Author: Eoin

Dr Eoin O'Dell is a Fellow and Associate Professor of Law at Trinity College Dublin.

Today is Safer Internet Day

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| Media and Communications

Safer Internet Day, via the Webwise site.Do you feel safer on the internet today? Do you usually feel unsafe on the internet? Well, today is Safer Internet Day; further information via the EU, Hotline.ie, Inhope, ISPAI, InS@fe, NCTE and WebWise.ie. As the NCTE page explains:

Safer Internet Day takes place each year in February and is an opportunity to dedicate some time in schools to reflect on some of the issues and more importantly to raise awareness of them. … The Safer Internet Day website provides details of all the SID events and also information about previous events and showcase some of the work done by schools and young people.

Safer Internet Day_Blogathon
As part of Safer Internet Day 2008, there will be a Global Safer Internet Day 2008 blog, of which the European Commissioner Vivian Reding in Brussels will be the first to post …

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Le Pen is not mightier than le sword

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| Censorship

Le Pen, via the BBC.According to various news outlets (BBC | BreakingNews.ie | Irish Independet here and here | Irish Times (sub req’d) | RTE | Telegraph) French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen (left!) has been given a three-month suspended jail term and fined 10,000 euros for playing down the Nazi occupation of France, describing it as “not especially inhumane” in an interview with the far-right magazine Rivarol in January 2005. Moreover, according to the BBC,

Elsewhere in the article he described the 1944 massacre of 86 people in the town of Villeneuve d’Ascq as the actions of a junior officer “mad with rage”, and praised the Gestapo for its role in the incident. The French court ruled that Le Pen had denied a crime against humanity and had been complicit in condoning war crimes.

This is not the first time that Le Pen has faced legal sanctions for making controversial comments about the actions of the Nazis. In 1987 he was fined for describing the Nazi gas chambers as a “detail of history”.

This is unsurprising, but disappointing. The best answer to speech is more speech. Hence, as I have already said on this blog, (in the context of Le Pen’s abortive Dublin visit, condemned here by former Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins and here by UCD Labour Youth), if le pen (freedom of expression) truly is mightier than le sword (the police power of the state), then the best response to Le Pen is to engage with him rather than to prosecute him.…

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A National Strategy for Higher Education?

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| Universities

HEA logo, from the HEA site.From today’s Irish Times, I learn that a new strategy for third-level sector [is] under way (sub req’d). Seán Flynn writes [with added links]:

A framework document mapping out the future of the third-level sector in the State is to be prepared by the Department of Education and the Higher Education Authority. Preliminary work on the paper – A National Strategy for Higher Education – has begun and submissions will be invited from education partners, business, employers and other interested parties.

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Terrorism and Speech

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| Censorship, Media and Communications, Sedition

Logo via Findlaw siteIn The State (Lynch) v Cooney [1982] IR 337, the Supreme Court upheld the validity of a statutory provision [section 31(1) of the Broadcasting (Authority) Act, 1960 (also here) as amended by section 16 of the Broadcasting Authority (Amendment) Act, 1976 (also here) – thankfully repealed in 2001] which allowed the Minister to preclude from broadcast any matter which “would be likely to promote, or incite to, crime or would tend to undermine the authority of the State”. O’Higgins CJ for the Court held that the free speech guarantee [Article 40.6.1(i)] of the Constitution

enables the State, in certain instances, to control these rights and freedoms. The basis for any attempt at control must be, according to the Constitution, the overriding considerations of public order and morality. The constitutional provision in question refers to organs of public opinion and these must be held to include television as well as radio. It places upon the State the obligation to ensure that these organs of public opinion shall not be used to undermine public order or public morality or the authority of the State. It follows that the use of such organs of opinion for the purpose of securing or advocating support for organisations which seek by violence to overthrow the State or its institutions is a use which is prohibited by the Constitution.

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Today is data privacy day

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| Media and Communications, Privacy

Data Protection Day logo, via OUT-law.According to Sharon E. Herbert’s superb ghosts in the machine blog:

January 28th is Data Privacy Day

The IAPP (International Association of Privacy Professionals) has declared January 28, 2008 “Data Privacy Day”, in an effort to encourage privacy professionals to give presentations at schools, colleges and universities next week on the importance of privacy.

To assist privacy professionals in their goal, the IAPP is providing some free materials, including a slideshow and handouts on teens and social networking: worthwhile reading for many parents too!

If you’re a privacy professional, educator or just concerened about privacy awareness, you may want to consider using these for your own presentation or as a springboard for discussion.

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The Internet and the Project of Communications Law

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| Cyberlaw, Media and Communications

Required reading for anyone who reads this blog:

ViolaSusan P. Crawford The Internet and the Project of Communications Law 55 UCLA L Rev 359 (2007) (pdf)

Abstract: The Internet offers the potential for economic growth stemming from online human communications. But recent industry and government actions have disfavored these possibilities by treating the Internet like a content-delivery supply chain. This Article recommends that the Internet be at the center of communications policy. It criticizes the nearly exclusive focus of communications policy on the private economic success of infrastructure and application providers, and suggests that communications policy be focused on facilitating communications themselves.

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Le Pen is mightier than le sword?

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| Censorship

UCD Law Soc logo, via their siteThere is a certain irony that, on Holocaust Memorial Day (on which I have blogged here), today’s Sunday Business Post reports that Jean-Marie le Pen, leader of the far right wing French party Le Front National, has delayed his trip to Ireland due to media coverage of the invitation extended by the UCD Law Society to him to speak against the Lisbon Treaty. As a contentious politician who seems to thrive on the publicity generated by controversy, I am sure he expected some objections, but it seemed to me that neither the reaction nor the coverage was particularly virulent. …

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The Goals of a Law School Education

| 3 Comments
| Carneige, Law, Legal Education, Universities

AALS annual conference image, via the AALS site.There has been much debate of late over on Law School Innovation arising out of the American Association of Law Schools‘ recent annual conference on the theme of Reassessing our Role as Scholars and Educators in Light of Change. The LSI debate has been focussed in particular on the Plenary Session on Rethinking Legal Education for the 21st Century (see eg, here (including mp3 of the session) and here), which covered similar issues to those raised in my recent post Legal Education, again. To take one example, there was an interesting discussion of the Carneige Foundation‘s report on Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law (which I have discussed on this blog). Again Douglas Berman has proposed a hierarchy of goals for law school instruction and serving students:

Law school instruction and serving students should be focused on…

5. helping students pass the bar

4. helping students get better grades

3. helping students learn doctrines and skills needed to be competent lawyers

2. helping students develop insights and abilities needed to be outstanding lawyers

1. helping students enhance talents and options needed to be flourishing professionals.

I’m not convinced that this list would apply without modification in a non-US law school.…

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