United States Court Of Appeals: Fill & Download for Free

This answer may contain sensitive images. Click on an image to unblur it.The Sandy Hook lawsuit is nothing new, as far as tactics to restrict guns. The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, squarely in the crosshairs (NPI) of Congressional Democrats, was passed specifically to prevent this abuse of the judicial system.Gun control advocates’ strategy, in the late 90s and early 2000s, was to make it impractical to manufacture firearms in the United States, by attaching class-action liability to those manufacturers for producing guns used in crimes. To that end, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley filed suit on behalf of his city and the mayors of 30 other cities against Smith & Wesson (publicly held and in a weak financial position at the time) alongside several other gun manufacturers for costs related to the response, investigation and mitigation of gun-related crimes in those cities, totaling in the tens of billions of dollars.On its face, this allegation is ludicrous; gun manufacturers have absolutely zero control over who uses, or misuses, their product. That is in fact by Federal law; gun manufacturers cannot sell directly to customers, even within the state of manufacture; they have to be transferred to a Type 1 FFL (retailer) who can then sell to the customer. So the gun manufacturer has a layer of indirection, which they cannot directly influence, between themselves and the customer.Even if gun manufacturers could directly sell to end users, the gun is designed to fire a bullet. At what, or whom, that bullet is aimed, and for what purpose, are the sole purview of the gun’s handler at the moment it is fired. Suing Remington (owner of the Bushmaster brand) for a shooting committed with their rifle would be exactly analogous to suing Chrysler-Fiat for the use of one of their Dodge Chargers to run over 20 people in Charlottesville, or Home Depot or Ford for the use of one of HD’s rental trucks to run over 19 people in New York.Neither the manufacturer nor the seller/renter has any direct control over how their product is (mis)used. They are liable for the product failing to perform as designed and intended (design/manufacturing defects), and they are liable when a product, used as intended, harms the person who buys it (tobacco, pharma). Further down the chain, retailers are liable for giving the product to those either prohibited by law or who can be reasonably foreseen to be harmed or cause harm (serving alcohol to minors, continuing to serve a drunk person, selling lottery tickets to a gambling addict). A manufacturer’s responsibility for an unrelated third party’s misuse of their product, however, is a legal non-starter.However, it’s not really the point of the plaintiffs in such cases to win the litigation. The goal is to require the gun manufacturers to spend millions of dollars in legal fees, which would otherwise be profits, answering and defending the lawsuits. If they don’t show up, the plaintiffs win by default, and court proceedings in the United States are so onerously expensive for both sides that it’s little wonder that private binding arbitration is so commonly stipulated in contracts. Aided by anti-gun judges, who allowed the suits to proceed past pre-trial motions to dismiss the suits as frivolous, the costs quickly multiply once you have multiple jurisdictions with multiple plaintiffs suing the gun manufacturers in multiple jurisdictions requiring multiple coordinating legal teams to handle them. Win or lose, the plaintiffs, in this case government entities with a near-limitless legal budget funded by taxpayers, would force gun manufacturers to spend money they simply don’t have defending one suit after another, until they filed for liquidation, or settled with the plaintiffs on the plaintiffs’ terms.And it almost worked; Smith & Wesson caved to the pressure, and agreed to an out-of-court settlement involving the adoption of various additional safety features on its guns and to spend money on smart gun research. The backlash to this decision by gun owners, who viewed it as a betrayal, was equally harsh, and the resulting boycott nearly destroyed the country’s oldest gun manufacturer completely. Andrew Cuomo (yes, that Andrew Cuomo, at the time Clinton’s HUD secretary) said that other gun manufacturers who didn’t knuckle under would face “death by a thousand cuts”, and Elliot Spitzer (yes, that Elliot Spitzer, then the US Attorney General), is on record telling Glock USA executives that if they didn’t agree to a similar settlement, they’d have “bankruptcy lawyers beating down their door”.In 2005, the now-Republican-held Congress had had enough. They passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which specifically enumerates an immunity from civil suit for gun manufacturers and gun sellers in cases where the claimed tort relates to the criminal use of a firearm by a third party. The law directs judges in the Federal and all State and local systems to issue summary judgment in favor of the defendant gun manufacturer or seller in any such case. There are specific exemptions, including “negligent entrustment” on the part of the retailer (seller knew or had reasonable cause for suspicion that the buyer intended to commit a crime, and handed it over anyway), or for design or manufacturing defects (the manufacturer is still liable to a gun owner for injury if their pistol blows up in the owner’s hands).This is the same assumption of non-liability for misuse that is enjoyed by every other manufacturer of a consumer product. But because of state and local attorneys’ willingness to abuse the legal system at the cost of a target manufacturer, it had to be expressly stipulated for the firearms industry.That’s the backstory. Now, the families of victims of Adam Lanza’s mass shooting at Sandy Hook sought to directly challenge the PLCAA, filing suit against Remington, who controls the Bushmaster brand of AR-pattern rifles like the one used by Lanza in the attack. The trial court applied the PLCAA, and threw out all the tort claims related to Lanza’s criminal misuse of the rifle. However, lawyers for the Sandy Hook families anticipated this, and included additional torts. Among them is the one at issue; that Remington violated the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act or CUTPA, and by so doing is liable to those who have suffered a material loss or harm as a result of said marketing.This claim revolved around a full-page ad that appeared in American Rifleman in the months prior to the shooting. The tagline was, “Consider your man card reissued”:The fairly obvious intent is to appeal to Gen-Xers (about 30–40 years old at the time) who found themselves on a floral-pattern couch in a quaint little suburb, children underfoot, pining after that classic Mustang or Challenger their wife made them sell to make room in the garage for the minivan, who would see owning an AR as a slightly cheaper and more compact symbol of masculinity. However, plaintiffs are alleging that this message also appealed to younger, troubled youths, bullied or ostracized at school or in their home life, looking to reassert some control and power over their social surroundings. In short, the very recipe for a school shooter like Adam Lanza. Plaintiffs claim that the advertising showed reckless disregard for the full scope of audiences most likely to be affected by it, that this advertising encouraged and empowered Adam Lanza, through his mother, to obtain a Bushmaster rifle, and therefore it is not the manufacture or sale of the rifle, but the marketing of it, that makes Remington