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What I asked originally is if you were considering the General Welfare Clause as an enumerated power as a small minority of constitutional scholars does. Most consider the General Welfare clause explanatory and the Taxing and Spending Clause as intended to fund the actual enumerated powers which immediately follow. That's why I asked where the Constitution authorizes the action since buying up toxic assets to improve liquidity isn't one of the enumerated powers.

Ah, I see what you are referring to. Unfortunately, you're wrong. United States v. Butler 297 U.S. 1 (1936) is one of the last cases in modern jurisprudence to recognize the Tenth Amendment as a limitation on the enumerated powers, specifically the Taxation and Spending Clause. The Court found that regulation of agricultural production was not an enumerated power and thus was not allowed. While it's not generally considered good law on the Tenth Amendment anymore, since regulation of agriculture falls under the Commerce Clause since Wickard v. Filburn (1941), it was the first case to broadly recognize the General Welfare Clause as granting the Taxing and Spending Clause the authority to spend on matters outside of those enumerated below the clause:

"While, therefore, the power to tax is not unlimited, its confines are set in the clause which confers it, and not in those of section 8 which bestow and define the legislative powers of the Congress. It results that the power of Congress to authorize expenditure of public moneys for public purposes is not limited by the direct grants of legislative power found in the Constitution." (Id. at 66, endorsing the Hamiltonian interpretation of the phrase.)

"When such a contention comes here we naturally require a showing that by no reasonable possibility can the challenged legislation fall within the wide range of discretion permitted to the Congress. How great is the extent of that range, when the subject is the promotion of the general welfare of the United States, we need hardly remark." (Id. at 67.)

In spite of such expansive recognition of General Welfare powers, the court struck down the act on the grounds that regulation of agriculture is something limited to the states, saying, "Hamilton himself . . . never suggested that any power granted by the Constitution could be used for the destruction of local self-government in the states." (Id. at 78.)

Keep in mind that this was the court that struck down several early New Deal efforts. While the Court over the next few years moved to more expansive interpretation of the Commerce Clause, more narrow interpretation of the Tenth Amendment, and a rejection of Lochner's economic substantive due process concepts, it never backed down from this interpretation of the Spending Clause and reiterated it several times. One notorious example would come the next year in Helvering v. Davis , 301 U.S. 619 (1937). There, the Court approved payroll taxes and Social Security as a constitutional expansion of taxing & spending power and backed up the point that the Courts were meant to defer to Congress "unless the choice is clearly wrong, a display of arbitrary power, not an exercise of judgment." (Id. at 640.)

This is the modern standard. Legal scholars who believe that the Taxing and Spending Clause is limited to the enumerated powers below are either poor scholars of Supreme Court case law or just ideologues in denial. Even the "do it or we'll withhold federal funds" tack that Congress takes sometimes with the states was upheld under this same interpretation 50 years later in South Dakota v. Dole , 483 U.S. 203 (1987). This case

This has little to do with trade secrets, which are often published, and which are protected by patents.

You are completely and totally wrong on this.

FACTS

1. Trade secrets are never published. In fact the holder of a trade secret fails to protect it well enough and it is discovered, then it becomes public domain information.

2. Trade secrets and patents are mutually exclusive concepts. You either (a) choose to make something a trade secret and keep it secret, or (b) choose to publish information and patent the thing.

The reason patents were introduced is to create an incentive for companies to knowledge of an invention with the world around, and in exchange for that, the government gives the inventor exclusive rights to make money from that invention for a reasonable and limited time.

References

Patent or trade secret?
  Patent, Trademark, and Trade Secret

Please don't mark this as troll or flamebait. It is a serious post about a serious topic.

I'm guessing you've never done any research on the subject.

You've probably never read Dr. Len Horowitz's book Emerging Viruses: AIDS And Ebola : Nature, Accident or Intentional?

You've probably never read NSSM 200 signed by Henry Kissinger where it states that the third world population is a national security threat to the US.

You may not have seen documents from the Congressional Record where people discuss creating "a synthetic biological agent, an agent that does not naturally exist and for which no natural immunity could have been acquired."

2. Within the next 5 to 10 years, it would probably be possible to make a new infective microorganism which could differ in certain important aspects from any known disease-causing organisms. Most important of these is that it might be refractory to the immunological and therapeutic processes upon when we depend to maintain our relative freedom from infectious disease.

Or maybe you haven't read about the 1000's of times our government has tested biologicals, chemicals, radiologicals on its own citizens.

You also might want to read the law that allows the government to experiment on its own citizens just about anytime it wants.

(b) Exceptions
            Subject to subsections (c), (d), and (e) of this section, the
        prohibition in subsection (a) of this section does not apply to a
        test or experiment carried out for any of the following purposes:
                (1) Any peaceful purpose that is related to a medical,
            therapeutic, pharmaceutical, agricultural, industrial, or
            research activity.
                (2) Any purpose that is directly related to protection against
            toxic chemicals or biological weapons and agents.
                (3) Any law enforcement purpose, including any purpose related
            to riot control.

