Against mandatory-reporting laws

[srdiamond]

Is anyone else, like me, disgusted with the boost the Penn State scandal has given to mandatory-reporting laws. Explicit opposition to these laws is almost nonexistent: only the privacy issue is even raised, and that only vaguely. I've tried to outline the basic legal and policy arguments against mandatory reporting laws here:

Juridical Coherence, Nov. 2011, "The oppressive fallout from the Paterno scandal—AGAINST mandatory-reporting laws"

preview.tinyurl.com/c6bk3zq

Stephen R. Diamond

[Jim]

Nov 18, 2011 18:25:57 GMT -5 srdiamond said:

Is anyone else, like me, disgusted with the boost the Penn State scandal has given to mandatory-reporting laws. Explicit opposition to these laws is almost nonexistent: only the privacy issue is even raised, and that only vaguely. I've tried to outline the basic legal and policy arguments against mandatory reporting laws here:

Juridical Coherence, Nov. 2011, "The oppressive fallout from the Paterno scandal—AGAINST mandatory-reporting laws"

preview.tinyurl.com/c6bk3zq

Stephen R. Diamond

I agree with you Stephen and I read your blog and it's a great post there about this issue.

Seems that the "see something, say something" agenda is escalating big time, trying to get people to turn on each other every chance they get even if it's some fantasy made up crime, AND NOW THREATENING TO JAIL PEOPLE! This mandatory reporting law is quite ridiculous and reminds me of things relating to false restraining orders and other false allegations that the accuser goes unpunished when the charge is found to be false..........

Things are getting worse, not better.......

Great info from your blog!

The first reason concerns freedom of speech, which includes not only the right to speak, but also the right to remain silent. (Wooley v. Maynard (1977) 430 U.S. 705, 715.) While American constitutional law recognizes that freedom of speech includes the freedom not to speak, it hasn’t compiled any considerable law on the subject, a failing that expresses some disregard for freedom of speech’s omissive side. While the advantages of affirmative free speech have been enshrined in the “marketplace of ideas” metaphor, as regarding silence, the political poets have been, well, silent; but one clue about how the right not to speak fits into the total free-speech picture is a concept the Supreme Court has used to assess the protection given to religious practices that involve freedom of speech in addition to freedom of religion. The criterion concerns whether the compelled speech compromises the believer’s conscience. (See Christopher R. Pudelski, Comment: The Constitutional Fate of Mandatory Reporting Statutes and the Clergy-Communicant Privilege in a Post-Smith World (2004) 98 Nw. U.L. Rev. 703.)