On March 14, 2013, C|M|LAW Professor and Associate Dean Mark Sundahl delivered a talk on the Obama Administration’s initiative to reform the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) at the Cleveland Foreign Credit Group’s monthly meeting. Sundahl spoke about the impending paradigm-shift in the U.S. approach to regulating international trade in military hardware and data. He explain how, under the leadership of President Obama, the complicated, ambiguous, and frequently absurd system of export controls under the bifurcated regulations administered by the Department of Commerce and the Department of State is in the process of being merged into a more rational set of regulations overseen by a single administrative agency.
Monthly Archives: March 2013
Hoke Quoted in Courier-Journal Regarding Potential Vulnerabilities in Electronic Voting
C|M|LAW Professor Candice Hoke was quoted in a Courier-Journal article, Kentucky Democrats say online voting will be more secure than Florida’s vulnerable system, by Joseph Gerth. In reaction to Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes’ assertion that the exposed vulnerability of Florida’s electronic absentee ballot request system is not applicable to Kentucky’s electronic voting plans, Hoke said “[n]ot only are we dealing with a high-risk situation, we’re also dealing with state and local offices that are not equipped to deal with any kind of cyber defense.” According to Grimes, Kentucky’s system incorporates multilevel security measures to ensure votes aren’t tampered with, whereas the Florida ballot request system, for which a vulnerability was exposed, did not even require the use of passwords or specific log-ins. Grimes accused the Verified Voting Foundation, for which Hoke serves as an advisor of “stirring up fear about electronic voting and using the Florida case to raise concerns about unrelated systems,” like that being considered in Kentucky.
To read the full article, click here:
Plecnik Speaks on Officers Under the Appointments Clause at the Pitt Tax Workshop
C|M|LAW Professor John Plecnik presented a work-in-progress, with a working title of Officers Under the Appointments Clause, to the University of Pittsburgh School of Law’s 2013 Tax Workshop on March 20. He participated on the panel titled, Tax Legislation and Tax Compliance.
To see coverage of the workshop on the TaxProf Blog, click here:
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2013/03/pittsburgh-hosts.html
Weinstein’s Article on RLUIPA and Local Government to be Included in the 2013 Zoning and Planning Handbook
C|M|LAW and Levin College of Urban Affairs Professor Alan Weinstein’s article, The Effect of RLUIPA’s Land Use Provisions on Local Governments, 39 FORDHAM URB. L.J 1221 (2012), has been selected to be included in the 2013 edition of Zoning and Planning Law Handbook, published by Thomson-Reuters on the basis that it represents an important contribution to the literature of zoning and land use law. In the article, he argues that in the absence of perfect information about how RLUIPA (Religious Land Use & Institutionalized Persons Act) has affected local governments, courts have adopted a pragmatic approach to addressing RLUIPA challenges that combines appropriate judicial deference to a local government that enacts a neutral law of general applicability with the heightened judicial scrutiny that becomes appropriate when that same local government applies that same law to a specific zoning approval, a circumstance that frequently allows for subjectivity in the approval process and thus the potential for discrimination or arbitrary action against religious uses.
Hoke Quoted Widely on the Election-Related Cyber Attack in Florida
C|M|LAW Professor Candice Hoke was quoted in a news story that has been syndicated widely across the country regarding last fall’s election-related cyber attack in Florida. The case involved an attempt, last fall, to 2,500 absentee ballots through phantom requests carried about by a computer program on the Miami-Dade County elections board’s website. The large number of false requests came from a small number of IP addresses overseas, and therefore, the board’s protection software was able to discover and to reject the phony requests. The concern, however, is that this attempt exposes the vulnerabilities of computer-based elections. According to Hoke, “[t]his has been in the cards, it’s been foreseeable.” Commenting on the attractive cost-savings provided by on-line voting, Hoke said “It’s cheap, if you don’t care whether elections are stolen.”
To read the original story, see:
To see a related story click here:
Sundahl Interviewed on The Space Show Regarding Current Issues in Space Law
On March 1, 2013, C|M|LAW Professor and Associate Dean Mark Sundahl was the guest on The Space Show, a Internet radio program hosted by Dr. David Livingston and dedicated to recent developments in space commerce. During the 90-minute interview, Prof. Sundahl discussed current issues in the field of space law, including legislative reform initiatives in the area of export controls, liability for damage caused by space debris, orbital private space activity, and the mining of near-earth asteroids.
The podcast of the interview can be found at http://archive.thespaceshow.com/shows/1961-BWB-2013-03-01.mp3.
Hoke Quoted in Plain Dealer Regarding the Dangers of Electronic Poll Books
C|M|LAW Professor Candice Hoke was quoted in an article in today’s Plain Dealer (Sunday, March 17, 2012) Electronic poll books seem conceptually simple but may be vulnerable to hacking and cyber attacks, experts say, by Karen Farkus. In response to Cuyahoga County elections officials’ plan to experiment with electronic poll books to verify the registration of in-person, Hoke warned that “E-poll books are similar to other computer-based technologies in voting – full of promise and lousy execution in most locations.” Hoke stated that “[o]ur counties should be extremely wary of adopting them, but definitely a pilot project is a good way to proceed.”
To read the story, click here:
Inniss Comments on Quiet Racism in a New York Times Letter to the Editor
C|M|LAW’s Joseph C. Hostetler, Baker & Hostetler Professor of Law, Lolita K. Buckner Inniss has published a Letter to the Editor in the New York Times. The letter concerns “The Good, Racist People,” by Ta-Nehisi Coates (column, March 7), about the actor Forest Whitaker, who was stopped and frisked last month in a Manhattan deli by a deli employee. In the letter, Inniss suggests that we treat all shoppers alike, either by scrutinizing no one, or everyone, and shifting the increased costs — of either lost goods due to shoplifting or of increased security — to the consumer. The letter appeared on March 11, 2013, under the headline Shopping While Black:, Racism in Everyday Life, at page A20.
It is also available at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/11/opinion/shopping-while-black-racism-in-everyday-life.html?smid=fb-share
Everything You Have Always Wanted to Know about the Fulbright Program
C|M|LAW Professor Milena Sterio posted Everything You Have Always Wanted to Know about the Fulbright Program on the IntLawGrrls.com blog.
See:
http://ilg2.org/2013/03/12/everything-you-have-always-wanted-to-know-about-the-fulbright-program/
Robertson Writes in Crain’s Cleveland Business on Preemption of Local Drilling Ordinances
Crain’s Cleveland Business’s Ohio Energy Report has posted a blog entry by C|M|LAW Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Enrichment Heidi Gorovitz Robertson. The post, entitled The fight for local control of drilling in Ohio may not be over yet, explains the legal landscape in Ohio and its neighbor states regarding the intersection of Constitutional home rule and the legislature’s assertion of statutory control over oil and gas drilling operations.
To read the post, see:
http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20130308/BLOGS05/130309819/-1/blogs05