liable for its misuse.Now, the PLCAA has an exception written in, where immunity shall not include “an action in which a manufacturer or seller of a qualified product knowingly violated a State or Federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing of the product, and the violation was a proximate cause of the harm for which relief is sought”. Subsections of this exception make it plain that the intent is not to shield gun manufacturers from civil liability when it can be proven they broke State or Federal gun laws regarding the sale of a gun. However, the inclusion of “marketing” allows suits based on violation of laws like CUTPA to be exempt from the immunity provided by the PLCAA.Therefore, the trial court allowed this allegation to proceed. The Connecticut Supreme Court affirmed this move, and SCOTUS has just denied cert to Remington’s appeal.This does not indicate the claim has merit; merely that it is not subject to summary judgment in Remington’s favor under the PLCAA. The question of summary judgment in general based on the facts of the case was not at issue in this run up to the SCOTUS. Connecticut’s Supreme Court decision mentioned the Court’s opinion that the plaintiffs’ chance of success is vanishingly slight. But it’s not impossible for the jury to agree with every last assertion the plaintiffs make, and if they do so, the plaintiffs will prevail, therefore the judge cannot take these decisions of fact out of the hands of a jury and issue a judgment as a matter of law.Why did SCOTUS decline to hear the case? A lot of people on both sides of the aisle are openly surprised that a Court with two Trump picks on the bench and an overall 5–4 conservative, pro-gun lean wouldn’t hear this case. However, it’s very simple; the lower courts did not err in this decision. The claim is not summarily blocked by statute, and it’s not impossible for the plaintiffs to prevail at trial given the available decisions of fact, therefore the case may proceed in trial court.Is the claim likely to succeed on its merits? In my opinion, no it is not, and as I mentioned, that opinion is shared by the Connecticut Supreme Court. But that was never the decision before any of the courts to date.To prevail at trial, the plaintiffs must convince a jury, by a “preponderance of the evidence” (more evidence supports the conclusion than refutes it, a much weaker standard than “beyond a reasonable doubt” required for criminal conviction), that:Remington’s marketing of the rifle in the manner on display was intended to attract young men like Lanza, or that Remington was reckless in disregarding the potential for a misinterpretation of the message by an unintended audience,That this intent or recklessness in advertising message makes the message “deceptive” as per the definition in CUTPA,That Adam Lanza or his mother Nancy were exposed to this advertisement,That this marketing significantly influenced Nancy’s decision to purchase the rifle, andThat this marketing significantly encouraged Adam’s decision to carry out the attack, beginning with the killing of his mother Nancy to obtain the Bushmaster rifle.Of these points, the ones requiring evidence of exposure to or influence of the marketing in question are the most salient; they are the critical links between the advertising and the attack, and they are also the hardest to prove. Remington could have said that if you buy their Bushmaster rifle, everyone you know will bow down before you, ladies will spread their legs and men will hold those legs apart for you. Totally false advertising, clearly intended to deceive anyone as to the actual social power of their weapon.If neither Nancy nor Adam ever heard or saw that message, it’s irrelevant.If Nancy or Adam had laughed it off as an obvious sill job, it’s irrelevant.If Nancy or Adam had seen an ad for a Colt AR, like this one:… and that influenced them to go looking for an AR, where they ended up with a Bushmaster instead due to cost or features, then the Remington ad is irrelevant.If the plaintiffs cannot prove it is “more likely than not” that all five of the above points are true, Remington wins.However, as I said before, the point for the plaintiffs isn’t to win the lawsuit. The point is to force Remington to defend against it. Remington is very likely already indebted to its legal representation in this case in the high six or even low seven figures; this motion to dismiss has been petitioned to no fewer than four courts of law (trial, state appeals, state supreme, Supreme) and argued in 3 (all but SCOTUS). The direct costs of that litigation alone are easily a quarter-million dollars in time, materials and fees, which Remington no longer has available to run its business.Also very notably, with the Court allowing this case to proceed to trial, Remington is now forced to open its internal files and communications to “discovery”, the process of exchange of information between litigants that can then be used as evidence at trial. Remington, unlike a criminal defendant, gets no secrets and no surprises as a defendant in a civil suit. The plaintiffs can look for even the smallest sentence of phrase in communications within Remington’s management or marketing staff or contractors that may indicate they knew or intended the message to appeal to young adults. That can then be taken completely out of context to paint Remington in the worst possible light, and to refute it, Remington would have to expose more of that communication at trial on the public record.Further, there was, at the time, a website run by Remington accompanying the print ads, where you entered your name and clicked a button to take the “man card test”. Everyone taking the test ended up getting a direct insult to their masculinity, and the statement that their man card was revoked. If Remington kept any list of names and e-mails, that information is discoverable. If that list includes an address known to belong to Lanza, entered into the system sometime before December 2012, that would conclusively prove point 3, that Adam was directly exposed to the marketing in question, and would support points 4 and 5.So, after all that, here’s the TL;DR.Is this the latest tactic to make guns unavailable to Americans? Not the latest, but one of the more successful post-”Revolt at Cincinnati” in 1977, when the NRA stopped collaborating on gun control and started opposing it. Successful, at least, until the PLCAA closed the floodgates in 2005.Can they sue all gun makers into bankruptcy[?] Not all. This case hinges specifically on Remington’s marketing of the Bushmaster brand of AR-pattern rifles. It also requires deep pockets on the plaintiffs’ side as well as the defendant’s, and it requires plaintiffs willing to endure reliving this traumatic time. Not all firearm manufacturers have had one of their guns used in a major mass shooting that would garner mass media attention (and jury sympathy), and some of them have occurred in jurisdictions with an automatic awarding of “reasonable attorney’s fees” to the victor.One such case was in Colorado, where a suit against two online retailers that sold the Aurora theater shooter the ammunition used in the attack was dismissed with prejudice under the PLCAA, and the plaintiffs, who were encouraged but not financially backed by the Brady Center, ended up filing bankruptcy after the judge awarded the defendants $203,000 in legal fees under a Colorado State statute to that effect.[W]ill that be a good thing? Of course it’s not a good thing to be able to sue a manufacturer into bankruptcy because you happen to not like how people are using their products. That’s why it rarely happens, anywhere else but regarding firearms. This “deceptive marketing” angle is not only a workaround to the PLCAA, it’s even more ludicrous when you see the dearth of related lawsuits in other industries. Video game manufacturers have solid precedent holding that their games’ content is protected speech, and they cannot be held liable for disseminating it or for its purported effect upon anyone who views it. You don’t see General Motors defending itself against liability for someone trying to recreate the Theophilius London skateboard ad with their own Chevy Sonic. You don’t see Gambrinus Ltd called on the carpet because someone wasn’t immediately transported to a sandy beach in Mexico when they picked up a Corona Extra. Gillette lost $8 billion in one quarter over public backlash about its “toxic masculinity” ad campaign, but it’s not being sued for everything it has left over that ad.Why or why not? If you’re not clear on that by now, go back to the beginning and read the full answer.