In 2000 The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) wrote a paper called Rebuilding America's Defenses. It talked about using race specific bioweapons as a useful tool.

advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target' specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.

PNAC is filled with top Bush administration officials, including Dick Cheney.
If you don't like any of my sources you are free to use google or any other source to verify that what I've said is true.

There's no assumption needed. In the USA they are. The case that set this precedent was ProCD v Zeidenberg.

The 7th Circuit Court of the USA disagrees with you. EULA are legal, binding, contracts. The case that set this precedent was ProCD v Zeidenberg.

Okay, congratulations, you've proved you have free Westlaw access, which means you're a student (but shame on your for not having Blue Book-correct cites; I hope you're not on Law Review), and so you deserve a little more respect that J. Random Slashdotter who thinks he knows the law.

Damnation. You're a practicing attorney, aren't you? Alright, I've got to be a little more humble and back up my arguments a little more forcefully. (And I'm not following formal style because this is just an informal internet geek fight. I'll add some links for people who don't have access to services like Westlaw.)

It says "the rest doesn't belong to the Federal government." Sure, you've shown that you favor a more expansive Commerce Clause than I do, but that's orthogonal to my point, which is that the 10th Amendment does, in fact, say something about it ("strong" teeth is your phrase, not mine). You're talking about matters of degree, which are up for reasonable debate. [...] In any case, all constitutional theorists agree that the states have some powers reserved to them (if you can dig up a single remotely credible scholar who says otherwise, I'd like to see it; even Ginsburg will occasionally defer to the autonomy of the states).

I'd agree on the last point. New York v. United States 488 U.S. 1041 (1992) makes clear that Congress can't compel state action through promises of penalties. (See Part B(1) of the majority opinion). The rest of the opinion provides good support for the notion that even if you can't use the stick, you can use the carrot.

For Commerce Clause purposes, Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority , 469 U.S. 528 (1985) threw the Tenth Amendment out the window. The court rejected the standard introduced National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.S. 833 (1976) which required courts to examine whether a law passed by Congress interfered with "areas of traditional governmental functions."

"Our examination of this 'function' standard applied in these and other cases over the last eight years now persuades us that the attempt to draw the boundaries of state regulatory immunity in terms of "traditional governmental function" is not only unworkable but is also inconsistent with established principles of federalism and, indeed, with those very federalism principles on which National League of Cities purported to rest. That case, accordingly, is overruled."
Garcia at 531.

The problem following Garcia is that they never replaced the Usery standard with anything new! Blackmum explicitly refused to do so: "These cases do not require us to identify or define what affirmative limits the constitutional structure might impose on federal action affecting the States under the Commerce Clause" (Garcia at 556). No case following it has ruled that an exercise of Commerce Clause power violated the Tenth Amendment. Looking back to what preceded Usery, all we have is post-Lochner caselaw that treats the 10th Amendment as a mere truism.

For example, take the following frequently cited quote from United States v. Darby Lumber Co. , 312 U.S. 100 (1941) (which overturned prior precedent that gave effect to the 10th Amendment):

"The amendment states but a truism that all is retained which has not been surrendered. There is nothing in the history of its adoption to suggest that it was more than declaratory of the relationship between the national and state governments as it had been established by the Constitution before the amendment or that its purpose was other than to allay

Okay, congratulations, you've proved you have free Westlaw access, which means you're a student (but shame on your for not having Blue Book-correct cites; I hope you're not on Law Review), and so you deserve a little more respect that J. Random Slashdotter who thinks he knows the law.

Damnation. You're a practicing attorney, aren't you? Alright, I've got to be a little more humble and back up my arguments a little more forcefully. (And I'm not following formal style because this is just an informal internet geek fight. I'll add some links for people who don't have access to services like Westlaw.)

It says "the rest doesn't belong to the Federal government." Sure, you've shown that you favor a more expansive Commerce Clause than I do, but that's orthogonal to my point, which is that the 10th Amendment does, in fact, say something about it ("strong" teeth is your phrase, not mine). You're talking about matters of degree, which are up for reasonable debate. [...] In any case, all constitutional theorists agree that the states have some powers reserved to them (if you can dig up a single remotely credible scholar who says otherwise, I'd like to see it; even Ginsburg will occasionally defer to the autonomy of the states).

I'd agree on the last point. New York v. United States 488 U.S. 1041 (1992) makes clear that Congress can't compel state action through promises of penalties. (See Part B(1) of the majority opinion). The rest of the opinion provides good support for the notion that even if you can't use the stick, you can use the carrot.

