Judge Kozinski, controversial conservative and free speech supporter, to speak at Oct. 18 Assembly
Acclaimed–and controversial–jurist Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge of the US Court of Appeals (for the Ninth Circuit), will be the featured speaker at CFAC’s 2008 Free Speech and Open Government Assembly at UC Berkeley. He will speak on Saturday, Oct 18.
Judge Kozinski, appointed to the Court of Appeals by President Reagan (when Kozinski was all of 35!), is a favorite of the conservative legal establishment, but also a champion of First Amendment rights.
In leading cases he has warned against the overprotection of copyright and other intellectual property as a threat to creative expression. And in cases involving anti-abortion protesters, he has insisted on the fullest protection for political speech, no matter how offensive, hateful and even threatening it may be.
Although hardly press-shy, Kozinski received unwelcome publicity last month in the form of news stories about sexually explicit images stored on his home computer, which could be viewed on the internet (albeit only after typing the name of the relevant subdirectory).
However, follow-up accounts, mainly in the blogosphere, pointed out that the images were perfectly legal, that they were more humorous than erotic in content, and that Kozinski, like all citizens, should not have to account for what he chooses to read, view or listen to in the privacy of his home.
As stated by the Wall Street Journal’s Gordon Crovitz, the Kozinski nonscandal “showed how easily privacy is breached online, how mainstream media botch a story, and how bloggers can redeem journalism by reporting facts.”
CFAC’s Assembly will be held Oct. 17 & 18 at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism in Berkeley. For more information about the Assembly, and to register for free admission, please go to this page.