No. 1David R. JohnsonDavid R. Johnson is lawyer specializing in computer communications. He is a Senior Fellow at Center for Democracy and Technology, and a former chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.Johnson graduated from Yale College with a B.A. summa cum laude in 1967. He completed a year of postgraduate study at University College, Oxford in 1968, and earned a J.D.from Yale Law School in 1972. For a year following graduation Johnson clerked for the Honorable Malcolm R. Wilkey of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.Johnson joined Washington, D.C. law firm Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering in 1973, and became a partner in 1980. His practice focused primarily on the emerging area of electronic commerce, including counseling on issues relating to privacy, domain names and Internet governance issues, jurisdiction, copyright, taxation, electronic contracting, encryption, defamation, ISP and OSP liability, regulation, and other intellectual property matters.Johnson helped to write the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (1986) Johnson was active in the introduction of personal computers in law practice, acting as President and CEO of Counsel Connect, a system connecting corporate counsel and outside law firms, and serving the Board of the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) and as a Trustee of the National Center for Automated Information Research (NCAIR).In October 1993, coincidental with the move of its main offices from Cambridge, Massachusetts to D.C., Johnson became a director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.[2] In February 2005, while serving as the organization's Senior Policy Fellow, Johnson replaced founder Mitch Kapor as Chairman of the EFF Board.In the early 2000s, along with Post, Johnson was active in the re-organization of ICANN - penning several critical papers with Susan P. Crawford. In 2006 he collaborated with Crawford in the establishment of OneWebDay.From 2004-2009 Johnson held the post of Visiting Professor at New York Law School. In May 2009 he commenced a one year Senior Fellowship with the Center for Democracy and Technology.Writings• Law and Borders - The Rise of Law in Cyberspace co-authored with David G. Post, 48 Stanford Law Review 1367 (May 1996) (1997 McGannon Award)• The Life of the Law Online 51 N.Y.L. SCH. L. REV. 956 (2007) or First Monday, Issue 11-2.• THE ACCOUNTABLE NET:PEER PRODUCTION OF INTERNET GOVERNANCE w/ Susan P. Crawford, John G. Palfrey, Jr. (Aspen Institute) 2004No. 2Lawrence LessigLawrence Lessig is the Director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard University, and a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.Prior to returning to Harvard, Lessig was a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School (where he was founder of Stanford's Center for Internet and Society), Harvard Law School (1997-2000), and the University of Chicago Law School. Lessig clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court.His current academic work addresses the question of "institutional corruption" roughly, influences within an economy of influence that weaken the effectiveness of an institution, or weaken public trust. His current work at the EJ Safra Lab oversees a 5 year research project addressing institutional corruption in a number of institutional contexts.Lessig has won numerous awards, including the Free Software Foundation's Freedom Award, and was named one of Scientific American's Top 50 Visionaries. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.Lessig serves on the boards of Creative Commons, MAPLight, Brave New Film Foundation, Change Congress, The American Academy, Berlin, Freedom House and iCommons.org. He is on the advisory board of the Sunlight Foundation. He has previously served on the boards of the Free Software Foundation, the Software Freedom Law Center, Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Public Library of Science, Free Press, and Public Knowledge. Lessig was also a columnist for Wired, Red Herring, and the Industry Standard.Lessig earned a BA in economics and a BS in management from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA in philosophy from Cambridge, and a JD from Yale. He has received honorary degrees from The University of Amsterdam, Athabasca University, and The Georgian-American University.Code is lawIn computer science, "code" typically refers to the text of a computer program (the source code). In law, "code" can refer to the texts that constitute statutory law. In his book Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, Lessig explores the ways in which code in both senses can be instruments for social control, leading to his dictum that "Code is law."Legislative reformDespite presenting an anti-regulatory standpoint in many fora, Lessig still sees the need for legislative enforcement of copyright. He has called for limiting copyright terms for creative professionals to five years, but believes that introducing the bureaucratic procedure needed to renew trademarks, by making copyright need to be renewed for up to 75 years after this five-year term, would mean that creative professionals' work, many of the independent, would become more easily and quickly available.Free CultureIn 2002, Lessig received the Award for the Advancement of Free Software from the Free Software Foundation (FSF), and on March 28, 2004 he was elected to the FSF's Board of Directors. In 2006, Lessig was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Lessig is also a well-known critic of copyright term extensions.He proposed the concept of "Free Culture". He also supports free software and open spectrum. At his Free Culture keynote at theO'Reilly Open Source Convention 2002, half of his speech was about software patents, which he views as a rising threat to both free/open source software and innovation.In March 2006, Lessig joined the board of advisors of the Digital Universe project. A few months later, Lessig gave a talk on the ethics of the Free Culture Movement at the 2006 Wikimania conference.Lessig claimed in 2009 that, because 70% of young people obtain digital information from illegal sources, the law should be changed.Net neutralityLessig has long been known to be a supporter of Net Neutrality. In 2006, he testified before the US Senate that he believed Congress should ratify Michael Powell's four Internet freedoms and add a restriction to access-tiering, i.e. he does not believe content providers should be charged different amounts. The reason is that the Internet, under the neutral end-to-end design is an invaluable platform for innovation, and the economic benefit