Law Librarian Blog

Want to buy RitaAid.net?

Reporting for the Washington Post, Brian Krebs' article Web Scammers Strike Before Hurricane Does covers the scramble for and auctioning of Rita-related domain names. As of Friday, there were over 1,100 registrations. The Post article reports that "Rita.Aid.net" had a minimum bid of $10,000 on eBay. As of noon (Saturday), the bid has declined to a Buy-It-Now bid of $1,000. Why the price decline? Could it be because Hurricane Rita missed Houston?

No comment.

Washington DC to Host 2006 AALS Annual Meeting

The 2006 AALS Annual Meeting will be held in Washington D.C. at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel (and nearby hotels). The meeting will now run from Tuesday, January 3rd through Saturday, January 7th. Details.

Compu-Weather Offers Katrina Report

Compu-Weather offers fee-based customized weather reports on Hurrican Katrina. You can specify any area of insured losses, whether it’s the initial Florida landfall or the Category 5 Hurricane’s devastating second landfall on the Gulf Coast.   

Each custom report will include:

Rainfall Totals and Rainfall Rates, Storm Surge, Graphic track analysis, including “M.E.O.W” (Maximum Envelope of Winds Graphics), Actual Wind Speeds Measured, Public Storm Reports, National Weather Service Issued Watches and Warnings, National Hurricane Center Advisories, Tornado Reports and more.

For more information, contact Patti Robertson, at 1-800-825-4445, or email: probertson@compuweather.com

Launch of the Commonwealth Legal Information Institute

Sabrina I. Pacifici at beSpecific has posted the following announcement:

The Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII)...announce[s] the launch of the Commonwealth Legal Information Institute (CommonLII). Like other LIIs, CommonLII is a free access and non-profit facility. CommonLII already allows browsing and searching of 464 databases from 50 Commonwealth and common law countries and territories. Most of these databases are located on existing LIIs in Commonwealth countries but CommonLII contains 44 databases from 28 additional countries. More databases are under development. There is a Catalog of law websites for all Commonwealth countries...It is also possible to search Commonwealth-wide for legislation (from 30 countries), or case law or law reform." - Graham Greenleaf, Co-Director, AustLII & CommonLII

Hurricane Rita Web Resources

The Katrina PeopleFinder project is starting to compile web-based resources that can be deployed to assist those who are affected by it: Hurricane Rita, probably the best web destination right now. Bookmark it!

I also have been checking in on Rita Help Blog.

Hurricane Rita News Blog

Hurricanes' Havoc is MSNBC.com's on the scene blog. Bob Sullivan and Andrew Locke are now covering Hurricane Rita from the Texas Gulf Coast.

Scalia on Art: "He Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune"

The Washington Post is reporting that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia recently discussed the relationship between government-sponsored art and censorship. In what must be one of Scalia's shortest "rulings," the Justice stated "the First Amendment has not repealed the ancient rule of life, that he who pays the piper calls the tune."

Mighell's Guide to Managing Your Internet Research

Thanks to Bonnie Shucha (Wisblawg), a rising star in the law library/librarian blogger community, for calling attention to Tom Mighell's (Inter Alia) excellent review of new tools for capturing your Internet research.

New from Oxford University Press

Freedom of Speech
Eric Barendt

Price: £75.00 (Hardback)
0-19-924451-0
Publication date: 11 August 2005
564 pages, 234mm x 156mm

Publisher's Description: This is a fully revised and updated new edition of the classic work first published in 1985. There have been many important developments since the first edition including the impact of the European Human Rights Convention. Social and cultural changes mean that free speech claims are being made in novel contexts. Barendt considers the meaning and scope of freedom of speech and examines the varied approaches of different legal systems and constitutional traditions to balancing free speech and freedom of the press against rights to reputation and privacy, and to copyright

Rhetoric and the Rule of Law
Neil MacCormick

Price: £40.00 (Hardback)
0-19-826878-5
Publication date: 28 July 2005
304 pages, 234mm x 156mm

Publisher's Description: This book discusses theories of legal reasoning and provides an overall view of the rhetoric of legal justification. It shows how and why lawyers' arguments can be rationally persuasive even though rarely, if ever, logically conclusive or compelling. It examines the role of "legal syllogism" and universality of legal reasoning, looking at arguments of consequentialism and principle, and concludes by questioning the infallibility of judges as lawmakers.

