LIBERATING RED LION FROM THE GLASS MENAGERIE OF FREE SPEECH.PDFVIP

LIBERATING RED LION FROM THE GLASS MENAGERIE OF FREE SPEECH JURISPRUDENCE JIM CHEN* I. ECCE LEO I could break free From the wood of a coffin If I need But nothing’s hard as Getting free from places I’ve already been - THE WALLFLOWERS, I’ve Been Delivered (2000)1 The law of information platforms has blurred numerous doc- trinal categories within the law and has begun to assimilate a widening array of nonlegal disciplines.2 Communications law alone has become “so vast that fully to comprehend it would re- quire an almost universal knowledge ranging from” engineering, economics, and management science “to the niceties of the legis- lative, judicial, and administrative processes of government.”3 In contemporary regulatory analysis, it therefore borders on apos- tasy to address a strictly legal proposition. But straightforward legal analysis has its place, if only because law alone consistently presents “truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.”4 I hereby propose a little legal fantasy.5 Which case, statute, or rule would scholars erase from the books if they suddenly ac- quired the power to “strike like lightning” and vaporize any sin- 1. Hear THE WALLFLOWERS, I’ve Been Delivered , on BREACH (Interscope Records 2000). 2. See generally Philip J. Weiser, Law and Information Platforms , 1 J. TELECOMMS. HIGH TECH. L. 1 (2002). 3. Queensboro Farm Prods., Inc. v. Wickard, 137 F.2d 969, 975 (2d Cir. 1943) (Frank, J.) (making this observation in the context of agriculture). See generally Richard A. Posner, The Decline of Law as an Autonomous Discipline: 1962-1987, 100 HARV . L. REV. 761 (1987). 4. TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, THE GLASS MENAGERIE 4 (New Directions Books 1999) (1st ed. 1945). 5. See generally Symposium, The Sound of Legal Th