For Commerce Clause purposes, Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority , 469 U.S. 528 (1985) threw the Tenth Amendment out the window. The court rejected the standard introduced National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.S. 833 (1976) which required courts to examine whether a law passed by Congress interfered with "areas of traditional governmental functions."

"Our examination of this 'function' standard applied in these and other cases over the last eight years now persuades us that the attempt to draw the boundaries of state regulatory immunity in terms of "traditional governmental function" is not only unworkable but is also inconsistent with established principles of federalism and, indeed, with those very federalism principles on which National League of Cities purported to rest. That case, accordingly, is overruled."
Garcia at 531.

The problem following Garcia is that they never replaced the Usery standard with anything new! Blackmum explicitly refused to do so: "These cases do not require us to identify or define what affirmative limits the constitutional structure might impose on federal action affecting the States under the Commerce Clause" (Garcia at 556). No case following it has ruled that an exercise of Commerce Clause power violated the Tenth Amendment. Looking back to what preceded Usery, all we have is post-Lochner caselaw that treats the 10th Amendment as a mere truism.

For example, take the following frequently cited quote from United States v. Darby Lumber Co. , 312 U.S. 100 (1941) (which overturned prior precedent that gave effect to the 10th Amendment):

"The amendment states but a truism that all is retained which has not been surrendered. There is nothing in the history of its adoption to suggest that it was more than declaratory of the relationship between the national and state governments as it had been established by the Constitution before the amendment or that its purpose was other than to allay

Okay, congratulations, you've proved you have free Westlaw access, which means you're a student (but shame on your for not having Blue Book-correct cites; I hope you're not on Law Review), and so you deserve a little more respect that J. Random Slashdotter who thinks he knows the law.

Damnation. You're a practicing attorney, aren't you? Alright, I've got to be a little more humble and back up my arguments a little more forcefully. (And I'm not following formal style because this is just an informal internet geek fight. I'll add some links for people who don't have access to services like Westlaw.)

It says "the rest doesn't belong to the Federal government." Sure, you've shown that you favor a more expansive Commerce Clause than I do, but that's orthogonal to my point, which is that the 10th Amendment does, in fact, say something about it ("strong" teeth is your phrase, not mine). You're talking about matters of degree, which are up for reasonable debate. [...] In any case, all constitutional theorists agree that the states have some powers reserved to them (if you can dig up a single remotely credible scholar who says otherwise, I'd like to see it; even Ginsburg will occasionally defer to the autonomy of the states).

I'd agree on the last point. New York v. United States 488 U.S. 1041 (1992) makes clear that Congress can't compel state action through promises of penalties. (See Part B(1) of the majority opinion). The rest of the opinion provides good support for the notion that even if you can't use the stick, you can use the carrot.

For Commerce Clause purposes, Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority , 469 U.S. 528 (1985) threw the Tenth Amendment out the window. The court rejected the standard introduced National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.S. 833 (1976) which required courts to examine whether a law passed by Congress interfered with "areas of traditional governmental functions."

"Our examination of this 'function' standard applied in these and other cases over the last eight years now persuades us that the attempt to draw the boundaries of state regulatory immunity in terms of "traditional governmental function" is not only unworkable but is also inconsistent with established principles of federalism and, indeed, with those very federalism principles on which National League of Cities purported to rest. That case, accordingly, is overruled."
Garcia at 531.

The problem following Garcia is that they never replaced the Usery standard with anything new! Blackmum explicitly refused to do so: "These cases do not require us to identify or define what affirmative limits the constitutional structure might impose on federal action affecting the States under the Commerce Clause" (Garcia at 556). No case following it has ruled that an exercise of Commerce Clause power violated the Tenth Amendment. Looking back to what preceded Usery, all we have is post-Lochner caselaw that treats the 10th Amendment as a mere truism.

For example, take the following frequently cited quote from United States v. Darby Lumber Co. , 312 U.S. 100 (1941) (which overturned prior precedent that gave effect to the 10th Amendment):

"The amendment states but a truism that all is retained which has not been surrendered. There is nothing in the history of its adoption to suggest that it was more than declaratory of the relationship between the national and state governments as it had been established by the Constitution before the amendment or that its purpose was other than to allay

the courts have also held that speech may not be forcefully restrained without due process; it matters little who is doing the restraining. The fact that restraint of speech principles apply to individuals, and not just government, is evident from a vast multitude of court cases. If you doubt this, you need only look up cases involving blacks in the South and the KKK, for example.

It's just that I sometimes get tired of people spouting off about what the law says when there's no basis in fact for their assertions.