The Constitutionalization of the World Trade Organization
Deborah Cass

Price: £20.00 (Paperback)
0-19-928584-5
Publication date: 28 July 2005
293 pages, 1 table, 233mm x 156mm

Publisher's Description: What is the World Trade Organization? Has it become a type of a 'constitution'? Will it curb international trade discrimination and open up markets for developing countries, or will it prevent States from choosing the economic systems they want? This book untangles debates about constitutionalization and argues that the WTO is not, and should not, be described as a constitution by the standards of any conventional definition, or by the lights of any constitution to which we ought to aspire.

International Organizations and their Exercise of Sovereign Powers
Dan Sarooshi

Price: £50.00 (Hardback)
0-19-928325-7
Publication date: 14 July 2005
176 pages, 234mm x 156mm

Publisher's Description: This book provides a conceptual and legal analysis of one of the most important challenges facing international organizations today: their exercise of sovereign powers. The book examines the exercise of sovereign powers by organizations such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, and the European Union. It makes a significant contribution to the content of the law that governs both the exercise of sovereign powers by international organizations and the relationships between organizations and their Member States. The book also tackles the fundamental question of what values should constrain international organizations in their exercise of sovereign powers.

International Organizations as Law-makers
José E. Alvarez

Price: £75.00 (Hardback)
0-19-876562-2
Publication date: 23 June 2005

Publisher's Description: This book addresses how international organizations with a global reach, such as the UN and the WTO, have changed the mechanisms and reasoning behind the making, implementation, and enforcement of international law. Alvarez argues that existing descriptions of international law and international organizations do not do justice to the complex changes resulting from the increased importance of these institutions after World War II, and especially from changes after the end of the Cold War. In particular, this book examines the impact of the institutions on international law through the day to day application and interpretation of institutional law, the making of multilateral treaties, and the decisions of a proliferating number of institutionalized dispute settlers.

Mann on the Legal Aspect of Money, Sixth Edition
Charles Proctor

Price: £195.00 (Hardback)
0-19-826055-5
Publication date: 7 April 2005

Publisher's Description: The long-awaited sixth edition of Mann on the Legal Aspect of Money takes account of a number of significant developments since the last edition was published in 1992. Without question, the completion of monetary union in Europe is the key achievement of the intervening years. An entirely new section of the book deals with this subject in detail; apart from private law aspects, the contentious issue of eurozone monetary sovereignty is considered and the text also discusses the possible consequences of the breakdown of the single currency area.

The Law of Freedom of Information
John Macdonald QC and Clive H. Jones

Price: £145.00 (Hardback)
0-19-924994-6
Publication date: 20 March 2003
1166 pages, 246mm x 171mm

Publisher's Description: Written by an expert team of public lawyers from New Square Chambers, The Law of Freedom of Information offers a comprehensive analysis of the Act, with detailed coverage of the related subjects of confidentiality, privacy, data protection, official secrets, the internet and whistle blowing. The book contains practical examples of how the Act works, drawn from cases and practice in other jurisdictions where freedom of information has long been a reality, eg United States, Ireland, Canada and Australia. The book has a refreshingly practical approach and includes a guide to best practice which is essential reading for all local government lawyers. It is kept up to date with regular paperback updating supplements.

