Michael Froomkin
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mfroomkin.bsky.social
Michael Froomkin
@mfroomkin.bsky.social
1.5K followers 370 following 1.3K posts
U.Miami Lawprof. Techie. Teach AI, AdLaw, https://tinyurl.com/concrisis, Jurisprudence & Privacy. EIC of Jotwell.com. Home@ https://law.tm. Survivor of many medical things that should have killed me but didn't. Remains to be seen if I'm stronger.
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mfroomkin.bsky.social
Not being a government official, I get to keep all the gold bars given to me by foreign governments...although I have to declare them on my taxes.
gold bars
November 16, 2025 at 6:09 PM
mfroomkin.bsky.social
Got a review copy today. It's--I kid you not--677 pages long. Has it come to this already???
November 13, 2025 at 11:25 PM
mfroomkin.bsky.social
Real sign in a local shop.
DO NOT DISRESPECT ANYONE IN THIS STORE!! Moreover, if you disrespect the women that work here you will be immediately asked to leave AND never return!!
October 29, 2025 at 8:34 PM
mfroomkin.bsky.social
Me this morning getting ready to go downtown for my first demonstration since at 9 years old I marched in the anti-vietnam war Moratorium in DC. #NoKings
October 18, 2025 at 4:07 PM
mfroomkin.bsky.social
So happy so see Martin Holohan of Trinity College, Dublin pen a terrific (and very positive!) review of Robot Law II, the book I edited with @rcalo.bsky.social and @kristenthomasen.bsky.social. Thank you! scholar.google.com/scholar_url?...
Get your copy here: www.e-elgar.com/shop/usd/rob...
Screenshot of intro Screenshot of summary of Chapter 7's "disconcertingly persuasive" argument and its "apt solution" by Froomkin, Kerr & Pineau. Screenshot of conclusion, praising our "human-centric" approach.
October 16, 2025 at 2:28 PM
mfroomkin.bsky.social
We Robot 2016 will be in Berlin, Apr. 23-25. Call for Papers just dropped at ai-laws.org/wp-content/u... If you have a paper cooking on Robots or AI, this is a terrific and friendly place to get feedback. As a single-track conference so it can be tough to get your paper accepted; plan to go anyway!
October 15, 2025 at 7:46 PM
mfroomkin.bsky.social
Here’s my thought for Democratic messaging: Stop the Stealing--

Stop stealing our money. (Corruption)
Stop stealing people off the streets. (ICE)
Stop stealing our democracy.
Stop stealing our future (health care subsidies, health research cuts, anti-solar and other anti-environmental policies)
Poll results showing that Americans say they are most concerned about government corruption.
October 15, 2025 at 6:24 PM
mfroomkin.bsky.social
On the 2nd day of the govt shutdown, I realized my passport would hit the 6-month barrier soon, so I filed an electronic passport application. They said 6 weeks. It took 6 days, plus shipping. Was it a pre-shut-down hurry up? Was no one else crazy enough to try it? IDK but thank you Consular office.
Cover of my new passport
October 12, 2025 at 6:40 PM
mfroomkin.bsky.social
Alas, based on the description at Amazon, I'm just a bit too tall for a frog suit.
www.amazon.com/dp/B0C7P39CP2
Person must be 150cm-190cm
October 10, 2025 at 11:06 PM
mfroomkin.bsky.social
And, third, although it seems a little crazy, requiring government employees to work for free, especially with no employer intention to pay them, might be "involuntary servitude" in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment (although query how one gets damages). 4/4
Thirteenth Amendment Section 1 Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Section 2 Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
October 8, 2025 at 8:25 PM
mfroomkin.bsky.social
2nd, if for some crazy reason GEFTA doesn't apply, then the workers would have donated their time. But that would violate the Anti-Deficiency Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1342, except for "emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property" other than "regular functions" of govt. 3/4
An officer or employee of the United States Government or of the District of Columbia government may not accept voluntary services for either government or employ personal services exceeding that authorized by law except for emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property. This section does not apply to a corporation getting amounts to make loans (except paid in capital amounts) without legal liability of the United States Government. As used in this section, the term "emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property" does not include ongoing, regular functions of government the suspension of which would not imminently threaten the safety of human life or the protection of property.