of innovation would be threatened if large corporations could purchase faster service to the detriment of newer companies with less capital. However, Lessig has supported the idea of allowing ISPs to give consumers the option of different tiers of service at different prices. He was reported on CBC News as saying that he has always been in favour of allowing internet providers to charge differently for consumer access at different speeds. He said, "Now, no doubt, my position might be wrong. Some friends in the network neutrality movement as well as some scholars believe it is wrong - that it doesn't go far enough. But the suggestion that the position is 'recent' is baseless. If I'm wrong, I've always been wrong."Combating sexual abuseIn May 2005, it was revealed that Lessig had experienced sexual abuse by the director at the American Boychoir School which he had attended as an adolescent. Lessig reached a settlement with the school in the past, under confidential terms. He revealed his experiences in the course of representing another student victim, John Hardwicke, in court. In August 2006, he succeeded in persuading the New Jersey Supreme Court to restrict the scope of immunity radically, which had protected nonprofits that failed to prevent sexual abuse from legal liability.No. 3Steve ChabinskySteven Chabinsky served as Deputy Assistant Director and as the highest-ranking civilian position in the FBI's Cyber Division. In that capacity he helped oversee all FBI investigative strategies, intelligence analysis, policy development, and major outreach efforts that focused on protecting the United States from cyber attack, cyber espionage, online child exploitation, and Internet fraud. For over ten years, Mr. Chabinsky helped shape and draft many of the most significant US national cyber and infrastructure protection strategies, to include the Homeland Security Act of 2002, the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace of 2003 and, in 2008, National Security Presidential Directive 54, which includes the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative.Prior to joining the FBI, Mr. Chabinsky worked as an associate attorney in the law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York City practicing complex litigation including insurance and reinsurance contract disputes, class action product liability, and internal investigations. Mr. Chabinsky clerked for the Honorable Judge Dennis G. Jacobs (now Chief Judge) of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and holds his undergraduate and law degrees, both with honors, from Duke University. He has testified before the House and Senate, and is a frequent keynote speaker and guest lecturer. His ideas have been featured in print news media, he has appeared on radio and television, and he is the author of the article "Cybersecurity Strategy: A Primer for Policy Makers and Those on the Front Line," published in the peer-reviewed Journal of National Security Law and Policy. He is the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions, including the National Security Agency's bronze medallion for inspired leadership, the ODNI's bronze medallion for Collection, and the Rank Award of Meritorious Executive conferred by the President of the United States for unwavering leadership and sustained extraordinary performance. In August 2012, Mr. Chabinsky was selected as one of Security magazine's "Most Influential People in Security."No. 4Pavan DuggalPavan Duggal is one of the pioneers in the field of Cyberlaw and is Asia's leading authority on Cyberlaw. He is a practicing Advocate, Supreme Court of India and a Cyberlaw Consultant. He is the President of Cyberlaws.Net -, The Cyberlaw Consultancy which is Internet's unique and first ever consultancy dedicated exclusively to the new field of Cyberlaw.He is the Founder President of Cyberlaw Asia, Asia’s pioneering organization committed to the passing of dynamic Cyberlaws in the Asian continent. Cyberlaw Asia is engaged in the process of creating greater awareness about Cyberlaws in different countries of Asia.Pavan has been associated with UNESCO on Ethical, Legal, and Societal Challenges of Cyberspace in Asia and the Pacific. He is the consultant to United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) on the Asia Pacific Conference on Cybercrime and Information Security 2002.He is Member of Nominating Committee of The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) . He is also member of the Membership Advisory Committee and Membership Implementation Task Force (MITF) of ICANN and is involved in the legal issues of At Large Membership of this global body.He is the Member of the Public Interest http://Registry’s.Org Advisory Council .Pavan is doing a lot of work in the area of Intellectual property rights in the electronic medium and in cyberspace. He is a member of the World Intellectual Property Organization Arbitration and Mediation Centre's Panel of Neutrals. He has acted as an arbitrator in various domain name disputes of the World Intellectual Property Organization.Pavan is the member of AFACT Legal Working Group of UN/CEFACT.Pavan has vetted and reviewed the e-primer on Cyberlaw prepared by e-Asean Task Force as an expert authority.He is the Cyberlaw correspondent for the Global Legal Publication JURIST: The Legal Education Network.He is advising the Controller of Certifying Authorities, Ministry of Information Technology, Government of India on issues concerning the Indian Cyberlaw namely, The Information Technology Act, 2000. He is also the Member of the IT Act Legal Advisory Group constituted by the Controller of Certifying Authorities.Pavan has also the credit of having done pioneering work in the field of Convergence Law. Pavan Duggal has testified before the Indian Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, on the Communication Convergence Bill, 2001.Pavan is the Founder President of Cyberlaw India . He has also founded The Cyberlaw Association. He is the Founder of Cyberarbitration, an online system of alternative dispute resolution.Being a prolific writer , he has authored three books entitled " Cyberlaw in India " , " Cyberlaw The Indian Perspective " and " Indian Convergence Law " . Pavan writes regularly, inter-alia amongst others, every Sunday his Cyberlaw column " Brief Cases " in The Economic Times.He has been invited as a distinguished speaker on various issues of Cyberlaw at numerous International Internet Fora, conferences and exhibitions like India Internet World, 1998, 1999 , 2000 & 2001 at New Delhi; E-biz-2000, E-BizIndia-2000, E-Governance Conference; Apricot 1999 at Singapore; and Regional Meeting of Infoethics (UNESCO), 2000 at Beijing.Pavan has been invited as a speaker on Cyber Terrorism at the 11th Annual AMIC conference in Perth, Australia. He was also plenary speaker at the Regional Seminar on the Root Causes of Terrorism and the Role of Youth organized by the World Youth Foundation on the subject of Cybercrime and Cyber Terrorism. He was invited by the Mauritian Management Association to conduct the first of its kind seminar on Cyberlaw in Mauritius in August 2002.Achievements [edit]He has been a member of number of committees namely:• The ICANN Nominating Committee representing the Asia Pacific region, 2003 and 2004.[3]• Membership Advisory Committee of The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).