ZacharyGross's Journal

To better engage with your ideas, it would be helpful to have a clear picture of your own views about proper methods of constitutional interpretation. You have made a few stray remarks critiquing various forms of originalism, and have made other interpretive points (e.g. about clausification), but I do not recall hearing you describe the key principles of your own approach (and why you think that approach is correct). In particular, I am interested in learning your views on the broader, higher-order interpretive debates (e.g. to what extent is your approach originalist or not?). Could you give me/the class such an account, or point me in the direction of any of your writings that does so?

Perhaps it would be useful to go back one step, to ask why, in the judicial process, "constitutional interpretation" is different than "deciding cases." For parties other than judges, thinking constitutionally may be different than other forms of daily work. For a certain class of Very Important Law Professor, too, the magic of Constitutional Thought deifies mere mortals.

But for judges, engaged in determining who prevails in lawsuits, and even for Supreme Court Justices engaged in some important respects beyond the contours of the case, the fact that a constitutional provision is involved in a problem doesn't transform the problem into Constitutional Interpretation, a different business.

I am trying to show how I think about both the decision of individual cases and the larger context in which cases are decided. Words matter, history matters, facts matter, and the larger understanding of social circumstances matters. What does not matter is what Alexander Hamilton thought.

I'm sure that's an unsatisfactory response. But perhaps it will help us to figure out where to take the conversation next.

Thank you for this response. I will have some follow up questions shortly — I want to keep thinking about this while listening to the final lectures first.

In the meantime, in lieu of the technical exercises, which I completed last semester, I propose that I start chronicling my privacy hygiene efforts. I am currently working on getting a dumb phone, which is not as simple as I imagined (given the need for LTE, and that I want it to be capable of forming a wifi hotspot in case I need to do something substantive involving the internet on my laptop), but I think I have found one.

Phone

I finally received in the mail my new dumb phone! I got a Kyocera Duraxe, and I love it so far: https://www.kyoceramobile.com/duraxe/att/. It’s quite sturdy, waterproof, and great for outdoor activities.

It has 4G LTE, so I don’t have to worry about it getting phased out. It can also be used as a hotspot: if I’m on the go and need to do something substantive on the internet, I can do so on my laptop or a tablet. Having that option relieves a lot of the anxiety I have about this project. Hopefully the minor friction with having to turn on the hotspot, get the laptop out, etc. will prevent me from using that option unless absolutely necessary.

I’ve read that the operating system is technically android-derived, which might be a downside, but I’m still accomplishing the main goal of getting rid of all the smartphone apps that are constantly tracking me and devouring my consciousness.

I’m still using my old phone number, but I’m thinking of changing that soon just to get a little extra privacy by getting a step away from all the data out there currently associated with that number.

Browser

I am using Firefox with the tunneling configuration.

Search engine

I am using DuckDuckGo?

Maps

I am using OpenStreetMap? . It’s not quite as clever as Google Maps (it can’t find my home address), but it gets the job done.

Social media

This one's easy for me: I haven’t had social media in many years. I deleted Facebook shortly after college.

Next steps:

Computer

This will be the bigger project for the summer — I am going to look into ditching the Macbook.

Email

I am currently researching alternative email providers to replace my personal Gmail account. For my Columbia account, I suppose I am stuck with Gmail.

Money

This one is tough given that I really like my American Express rewards points, but I suppose they are just buying my data from me. I will use cash as much as possible, and will be doing research on alternatives to credit/debit cards for privacy with respect to online purchases.

YouTube

I currently get a lot of my entertainment through YouTube? , which is a big problem from a privacy perspective. I'm currently researching services that allow you to access YouTube? while retaining privacy, but maybe the Firefox tunneling is enough for now.

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