Now in Paperback

The Ultimate Rule of Law
David M. Beatty

Price: £22.50 (Paperback)
0-19-928801-1
Publication date: 21 July 2005
216 pages, 234mm x 156mm

Publisher's Description: The Ultimate Rule of Law addresses the age-old tension between law and politics by examining whether the personal beliefs of judges come into play in adjudicating on issues of religious freedom, sex discrimination, and social and economic rights. Decisions by the Supreme Courts of India, Japan, Canada, the United States, Ireland, Israel, the Constitutional Courts of Germany, Hungary, South Africa, and the European Court of Human Rights on such controversial issues as government funding of religious schools, abortion, same sex marriages, women in the military, and rights to basic shelter and life saving medical treatment are evaluated and compared.

Beatty develops a radical alternative to the conventional view that in deciding these cases judges engage in an essentially interpretative, and thus subjective act, relying ultimately on their personal beliefs and political opinions. His analysis shows that it is possible to apply an impartial and objective method of judicial review, based on the principle of proportionality, which acts as an ultimate rule of law and is fully compatible with the ideals of democracy and popular sovereignty.

Controversially, Beatty concludes that although this method of judicial review originated in the United States, American judges generally appear to be far less inclined to this conception of constitutional adjudication than their counterparts in Europe, Africa, and Asia.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
Sarah Joseph, Jenny Schultz, and Melissa Castan

Price: £40.00 (Paperback)
0-19-928541-1
Publication date: 28 July 2005
1,048 pages, 234mm x 156mm

Publisher's Description: The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is the most important human rights treaty in the world. Now fully updated and in its second edition, this book provides a comprehensive collation and analysis of the jurisprudence of the Human Rights Committee, the monitoring body established under the ICCPR. Presented in a clear and illuminating manner, this book will be of use to the judiciary, human rights practitioners, human rights activists, government institutions, academics, and students alike.

And the Emmy Goes to the National Security Archive

Press Release: The National Security Archive won the 2005 Emmy Award for outstanding achievement in news and documentary research, presented by the National Television Academy at the 26th Annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards ceremony in New York City.

The Emmy recognized the Archive for its work on the documentary "Declassified: Nixon in China," produced by ABC News Productions for the Discovery Times Channel, which premiered the show on December 21, 2004.

The program for the Emmy Awards ceremony described the show's nomination as follows:  "President Nixon's historic 1972 trip to China was one of the greatest diplomatic coups in history.  This heavily-researched documentary reveals an unknown story behind the one most journalists and historians think they know. To tell it, the producers had to find, sift, evaluate and codify thousands of declassified documents, both from the U.S. government and the secretive Chinese government too.  Working in cooperation with the National Security Archive, the program's researchers brought dry government files to life, revealing details that would have rattled the world at the time – including the United States' provision to China of military intelligence and an unspoken agreement on Taiwan."

For more information, please visit the National Archive website.

How cool is that!

Opening: Law Librarian I/II, Connecticut Judicial Branch, New Haven Area

The Connecticut Judicial Branch is seeking a qualified individual to perform professional to advanced library duties which include providing legal reference and research guidance, instruction in database searching, catalog and collection maintenance.  Minimum Qualifications: A Master’s degree in Library Science or Information Science from a graduate school accredited by the American Library Association.  Starting Salary: $49,241/$51,572 – plus benefits.  In-state travel required for a minimum of two days per week.  Resumes must be received by October 3, 2005. 

Please reference AD ID #05-1000-076A            

Please mail resumes to:  Judicial Branch,  Human Resources, 90 Washington Street,  Hartford, CT 061206   Or  Fax to: (860) 706-5091

E-mail questions to: Human.Resources@jud.state.ct.us

ADR Bibliography

The current issue of the Ohio State Journal of Dispute Resolution is a bibliography of recent books and articles on alternative resolution, mediation and negotiation. 20 Ohio St. J. on Disp. Resol. 1051 (2005)

13-5, Senate Judiciary Committee Approves Roberts Nomination

JURIST provides links to statements made by the five Democratic who voted against the recommendation.