[4]No. 5Parry AftabParry Aftab is an American lawyer specializing in Internet privacy and security law, and is considered "one of the founders of the field of cyberlaw". She is the Executive Director of wiredsafety, a volunteer organization dedicated to online safety. She was featured in Chris Hansen's book, To Catch a Predator. She created the StopCyberbullying Coalition to help address cyberbullying and digital abuse issues.She was appointed to the federal NTIA Online Safety and Technology Working Group (OSTWG) and the Berkman Center's Internet Safety Technical Task Force (ISTTF). Facebook appointed her to its Safety Advisory Board. She advises MTV as well..Aftab assisted the UN at its recent Cyberhate Conference. Aftab was one of 24 experts and industry leaders appointed to the Congressionally created NTIA Online Safety and Technology Working Group (OSTWG) in 2009. She was one of the 29 members of the Berkman Center's Internet Safety Technical Task Force (ISTTF). On April 15, 2009 Parry joined Diane Sawyer in the first town meeting on morning TV, on the topic of sexting. She keynoted the Children and ICT event held in Gijón, Spain as part of the EU Safer Internet initiative.In 2009, Parry Aftab created the StopCyberbullying Coalition to help address cyberbullying and digital abuse issues. The StopCyberbullying Coalition members include Facebook, AOL, Microsoft, Build-A-Bear, Procter & Gamble, Google, Yahoo!, Disney, Webkinz, the Girl Scouts of the USA, Buzz Marketing Group, MTV and others. Her work on sexting issues began in 1998 when a teenaged girl sent nude and sexual videos to a boy she liked. She is working with the families of the girls who took their own lives after their sexting images were used to harass them and were broadcast to their communities.Facebook appointed Aftab to its Safety Advisory Board. She advises MTV as well.Parry Aftab told the Minnesota School Board Association at their annual meeting in August 2009 that they need to address cyberbullying. She warned that they have to adopt a cell phone policy and enforce it.Following September 11, Parry Aftab's charity, WiredSafety, helped protect the families of those killed at the World Trade Center. She worked to help children worldwide get past the fear they felt following the attacks. She found a rescue worker who had worked at Ground Zero with his search and rescue dog, Servous. To help children understand the rescue dogs issue better, she wrote a children's story published on http://WiredKids.org.Awards and honorsIn June 2009, Aftab contributed to the United Nations "2009 Unlearning Intolerance Seminar" entitled, "Cyberhate: Danger in Cyber Space."In November 2010, "Mrs. Aftab [became] the 2010 New Jersey recipient of the FBI Director's Community Leadership Award (DCLA)"Works• Child Abuse on the Internet. Ending the Silence, Carlos A. Arnaldo, Ed., Chapter 21: "The Technical Response: Blocking, Filtering and Rating the Internet", pp. 135–140 (2001)ISBN 92-3-103728-5 ISBN 978-9231037283• Inocencia en Peligro : Conviva con sus Hijos y Protéjalos Cuando Naveguen por Internet (2001) ISBN 970-10-3297-7 ISBN 978-9701032978• The Parent's Guide to Protecting Your Children in Cyberspace (1999) ISBN 0-07-135752-1 ISBN 978-0071357524• Parents Guide to the Internet: And How to Protect Your Children in Cyberspace (1997) ISBN 0-9660491-0-1 ISBN 978-0966049107• Servous The Rescue Dog (online, undated)[14]No. 6S J TubrazyS J Tubrazy ‘Shahid Jamal Tubrazy’ is practicing lawyer in banking recovery laws and cyber laws from Pakistan. He is managing partner of sjtubrazy & co a law firm locates in Lahore Pakistan. He is professor of cyber laws in reputed law colleges. He has conducted various seminars liaison with FIA (NR3C) a law federal enforcement agency Pakistan. He is pioneer to lay down the basic foundation ‘cyber jurisprudence’ and also interpret it exhaustively.Works / PublicationValidated Cyber Law Definitions by SJTubrazyCyber Jurisprudence , Quantum Computing, Cyberspace, Cyber lawyer, Cyberwill, Digital Afterlife , Digital Death, Digital Inheritance, Digital Will, Digital Property, Digital Assets, Clouding computing, SJ Tubrazy lawyer, cyber advocate, internet lawyer, internet advocate, internet lawyer, computer lawyer, Pakistan, Digital Worth, Digital Ownership, Online Legacy, Digital Vault, Digital Storage, Internet Transfer, Web Legacy, Web Death, Web Storage, Web Ownership, Web Footprint, Virtual Death, Virtual Property, Virtual IdentityBooks1. Manual of Cyber Laws in Pakistan. (2013-14)2. The Investigation for Fair Trial Act 2013. (2013-14)3. Electronic Transaction laws in PakistanPractice and Procedure ( 2013-14)4. Electronic Fund Transfers laws in Pakistan,Practice and Procedure Up to Date Commentary ( 2013-2014)5. Uniform Domain Name Disputes Resolution Policy (Comprehensive Commentary with relevant WIPO decisions) (2013-14)6. Prevention of Eletronic Crimes Ordinance (commentary) (2007-08)7. Uniform Domain Name Disputes Resolution Policy (Commentary with WIPO decisions) (2006-07)Awards1. Awards of Merits (PLC+FIA)Concepts1. Cyber Jurisprudence2. Cyber Execution.Wok for Public Interest1. Writ Petition for enforcement of Section 12 of Electronic Ordinance 20022. Case Against Goolge & Bing for search results pornographic images for non-pornographic terms 'HOT'No. 7John P. BeardwoodJohn Beardwood is a partner of the firm, engaged in a corporate/commercial practice, with an emphasis on outsourcing and procurement, technology and privacy law related matters. John is regularly listed among the world's preeminent internet and e-commerce lawyers in Who's Who Legal - The International Who's Who of Business Lawyers where, in addition to being referred to as "an authority on outsourcing" in the guide to Internet and E-Commerce Lawyers, he is identified as being both one of the two most highly nominated Canadian lawyers in the guide, and one of the ten "most highly regarded individuals" globally; and is also included as a leading lawyer in the Internet & e-Commerce chapter of Who's Who Legal: Canada 2010. He is listed inChambers Global – The World's Leading Lawyers for Business 2010, for Information Technology. He is consistently recognized in The Best Lawyers in Canada for information technology law, and highly recommended as an outsourcing practitioner in thePLC Which Lawyer? Yearbook and in the PLC Outsourcing Handbook. His biography is included in the Canadian Who's Who.John is Co-Chair of the National Technology and Intellectual Property Practice Group; Co-Chair of the National Outsourcing Practice Group; and Vice-Chair of the Privacy and Information Protection Practice Group.Honours and Awards• Chambers Global 2011-2013 for Information Technology• Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory 2010-2011 for Computer & IT Law• Who's Who Legal Guide to Internet & e-Commerce Lawyers as being one of the ten "most highly regarded individuals" globally• Practical Law Company's Cross-border Outsourcing Handbook 2010 and Which Lawyer? Yearbook 2008-2009 as "Highly Recommended" for Outsourcing (Canada)• International Who's Who of Internet and e-Commerce Lawyers in 2008-2009• Best Lawyers in Canada 2008-2013 for Information Technology Law• National Post's "Best Lawyers in Canada" 2007-2008 for IT lawNo. 8William "Terry" W. FisherWilliam "Terry" W. Fisher is the WilmerHale Professor of Intellectual Property Law at Harvard Law School and faculty director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. His primary research and teaching areas are intellectual property law and legal history.In his book Promises to Keep: Technology, Law and the Future of Entertainment (Stanford University Press 2004), Fisher proposes replacing much of copyright and digital rights management with a government-administered reward system. Under such a scheme, movies and songs would be legal to download. Authors and artists would receive compensation from the government based on how often their works were read, watched, or listened to. The system would be funded by taxes.Fisher is one of the founders of Noank Media, a private enterprise similar in many ways to the proposal of Promises to Keep. Noank licenses and distributes digital content by collecting blanket-license revenues from internet services providers and distributing revenues to authors and artists based on the size of their audience.Fisher was among the lawyers, along with his colleague John Palfrey and the law firm of Jones Day, who represented Shepard Fairey, pro bono, in his law suit against the Associated Press related to the iconic Hope poster.