You’re not being unreasonable or old here. Cass is a derivative of Kassandra, (Lit. She who entangles men)

http://teaandsophistry.blogspot.com/2010/01/she-who-entangles-men.html

With a name like Cass Sunstein, I assumed him to be a her, but I guess that just means I am old.

He sounds like he’s a conspiracy theorist himself, and judging by his views, Sun is definitely not good for you, especially when attached to a lump of rock.

DP

“What can government do about conspiracy theories? Among the things it can do, what should it do? We can readily imagine a series of possible responses. (1) Government might ban conspiracy theorizing. (2) Government might impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories. (3) Government might itself engage in counterspeech, marshaling arguments to discredit conspiracy theories. (4) Government might formally hire credible private parties to engage in counterspeech. (5) Government might engage in informal communication with such parties, encouraging them to help. Each instrument has a distinctive set of potential effects, or costs and benefits, and each will have a place under imaginable conditions.
However, our main policy idea is that government should engage in cognitive infiltration of the groups that produce conspiracy theories, which involves a mix of (3), (4) and (5).”

He first sets out what government could do (1-5), and then states what he thinks government should do (3-5). He specifically excludes banning and taxing from the things government should do.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1084585

The above link takes you the Cass Sunstein story. There second link will take you to the original paper Sunstein wrote. I think you will find within his ‘thesis’ things which are much more disturbing than simply banning conspiracy theorizing. He is, indeed, a dodgy customer.