If you're really interested in decisions about free speech, I'd suggest reading about them. Some good starting sources are the Electronic Frontier Foundation, http://www.eff.org/; and Find Law, http://www.findlaw.com/ as well as many papers and books availablle online, such as http://www.krusch.com/real/copyright.html and http://www.mttlr.org/volthree/foster_art.htm

Odd that I can't get a single one of those to come up, but every other page on the internet works *just* fine.

http://wikileaks.org.nyud.net:8080/leak/sarah-palin-hack-2008/03.jpg

http://library.findlaw.com/1999/Feb/22/131004.html
Relevant discussion about this in legal terms. Actually quite readable. Note - the laws have been greatly strengthened by recent laws as well. Note how Alaska has stricter laws about this as well than most other states.

Sigh....

I'm sad none of you seem to have heard about the supreme court's decision on the matter. It established your privilege to make and keep duplicates of your media.

SONY CORP. v. UNIVERSAL CITY STUDIOS, INC., 464 U.S. 417 (1984)

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=464&invol=417

(b) Kalem Co. v. Harper Brothers, 222 U.S. 55 , does not support respondents' novel theory that supplying the "means" to accomplish an infringing activity and encouraging that activity through advertisement are sufficient to establish liability for copyright infringement

Now, was that so hard?? More to the point, when the server shows up, your reply to the complaint is right there. No merit to the case at all.

Just because something can be done doesn't mean it actually happens. If I go to holidays and leave the door of my house open, it does not mean that something actually happens.

What's your address, and when are you going on holiday next? I lock my door so any thief who decides my house is the one he wants to rob, at least has some obstacle. If I forgot to lock my door on my last holiday and nothing was stolen, it doesn't mean I would assume I would be so lucky every time, and intentionally leave the door open thereafter.

There is no indication here at all that anyone externally found out about the problem before. It is basically that you found out that what you did over the last two years was vulnerable to potential attacks. How will it affect the future? Not at all, as the issue gets fixed.

So, fixing the vulnerability is the right thing to do, as soon as you know it's vulnerable. Why wait until after it's been exploited, once you know you have a vulnerability that is greater than it could be? Minimize every identifiable risk, up to but not past the point that the cost equals the benefit. What's so difficult, or costly, about ditching a few keys and replacing with better ones?

Ah, and right now no one unauthorised actually has the key yet. It is only technically possible to crack it much easier...

To assume that a bad thing that has not happened yet therefore cannot happen in the future is very, very stupid -- whenever anything of value is involved. And of course we are discussing something of value, or else I wouldn't be bothering to argue about it. Would you?

Nice try. The problem with Techies is that they don't get the larger picture. They focus on the blinking red herrings they are so used to and where they believe in.
...
The whole signing shit is a troll for the privacy church. What they forget are the proportions and what is really important.

I agree with some of what you've said above. For example your statement to the effect that RedHat generally is a positive contributor to the Open Source community is agreeable.

RedHat as a company applies the usual tactics but as a community member gives a lot. Sure corporations are vulnerable to money. Novell is a good example...

But I don't see good reasons for your other, general statements about signing, privacy, proportions, what is important, and whether patching known vulnerabilities before a known exploit occurs is a good idea. That seems to be what you're calling a "red herring" and that to me is absurd. Patching known vulnerabilities is clever like a fox.

These cases are about copyright law, not logic. You cannot get the answer to legal questions by engaging in logic. But if you are going to do so, you should at least get your assumptions right before you start trying to develop formulas.

There are 6 "rights" included in a "copyright". They are enumerated in 17 USC 106. You will not find any mention there of 'sharing', and the 'distributing' mentioned there is narrowly defined.

There is no prohibition against 'sharing' copyrighted material, and there are hundreds of ways of 'sharing' copyrighted materials which do not infringe a copyright owner's rights.

So if you want to play this game, my advice is to develop some premises that are real, rather than fallacious, to start out with.

This is incorrect for the USA 7th Circuit. Shrink wrap and click through licenses are legal and binding. Please see ProCD v Zeidenberg.

Not if they came to him first

No, that is a trap that is often used by someone trying to get your domain name. They send you a letter offering some ridiculously small amount (like $5), and if you respond back with, "no, but I'll sell it to you for $5000", then you are then accused of cybersquatting for profit and your offer could be considered evidence against you of a desire to profit. See the Mike Rowe case (mikerowesoft.com); that's exactly what Microsoft did to him.

See also http://laws.lp.findlaw.com/getcase/4th/case/001918P&exact=1.

Under 15 U.S.C. 1125(d)(1)(B)(i), a court may consider several factors to determine whether a defendant acted in bad faith, including ... ...(VI) the person's offer to transfer, sell, or otherwise assign the domain name to the mark owner or any third party for financial gain without having used, or having an intent to use, the domain name in the bona fide offering of any goods or services, or the person's prior conduct indicating a pattern of such conduct;

The original poster doesn't seem to meet this, but you might be advised to first:
  - have them make you an offer
  - ask them to write a letter asserting that they believe that you are not cybersquatting and asking you to enter negotiations with them to determine reasonable terms.

start here [findlaw.com].