October 8, 2025 at 8:25 PM
mfroomkin.bsky.social
First, there's the obvious issue that it violates GEFTA, Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019, 31 U.S. Code § 1341 (2)-(3). 2/3
(2) Each employee of the United States Government or of a District of Columbia public employer furloughed as a result of a covered lapse in appropriations shall be paid for the period of the lapse in appropriations, and each excepted employee who is required to perform work during a covered lapse in appropriations shall be paid for such work, at the employee’s standard rate of pay, at the earliest date possible after the lapse in appropriations ends, regardless of scheduled pay dates, and subject to the enactment of appropriations Acts ending the lapse. (3) During a covered lapse in appropriations, each excepted employee who is required to perform work shall be entitled to use leave under chapter 63 of title 5, or any other applicable law governing the use of leave by the excepted employee, for which compensation shall be paid at the earliest date possible after the lapse in appropriations ends, regardless of scheduled pay dates.
October 8, 2025 at 8:25 PM
mfroomkin.bsky.social
Terrific open letter from The Steady State a group of more than 330 former senior national security and law enforcement professionals who served in a variety of administrations warning against the so-called "Compact" demanded from certain Universities by the Trump admin. substack.com/inbox/post/1...
Dear Presidents, We write on behalf of The Steady State, a group of more than 330 former senior national security and law enforcement professionals. Our members have served under every President of the United States—Republican and Democrat—over more than four decades. We are former Ambassadors, Inspectors General, Flag Officers, CIA Chiefs of Station, FBI Special Agents, Defense Department and Homeland Security officials, and senior Intelligence Officers from across the national security enterprise. Collectively, we have spent our careers defending the Constitution and safeguarding American democracy. Today, we warn you that the so-called Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education advanced by the Trump Administration is not a benign administrative measure. It is an indicator of authoritarianism. We have seen its equivalents in other nations: loyalty oaths demanded of universities by Nazi Germany, Stalinist controls over academic life, and the political purges of juntas and autocrats across Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe. The playbook is familiar—when governments coerce intellectual institutions into signing pledges of ideological conformity, democracy is already in peril.
October 7, 2025 at 10:15 PM
mfroomkin.bsky.social
I don't work on ICANN's UDRP these days, but for those who do, this seems like a meaty, data-rich, and largely sensible paper:
"Repairing Trust in Domain Name Disputes Practices: Insights from a Quarter-Century’s Worth of Squabbles" by Vinny Adjibi et al.
fabianmonrose.github.io/papers/ndss2...
Highlighting inro of paper and the conclusions. But read the whole thing!
September 28, 2025 at 7:24 PM
mfroomkin.bsky.social
In "Falling Far and Fast," Yale Law Dean Robert Post, a leading First Amendment Scholar, writes that "for the first time, I have become frightened that freedom of speech in America might actually be endangered." verfassungsblog.de/turn-against...
I have been studying and teaching First Amendment law for more than forty years, and in all that time I have been more or less confident that basic minima of freedom of speech would remain unscathed in the United States. It was the one constitutional right that inspired widespread allegiance and agreement. But this week, for the first time, I have become frightened that freedom of speech in America might actually be endangered. Authoritarianism, with its trademark suppression of free political discussion, looms on our horizon. Wheel of power Since the 1930s, when the Supreme Court first began to protect First Amendment rights, it has safeguarded freedom of speech because “the maintenance of the opportunity for free political discussion to the end that government may be responsive to the will of the people and that changes may be obtained by lawful means, an opportunity essential to the security of the Republic, is a fundamental principle of our constitutional system.” For all its many failings and lapses, the American Court has largely defended the First Amendment “as the guardian of our democracy,” seeking to construct a system in which “authority . . . is to be controlled by public opinion, not public opin­ion by authority.” The First Amendment embodies the basic Aristotelian principle of democracy: citizens must agree to take turns ruling and being ruled. Those out of power can make their case in the public sphere to alter public opinion and take control of government in the next election. Free speech ensures that those who are ruled will have the opportunity to persuade others to invest them with the authority to rule in the future. Free speech turns the wheel of power. To suppress speech is to freeze that wheel. It is to choke off pathways of change and hence, as Louis Brandeis pointed out long ago, “to discourage thought, hope and imagination” by stoking the “hate” of the repressed, which constitutes a “menace” to “stable government.” Full text at https://verfassungsblog.de/turn-against-free-speech-america/
September 21, 2025 at 10:33 PM
mfroomkin.bsky.social
I like.
National Weather Service map of Atlantic says "Tropical cyclone activity is not expected during next 7 days."
September 7, 2025 at 10:06 PM
mfroomkin.bsky.social
Guardian: Stacey Williams, I dated Jeffrey Epstein. The files must be released

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
September 4, 2025 at 1:05 PM
mfroomkin.bsky.social
Timothy Synder meditates on the sheer destructiveness of the Trump-Vance cabal, and then reminds us that resistance is both patriotic and constructive.
snyder.substack.com/p/look-on-my...