Briefs Filed in Case Challenging Constitutionality of Solomon Amendment

As you may recall, yesterday Harvard decided to reverse its position and allow the military to recruit at the law school after the Pentagon threatened to withhold federal grants under the Solomon Amendment. A broad array of institutions, law students and professors, and other groups have weighed in with legal arguments on behalf both of the federal government and of the law schools that are challenging the constitutionality of the Solomon Amendment.

Paul Caron at TaxProf Blog has posted links to the briefs filed by yesterday's deadline in Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (04-1152).

Tulane to Force Students Ousted by Katrina to Return Spring Semester

Paul Caron has the story on TaxProf Blog.

Judicial Conference Acts on FRAP 32.1

Tony Mauro at Legal Times reports the U.S. Judicial Conference voted in favor of proposed Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32.1, prohibiting restrictions on citations to unpublished opinions. Currently the Second, Seventh, Ninth, and Federal Circuits ban citation to unpublished opinions, and the First, Fourth, Sixth, Eighth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits discourage it.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Nominee John Roberts served on the advisory committee recommending the new rule and said the following about it at a committee meeting, “A lawyer ought to be able to tell a court what it has done,” The story also discusses the position of those opposed to the new rule.

Lee Peoples, Oklahoma City University Law Library

Hack Your GMail Account, Create a Virtual Hard Drive

Read how at GMail Hard Drive Makes Space Available.

New from Princeton University Press

Digital Government:
Technology and Public Sector Performance
Darrell M. West

| Cloth | July 2005 | $29.95 | ISBN: 0-691-12182-6 | 256 pp.

Excerpts from Chapter 1: This book looks at the phenomenon of electronic government, that is, public sector use of the Internet and other digital devices to deliver services, information, and democracy itself. Although personal computers have been around for several decades, recent advances in networking, video imaging, and graphics interfacing have allowed governments to develop websites that contain a variety of online materials. As more and more people take advantage of these features, digital government is supplanting traditional means of access based on personal visits, phone calls, and mail delivery.

...

Governments around the world have created websites that facilitate tourism, citizen complaints, and business investment. Tourists can book hotels through the government websites of many Caribbean and Pacific island countries. In Australia, citizens can register government complaints through agency websites. Nations such as Bulgaria, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic are attracting overseas investors through their websites.

But despite the prevalence of these online options, there are three unanswered questions that form the heart of this research. First, how much are the Internet and other digital delivery systems transforming the public sector? Second, what determines the speed and breadth of e-government adoption? Third, what are the consequences of digital technology for public sector performance, the political process, and democracy?

See also posts published yesterday for evaluations of US and Global e-government efforts.

Mercy on Trial:
What It Means to Stop an Execution
Austin Sarat

Cloth | 2005 | $29.95 | ISBN: 0-691-12140-0
352 pp. | 6 x 9 | 2 tables.

Publisher's Description: In this compelling and timely work, Austin Sarat provides the first book-length work on executive clemency. He turns our focus from questions of guilt and innocence to the very meaning of mercy. Starting from Ryan's controversial decision, Mercy on Trial uses the lens of executive clemency in capital cases to discuss the fraught condition of mercy in American political life. Most pointedly, Sarat argues that mercy itself is on trial. Although it has always had a problematic position as a form of "lawful lawlessness," it has come under much more intense popular pressure and criticism in recent decades. This has yielded a radical decline in the use of the power of chief executives to stop executions.

Painful Choices:
A Theory of Foreign Policy Change
David A. Welch

Cloth | 2005 | $35.00 | ISBN: 0-691-12340-3
312 pp. | 6 x 9 | 15 line illus. 7 tables.