[3]An alumnus of Amherst College, Fisher received a law degree and a Ph.D. in the history of American civilization from Harvard University. He was a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Courtjustice Thurgood Marshall.Prof. Fisher is currently teaching an online version of Copyright law course on edX to a group of selected students.No. 9MARVIN AMMORIMarvin Ammori is a leading First Amendment lawyer and Internet policy expert. He was instrumental to the adoption of network neutrality rules in the US and abroad–having been perhaps the nation’s leading legal advocate advancing network neutrality–and also instrumental to the defeat of the SOPA and PIPA copyright/censorship bills.He is a Legal Fellow with the New America Foundation Open Technology Initiative and an Affiliate Scholar at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet & Society. He also heads a law firm and consulting practice, the Ammori Group, whose clients include leading Internet companies and nonprofit organizations. The Ammori Group’s site includes a longer bio and some kind words about his work.Before starting the Ammori Group, he was a law professor at Nebraska, where he led a program working with U.S. CyberCommand to educate the military’s first generation of “cyberwar” lawyers. His main academic contributions have been in First Amendment theory and doctrine. He left academia to return to Washington, DC, to be a participant again, rather than a spectator, in shaping public policy to advance innovation and free speech.Before being a law professor, he was a leading advocate for civil liberties and consumer rights as the head lawyer of Free Press. In that capacity, and as the lead lawyer on the seminal Comcast/BitTorrent case, he was perhaps the nation’s leading lawyer on network neutrality, the nation’s most debated Internet policy issue and amongst the nation’s most important recent policy debates. During 2007 and 2008, he was a technology policy advisor to the Obama campaign and to the Presidential Transition.He is also a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the Council’s Term Member Advisory Committee. He is an Affiliate Fellow of the Yale Information Society Project, an advisor to the University of Michigan’s Michigan in Washington Program, and collaborates with Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.He graduated from Harvard Law School, taught on fellowships at Yale and Georgetown law schools, and earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. He loves ice cream.Works / PublicationsCan the FTC Save Uber?Author(s): Marvin AmmoriTaxi commissions are crushing disruptive transportation apps. Marvin Ammori discusses in this Slate article. Read more » about Can the FTC Save Uber?The Conversation: Time to Mobilize for CyberwarAuthor(s): Marvin AmmoriPROTECT IP Act (S.968) and Stop Online Privacy Act (H.R.3261)Author(s): Marvin AmmoriFirst Amendment ArchitectureAuthor(s): Marvin AmmoriNo. 10DAVID LEVINEDavid Levine is an Assistant Professor of Law at Elon University School of Law and an Affiliate Scholar at the Center for Internet and Society (CIS). Aside from the copyright and fair use areas for which CIS has become known, Dave's research interests include the operation of intellectual property law at the intersection of the technology field and public life, intellectual property's impact on transparency, and the impact of copyright law in the arts. Currently, Dave is researching the use of trade secrecy's inevitable disclosure doctrine and intellectual property law's impact on public transparency.In addition to the publications below, Dave has been quoted in articles in newspapers including the Los Angeles Times and appeared on CNBC, spoken at several intellectual property and cyberlaw conferences, and testified before the Library of Congress' National Recording Preservation Board. Dave also hosts an interview talk show on KZSU-FM (Stanford), 90.1 on the dial, entitled "Hearsay Culture" where he interviews people involved with technology. The show airs from 5 to 6 PM PST on Wednesdays, and is available by live stream here, by iTunes podcast here, on CIS' podcast feed here, or on the Hearsay Culture website feed.After earning a bachelor of science degree from Cornell University’s New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations in 1994, Dave was the Legislative Aide for the Hon. Sandy Galef, New York State Assemblywoman; additionally, he was the volunteer Field Director for the New York State chapter of the Concord Coalition, with which he remains involved. During law school, Dave was a summer extern for the Hon. Adlai S. Hardin, United States Bankruptcy Judge in the Southern District of New York.Upon graduating from Case Western Reserve University School of Law, Dave practiced law in Manhattan as an associate in the litigation departments of Windels Marx Lane & Mittendorf LLP (formerly Lane & Mittendorf LLP) and thereafter Pryor Cashman Sherman & Flynn LLP. At Pryor Cashman, Dave worked on a variety of cases in the intellectual property and technology litigation fields for several entertainment and fashion industry clients. Dave was an Assistant Corporation Counsel for the New York City Law Department, Office of the Corporation Counsel. In 2005-2007.

Because of the Civil War.The Civil War ended in 1865, but its seismic impact caused political alignments to change much after its conclusion. The Democratic Party’s trajectory from 1828 - 1865 transformed it from a national party of agriculture and republicanism to a mostly Southern Party that thought anything other than enthusiastically embracing slavery was blasphemy.People forget that when Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas ran for president in 1860, he was the paramount politician of his age—the man whose legislative dexterity had successfully passed the Compromise of 1850 which had given the Union another ten years’ lease on life. He should have been a shoe-in during the Election of 1860.However, by that point his support of letting state legislatures decide for themselves whether or not to recognize the legality of slavery—what we call popular sovereignty—was not enough for the radical pro-slavery Democrats who were more influential in the party. Democrats in the South now accepted the idea that slavery was a personal property right guaranteed under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. To them, not even “state’s rights” should have a say in the legality of the “peculiar institution.”In effect, the Democratic Party “Southernizes.” Even though the party had historic strongholds in the North, like New York and Pennsylvania, it depended on the support of states in the South and in the West to carry any given presidential election. In the lead-up to the Civil War, the Democratic Party became the Party of the South, in effect.When Stephen A. Douglas ran in 1860, he would have easily won with the Democratic Party of 1852 or 1856 supporting him. But the Democratic Party of 1860 had become so zealous over the issue of slavery that the southern wing of