Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

We’ve Hired and We Plan to Do it Again

Posted on April 25, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Larry Solum's list of new hires reminds me that I failed to blog the fact that we've hired one new tenure-track faculty member for next year. He wowed us with his faculty presentation, and with the paper he has ready for publication, and I think he's going to be great.

Mario L. Barnes, Associate Professor of Law. A graduate of the University of California Law School at Berkeley, where he was the Co-editor-in-Chief for the law review, African-American Law & Policy Report, Professor Barnes is a twelve year veteran of the U.S. Navy. Prior to receiving his honorable discharge in 2002, he served as Admiralty Counsel in the Office of the Judge Advocate General where he was involved in the investigations of the 2001 sinking of the Japanese vessel Ehime Maru by a U.S. submarine and the terrorist bombing of the USS Cole. Currently a Hastie Fellow at the University of Wisconsin Law School, he is in the process of completing his thesis, The Stories They Did Not Tell: Race, Family Silence and the Legal Recreation of Inequality. He will join the faculty this fall. He will teach Substantive Criminal Law and Constitutional Law I. In future years he will teach an additional course, most likely in the areas of military operations law, race and the law, or national security law.

Despite this great hire we still have a large number of openings. Next year's appointment committee will be busy, although we also have some specific subject area needs which may narrow our search. I don't know which ones the Dean will choose to make a priority next year, but if I had to guess I would say Health Law, Commercial Law, maybe Family Law, and general business subjects, especially international business transactions. And of course even though we have some strength in the subject already, we have a perennial interest in persons who are interested in Latin American private law, ideally people familiar both with the US legal system and at least one South (or maybe Central) American legal system.

It's always possible that some of these openings might be filled by lateral as well as entry level appointments. But that's next year's problem…

Posted in U.Miami | Comments Off on We’ve Hired and We Plan to Do it Again

Academic Seeks Chair

Posted on April 24, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

When an academic says s/he is looking for a chair, you might naturally assume that s/he seeks promotion. Once you become a full professor, there is no promotion other than administration, perks, money or prestige. A desire to avoid administration being one of the things that often attracts people to the Ivory Tower, academics who are not content with their lot and don't want to be Deans usually go hunting for perks, money, or prestige. And the thing in academe that wraps them up in one package is a “Chair” — a title and usually some perks or money.

As it happens, however, I'm not looking for that sort of chair (not that I'd reject it if it came looking for me) — and a good thing it is too, as we only have two chairs here at UM and they are earmarked for lateral hires. No, I'm looking for the sort of chair you sit in.

I have a very nice desk chair. Or rather I had one. One day I came home and the back was broken. (Not broken as in in two pieces, but broken in that the main support snapped and it no longer stays upright when you lean back.) The children deny everything. There is no dog or other large pet. It is vaguely conceivable that I leaned back once too hard or once too often and broke it myself, although I sort of think this is the kind of thing even I might notice about my environment. In any case, there seems no point finding anyone to blame. The chair is broken. I need a new one.

Due to past bouts with carpal tunnel, I have fairly particular ergonomic requirements. I suppose I could get another chair like the one I had before, but it isn't sold in stores, being marketed by mildly sleazy salespeople who sell to the 'physically challenged'. I'd prefer not to deal with them. And the back wasn't the first part to fail; various knobs and stuff whose purpose I never fully understood have fallen off over the years. It was a nice chair, but didn't seem worth the huge sum I paid for it.

So, in the next day or two, I'm going downtown to do some trial sitting.

Posted in Personal | 2 Comments

I Need A Research Assistant

Posted on April 23, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

If any law students from UM are reading this, I need a research assistant for the summer. Contact me by e-mail, or drop off a copy of your transcript (unofficial copy is fine), a c.v. and a short writing sample (non-legal is fine). Ideally I'd want 10-20 hours of your time per week (the exact amount is negotiable). If you need more hours, I might be able to put a package together with another professor.

The miserly wage rate is set by the University, but some of the tasks, primarily research, may be interesting; there's also some blue booking, but not too much. If you have computer skills, that's a plus but not a requirement. You could probably do a fair amount of the work from home, but you should expect to be on campus at least once a week.

If it works out, we might continue the arrangement into next year. First year students are especially encouraged to apply.

(If students from elsewhere are reading this, I'm sorry but our RA money is earmarked for our own students.)

Posted in U.Miami | 2 Comments

Would You Like Some Politics With that SQL?

Posted on April 23, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Here's an interesting controversy. In I Don't Like Your Examples! Steven Feuerstein explains why he used controversial political examples in a technical O'Reilly book on Oracle PL/SQL Programming and shares some reader reaction.