Did you even read that law?

In particular, this section states that a corporation for that law is a for-profit. The NRA is listed as a non-profit.

Keep trying. I'll keep waiting, though I certainly won't be holding my breath.

Do you even remember what we had started out discussing?

You can add certain liberal propaganda films such as Moore's to the list of a liberal-biased media.

Still trying to harp on the law when it is one very small part of the overall discussion. You read the Rocky Mountain News reporting on it, they were required.

But since you can't seem to do what took me 10 seconds with Google, start here. If you'd like to show yourself further inept at researching anything on the Internet, maybe you can also ask for the NRA bylaws that this refers to.

Of course Moore was still deceptive even if that law didn't exist, purely on the facts that the meeting had been scheduled far in advance, and that the NRA did make massive concessions out of sympathy.

And I notice you refuse to actually address the proven lies and deceit in Moore's films that I listed. Can I take that as your admission that Moore lied and deceived several times?

Will you admit that you lied about me not seeing the film and you having seen it since I am the one accurately portraying scenes, and you are the one who is not? I bet you don't even remember, or never saw, the KKK/NRA bit of Bowling where the KKK guy and the NRA guy walked hand-in-hand to a cross and the NRA guy poured gas on it so it could be set on fire. Yeah, the movie said nothing about the two organizations working together. What a crock!

Specifically, may a code-writing organization prevent a website operator from posting the text of a model code where the code is identified simply as the building code of a city that enacted the model code as law? Our short answer is that as law, the model codes enter the public domain and are not subject to the copyright holder's exclusive prerogatives.

But speaking of constitutionalist, how about this? "Montana Secretary of State Brad Johnson's Comment in the Washington Times"

In the District of Columbia, et al. v. Dick Anthony Heller case the Supreme Court made the right ruling. The Founding Fathers of the USA above all feared government and knew the only way citizens could keep a reign on government was if they were armed. Beware the armed citizen sort of thing. On this Thomas Jefferson wrote "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

Falcon

Not too long ago, it was not possible to sue the government or for a dead person (i.e., his/her estate) to sue others.

California could make a novel argument such as "the People need to have a copyright on their laws so no one else (e.g., China) can have such a copyright." Stranger things have happened with this Supreme Court, such as the second amendment (see: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment02/).

True, CA is in the 9th Circuit, and the CA courts don't have to follow an opinion of the 5th Circuit as the controlling case. However, the 5th Circuit specifically cited the Supreme Court in their opinion:

In 1834, the Supreme Court interpreted the first federal copyright laws and unanimously held that "no reporter has or can have any copyright in the written opinions delivered by this Court. . ." Wheaton v. Peters, 33 U.S. (8 Pet.) 591, 668 (1834). . . Based on the acknowledged and incontestable analogy with legislative acts, Wheaton held unanimously that "the law" in the form of judicial opinions may not be copyrighted.

Any lawyer for this guy would cite Veeck not only for the conclusions but also cite the references.

I find it unbelievable that someone has gone to the trouble to mask the IP addresses in this document by simply drawing a black box over them. You can still highlight the text and copy/paste it elsewhere.

http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/cyberlaw/usmck1102vaind.pdf

These use taxes have never been challenged in court and if states push much harder, I'm betting they will be.

Sure they have. The whole "physical presence" thing comes out of caes like Bellas Hess and Quill Corp. v. North Dakota

I know whining about taxes is as American as apple pie, but the issue here is not whether states can impose taxes, but whether they can make merchants collect them.

That's becuase everyone I talk to thinks "I don't do anything illegal, why should I care."

Which, as anyone here will tell you, is a terrible argument.

For a good argument, to stop stuff like this, direct those people who say "I have nothing to hide" to Why, Even If You Have Nothing To Hide, Government Surveillance Threatens Your Freedom.

Falcon

Why, Even If You Have Nothing To Hide, Government Surveillance Threatens Your Freedom.

Falcon

Good thing you are not a judge. The Supreme Court of the United States disagrees with your interpretation also. They decided that the 2nd ammendment does grant the individual (not just the militia) the right to keep and bear arms. But don't take my word for it, I could be a big liar. Instead, read it yourself here.

""Right of the People." The first salient feature of the operative clause is that it codifies a "right of the people." The unamended Constitution and the Bill of Rights use the phrase "right of the people" two other times, in the First Amendment's Assembly-and-Petition Clause and in the Fourth Amendment's Search-and-Seizure Clause. The Ninth Amendment uses very similar terminology ("The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people"). All three of these instances unambiguously refer to individual rights, not "collective" rights, or rights that may be exercised only through participation in some corporate body.
This contrasts markedly with the phrase "the militia" in the prefatory clause. As we will describe below, the "militia" in colonial America consisted of a subset of "the people"--those who were male, able bodied, and within a certain age range. Reading the Second Amendment as protecting only the right to "keep and bear Arms" in an organized militia therefore fits poorly with the operative clause's description of the holder of that right as "the people."