But for the rest of us there are two important lessons. One is that resistance is patriotic. Everything that we do to oppose American authoritarianism we do not just in the name of defending freedom, but in the name of preserving America as such. In the swirl of destruction that is underway, it is impossible to know what will crack first, and how the collapse will begin. But what we do know is that the thing that comes next, the better America, can rest only on the labor that we perform now, on the good that we do now. The other lesson is that resistance is constructive. It can seem difficult to resist merchants of calamity such as Trump and Vance. No one action seems to stop them. But every act of resistance creates the possibility that the country itself can survive, and every moment of hope creates the foundation for a better republic. The actions we take have to be actions against, against what is being done to us now. But by their nature every strike, every protest, every act of organization, every act of kindness and solidarity are also actions for, for a future in which the United States continues to exist, and in which the learning from resistance becomes the politics of freedom.
September 1, 2025 at 1:42 PM
mfroomkin.bsky.social
***THIS IS A 22% SWING***
Iowa state rep special election in a district Trump won by 11%. Unofficial results are that Democrat Catelin Drey won 55.2% to 44.8%. That is a GIANT swing & breaks GOP house super-majority. GOP should be worried: wave ahead. If we get to vote. who13.com/news/politic...
August 27, 2025 at 1:55 AM
mfroomkin.bsky.social
Not today but (allegedly) still on track for delivery of (some) (sanitized?) Epstein files on Friday. Then it will take a little time to leak.... www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/u...
August 19, 2025 at 2:00 PM
mfroomkin.bsky.social
While I'm on the subject of David's work, see Loper Bright's Disingenuity, __ U. Penn. L. Rev. __ (forthcoming 2025) (with Cary Coglianese), papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Deliver...
Article abstract: Loper Bright prompted a tidal wave of reaction throughout the legal community when the Supreme Court announced it was overruling Chevron, the most frequently cited Court decision in administrative law. But Loper Bright cannot mean what it says. This article identifies three respects in which the majority opinion’s claim to have overruled Chevron distorts the real substance of the Court’s logic. First, we apply Loper Bright’s framework to the facts of Chevron and show that it would have produced the same outcome—if nothing else, an exceedingly curious result if Chevron were indeed overturned. Second, even as applied to other cases, the Loper Bright framework does not truly depart from the Chevron framework. Chevron’s premise was that Congress had delegated the authority to interpret an ambiguous statutory term in an agency’s enabling statute to the agency. Loper Bright may eschew the word “deference” but without changing the underlying analysis. We show that this kind of wordplay is of little value in making institutional decisions about the allocation of authority. Finally, the very craft of the Loper Bright opinion betrays the perils of the exercise that Loper Bright demands of reviewing courts. Loper Bright instructs judges to identify the “best reading” of administrative statutes, suggesting that an even-handed exercise in recovering semantic meaning can identify extant lines of authority in the administrative state. But the decision rests on an interpretation of the Administrative Procedure Act that is itself selective and slipshod. Ultimately, Loper Bright’s formalist rhetoric turns out to mask what is going on under the hood. When judges substitute their views of what is “best” for those of agencies, arguments about statutory meaning can quickly succumb to choices about policy. Avoiding such an outcome, of course, was one of Chevron’s core aims.
July 29, 2025 at 9:53 PM
mfroomkin.bsky.social
This is a big deal. When large churches get involved is when social movements, like opposition to oppressive immigration enforcement, really take off.

Statement by Archbishop Thomas Wenski on Immigration Enforcement
www.miamiarch.org/CatholicDioc...
Statement by Archbishop Thomas Wenski on Immigration Enforcement
July 13, 2025 at 12:12 AM
mfroomkin.bsky.social
Saw one 1 I've sof these billboards heading southbound on US1 yesterday, around Coconut Grove
www.jewbelong.com/wp-content/u...
July 4, 2025 at 3:50 PM
mfroomkin.bsky.social
So very DeSantis's Florida: big sizzle but beware the steak.

Alligator Alcatraz opened Tuesday ready for a hurricane — but not a summer shower
www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...
July 2, 2025 at 7:44 PM
mfroomkin.bsky.social
Juxtapose these two news items: On the left, the latest hurricane forecast from the National Hurricane Center with a big green risk zone over most of Florida. On the right...why forecasts are about to get a lot worse. michaelrlowry.substack.com/p/critical-h...
June 30, 2025 at 3:55 AM