Lawrence Lessig: Congress to Blame for Bush Era Mistakes

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/10/08/Lawrence_Lessig_on_Institutional_Corruption

Stanford Law professor Lawrence Lessig explores the concept of institutional responsibility by comparing a boarding school sexual abuse case with Congress during the Administration of President George W. Bush. In both cases, he argues that witnesses who did not act responsibly should be held just as culpable as the offender.

-----

Larry Lessig introduces the Safra lecture series with a discussion on institutional corruption.

He explores the prevalence of this form of corruption in fields ranging from politics to medicine to journalism, and describes his plan to study and contain this problem. - Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard University

Lawrence Lessig is a professor of law at Stanford Law School and founder of the school's Center for Internet and Society. He teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, contracts, and the law of cyberspace. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty, he was Berkman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and a professor at the University of Chicago.

He clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and for Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court. For much of his career, he has focused on law and technology, especially as it affects copyright.

Recognized for arguing against interpretations of copyright that could stifle innovation and discourse online, he is CEO of the Creative Commons project, and he has been a columnist for Wired, Red Herring, and The Industry Standard.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• iraq
• war
• bush
• president
• congress
• illegal
• crimes
• congressional
• republicans
• democrats
• civil
• rights
• constitutional
• law
• fora.tv
• foratv
• fora
• tv
• lawrence
• lessig
• edmond
• safra
• foundation
• center
• for
• ethics

[L8nitedave]

That was Mr Lessig narrating his own powerpoint presentation.

[funkalunatic]

Yes, he blames those who voted to allow Bush to do all the bad things, Democrat and Republican alike.

[blackiron60]

You can't deal with individual crime without looking at the wider context that facilitated their crime.

[televisionsux]

It's the Kitty Genovese sydrome.Or more recently, the Homecoming GangRape Syndrome. Pick up the phone? LOL.....You'd get a recording: "The number you have reached is not in service."

You could scream bloody murderous money thievin' B*******Ds to high heaven and the reply would be "You're just jealous" or "nuts" or both.

Plug your ears up with your iPod headphones and move along. "Nothing to see here folks" !!!

[eirefrance]

Certainly, they could do more to challenge this power grab. But I don't think lobbying is what drives this. Party politics that are more concerned with appearance than legislation is one problem. But you're taking the course; you probably have some stuff you can teach me.

[element68]

I'm taking a class on the history of the executive right now so i'm getting interested, but can't the executive be checked (ie 2/3 of congress voting against the pres)? Even though drastic actions by the exec wasn't intended when the constitution was written i get that it has been bent immensely from the start, but i think has its checks (which usually only kick in when the pres pisses a looot of people off), don't you think congress should have a higher onus? ie more liberal on challenging?

[eirefrance]

Start by researching the Unitary Executive Theory. It isn't necessarily about the law being bent, its about saying the Executive Branch is free to act as it will and can not be 'checked'. Actually, I guess that is bending the law. Its certainly bending the Constitution.

[eirefrance]

Maybe 1 star was too much. I rated this video before watching the whole thing. I liked his video as a whole, but there is a world of difference between the responsibility of an alcoholic ship captain and hundreds of legal scholars arguing for decades about how the executive branch is above the law and not subject to any checks and balances. THAT isn't corruption, its a blatant power grab, and every President since Nixon has contributed, with lots of help from legal scholars.

[eirefrance]

I definitely agree that Congress suffers from corruption, and the greater message he brings in the entire video (institutional responsibility is hard to maintain in a world of intense capitalist competition) is one I agree with. Still, the attempt to use this analogy as an example of institutional corruption ignores the long history of strengthening the executive building to Bush Admin's abuse of power. It didn't come out of nowhere, it came out of decades of presidential abuse.

[AdrianHorn]

Its not a perfect analogy, and I think a better title for the video would be "Congress to share blame..." I do recall some complicity however, such as their voting to authorize the war in Iraq without thoroughly investigating the WMD claims the administration trotted out to make their case.

[gotilk]

Watch the entire program.