Question: Small Firm Private Blog?

Below is a question I received from a friend, and since I don't really know the answer, I thought I'd see if anyone else does. My friend writes:

Is there a way a small civil rights type law firm could get a free or extremely cheap blog that could be personal to them? Or is blogging essentially public? There has been talk about trying to have some sort of newsletter that people could easily post to, with comments about whats going on with them, their clients, their kids etc. but it would HAVE to be private as client information would be internally discussed......not a blog?

Does anyone know the best way to accomplish what my friend seeks? I know that WordPress allows you to password-protect posts, but I'm not sure if that would be secure enough for a private, small firm blog. I'm thinking they need some sort of intranet or otherwise secure network. If they ran their blog off of their own server and required a password to access the server, then a blog would work fine, wouldn't it? But then, that could be a little costly to buy and run a server, couldn't it? Or could you do this with a virtual server (shared hosting) with htaccess or some more secure password-protection for the directory in which the blog resides? Obviously, this question is a bit over my head. For those of you with more knowledge than I, please leave any suggestions in the comments or send them via email so I can pass them on to my friend. Thanks!

Posted 12:01 PM | Comments (5) | law general meta-blogging

Public Defender in Traffic Court

Blonde Justice posted a story a couple of weeks ago about a public defender in traffic court. It's an awesome story if you haven't seen it. She offers more insight into traffic court here and here. Public defenders rawk.

Posted 08:40 AM | law general

Blogging: Call for Papers

The other day I noted a couple of academics are studying blogging. Now, the academic journal “Reconstruction” is devoting an issue to the theme of “blogging” and is inviting “papers/projects/manifestos” on the subject.

We are especially interested in the experiences, theories and perspectives of those who actually blog. Feel free to propose other topics to the editors.

Interesting.

Posted 08:33 AM | meta-blogging

CounterInaugural Constitutional Issue

A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism), one of the big anti-war organizers, applied for a permit to occupy space along the route of the presidential inaugural parade on January 20th, but apparently the National Park Service is stalling on that permit. According to A.N.S.W.E.R., the Park Service is giving permits to Bush supporters first, and if there's anything left over at the end, maybe protesters will get it. Hmm. Sounds like a bit of a problem with “constitutionalizing the gatekeeper,” meaning making sure that the permit process is fair, equitable, and consistent with the demands of the First Amendment. According to “Constitutional Law in a Nutshell (Nutshell Series)” by Jerome A. Barron, C. Thomas Dienes, “[b]road delegations of authority, even when cast as content-neutral, indirect controls, invite censorship of unpopular views” (427). I wonder if A.N.S.W.E.R. will be able to argue that the National Park Service has an overly broad authority in the protest permit process, and that by denying protesters permits while granting permits to supporters, the Park Service is censoring “unpopular” views. (Putting aside for the moment that some 49% of the country voted against Bush, which hardly makes expression of protest against Bush “unpopular.”) In City of Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Publishing Co. (1988), the Supreme Court said that “a facial challenge lies whenever a licensing law gives a government official or agency substantial power to discriminate based on the content or viewpoint of speech by suppressing disfavored speech or disliked speakers.” (Barron 428). Here, it appears (from the little I know) that A.N.S.W.E.R. could bring an “as applied” challenge to whatever permitting statutes or procedures the Park Service is supposed to follow, arguing that, regardless of how those rules are worded, they give the Park Service substantial power to discriminate, as applied. Of course, by the time such a legal claim came before a court, the inauguration might be long over, so this strategy may be pointless. And I'm sure A.NS.W.E.R.'s lawyers know all of this much better than I do, and I'm sure they know even better strategies for challenging the permit process. I'm just saying, maybe I learned something this semester after all. Maybe.

Posted 08:26 AM | Comments (5) | election 2004 law general

Moving On

Now a full month after Election 2004, the future of the Democratic party remains unclear. Move left? Move right? Fight fight fight? The fighting is in effect. According to this story, Peter Beinert wrote a popular analysis of what went wrong in which he bashes groups like MoveOn.org, but MoveOn's not backing down. It sent a letter to its members saying:

“We can't afford four more years of leadership by a consulting class of professional election losers. In the last year, grassroots contributors like us gave more than $300 million to the Kerry campaign and the DNC, and proved that the Party doesn't need corporate cash to be competitive. Now it's our Party: we bought it, we own it, and we're going to take it back.”

By “we” MoveOn meant the grassroots supporters who gave time and money to help defeat Bush. And that's the most startling and meaningful thing to come out of this so far, as far as I'm concerned—the size of that grassroots base. Get this:

Financially, the DNC has not suffered terribly under this new regime -- it raised $309 million this year, compared with the Republicans' $385 million. As Arianna Huffington has pointed out, however, the DNC raised its money from a much wider pool this year. In 2000, its donor base was 400,000, while in 2004, 2.7 million people gave to the party.

2.7 million donors, up from 400,000! That's incredible. Maybe the DNC should organize a donor poll and ask all those 2.7 million donors to vote on the direction of the party. At least then it couldn't be accused of ignoring its members. How many donors gave to the RNC? According to the FEC, it looks like the Bush campaign had 210,109 individual donors; however, the number may not be directly comparable to the DNC's 400,000 because many more people may have donated to the RNC generally. The directly comparable number for just the Kerry campaign (not including donations to the DNC as a whole) is 219,493. Pretty similar. Meanwhile, another volunteer inside the Kerry campaign says the campaign itself was utterly incompetent, badly organized and badly run. I don't have much commentary to make on this; I'm just noting it for the record.

Posted 08:01 AM | election 2004