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HARVEY SILVERGLATE

Latest Articles

A legal setback for Charlie

Freedom Watch
Free speech has won in the struggle between the MBTA and three MIT undergrads who claim to have uncovered flaws in the T’s electronic fare-collection system.

By: HARVEY SILVERGLATE | August 20, 2008

Political humor is no longer welcome in Academia as administrators choke the life out of parody
Artist Barry Blitt’s brilliant illustration — which sought to satirize the naysayers who portray Obama as a flag-burning, unpatriotic Muslim and his wife as a black-power radical — cut to the core of today’s political paradox.

By: HARVEY SILVERGLATE | July 30, 2008

Habeas-corpus rights restored to enemy combatants

One of our most important civil-liberty victories to date
This past week, the Supreme Court rejected the Bush administration’s astonishing claim that it had the power to detain suspected “enemy combatants” at Guantánamo Bay — potentially for life — without fair proceedings or meaningful access to the federal courts.

By: HARVEY SILVERGLATE | June 18, 2008

More police, less Harvard

Freedom watch
The Harvard Crimson reported this week the arrest of two non-student demonstrators at a student-organized protest in front of Holyoke Center.

By: HARVEY SILVERGLATE | April 16, 2008

The Gray Lady, the FCC, and indecency

Freedom watch
Phoenix readers must think I’m obsessed with four-letter locker-room words, but I’m really not.

By: HARVEY SILVERGLATE | March 26, 2008

The briefly indecent Boston Globe

Freedom watch
It was startling to see the Boston Globe ’s online edition publish a Reuters wire-service article on Monday, March 17, containing the words “fuck” and “shit.”

By: HARVEY SILVERGLATE | March 19, 2008

Newspapers censor Bono’s ‘fucking’ gaffe

The FCC’s ‘broadcast indecency’ rules: Still, well, bullshit
Why does our ostensibly “free” press insist on acting like prudes or cowards when reporting stories for which it’s vital that readers learn someone said “fuck” rather than an undefined “expletive”?

By: HARVEY SILVERGLATE | March 12, 2008

Truth and illusion

The Big Dig settlement
There is a word for when a private party threatens to get someone indicted unless money is paid: extortion.

By: HARVEY SILVERGLATE | January 30, 2008

Ring of fire

The deadbeat FBI fails to pay its phone bills and jeopardizes its wiretapping program
An ugly squabble between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the nation’s biggest phone companies has, in one nasty blow, recast the image of all the entities involved.

By: HARVEY SILVERGLATE | January 23, 2008

Torture-tapes template

Bush-administration lawyers could be nailed for their role in destroying evidence in the CIA scandal, thanks to a quiet Connecticut child-porn case
Did the Bush-administration lawyers, and the CIA operatives they advised, commit obstruction of justice by destroying the now-infamous CIA-interrogation videotapes?

By: HARVEY SILVERGLATE | January 16, 2008

Ouch!

The DEA’s bad-faith war on pain doctors
Things haven’t been going well as of late for Needham-based chronic-pain specialist Dr. Joseph Zolot.

By: HARVEY SILVERGLATE | September 26, 2007

The Big Dig in court: a citizen's primer

Freedom watch
The Big Dig may at long last be 99 percent completed, but the finger-pointing is just in the early stages.

By: HARVEY SILVERGLATE | August 15, 2007

It’s time for some real judicial activism

Freedom Watch
There is a time and a place for “judicial activism,” no matter what so-called conservatives say.

By: HARVEY SILVERGLATE | May 09, 2007

Why the Imus cave-in is bad for free speech, radio, and the whole society

Freedom watch
I was never a fan of Don Imus.

By: HARVEY SILVERGLATE | April 19, 2007

A judge speaks with candor about judicial cop-outs

Freedom watch
Rarely does an audience get to hear a sitting judge deliver anything more than the usual clichés about “blind justice” and the like.

By: HARVEY SILVERGLATE | March 28, 2007

Getting Justice back on track

Freedom Watch
There’s been more than a little political posturing over the latest Bush-administration scandal.

By: HARVEY SILVERGLATE | March 21, 2007

Gossip columnist escapes indictment

Get me rewrite
The much trumpeted federal investigation into allegations that a former New York Post gossip writer tried to extort a friend of former President Bill Clinton has been quietly dropped.

By: HARVEY SILVERGLATE | March 07, 2007

The artists are innocent

It's the media and politicians who blew this one
This was an obvious joke, as anyone under 25 would have known in an instant.

By: HARVEY SILVERGLATE | February 02, 2007

Are we freer than we were 40 years ago?

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

By: HARVEY SILVERGLATE | November 15, 2006

Alumnus interruptus

How University, Inc. is controlling the message to its graduates — and funding base
Rather than take pride in the bi-monthly’s stellar 108-year-old reputation, university administrators effectively declared war on Harvard magazine earlier this year when they brought out an in-house competitor.

By: HARVEY SILVERGLATE | November 16, 2006

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Live from St. Paul: real-time updates at thePhoenix.com/Election2008

More: DNC 2008

BLOG POSTS BY HARVEY SILVERGLATE

“No, you can’t do that. It’s bad for you.”

“Why is it classified?” That’s a secret!”

Can Harvard deal with cops, even Harvard cops?

R.I.P.: ‘Spy Trader’ Wolfgang Vogel crosses his final bridge

Harvey Silverglate, MBTA v. MIT on NECN (8/13/08) pt. 2

Harvey Silverglate, MBTA v. MIT on NECN (8/13/08)

Outlawing cigarettes: Beginning another hopeless drug war?

Death of Parody at Harvard Law: A follow-up

Menino and Unfree Speech Zones

Families, Free Speech, and the FCC