Publisher's Description: Under what conditions should we expect states to do things radically differently all of a sudden? In this book, David Welch seeks to answer this question, constructing a theory of foreign policy change inspired by organization theory, cognitive and motivational psychology, and prospect theory. He then "test drives" the theory in a series of comparative case studies in the security and trade domains: Argentina's decision to go to war over the Falklands/Malvinas vs. Japan's endless patience with diplomacy in its conflict with Russia over the Northern Territories; America's decision to commit large-scale military force to Vietnam vs. its ultimate decision to withdraw; and Canada's two abortive flirtations with free trade with the United States in 1911 and 1948 vs. its embrace of free trade in the late 1980s.

Painful Choices has three main objectives: to determine whether the general theory project in the field of international relations can be redeemed, given disappointment with previous attempts; to reflect on what this reveals about the possibilities and limits of general theory; and to inform policy. Welch argues that earlier efforts at general theory erred by aiming to explain state behavior, which is an intractable problem. Instead, since inertia is the default expectation in international politics, all we need do is to explain changes in behavior. Painful Choices shows that this is a tractable problem with clear implications for intelligence analysts and negotiators.

Political Power and Corporate Control:
The New Global Politics of Corporate Governance
Peter A. Gourevitch & James Shinn

Cloth | 2005 | $35.00 | ISBN: 0-691-12291-1
384 pp. | 6 x 9 | 23 line illus. 53 tables

Publisher's Description: Why does corporate governance--front page news with the collapse of Enron, WorldCom, and Parmalat--vary so dramatically around the world? This book explains how politics shapes corporate governance--how managers, shareholders, and workers jockey for advantage in setting the rules by which companies are run, and for whom they are run. It combines a clear theoretical model on this political interaction, with statistical evidence from thirty-nine countries of Europe, Asia, Africa, and North and South America and detailed narratives of country cases.

This book differs from most treatments by explaining differences in minority shareholder protections and ownership concentration among countries in terms of the interaction of economic preferences and political institutions. It explores in particular the crucial role of pension plans and financial intermediaries in shaping political preferences for different rules of corporate governance. The countries examined sort into two distinct groups: diffuse shareholding by external investors who pick a board that monitors the managers, and concentrated blockholding by insiders who monitor managers directly. Examining the political coalitions that form among or across management, owners, and workers, the authors find that certain coalitions encourage policies that promote diffuse shareholding, while other coalitions yield blockholding-oriented policies. Political institutions influence the probability of one coalition defeating another.

Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum:
How Humans Took Control of Climate
William F. Ruddiman

Cloth | 2005 | $24.95 | ISBN: 0-691-12164-8
272 pp. | 6 x 9 | 16 halftones. 14 line illus. 4 tables. 7 maps

Publisher's Description:The impact on climate from 200 years of industrial development is an everyday fact of life, but did humankind's active involvement in climate change really begin with the industrial revolution, as commonly believed? William Ruddiman's provocative new book argues that humans have actually been changing the climate for some 8,000 years--as a result of the earlier discovery of agriculture.

The "Ruddiman Hypothesis" will spark intense debate. We learn that the impact of farming on greenhouse-gas levels, thousands of years before the industrial revolution, kept our planet notably warmer than if natural climate cycles had prevailed--quite possibly forestalling a new ice age.

Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum is the first book to trace the full historical sweep of human interaction with Earth's climate. Ruddiman takes us through three broad stages of human history: when nature was in control; when humans began to take control, discovering agriculture and affecting climate through carbon dioxide and methane emissions; and, finally, the more recent human impact on climate change. Along the way he raises the fascinating possibility that plagues, by depleting human populations, also affected reforestation and thus climate--as suggested by dips in greenhouse gases when major pandemics have occurred. The book concludes by looking to the future and critiquing the impact of special interest money on the global warming debate.

Eminently readable and far-reaching in argument, Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum shows us that even as civilization developed, we were already changing the climate in which we live

On Bullshit
Harry G. Frankfurt

Cloth | 2005 | $9.95 / £6.50 | ISBN: 0-691-12294-6
80 pp. | 4 x 6

Publisher's Description:One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern. We have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, as Harry Frankfurt writes, "we have no theory."

