Promises to keep: Enforcement of prepublication agreements and first amendment rights

Since the Supreme Court's ruling in Cohen v. Cowles Media, several courts have found that prepublication agreements are legally binding promises between journalists and their sources of information, and that the First Amendment does not protect journalists from civil sanction for the breach of such agreements. An agreement between a journalist and a private individual not to disclose a source's information or the source's identity might constitute a legally binding commitment, especially if the plaintiff is able to show that a clear and specific commitment was made not to reveal certain information and that as a result of the breach of promise the plaintiff suffered specific harm.

However, the Court's analysis of enforcement of confidentiality promises as having merely incidental effects is flawed. Because it did not balance the enforcement of prepublication agreements against the First Amendment interests in nonenforcement of the agreements, the Court in Cohen departed from its compelling interest analysis of prepublication agreements in Snepp v. United States as well as its previous standards in finding incidental effects of generally applicable laws.     

My Two Homes

Irecently hadto fly back to Australia to have some urgently needed surgery. I have had the surgery, and my doctor has given me the all-clear to travel internationally, and to go back to teaching again. I will return to China very soon. Now, I am writing from my study in my modest but comfortable home in Robertson, Queensland. This is a very wealthy suburb of     

A comparison between the Intercept Oral Fluid Collection Device® and urinalysis among Baltimore City probationers

Few studies compared oral fluid (OF) analysis to laboratory urinalysis (UA) in real-world criminal justice environments, and no studies had collected survey data, from either specimen providers or specimen collectors, about the overall OF collection experience. In the most comprehensive toxicological comparison study conducted to date, urine and OF specimens were collected from a sample of 223 adult probationers in Baltimore City, Maryland, between March and May 2004. In addition, probationers and probation staff were surveyed about the OF collection experience. With confirmed UA as the reference standard, the Intercept Oral Specimen Collection Device® (Intercept) was 100 percent sensitive and 99 percent specific for benzodiazepines, 92 percent sensitive and 96 percent specific for cocaine, 77 percent sensitive and 96 percent specific for opiates, 39 percent sensitive and 98 percent specific for marijuana, and 75 percent sensitive and 91 percent specific for the detection of at least one drug. Seventy-two percent of the probationers and 88 percent of the probation staff rated the Intercept experience better than the collection of urine specimens. Implications for criminal justice policy and research are discussed.     

Linkages Among Poverty, Development, and Budget Systems

The achievement of economic growth and social equity in developing nations, whatever path they pursue, has been hampered by uncertainty, instability, and uncontrollability in budgeting. It appears likely that left to themselves, these budget systems will continue largely unchanged, with little or no progress toward eliminating poverty and advancing development. However, several options are available for restructuring budget systems through implementation of carefully devised systematic action plans.     

The Theory–Practice Issue in Policy Implementation Research

Applying implementation theory to practice has been rare. Reasons include the difficulty of the theoretical challenge, the varied needs of practitioners and the complicating normative issues at stake. Nonetheless, several approaches can contribute to the efficacy of implementation action. Building on points of theoretical consensus is one strategy. A second is the systematic probing of points in theoretical dispute, to sketch out practical implications. A third is the development of a contingency perspective to determine which theoretical strands may be appropriate in a given case. Finally, tapping the emerging ideas built on a synthesis of partial perspectives is ultimately likely to be the most useful approach. New methodological tools can help select out valid high-performing instances for systematic inspection and possible emulation. And some of the synthetic perspectives now available are amenable to heuristic application; these include approaches based upon reversible logic, game-theoretic notions and contextual interaction theory.