We start therefore with a strong presumption that the Second Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to all Americans.""

In a decision announced in May of this year, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a man who offered to trade obscene pictures of his toddler for similar pictures with a federal agent posing as a pedophile. United States v. Williams, S.Ct. case #06-694, http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=06-694.

*IMHO, our legislators seem to be more concerned with making up a memborable title (USA PATRIOT ACT, PROTECT, etc.) than dealing with the actual content of the laws.

That is 100% wrong. First of all, the Slashdot asker might live in Europe, in which case he has even more rights to stand on. It is not uncommon here for employers stealing their employees inventions, making billions and then getting sued by the inventor for millions. If the invention is invented at work and if the invention is relevant for the work, an invention that improves the manufacturing process would be a prime example, then the company has a right to take ownership of the invention but must pay the inventor reasonable compensation. That is, a few percent of what the invention brings in.

If the invention is not relevant for work, a developer inventing a new blend of coffee for example, then that invention is the sole property of the inventor. The company has no right to it whatsoever even if the invention was made on company time using company resources.

IANAL, but I can Google.

I'm not aware of anyone actually having accussed the RIAA of extortion (or the related offenses)

Just to be pendantic in case you're not being legalistic, you really must not be paying attention if this is the first time you've heard RICO laws come up in this conversation.

RIAA+RICO

Also, here's my hand selected choice from that search. ;-)

Happy Slashdotting!
-Matt

Fair enough, but read United States v. Knotts. It uses the exact same quotation in the exact same way, and is also the on-point Supreme Court case legalizing the warrantless use of tracking devices.

No my brief dealt with the use of cell phone triangulation techniques to track individuals, and it was for the defendant in that case. That issue took 40 pages to discuss, so I am not going to regurgitate it here.

Also, please refrain from ad hominem attacks or implications. It detracts from your argument.

Suffice it to say, read United States v. Knotts. The law is very clear on tracking devices.

It's not my assertion, read United States v. Knotts. The Supreme Court specifically distinguishes traveling in public from wiretapping a public phone. Plus, there's a lot of federal wiretapping law unrelated to the Fourth Amendment, so wiretapping phones is more complicated, with more issues.

As for the evolution of technology and reasonable expecations of privacy, read Kyllo v. United States.

*Note: On Slashdot you often see the statement that patents are a state sanctioned monopoly.

It's not just /.ers who call patents monopolies, economists and politicians do too. Monopolies: "Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service". Patents give the owner exclusive control of the invention. "Economists, beginning with Adam Smith - a friend and teacher of James Watt - have carefully documented the problems of monopoly." This is about a patent. "The Patent Controversy in the XIXth Century" [doc]: "Whether justice required that society reward an inventor for his services; if so, was a patent (i.e. a temporary monopoly) the fairest means of reward?" From Findlaw: "What Do You Have When You Have a Patent and Is There Any Risk?"
"If granted, a patent gives you a 20-year monopoly on selling, using, making or importing the invention into the United States. Your patent gives you the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the invention in the United States."

Falcon

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment08/09.html#1 The Eighth Amendment deals only with criminal punishment, and has no application to civil processes.

but the 8th amendment still only applies to criminal cases. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment08/ [findlaw.com]

You make a statement, then as "proof" of your statement you provide a link to some ostensibly authoritative site, and consider your point proven.

You've admitted that your Google search was only "precursory" and then claim that the 8th amendment simply does not apply to civil cases, when I have already given you the actual case citation of a case in which its applicability in civil cases is explicitly stated.

I have no "agenda" and I have not given you "evidence", I have given you evidence (no quotes necessary). I have given case citation and you have given nothing but your opinion.

Following links to the case you provided...

That case was provided for support to my claim that the 8th amendment does apply to civil cases (following my own "precursory" Google search, so obviously your search was woefully lacking.). But my argument against the Constitutionality of these punitive damages does not rely solely on the 8th amendment argument, as there is plenty of case law on the application of punitive damages (read the post by Trepidity).

Now, the question you SHOULD be asking is if the case law is so well established on this issues, how did the RIAA get away with it? And, as I have stated previously, they got a sweatheart deal by buying off politicians. This has nothing to do with "agenda", it has to do with knowing what the limits of government are and holding our government to those limits.

As a defense attorney myself, I continually have to force government to support every assertion it makes and it drives me nuts when people like you blithely roll over to presumed authority. That kind of attitude is worse than useless, it is dangerous.