the party (in other words most of the party) effectively secceeded from the national party and nominated John C. Breckinridge.By that point, the politics of slavery had drained the Democratic Party in the North to such a degree that Douglas only won electoral votes in Missouri and New Jersey.The fact that the Democratic Party survived the Civil War at all with its name intact is nothing short of miraculous. After the war, the party’s support base was still mostly concentrated in the South and led by white Southerners. While slavery politically became a moot point after the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, Democrats concentrated in the South did everything possible to challenge Reconstruction and Republican rule.Their persistence, combined with Republican ambivalence, eventually paid off in 1877. During the Presidential Election of 1876, New York Democrat Samuel Tilden ran against Ohio Republican Rutherford B. Hayes—one of the innumerable bearded nobodies who dominated the White House until almost the end of the century.The most flattering thing we can say about the Election of 1876 is that doesn’t cause a civil war. However, everything else associated with the election was a fiasco. African-American voters who were now enfranchised by the Fifteenth Amendment were intimidated and frightened away from polling stations by white supremacists.During the Election of 1868, the disenfranchisement of Confederates and the Fifteenth Amendment led to the Republicans dominating the South—electing the man who had done so much to defeat them: General Ulysses S. Grant.Even South Carolina, the ideological and spiritual center of both the Confederacy and chattel slavery, voted for U.S. Grant. However, in the Election of 1876 Democrats executed the Mississippi Plan which envisaged the use of white supremacist groups like the Red Shirts and the White League to drive black voters and white Republicans away from the polls.While we are certain that Tilden won the popular vote, widespread voter fraud and intimidation means that we still cannot certify which candidate should have genuinely won the electoral college vote. In several states, both the Republican and Democratic Party declared victory.While Democrats controlled the House and Tilden won the popular vote, the Democratic Party decided that they would rather win back the South rather than the White House. Thus, in the Compromise of 1877, a Congressional investigation certifies Hayes as president, and Hayes helps hasten the end of Reconstruction. The South gets a return to Southern—and therefore Democratic—home rule.The problem for the Democratic Party, however, is that the politics of the Civil War were now obsolete (until the Civil Rights era, at least). For the next generation, the key issue would be the politics of capitalism and industry.When the South leaves the Union in 1861, they take most of the Democratic Party with them. This means that there is, in effect, no competent opposition in Congress to stymie the true agenda of the Republican Party—embracing state-sponsored capitalism. The Republican Party differs from its Whig and Federalist predecessors in that it is an anti-slavery party, but at its heart it was still the party of business, tariffs, and the American System. The person who really won the Civil War was Alexander Hamilton—because Congress was now free to enact policies to transform the United States into an manufacturing giant that would eventually become the most industrialized nation on the planet by the turn of the century.This industrialization is centered around the first truly national corporation in the U.S.: the railroad industry. The railroad industry was almost a quasi-governmental entity in itself. It was financed with government issued bonds, supported with stipends that reimbursed the companies for every mile of track constructed, and actually used the power of eminent domain to confiscate privately owned land in the West.As the railroad headed West, another line was built by graft and bribery straight to Congress. The Credit Mobilier Scandal of 1872 was ultimately a bribery scheme in which members of Congress were bribed with discounted stock in Credit Mobilier in exchange for votes favorable to the Union Pacific Railroad.When I say that the politics of capitalism supplanted the politics of slavery, I don’t mean that millions of Americans were debating the finer points of Marxist philosophy. In many ways, the post-Civil War era was quite conservative. However, Americans readily identified the special privileges granted to corporations, poor working conditions, and widespread corruption as a byproduct of the Federal Government’s cozy relationship with businesses.The Republican Party was capitalist by conviction. The Democratic Party was capitalist by ambivalence. In spirit, the Democrats were still the classically liberal party of Thomas Jefferson. By prejucide, they saw industry and mechanization as harmful to the republican farmers that they saw as the backbone of the country. The Southern planter class which dominated the Democratic Party and the old Confederacy also believed in the idea of limited government—partially because they weren’t inclined to do any favors for a Federal Government that defeated them so convincingly in 1865. Thus, the Democratic Party offered no solutions to reign in the excesses of state-supported capitalism and industrialization.The problem is that most of the popular political movements in the late 19th century demanded these solutions. In 1877, the same year Democrats banished the Republican Party from the South, the first nation-wide labor strike ground business to a halt over declining wages in the railway industry. A series of anti-corporate movements and parties formed in the West to regulate freight prices set by the railroads for farmers. Movements like the Grangers managed to take control of a few legislatures, but their regulation of railway prices would later be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the Wabash case.Even the one-hit wonder of the Democratic Party during the post-war period, Grover Cleveland, was a dogmatic libertarian. He did authorize an investigation of land grants given to railroads, but on the other hand he did not support the use of federal power to support poor farmers in the South and West. In 1887, he actually vetoes a bill that was tailored to offer Texans relief from a drought that was on the verge of becoming a famine. In the same way he wanted to disentangle the Federal Government from business, he also wanted the government to isolate itself from welfare and entitlement spending.Until he changed his mind.Grover Cleveland happened to be on-deck during the economic depression of 1893, and it was fairly clear the Federal Government was on the verge of bankruptcy. The last central bank in the United States had been cannibalized by Andrew Jackson, and the days of the Federal Reserve were still a long way off. The U.S. Government simply did not have the tools available to weather a default.In steps John Pierpont Morgan…J. P. Morgan as the Pied Piper of big business.In 2007, the Federal Government bailed out big business, but in 1895, big business bails out the Federal Government.Cleveland is all but forced to agree to a bailout package brokered by Morgan in exchange for a moderate amount of interest. Grover Cleveland campaigned on reigning in the Federal Government’s collusion with big business. Instead, he makes that relationship more intimate than ever before.For millions of Americans, there seemed to be no functional difference between the two parties. To a great extent, that was true. Aside from a greater