Frankfurt, one of the world's most influential moral philosophers, attempts to build such a theory here. With his characteristic combination of philosophical acuity, psychological insight, and wry humor, Frankfurt proceeds by exploring how bullshit and the related concept of humbug are distinct from lying. He argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do, that is, by deliberately making false claims about what is true. In fact, bullshit need not be untrue at all.

Rather, bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Frankfurt concludes that although bullshit can take many innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the practitioner's capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does not. Liars at least acknowledge that it matters what is true. By virtue of this, Frankfurt writes, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.

Now in Paperback

The Dark Sides of Virtue:
Reassessing International Humanitarianism
David Kennedy

Paper | 2005 | $18.95 | ISBN: 0-691-12394-2
Cloth | 2004 | $45.00 | ISBN: 0-691-11686-5
400 pp. | 6 x 9 | 13 halftones.

Publisher's Description: In this provocative and timely book, David Kennedy explores what can go awry when we put our humanitarian yearnings into action on a global scale--and what we can do in response.

Rooted in Kennedy's own experience in numerous humanitarian efforts, the book examines campaigns for human rights, refugee protection, economic development, and for humanitarian limits to the conduct of war. It takes us from the jails of Uruguay to the corridors of the United Nations, from the founding of a non-governmental organization dedicated to the liberation of East Timor to work aboard an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf.

Kennedy shares the satisfactions of international humanitarian engagement--but also the disappointments of a faith betrayed. With humanitarianism's new power comes knowledge that even the most well-intentioned projects can create as many problems as they solve. Kennedy develops a checklist of the unforeseen consequences, blind spots, and biases of humanitarian work--from focusing too much on rules and too little on results to the ambiguities of waging war in the name of human rights. He explores the mix of altruism, self-doubt, self-congratulation, and simple disorientation that accompany efforts to bring humanitarian commitments to foreign settings.

Impossible Subjects:
Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America
Mae M. Ngai

Paper | 2005 | $19.95 / £12.95 | ISBN: 0-691-12429-9
Cloth | 2003 | $49.95 / £32.50 | ISBN: 0-691-07471-2
400 pp. | 6 x 9 | 14 halftones. 3 line illus. 6 tables.

Publisher's Description: This book traces the origins of the "illegal alien" in American law and society, explaining why and how illegal migration became the central problem in U.S. immigration policy--a process that profoundly shaped ideas and practices about citizenship, race, and state authority in the twentieth century.

Mae Ngai offers a close reading of the legal regime of restriction that commenced in the 1920s--its statutory architecture, judicial genealogies, administrative enforcement, differential treatment of European and non-European migrants, and long-term effects. In well-drawn historical portraits, Ngai peoples her study with the Filipinos, Mexicans, Japanese, and Chinese who comprised, variously, illegal aliens, alien citizens, colonial subjects, and imported contract workers. She shows that immigration restriction, particularly national-origin and numerical quotas, re-mapped the nation both by creating new categories of racial difference and by emphasizing as never before the nation's contiguous land borders and their patrol. This yielded the "illegal alien," a new legal and political subject whose inclusion in the nation was a social reality but a legal impossibility--a subject without rights and excluded from citizenship. Questions of fundamental legal status created new challenges for liberal democratic society and have directly informed the politics of multiculturalism and national belonging in our time.

Ngai's analysis is based on extensive archival research, including previously unstudied records of the U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration and Naturalization Service. Contributing to American history, legal history, and ethnic studies, Impossible Subjects is a major reconsideration of U.S. immigration in the twentieth century.

• Winner of the 2005 Frederick Jackson Turner Award, Organization of American Historians
• Co-Winner of the 2004 Berkshire Conference First Book Prize, Berkshire Conference of Women Historians.
• Winner of the 2004 Littleton-Griswold Prize, American Historical Association.
• One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2004.
• Winner of the 2004 Theodore Saloutos Book Award, Immigration and Ethnic History Society.