Look, you have a very overt bias against the RIAA (nothing wrong with that, btw), so your points are pretty much moot. IF (big if) 10x punitive damages are deemed so unconstitutional, then tell me, why hasn't this been ruled as such yet? That's the problem with you guys with agendas...you want to post stuff all day in your idealistic vision, when there's a completely different reality going on around you. And that's nice that you are able to twist words around and such, but the 8th amendment still only applies to criminal cases. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment08/

A precursory search of the Internet does not return a single civil case in which the 8th amendent was invoked. Following links to the case you provided (Austin vs. US) shows that you are just talking in circles, as there isn't a single mention of any sort of punitive or monetary judgment involved. It doesn't matter that the RIAA has lobbyists...it isn't illegal, or unconstitutional to have lobbyists. Seriously, I'm so tired of slashdotters blindly applying their own opinions and backing them up with "evidence" as they see fit. This is not unconstitutional until a court deems it as such. Given most normal people in the world would see nothing cruel about $199 fine (or even $749 fine) for a criminal offense, you are preaching to the slashdot choir (which is a very small choir in the big picture of life).

The CA law on the matter is pretty simple: 16600. The ruling is just laying out a more detailed official interpretation of the statute, clarifying exactly what is covered under the umbrella of "restraint."

Okay, I've heard of an income tax that's the same percentage for all income levels instead of being progressive as being called a "fair tax".

Second, I was aware of the history of the name changes and the case, I was making a joke when I said "whatever it's called this week."

I wasn't aware of any name change but while checking the name I did come across the case, or a related one, as being called after Gonzalez.

Third, it's not me that argues the commerce clauses gives them that ability, it was the majority of SCOTUS that did

You also said it was idiot to disagree with the ruling, yet 3 of the Justices did disagree.

I happen to agree that the commerce clause *ought* to be interpreted broadly.

Reading papers left by some of the Founding Fathers, specifically Thomas Jefferson and James Madison come to mind, the Constitution is to be taken quite narrowly in meaning, both were for limited government but a broad interpretation gives government any power it wants. And Madison was a principle writer of the Constitution. I happen to agree with them, as I say above it not interpreting it narrowly gives the government any power it wants. So, what powers the Constitution does not explicitly give the federal government it does not have to power to do. That's why a way to amend the Constitution was written into it.

Falcon

Your implication that Obama is ignorant of constitutional law is without merit.

The merit is based on there being no constitutional authority yet he's pushing for a national health care system. Some may argue, as you do, the interstate commerce clause may give the authority to the federal government. What those people don't say is that the constitution puts a limit on the power of government, it enumerates what powers the government has, and bars it from doing anything else. One it does not give the power for is national health care. The 10th Amendment specifically states that what powers are not granted are reserved for the states and individuals. If the federal government wants that power it also says how it can gain that power, by amending the Constitution. Unfortunately while amendments were originally used to guaranty right, the First 10 Amendments being the Bill of Rights, now they are used to expand the power of government.

As for Gonzales v. Raich (or whatever it's called this week) I was frankly hoping the controlled substances act would be overturned, but I think the decision, legally, was the correct one.

Originally it was Raich v. Ashcroft, Ashcroft being the Attorney General then. The vote itself was a 6 to 3 vote, the descending justices were Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, William Rehnquist and Clarence Thomas, O-Conner and Rehnquist being nominated by Reagan and Thomas was nominated by Bush Sr. The descending opinions weren't very flattering of the majority decision.

>Oh and you're the idiot for saying they are.

My bad statement, I realized that after posting. I should of used better wording, such as saying I thought that because I thought calling being disagreed with idiots was being idiot itself.

I don't think the income tax system is good and personally would prefer the fairtax system

I heard a number of "fair tax" systems, but I don't consider a tax on people's income to be fair at all. People shouldn't be made to pay tax on what they earn. The closest I come to agreeing with national taxes is on fuel, to pay for highways only, and a sales tax on nonessential items. However if the federal government had stayed within the limits put on it by the Constitution there wouldn't need to be a sales tax.

but if you think it isn't constitutional, then yes, to me that's the thinking of an idiot. There's very clear rulings on this.

So O'Conner, Rehnquist, and Thomas are idiots?

Falcon

Did you RTFA? The guy asked for a programming training and it was denied. He studied for himself, wrote the software by himself, and bring it to the office, to get his job done. Thus, USAF didn't paid him to write this software. It is *his* software, and he has the right to sell/rent/loan it to anyone he wants, including his employer.

The same applies for every job in the world: you can do whatever you want in your spare time, unless it competes with what the company you work for produces.

Of course I RTFA'd. How do you think I got the information that I posted. It certainly wasn't in the summary. The summary never mentions that the software was written by a service member.

Many "civilian jobs" are the same way, BTW. I used to work with an engineer who created a way double the scan heads in a flatbed scanner, allowing it to do auto-scratch-and-dust-correction in a single pass (ICE and ROC). He did the work at home. The company got the patent. That's how it works. When you as an employee invent something work related, the company owns it. (Actually, the company's owner got the patent in his name!)

