Launching the Centre for Internet Law and Policy at Strathclyde

Pangloss is off to London tomorrow to chair the SCL Policy Forum: run don't walk if you still want to get a ticket as I believe there are a few still available! Which will be followed by an (I hope) well earned pre-term week away to foreign climes..

But before I disappear I want to start plugging my NEXT two big events, both of which are designed around launching the new Centre for Internet Law and Policy at Strathclyde, of which I am the Director. Please check out our new website, revamped LLM offerings and exciting news and events pages as well as our Twitter feed at @strathllmit! Small acorns, big oaks perhaps (well it makes a change from apples!) but we do have big plans. Meanwhile, having had a marvellous turn out for our Mark Stephens event, we hope you'll now sign up with equal enthusiasm for these two:

Scottish Launch of Centre for Internet Law and Policy

Scottish Phonehacking Symposium

to be reschedued in 2012 due to industrial action (sigh..)

A cracking panel of Mike Nellis, Lilian Edwards, Mark Poustie (all Strathclyde Law School, representing Internet law and sociology), Rachael Craufurd-Smith (Edinburgh Law School EC media law expert ), David Goldberg (media law consultant and free speech scholar) , Jack Irvine of Mediahouse, former editor of the Scottish Sun and Aamer Anwar, leading Scottish solicitor with extensive experience of the phonehacking scandals, especially most recently in relation to one of his better known clients, Tommy Sheridan.

These parrticipants will informally discuss recent events surrounding phone hacking, privacy, the Murdoch empire, and the possible end of newspapers as we know it, from legal, sociological, journalistic, media studies, Scottish and no doubt other perspectives! Watch our talkative panellists fight the clock as they'll only get 10 minutes each!

No fee but registration required: please contact Linda Nicolson to be put on list and for venue details not yet finalised.

University Launch of Centre for Internet Law and Policy

Tuesday, November 15th 6:00pm , Strathclyde University

Lecture by Alan Winfield, Roboticist, EPSRC Senior Media Fellow and Director of the Science Communication Unit, UWE Bristol and Lilian Edwards, Professor of E-Governance:

"Regulating Robots: Re-Writing Asimov's Three Laws in the Real World?

As robots emerge from the pages of science fiction into a world where they are already commonplace in industry and will soon be equally so on the battlefield and in domestic and public environments like homes, hospitals, schools and shops; where driverless cars already roam Nevada albeit under human escort and Japanese elderly are comforted by robot seals, hard legal questions are emerging which need answers soon or better still, now. Who is responsible for a robot? What happens to our privacy when robots share our homes? Do we need Asimov's Three Laws in real life?

Tea and coffee from 5.30pm, drinks reception after.

No fee but registration required: please contact Linda Nicolson to be put on list and for full venue details not yet finalised.

And yes, real blogging will resume now the summer is over :-)