Obviously there's no legal issue here: in a free country an author can be political even in a technical reference book. And, equally obviously, political examples pose a commercial issue for a publisher: will a reference/instruction book with 'interesting' examples sell better because the reader stays awake (or because people buy it for the notoriety), or sell worse because those who find the examples distasteful will avoid it? (There's also a question of editorial principle—how much freedom should authors be entitled to have? It's not obvious to me that the answer is the same for technical books in a series as for a novelist or a polemicist, although in the hands of an enlightened and brave publisher it might be. I wonder what Theresa Nielsen Hayden thinks about this…)

But there's also a moral, or at least aesthetic, issue as to whether it's meet to introduce suggestions that Henery Kissinger is a war criminal for bombing Cambodia, CEOs are paid too much, or the gun lobby is too strong. And that's the question which really interests me. In his article Mr. Feuerstein quotes feedback from readers, or might-have-been readers, who think inserting politics into programming examples is at least icky, maybe gross.

Having thought hard about it for several seconds, it turns out that on this last question I have no doubt at all: it is proper, even admirable, to witness one's strongly held beliefs about the society we share in any book you write, and in most (but not all1) daily activities, especially in circumstances where your listener/reader is able to walk away or put down the tome. If this hurts your sales, that's your problem. In general though, I prefer my fellow citizens to be engaged, not passive, committed not apathetic, even if it should happen we don't agree.

Continue reading →

Posted in Readings, Software | 2 Comments

Latest US Plan for Interim Iraqi Government Envisions ‘Sovereignty’ Without Any Power

Posted on April 23, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

The White House's overriding goal for Iraq is to keep the lid on it until after the election. This is not easy. Cutting and running would, in the best case, leave Islamic fundamentalists in charge (bad TV), and in the worst case lead quickly to civil war (very bad TV if reporters are brave).

Staying in charge leads to casualties like we are seeing. They can keep the images off TV, but probably not the newspapers. Staying in charge incites the militants.

The original plan was to transfer sovereignty on June 30, declare victory, and bring a few thousand troops home. This would allow Bush to say that the rest would be home soon — see the downpayment. Meanwhile, in the background, there would be a Status of Forces agreement with the new Chalabi government in which the US got to have nice forward bases well suited for defending or quietly (or not quietly) menacing strategic oil reserves. [The very original plan had been to sign the SoF agreement with the current Governing Council, but that proved too raw for everyone.]

That's all gone pear shaped. The administration is now reduced to forlornly chanting that it is staying on schedule for a handover of sovereignty, although it no longer has control over to whom that will be, the initiative having passed either to the UN or to the arab street (funny we don't hear about that street these days, isn't it? that meme was all over the papers a year ago).

One obvious consequence of handing over sovereignty in ten weeks to unknown parties is that it's no longer certain they will be the tame poodle that the administration persists in believing it has in Chalabi (despite the contrary evidence). If serious Islamicists are going to be in charge, or even in partial charge, they are not going to sign a status of forces agreement, and they are not going to do what the US tells them.

The writing being on the wall, it is being read. And folks in the administration don't like what it says. Thus, the logical next move is to float the trial balloon that maybe the handover — still on schedule, you understand — will be somewhat more formal and less substantive than in version 1.0.

White House Says Iraq Sovereignty Could Be Limited. The Bush administration's plans for a new caretaker government in Iraq would place severe limits on its sovereignty, including only partial command over its armed forces and no authority to enact new laws, administration officials said Thursday.

Sovereignty without meaningful control. A 'sovereign' government that can neither change existing laws nor command the armed forces. Sounds like Cuba in Guantanamo to me. The administration's position in front of the Supreme Court this week was that the Cubans have 'sovereignty' over the base, but the US has control. In this view, as a result of the lack of this metaphysical 'sovereignty' the US courts have no power there … but neither do the Cubans.

It appears that the administration now proposes a transfer of 'sovereignty' for Iraq that will give the recipients the same great powers over their country that Castro enjoys over Guantanamo—and for the same sorts of reasons. The locals cannot be trusted to do what they are told.

How nice that we are instructing the Middle East on the finer points of democracy. What a shame that the lesson is so expensive, especially in lives, both for us and for them.

Continue reading →

Posted in Iraq | 4 Comments

US Troops on Guard Against French Lobster

Posted on April 23, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

French 'lobster' alarms US troops: A seemingly innocuous codename chosen by French special forces in south-east Afghanistan caused alarm among US troops searching for Osama Bin Laden.

A newly arrived French commander picked “homard”, meaning lobster, as an alias, the newspaper Liberation reports.

He did not realise that it sounds like Omar, the first name of the Mullah who led the Taleban and is now on the run.

Concerned US intelligence services monitoring French communications raised the alarm and the codename was changed.

Of course, those of us in the know realized immediately that this fish story was just a cover to explain why the US spies on the perfidious French! And the great thing about the story is that Europeans immediately believe it!

What's even stranger is that the BBC buries the really interesting part of this story:

The incident, said to have happened in July 2003, marked the start of French special forces' involvement in operation Enduring Freedom, the US-led action to find the al-Qaeda leader.

The presence of more than 200 French troops in the area has only just been acknowledged by Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie.

So the French have been helping hunt Osama all the time the Republicans have been jumping up and down about them? Such great diplomacy on the part of the US!

NOTE: 'Homard' is no relation to the Medium Lobster

Posted in Completely Different | 1 Comment