Domain: amlaw.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to amlaw.com.
Comments · 13
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Ah... ye ol false equivalency...
They just use different language. Instead of "rigged", use the words "voter suppression".
Except voter suppression IS are real thing - or there would be nothing for courts to overturn. Again and again and again...
http://www.democracynow.org/20...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
https://www.thenation.com/arti...
I mean... either those laws WERE voter repression... or it's a secret conspiracy buy judges in various US states against the Republican party's attempts to... hmm...
Wait... hold on... there must be a way to paint this as a conspiracy against old white conservatives instead of the people they are actively trying to keep from voting.But why even bother with that... when "UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT" puts it so much more succinctly:
After years of preclearance and expansion of voting access, by 2013 African American registration and turnout rates had finally reached near-parity with white registration and turnout rates. African Americans were poised to act as a major electoral force.
But, on the day after the Supreme Court issued Shelby County v. Holder, 133 S. Ct. 2612 (2013), eliminating preclearance obligations, a leader of the party that newly dominated the legislature (and the party that rarely enjoyed African American support) announced an intention to enact what he characterized as an âoeomnibusâ election law.
Before enacting that law, the legislature requested data on the use, by race, of a number of voting practices.
Upon receipt of the race data, the General Assembly enacted legislation that restricted voting and registration in five different ways, all of which disproportionately affected African Americans.
In response to claims that intentional racial discrimination animated its action, the State offered only meager justifications.
Although the new provisions target African Americans with almost surgical precision, they constitute inapt remedies for the problems assertedly justifying them and, in fact, impose cures for problems that did not exist.Oh... and by the way... while you're cherry picking through wikipedia... You do know that other people can read that and point out that your worm is showing?
I mean... I'm not even talking about you quoting THIS as a proof.
Earl Mazo, a reporter for the pro-Nixon New York Herald Tribune, investigated the voting in Chicago and "claimed to have discovered sufficient evidence of vote fraud to prove that the state was stolen for Kennedy."[43]
Which IS proof, but only for the paranoid conspiracy theory bias among Republicans.
I'm talking about you failing to read the full section. Like this part.
In Illinois, Schlesinger and others have pointed out that, even if Nixon had carried Illinois, the state alone would not have given him the victory, as Kennedy would still have won 276 electoral votes to Nixon's 246 (with 269 needed to win).
More to the point, Illinois was the site of the most extensive challenge process, which fell short despite repeated efforts spearheaded by Cook County state's attorney, Benjamin Adamowski, a Republican, who also lost his re-election bid.
Despite demonstrating net errors favoring both Nixon and Adamowski (some precinctsâ"40% in Nixon's caseâ"showed errors favoring them, a factor suggesting error, rather than fraud), the totals found fell short of reversing the results for either -
Re:Does the US even want him?
AC nobody expects a secret US grand jury investigation.
"EPIC Partially Prevails in FOIA Case, Wikileaks Investigation Ongoing"
https://epic.org/foia/doj/wiki...
US government still hunting WikiLeaks as Obama targets whistleblowers (6 March 2015)
https://www.theguardian.com/me...
more at http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj...
"The FBI's "still active and ongoing" probe of WikiLeaks" (March 06, 2015)
http://www.courthousenews.com/...
from https://epic.org/foia/doj/wiki...
i.e. "... the Department of Justice and FBI’s multi-subject investigation into the unauthorised disclosure of classified information published on WikiLeaks, which is “still active and ongoing” and remains in the investigative stage." -
Re:Reliable sources
Link to amlaw copy of the actual order - the order that documents the lies told by Obama's DOJ.
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Re:Reliable sources
As requested: This is the order
And this is an editorial by the Washington Post -
Re:It's not Tech v. Main Street
Here's a list of open cases trying to get Apple to hack iPhones, just waiting for the precedent.
http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj...
And this is just federal cases - I'm sure there's many more state & local cases.
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Re:Please explain
It's one of those cases where reading the actual court decision (PDF) is better than reading the summary, because the summary is too condensed for a normal human being to understand. The decision is actually fairly short and very straightforward, and an easy read.
Here's a non-lawyer-speak summary. The police had an arrest warrant for a guy (felon, on probation, stopped reporting). They scrubbed the public databases they had access to, and found his name on an utility account for a certain address. They went to that address and observed it, and eventually concluded, based on circumstantial evidence (his name on the utility bill; no record of him working anywhere; power meter spinning fast, indicating more than usual idle use), that the guy is inside at that point - but then also used the radar to make sure. The radar did show that there was, indeed, one person inside.
Now, they didn't have a search warrant, only an arrest warrant; but an arrest warrant allows uninvited and even forced entry into the building if there's "reason to believe" that the suspect for whom that warrant is issued is, indeed, inside. Police claimed to have sufficient "reason to believe" based on all of the above, entered and arrested the guy.
They also did a quick sweep of the house, which, again, the law permits in conjunction with arrest if there's reason to believe that there might be something immediately dangerous there (e.g. an accomplice, or, say, rigged explosives). Now the guy is a known gang member, and he has a housemate living in that same house with him who also had an outstanding warrant, and presumed to be violent. So police claimed that they needed to do that protective sweep to ensure that the other guy was not there. During that search, they found a gun stash, and consequently charged the guy with illegal possession (can't have or own guns as a felon).
