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Though she has made the claim that she is a descendant of John Witherspoon, signatory of the Declaration of Independence from New Jersey, it has not been verified.

While Reese has in fact made this claim, the Society has not be able to verify it with our records. The genealogical position is “if you cannot document it, you cannot claim it”. She has not been able to document it. I suspect one of the issues here is that many folks get descendant and related to mixed up, so it is possible that Reese is somehow related to the Signer, but she is not a descendant of the Signer. When you consider that over 250,000 Scotsmen immigrated to this country between 1720 and 1750, and that many of them ended up in the Appalachian region of the Southeast and that Witherspoon is a widespread Scotch surname, I suspect that when Reese does her homework, she will find her family in is this group.

It seems tonight is the night to pile on her. This is the best I got.

I did like Legally Blonde. When I saw it in High School, I had no idea what an LSAT was. 179? No big deal, right?

Another bit of trivia:

Producers originally wanted to set the film at The University of Chicago. School administrators declined, however, because of a scene toward the end of the movie where a professor places his hand on Elle’s leg. Filmmakers subsequently decided to have the story take place at Harvard University.

Recently, a friend was trying to impress me, and said, “The law is reason, free from passion.” I asked, did you get that from Legally Blonde. Yep.

 

Two weeks ago, I offered a compromise position to the Court, which steadfastly refuses to allow cameras into the Court–allow microphones, and live-stream the audio.

As a first step, the Court can live-stream the big arguments. The Court is already releasing the arguments a few hours-delayed. Why not live-stream them? The audio is never edited. From what I can tell, the Court just dumps the audio onto the web. I can’t think of any good policy reasons why it is okay to release the audio two hours later, but not live-stream them. This would obviate the need for us to sit in absolute suspense, waiting for reports to trickle out of the Court. In today’s real-time world, those few hours from 10:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. are a lifetime.

I suppose there are some technical difficulties, but I have no doubt that Congress would fall over itself to fund this. Hell, I would contribute to such a cause. It could be managed within the Court (no need to allow CSPAN in). And maybe a tape delay could be added, just in case there are any fleeting expletives (like buttocks?).

If the Court is not comfortable broadcasting oral arguments, they should at least consider live-stream the hand-downs of opinions (as PolicyJunkie suggested). There is zero risk for questions from the Justices to be taken out of context. Here, the Justices are reading prepared statements about the cases, and the opinions are available immediately on the web site. Can you imagine how amazing it would have been if the NFIB hand-down was live-streamed.

If this strategy works out, perhaps the Court could move on to releasing all oral arguments through the live stream. And maybe if this works, maybe, cameras may be permitted for opinion hand-downs!

This is a compromise for now. I have no powers beyond the blog, but perhaps if this idea percolates in the blogosphere, it may make some impact. Or not.

In a letter to the editor at the Times, Doug Kendall offers the same recommendation:

There has been a great deal of debate lately over whether the Supreme Court should allow cameras to broadcast its hearings. It should. But as Mr. Liptak’s column indicates, there’s an intermediate step the court could take right now to increase its overall transparency: It could grant the American public access to a live audio stream of all its public proceedings.

The court is doing this for a small number of privileged lawyers, including me, who are members of the Supreme Court bar. There’s no technical (or logical) reason the court shouldn’t grant everyone else the same level of access.

I couldn’t agree more!

In Kyllo v. United States, Justice Scalia offered an introducing test to determine whether the use of a termal imaging camera, a novel technology that could not be known at the time of the founding, constitutes a search for purposes of the Fourth Amendment.

“The Fourth Amendment is to be construed in the light of what was deemed an unreasonable search and seizure when it was adopted, and in a manner which will conserve public interests as well as the interests and rights of individual citizens.” Carroll v.United States, 267 U.S. 132, 149 (1925).

Where, as here, the Government uses a device that is not in general public use, to explore details of the home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a “search” and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant.

In 2001 when this case was decided, the thermal camera was not in common use. However, this may be changing.

Wired reports that DARPA was able to shrink a massive thermal camera into a handheld device.

Darpa announced yesterday that one of its partners, New Jersey defense contractor DRS Technologies, has developed an infrared camera with pixels sized at only five microns across, or five-millionths of a meter. That’s about the standard pixel size of a smartphone camera or DSLR. Unlike that hardware, the Darpa camera uses thermal imaging — long-wave infrared — to detect body heat. The military’s night-time targeting sensors could start becoming a lot smaller and more pervasive.

What if this feature is added to the new iPhone 7? I can imagine the slick apple marketing video narrated by Johnny Ive:

Don’t you ever wonder how cool someone really is? Now, there’s an app for that. With iTemp, you can measure a person’s temperature without even talking to them. Is that new guy you meet cool? Or is that girl across the bar hot? With iTemp, the answer is in your hand.

With iTemp in the App Store, Kyllo II would yield a different answer under Scalia’s rubric.

I previously blogged about NYC using handheld weapon scanners that can see under clothes. I suppose soon enough these will be in “general public use,” and a search with one will be constitutional.

Boston used a heat-seeking camera to track down the Boston Marathon bombing suspect hiding under a tarp in a boat:

We’ve come a long way in the last century, as this German postcard from 1900 illustrates the X-Ray police force!

This is a new one for FCC enforcement. Today, during a pregame ceremony before the Red Sox game, David Ortiz said, among other things, “this is our fucking city” on live tv. My first thought was, fuck, another fleeting expletive.

But, in what must be a new one for FCC enforcement, Julius Genachowski, the chairman of the FCC tweeted, “David Ortiz spoke from the heart at today’s Red Sox game. I stand with Big Papi and the people of Boston – Julius.”

David Ortiz spoke from the heart at today's Red Sox game. I stand with Big Papi and the people of Boston – Julius

— The FCC (@FCC) April 20, 2013

Is this the equivalent of a non-enforcement letter from the FCC? What if someone files a complaint against Papi?

Why not?

The drone getting warmed up. https://t.co/13hpE7PG4Q

— Evan Woodbery (@evanwoodbery) April 18, 2013