticisms of the originally released torture memos was that the conclusions could effect American citizens suspected of terrorism. Currently, there is a Democratic administration which says that it is against these methods. What if that wasn’t the case – and what if a right wing group threatened a terrorist attack or was merely suspected of links to terrorism?

Republicans – for whatever reason, do yourselves and the country a favor and do the right thing. Denounce the use of torture; it’s what Reagan would have done.

Never Again

A few years ago, I participated in the Florida State University Holocaust Institute for Educators. Of course there were the standard pictures and films of the atrocities, but the true treasure of the event was that we were able to listen to and meet with several holocaust survivors. I bring this up because each time I try to sit down and write about the current Debate on Torture, I can’t stop thinking about something that one of the holocaust survivors said. Someone asked what I thought was an innocuous question at the time, but I vividly remember her answer. She was asked why she kept coming to these lectures and she answered: “So that I can put a human face on it, and do my part to make sure it never happens again.”

It is time for the United States to come to grips with the fact that we tortured. We have to accept what this truly means – we can no longer claim to the white knight on the world stage. With waterboarding alone we have stooped to the likes of the Spanish Inquisition, the Khmer Rouge, and the Gestapo. Just as with the Holocaust there will always be deniers, but in the end we need to expose the full horror of what was done in order to embarrass the population into understanding that torture is not acceptable and dissuade possible enablers in the future. Investigating, exposing and denouncing what happened can we begin to regain the trust of our allies, and in order to make sure this doesn't happen again.

There are quite a few things I would like to address on this topic; I will continue to write about this issue in the coming days. I invite everyone to join the discussion in the days and weeks to come.

Looking exclusively at the foreign policy of American Presidents:

Bush (43) is to __________, as Obama is to ____________.

a) Reagan; Eisenhower
b) Nixon; Truman
c) Truman; Nixon
d) Eisenhower; Hoover

Show your work.
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c) Truman; Nixon

Yes, this is meant to turn an eyebrow or two, but just hear me out. There are essentially two different world views: Realism/Pragmatism and Progressiveism/Liberalism. Realists essentially believe that a nation's power (economic, military, & soft) should be the main concern in foreign policy, whereas Progressives believe that ideals - human rights, freedom, democracy, et cetera - should be the main concern in foreign policy.

Too often, we get tied up in party politics, and are mislead into believing that if the Democratic President does something then it must liberal, and if a Republican president does something then it must be conservative. When we look exclusively at foreign policy, we can say with certainty that this is not the case. George W. Bush's foreign policy was often called "Neo-Conservative," but don't let the name fool you it as "Neo-Conservatism" is essentially classic Progressivism/Liberalism; it was just re-branded so that it would be more palatable for conservative voters. "Transforming the Middle East, and spreading American values, through regime change in Iraq" is textbook Liberalism (CSMonitor, 2003) which closely mirror's Truman's ideological views in the lead up to and beginning of the Cold War (for more on Truman and the beginning of the Cold War email me for a copy of my Master's thesis).

On the other hand, saying to Iran "If countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us," is a textbook example of pragmatism - the kind of diplomacy Nixon used when opening up relations with Communist China during the Cold War (State Department, 2009).

Which do you prefer? If a country we dislike has something we want, should we work with them or against them? Bear in mind the costs of war (IRWatch: Are Wars Good for the Economy?, On Deficits and Stimulus).

On Deficits and Stimulus

I had quite a lively response to my previous post "Are Wars Good for the Economy?", and decided a followup post was in was in order.

I don't disagree that government spending can boost the economy, by definition it adds to GDP. The only concern I have is with deficits and debt. When the the economy is doing well, you should balance your budget or run a surplus, and when the economy is doing badly, you should borrow to increase GDP through spending or tax cuts (which one you choose can be battled out later, I actually like that this one has a mix of the two). The problem as I see it is that we were running huge deficits before the economic crisis, and while it is definitely in our short term interest to go even more into debt to get us out of the economic funk, it is in our long term interest to show the international markets we're borrowing from that we're going to spend responsibly in the future and that we won't run huge deficits when our economy is growing again. If our international lenders don't think we will be fiscally responsible in the long term, they would stop lending and things would get much worse and fast.

And small note on war and the economy, there have been significant extenuating circumstances the times when war has been seen as stimulative in the past, and there are even more examples of when it has been anything but stimulative. I hope that spending that money on making stuff at home instead of on blowing stuff up overseas might have a slightly more stimulative effect. My fear is that looking back we'll find that it doesn't matter what you spend government money on, it matters how you finance it.

Becoming the Land of the Setting Sun

Dear Japan,

Japan we love you, but it’s time that you faced the fact that you’ve got a problem. You mean a lot to us - so much so that our new secretary of state went to visit you before any others. But after the lost decade of the 1990s, you can hardly afford to have your GDP shrinking at twice the pace of the GDPs of America and Europe - 12.7 percent last quarter according to Bloomberg.
It breaks my heart to say this, but you need to come to grips with the fact that if you keep this up, you won’t be the world’s number two economy for much longer.

We’ll still be there for you, but you have to understand that we have problems of our own. I know that it may hurt your feelings, but you should know that our new leaders might suggest sometime soon that is time for you to officially establish a military to help us out with East Asian security. On the surface it may look like we are being selfish, or that we are trying to leave you, but you don’t need to worry - our special relationship is not over, it’s just changing. Please understand that this request comes out of a deep respect for you and our belief that it could even help to revitalize your manufacturing industry. Just understand that we still care about you, and we only want what’s best for you. Please stay in touch, and let us know if there's anything we can do to help.

Sincerely yours,
-America

Are Wars Good for the Economy?

There is a myth that wars are good for economies, and as evidence people point to World War I and World War II. This is not the case. It is important when discussing the extreme budget deficits and borrowing during World Wars 1 & 2, that America was mainly borrowing from its own banking system. More importantly, America was neutral during much of both of these wars, and during that time Europe was purchasing weapons and borrowing money from us, and it was the eventual repayment of these loans enabled the post war booms in America following both wars. America was doing great after the World Wars, but Europe was not. England and France lost their empires, and Russia and Germany lost even more.

Some have said that the only way to get out of our current economic funk is by entering into a war, or using an equivalent amount of government spending. The fact is we've been at war for seven years. The problem is that we've borrowed all of the money to conduct those wars, and thus our economy worsens.

Looking back at the example of World War II, the United States is playing the role of the European countries, while China is playing the role of America - sitting back and lending as we get in way over our heads.

Speaking macro-economically, war and long term overspending is not good for the economy. It is good for the lenders, but not the debtors.

I'm Back!

My thesis is complete, I've got my Masters Degree, I'm in a new job where I have the freedom to blog, and I've finished my new more serious blog template. What's more, I've had quite a few things I've been wanting to write about, so get ready for an onslaught of posting! I also want to reintroduce my personal blog I've neglected: mrbento.blogspot.com. For friends and family, or anyone else who is interested, I'll be putting all further non-international politics postings over on that blog. One request though, please comment to let me know what you find interesting!

It's great to be back,
-Adam