tolerance towards immigrants (though, not towards blacks) and a philosophical slant against big business and the tariff, few genuine public policy positions separated the Democrats from Republicans. Elections during the Gilded Age were hilariously partisan. This is the era in which Thomas Nast formalizes the symbology of the two parties—with Republicans being elephants and Democrats donkeys. In fact, party identity was probably more personal and tribal than it is today, and election turnouts for the bearded nobodies of the 1880s and 90s regularly reached above 70%.However, the elections usually devolved to this: Republicans “waving the bloody shirt” in an effort to mobilize the large number of war veterans and revive memories of the Democratic Party association with the Civil War, and Democrats campaigning against Republican corruption. The Democratic Party was sophisticated enough to know that it needed more than just the South to win the Electoral College, so it usually selected a prominent New Yorker to be their candidate.However, politics is a generational game. By the 1890s, there was now an entire generation of voting Americans who had grown up without any recollection of the politics of the Civil War. Gradually, both parties were forced to confront the fact that they were hopelessly out of touch with the majority of Americans.Three developments killed the Civil War. The first was the emergence of the Populist Party and William Jennings Bryan. Throughout the 1880s and 90s, farmers in the West and South seethed that they had been forgotten. Even though American agriculture was more productive than ever before, deflation, international competition, and a series of economic panics had hit them especially hard.Unfortunately for these farmers, their political influence was limited. Republicans were ambivalent by ideology. Democrats were agrarian in their roots, but they were the roots of wealthy planters, not tenant farmers in the South or middle-class grangers in the West.The emergence of the People’s Party (or the Populist Party) heralded a realignment. In 1892, the party issued its Omaha platform which, among other things, supported the creation of an income tax, the direct election of senators, and the nationalization of the railroads. Grover Cleveland still won the election, but the Populists demonstrated that they had an appeal in the West that neither the Republicans and Democrats possessed:In a two-party system, if the two parties and both competent and sensitive to their voters, then they should pickup 51% and 49% of the popular vote. The fact that the Populists got nearly 10% of the popular vote and won several states was a wakeup call to the Democratic Party.In 1896, Cleveland was dumped in favor of a fiery 36 year-old Nebraskan named William Jennings Bryan. His “Cross of Gold” speech demonstrated two shocking developments:It is actually possible to compare U.S. monetary policy with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ; andThat it wasn’t enough to be a popular New Yorker in order to be nominated by the Democratic Party. You had to be a candidate that could actually connect with issues voters felt passionate about.The Populist Party was so pleased by the anti-corporatist Bryan that they decided to nominate him too. In just four short years the Democratic Party had become unrecognizable. The transition from a classical liberal like Grover Cleveland to a so-called “hayseed socialist” like William Jennings Bryan would be like the Republican Party nominating Ronald Reagan for president, and then four years later nominating Bernie Sanders.Bryan lost after a concerted media campaign by William McKinley characterized Bryan as unfit and deranged. However, the Democratic Party’s center of gravity had shifted Westwards.The second development was the unexpected death of McKinley and the emergence of his Vice-President, Theodore Roosevelt. During the early 20th century, the most powerful men in the United States were arguably the robber barons. Even a man like Grover Cleveland could be cornered and cajoled by capitalists like J.P. Morgan. Roosevelt, unlike the other, mostly middle-class Republican presidents, was born to wealth and privilege. He grew up around people like Astor and Morgan, and wasn’t all that impressed. He didn’t mind regulating businesses, passing consumer protection laws, or dusting off the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and actually using it.At this point, both parties were focused primarily on issues related to capitalism. The problem for the Republican Party is that it had a crack in its foundation. From nearly the party’s birth, it had been split between the conservative economic elites and the social crusaders of the abolitionist movement.After the Civil War, these social crusaders latched on to new causes—everything from women’s suffrage, worker’s rights, civil rights, education reform, and especially the elimination of government corruption. This group, though highly organized, was derisively called “Mugwumps,” an Algonquian word that means “important,” or “sanctimonious.” These Republicans had no reservations about abandoning the party and voting for Grover Cleveland if the party’s nominee was seen as too corrupt.After 1908, the Republican Party basically split between these two groups. Roosevelt’s successor William Howard Taft became the leader of its conservative wing,* and Theodore Roosevelt—unable to get the Republican Party’s nomination in 1912—ran against his old friend by rallying the purists in the party. They called themselves the Progressive Party, but of course they’ve been immortalized as the “Bull Moose Party.”(*Ironically, Taft had actually “busted” the largest corporation in the world at the time, Standard Oil, during his administration.)Even in this political climate, Republicans still had an advantage. Based on election returns, the majority of the popular vote went to the two Republican (-ish) candidates: Taft and Roosevelt.Taft and Roosevelt both won over 50% of the popular vote……Which gave the election to Woodrow Wilson.The fluke election of Woodrow Wilson is the final development that signaled the transition of the Democratic Party away from the antebellum South. Although he was born in Virginia, his mother was English, he earned a doctorate at Princeton, and he spent considerable time abroad teaching and studying in England. When he returned home, he became President of Princeton University, and eventually a very progressive Governor of New Jersey.Let’s put it this way, the guy didn’t look much like Colonel Sanders. He was suave, eloquent, and acceptable in both the North and the South. With Wilson’s election, the old Populist Party pledges to pass an income tax and enact banking reform were realized on his watch—and in a further concession William Jennings Bryan became his Secretary of State. With Wilson’s election, the Democratic Party finally abandons the politics of the Civil War and becomes almost recognizable to Democrats today.…Of course, the tragic irony is that the President that closed the chapter on the Civil War within the Democratic Party brought the politics of the Civil War with him when he was elected President. He was openly sympathetic to the Confederacy in his youth, allowed for the resegregation of the Federal Government, and thought that self-determination should only be extended as a privilege to white Europeans at Versailles.The politics of the Civil War transitioned to the politics of capital. And the politics of capital led to the election of somebody incredibly concerned with the legacy of the Civil War.History doesn’t repeat exactly, but it’s sometimes circular.