LegalCons: Volokh Conspiracy

Recently, we highlighted the work of Walter Olson, legal blogger extraordinaire. There are a number of other conservative blogging sites that we like to review, as well, when stories on the courts break, but recently, the first site we check is the Volokh Conspiracy.

Volokh Conspiracy is owned by Eugene Volokh. Volokh is a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles with stellar academic credentials. That’s impressive in-and-of-itself, but we’re more impressed that Volokh has clerked, published, and done the academic dance with the best of them despite never really dropping his quirky and original perspective on the world He is at home in his community of conservative legal scholars and students, but his posts and comments are not really constrained by any labels or affiliations. We’re not sure that we’d call him a libertarian or conservative… perhaps, contrarian is the best description.

We first saw Volokh at a Federalist Society event in Berkeley in 2001 or 2002. He was on a panel discussing the impact of technology on privacy. The other speakers were saying what you are supposed to say about the tension between freedom and privacy rights and the need to vigorously and stridently protect privacy against government intrusion given the heightened abilities for government spying presented by technological innovation and the internet. Volokh agreed briefly, but spent most of his time talking about how the people he finds complaining about loss of privacy are all-too-often really motivated by the fear that they will be found out by someone snooping while doing something they know they shouldn’t be doing. He gave an example a recent case in which a driver was angry because the photographic policing of an intersection snapped a photo of him and his license plate in the middle of an intersection when the red light said he should have been waiting to enter. The real problem that caused the conflict creating the case was that the camera also took a photograph of a woman sitting next to him in the passenger’s seat. When the City mailed the traffic infraction to the man, the man’s wife opened the letter and found a photograph of him with the other woman, which led her to discover further wrongdoing that the driver would have preferred remain secret. I’m not sure I have the story correct because what was so memorable about the moment was that the more Volokh emphasized that the fear of being found out can have a moralizing effect on people, the more uncomfortable the other panelists grew. I remember a nervous laugh as the moderator finally jumped in and said, “Of course no one here is arguing for increased privacy protections because they are trying to cover up an extra-marital affair.” Volokh brings a lot of things to the law, but for us, the most important thing he brings is a little conflict and a little interest.

He has also spent much time collecting a formidable team of fellow professorial bloggers. At another time, this network of stellar legal minds might have operated over the telephone lines with their thoughts closed to outsiders. Today, you can get a glimpse of what the best of the legalcons are thinking by simply visiting browsing on over to Volokh Conspiracy or clicking the thumbnail, below:

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