June 16, 2008

How thinking about the Post Office has affected the meaning of constitutional rights — and how thinking about the internet will affect those rights.

My colleague Anuj Desai is guest-blogging at Volokh Conspiracy.

ADDED: Much more here.
Posted by Ann Althouse at 8:19 PM
Tags: , ,

4 comments:

reader_iam said...

I admit it, I used Hillary Clinton in my subject heading primarily to (a) pique your interest; and (b) get more search engine hits

Man, that reminds of this girl who was running for middle school student government president and put up poster that said, in huge, red lettering, "Sex!" and then, underneath, in smaller lettering, started out: "Now that I've got your attention ... ."

6/16/08, 9:01 PM
reader_iam said...

Whoa. No one else has commented? Hope that's not because of my previous comment (surely not!?!): that was just a quick sharing of amusement over an unexpectedly sparked memory, upon reading just the first sentence of Desai's post.

I came back to this comments section thinking that some discussion would already be under way--if not of what Desai will be addressing over the next few days, then about what Althouse highlighted in her post title here, and why. And what it sparks.

Reason XX*, I guess, as to why sometimes shit don't synch, just cause you thought it might, much less 'cause you'd prefer it would.

6/17/08, 3:32 AM
Bissage said...

Whoa. No one else has commented?

(1) My hovercraft is full of eels!

(2) These peanuts are making me thirsty!

(3) Goigle, goigle. Why don'tcha pay your water bill, doc?

6/17/08, 7:41 AM
Cedarford said...

Frankling, 1st Postmaster general and author of the beloved lefty platitide about not trading freedom for security, was also a member of the Committee on Secret Correspondence. Which created a network to send secret correspondence and also secretly steam open and examine mail and posts of people whose loyalty was suspect, without warrant. Franklins attitudes "matured" in wartime.

"Gentlemen do not open other gentlemen's mail" is credited to Henry Stimson in 1929 when he shut down US spy efforts, interpreting international radio comm intercepts as deserving the same privacy as one Yale graduate writing another . Which put State out of the business and gave it to the eager "law enforcement" approach of J Edgar Hoover, plus the US Navy for codebreaking. After Pearl Harbor, Stimpson said later he was quite wrong to have that intitial belief - it cost lots of American lives.

6/17/08, 9:25 AM

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