The Lesser Evil:
Political Ethics in an Age of Terror
Michael Ignatieff

Paper | 2005 | $16.95 | ISBN: 0-691-12393-4
Cloth | 2004 | $29.95 | ISBN: 0-691-11751-9
232 pp. | 6 x 9

Publisher's Description: Must we fight terrorism with terror, match assassination with assassination, and torture with torture? Must we sacrifice civil liberty to protect public safety?

In the age of terrorism, the temptations of ruthlessness can be overwhelming. But we are pulled in the other direction too by the anxiety that a violent response to violence makes us morally indistinguishable from our enemies. There is perhaps no greater political challenge today than trying to win the war against terror without losing our democratic souls. Michael Ignatieff confronts this challenge head-on, with the combination of hard-headed idealism, historical sensitivity, and political judgment that has made him one of the most influential voices in international affairs today.

Ignatieff argues that we must not shrink from the use of violence--that far from undermining liberal democracy, force can be necessary for its survival. But its use must be measured, not a program of torture and revenge. And we must not fool ourselves that whatever we do in the name of freedom and democracy is good. We may need to kill to fight the greater evil of terrorism, but we must never pretend that doing so is anything better than a lesser evil.

In making this case, Ignatieff traces the modern history of terrorism and counter-terrorism, from the nihilists of Czarist Russia and the militias of Weimar Germany to the IRA and the unprecedented menace of Al Qaeda, with its suicidal agents bent on mass destruction. He shows how the most potent response to terror has been force, decisive and direct, but--just as important--restrained. The public scrutiny and political ethics that motivate restraint also give democracy its strongest weapon: the moral power to endure when the furies of vengeance and hatred are spent.

Opening: Computer Services/Reference Librarian

EMPLOYER: Northern Illinois College of Law Library

POSITION: Computer Services/Reference Librarian

ACADEMIC RANK:   Assistant Professor in the Law Library

QUALIFICATIONS: Master’s degree in library science from an ALA-accredited library school required. J.D. from an ABA-accredited law school and knowledge of educational technologies, PC applications and legal research technique in all formats highly preferred. Other desired qualifications: strong service orientation, excellent communications skills, and the ability to work both independently and as part of a team.

DUTIES: Provide reference service to library users (some evening or weekend work possible).  Act as the library’s liaison to the College of Law’s Information Technology Coordinator regarding all library computer-related issues including those relating to the law student computer lab.  Provide support to law faculty and students in their use of educational technologies.  Teach legal research to students inside and/or outside of the classroom.

TERMS OF EMPLOYMENT: Regular, twelve-month, tenure-track faculty position. Available immediately. Competitive salary.

BENEFITS:   Health, life and vision insurance.  Participation in the State Universities Retirement System. 24 vacation and 12 cumulative and 20 non-cumulative sick leave days per year.

APPLICATIONS:   Please send cover letter, resume and the names of three current professional references to: John Austin, Director; David C. Shapiro Memorial Law Library; Northern Illinois University; DeKalb, IL 60115-2890.  Email: jaustin@niu.edu  FAX: 815-753-9499. Preference will be given to complete applications received by October 17, 2005, however, applications will be accepted until the position is filled.

Northern Illinois University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. Applications from women and minorities are encouraged.

PACER Accounts Top 500,000

Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER), the service that allows users to obtain case information online from federal courts, now has over 500,000 user accounts. The half-million figure was reached in early September.

PACER offers an inexpensive, easy-to-use alternative for obtaining case information without having to visit the courthouse. PACER allows an Internet user to request information about a particular case or party. The data is immediately available for printing or downloading.

PACER offers convenient electronic access to:

Case file documents
Listings of all case parties
Reports of case-related information
Chronologies of events entered in the case record
Claims registries
Listings of new bankruptcy cases
Judgments or case status
Nationwide party/case index

Ron Jones, Univ of Cincinnati Law Library