Short Circuit Institute for Justice

We take a break from the federal courts of appeals and look into a brave new world—or is it an Orwellian one? Our thoughts—our inner mental processes—are the one aspect of our lives that is completely private. Right? Well, emerging technology is making that not so true anymore. IJ’s Anya Bidwell welcomes Professor Nita Farahany of Duke University to Short Circuit to discuss her recent book The Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology. They talk about how neurotechnology works and how it has many potentially transformative implications, including many good ones. But in the wrong hands—especially the hands of the State—those implications can be quite unsettling. And there are so many gray areas in-between. People in China and other countries are already dealing with some of these implications and the legal and constitutional system in the United States is not yet ready for them if we are to keep the mental privacy we all value. Get ready for a conversation about what is private, what is human, and how liberal values and the Constitution can address the good and the bad of a future that is already here. And how to write a book via the Pomodoro method.







The Battle for Your Brain







Searching Secrets







Incriminating Thoughts







Pomodoro Technique

We’re gonna read you the Riot Act. Again. An old friend of Short Circuit returns, the Anti-Riot Act. Perhaps (?) named in homage to its 18th century predecessor, the Congressional statute received a facial test at the Seventh Circuit, and IJ’s Kirby Thomas West tells us how it fared in the face of a guy who requested that everyone bring their family and a brick to a “riot.” He did not do so well in court, but perhaps the Anti-Riot Act has problems anyway? Then we go for a drive down a Houston freeway where Sam Gedge makes a citizen's arrest of a qualified immunity claim while drinking at a local flea market at 2am. The Fifth Circuit served up a wild ride of a case that is too good to pass up but also holds bigger lessons for how judges perceive “split-second decisions” and premeditated lies.







U.S. v. Betts







Hughes v. Garcia







The Riot Act







Short Circuit 146 (4th Cir. Anti-Riot Act case)

Stories we hope our listeners can relate to this week: borrowing cars and lousy neighbors. First, from the Sixth Circuit, IJ’s Rob Frommer details how a man sitting in the passenger seat of a running car somehow lost his Fourth Amendment standing. And went to prison. And then in the Second Circuit your host explores what can be done when your neighbor is an embassy. It’s an all-too-familiar tale of a building project gone awry but with a twist of sovereign immunity.  







Register for the May 10 open fields conference!







U.S. v. Rogers







Harvey v. Sierra Leone







Neighbors 1980’s opening song







Fawlty Towers—The Builders

It’s been a while but we’re back with an episode of Unpublished Opinions. Herein IJ attorneys Anya Bidwell, Patrick Jaicomo, and your host talk about . . . Anya’s recent Supreme Court oral argument, how SCOTUS is surprisingly a friendlier place to argue than many other courts, the recent FTC rule about non-competes, why we still have a “Lawyers’ Edition” for SCOTUS cases, how perhaps lawyers can learn from magazine covers . . . and more!







Judge Posner liquidated damages case







Rob Johnson’s Tweet on FTC’s & non-competes







Anya’s SCOTUS argument







No Fly List case

We can neither confirm nor deny the existence of this podcast. But if we could we’d tell you all about the CIA’s involvement in a prison at Guantanamo Bay. At least that’s what some Freedom of Information Act litigation is trying to figure out in a case at the D.C. Circuit. Michel Paradis, a national security lawyer and expert on much else, joins us to share his impressions of a recent oral argument in this case and the underlying relationship between FOIA and agencies like the CIA. There’s also a story about Howard Hughes and a submarine. Then IJ’s Ben Field takes us to the Fifth Circuit for a challenge to how a Texas prison treats a Muslim inmate. It’s a provisional win for religious liberty which includes an interesting concurrence about the kind of scrutiny courts should apply when it comes to prisoners practicing their religious freedoms while behind bars.







Register for the May 10 open fields conference!







Click here for transcript.







Connell v. CIA







Lozano v. Collier







Audio Arguendo (Michel’s oral arguments podcast)

We revisit an issue that’s really coming into focus: cameras on poles and how they stand up to the Fourth Amendment. Mike Greenberg of IJ comes by to tell the story of a veteran who received disability benefits when, it seems, he wasn’t exactly disabled. Things get interesting when the feds put a camera on a pole (on a school) and point it at his house 24/7 for months. Is that a search? The Tenth Circuit says it isn’t and uphold his felony conviction. But, as Mike explains, other courts have disagreed. Then your host brings us some zoning plus standing plus the Establishment Clause in the suburbs of New York City. There, some residents don’t like how their village has let their Jewish neighbors open more houses of worship and claim it will “radically transmorgrify” things. Do they have an “injury”? The Second Circuit doesn’t think so.







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US v. Hay







Citizens United to Protect Our Neighborhoods v. Chestnut Ridge







Episode on 7th Cir pole camera case







Episode on 1st Cir pole camera case







End of The Usual Suspects (SPOILER ALERT!)