The guy pleaded guilty, but challenged on Fourth Amendment grounds. The judge had to rule on two things in relation to that.
First, whether the use of the radar by the police, used (among other things) to establish "reason to believe", itself constituted an illegal search, and therefore its results could not legally grant police the right to enter. If so, then the results of the actual search (i.e. the gun stash) would be "fruits of the poisonous tree", and not admissible as evidence in court, so they wouldn't be able to charge him with illegal possession of firearms. The judge ruled that other observations that police has made, aside from the radar, were themselves sufficient to establish "reason to believe", and so whether the radar itself constituted a search or not is not relevant (and hence he doesn't have to rule on that).
Second, the defendant claimed that even if entering his house to arrest him was lawful, the search that accompanied the arrest was not. That is because the police claimed the need to ensure that his housemate (or some other associate) is not there as the reason for that search, but they already knew that he was alone based on the radar. This is where the ruling is most vague. The judge basically says that it may well be the case if the radar is reliable for the purposes of determining the number of people inside, but that there was no evidence submitted to indicate that was the case (e.g. whether it's able to see the entire house, or just so much beyond the walls etc). So he concludes that the search was legal, but "we don’t doubt that the use of such devices could well wind up undoing the justification for a good number of protective sweeps in the future".
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Re:You can copyright maps and manuals
Patent/IP Attorney chiming in.
You can copyright maps and manuals
Sure. You're very specific expression of both. You don't get to copyright the "facts" in either case. Everyone is free to copy the factual aspects of both maps and manuals. The distinction is an important one. And while not addressing maps and manuals directly in their petition, Google takes on the concept: you can write a book about art, but you don't get to stop other people from doing that art.
You can draw (and potentially get a copyright for) an outline of the world, but you can't stop other people from doing the same.
Google's argument about the API isn't all that much different: you can copyright an implementation of the API, but you don't get a copyright for the "facts" of the API: function names, arrangement, etc. The argument is that copyright, by statute, expressly does not extend to "extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work." (17 USC 102(b)). This is not a trivial argument. It's also pretty important because if Oracle/Federal Circuit are correct, then you can have de facto patent protection for a century without any of the procedural protections such as examination.
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Re:As usual, the rich win.
here's a link to the decision.
http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/ca/...The part relevant to the discussion here starts on PDF page 8, line 26.
It appears that the developer's attorneys presented an expert witness who provided an opinion regarding the similarity of the games. However, they did not actually demonstrate the games to the jury, which would have allowed the jury to make a subjective determination for itself. The judge ruled that because the jury never actually saw the games, they did not have enough information to rule that the games were similar.
Anyway, the attorneys better hope they win on appeal or figure out how to settle (perhaps for no fee) --- otherwise, the developer's next lawsuit is one for malpractice.
I am not a lawyer but... From a pure legal perspective, wouldn't the be the same thing as saying that expert psychologist testimony can't be used by a Jury to decide a case because they didn't have the opportunity to interview the defendant? On the face of it, it seems this opens a can of worms...
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Re:As usual, the rich win.
here's a link to the decision.
http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/ca/...The part relevant to the discussion here starts on PDF page 8, line 26.
It appears that the developer's attorneys presented an expert witness who provided an opinion regarding the similarity of the games. However, they did not actually demonstrate the games to the jury, which would have allowed the jury to make a subjective determination for itself. The judge ruled that because the jury never actually saw the games, they did not have enough information to rule that the games were similar.
Anyway, the attorneys better hope they win on appeal or figure out how to settle (perhaps for no fee) --- otherwise, the developer's next lawsuit is one for malpractice.
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Re:Weird sensation...
Aaaaaand the link to the text of the bill in the EFF article is dead. Here's a currently live one
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Re:And now...
The article has the facts wrong. The actual appellate decision on the merits was made one year ago, and not by the 10th circuit, but by the Federal Circuit court. The when the case returned to the District Court, the defendants moved for attorneys fees and costs. The current sanctions were made by the district court judge. If the plaintiffs and their attorneys appeal, it will go back to the CAFC, not the 10th circuit.
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Re:Details?The Denver Post story nor the Slashdot write-up give any detail about what the exact claims where in this case, so while it *MIGHT* be a patent troll case (and given the judge's remarks, that seems likely), it's kind of hard to really tell, from what we know.
But, this is Slashdot, guilty as charged...
The link to the ruling above shows that this isn't really a patent trolling case. It started out as normal patent litigation but grew more and more complex. The initial claims were rebutted but the plaintiff's lawyers convinced the jury by misleading arguments despite being admonished by the judge several times. "The Court has already concluded that Medtronic engaged in litigation misconduct during the trial. That same misconduct also supports the conclusion that Medtronic continued this suit vexatiously after the claims were construed." -
Re:Did I miss something?
Reading the article (gasp!) left me with the impression that the Judge was ticked off because of the attorney's behavior and method of prosecuting their case and not that the Judge thought the patents were bogus. It's as if the plaintiff is getting nailed because it hired a pair of SOB's to press its case.
I believe that is partially the point. They wasted the court's time by pursuing a case that was baseless and had no grounds by simply trying to litigate the other company out of existence. The prosecuting lawyers acting like arrogant fools trying to make a buck in the world of patent trolling. But just for fun here is another link to the story and the judge's ruling (PDF).