HERE is an article on it (bad grammar and all):

Under the shop right doctrine, the employee may not dictate how the invention is used. For instance, if it was made on a particular piece of machinery, the license does not limit the employer to use of only that machine. Rather, the employer is entitled to use the idea behind the invention for alt reasonable purposes.

HERE is another article. Both articles explain both sides.

As for the SGT writing on HIS time, it doesn't matter. The USAF is not "every job in the world". This man was a member of the US Armed Forces. Anything he does at any time is property of the US Government. I know it sux, but that what you sign up for.

A couple of examples. When in Basic Training, we were given two weeks time off for Christmas. It's called Christmas Exodus. One guy in my unit got a DWI while at home. He was given an Article 15. Another guy got in a fight and had his face a bit dinged up. He was also given an Article 15. After Basic and when I was with my regular unit, my SGT got a DWI off post one weekend. He was demoted. What do all these things have in common? They were all done with the soldier was off post, on HIS time.

Moral of the stories. When you sign on the dotted line, Uncle Sam owns you for the allotted time!

Soldiers have US Army on their uniforms:
US ARMY = Uncle Sam Ain't Released Me Yet

When you read it yourself, it appears backwards:
YMRA SU= Yes My Retarded Ass Signed Up!

The 4th just means the government can't FORCE you to cooperate.

Actually, it means much more...

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment04/03.html#1

That's not true. The constitution applies to the federal government in respect to citizens no matter where it is acting.

See Downes v. Bidwell.

"When the United States acts against its citizens abroad, it can do so only in accordance with all the limitations imposed by the Constitution, including Art. III, 2, and the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. Pp. 5-14. [354 U.S. 1, 2] "

"The court's analysis did not stop there, however. The Court further stated that mathematical algorithms were not a type of subject matter expressly prohibited by  101; rather, unpatentable types of mathematical algorithms represent laws of nature, natural phenomena and abstract ideas. The proper test for determining whether a claim is unpatentable, the court said, is "whether the claimed subject matter as a whole is a disembodied mathematical concept. . . which in essence represents nothing more than a 'law of nature,' 'natural phenomenon,' or 'abstract idea.'" The court said that a claim directed to a combination of interrelated elements' recites a specific machine, not a disembodied concept."

In other words, you can patent an physically embodied concept, but not the concept itself. To cite an old example; you can patent the abacus, but you cant patent the concepts and math that it is based on.

"The court's analysis did not stop there, however. The Court further stated that mathematical algorithms were not a type of subject matter expressly prohibited by  101; rather, unpatentable types of mathematical algorithms represent laws of nature, natural phenomena and abstract ideas. The proper test for determining whether a claim is unpatentable, the court said, is "whether the claimed subject matter as a whole is a disembodied mathematical concept. . . which in essence represents nothing more than a 'law of nature,' 'natural phenomenon,' or 'abstract idea.'" The court said that a claim directed to a combination of interrelated elements' recites a specific machine, not a disembodied concept."

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

However, I do agree with you that the Raich (545 U.S. 1) decision, which held that growing pot in your backyard is interstate commerce, is a bit ridiculous from a logical perspective.

Cite this ... you know, just give me a Bush quote that supports this in any way ...

Here.

See above.

Here.

Also, just what has he ever got done without congress.

He suspended habeas corpus despite the Constitution explicitly mandating that only Congress could do that.

So. How would have Kerry ( or Obama ) handled Iraq, and how exactly would that have been better for the US's future?

They wouldn't have invaded Iraq. We would have a trillion dollars more in our pocket than we do now, we wouldn't have seriously damaged international relations and lost as much clout as we have, and about a half million Iraqis would probably still be alive.

Should we ignore the problem represented by the *entire* mideast, till someone pops a nuke in an American city?

Here's where your lack of knowledge of the situation really kicks in. The "mideast" isn't a monolithic entity out for blood, it's a highly fragmented mix of different nations, ethnicities, and ideologies. We don't have the resources to invade every country, so we have to actually deal with the mideast problems individually. Afghanistan needed to be invaded. Nobody, including Obama, has criticized Bush on the subject of invasion of Afghanistan. Iraq was an idiotic mistake. Now if Iran gets close to developing nuclear weapons, invasion might be necessary; however, since we've spent so much militarily and diplomatically on Iraq, we might not be able to deal with Iran.

The weapons inspector program worked. Saddam didn't have WMD and he wasn't building them. All invading did was show the rest of the world that not having nuclear weapons makes you vulnerable. North Korea simply announced that they had nuclear weapons and would use them if they felt like it, and Bush knuckled under and suddenly insisted on diplomacy rather than force. This is a kind of cowardice that severely undercuts our ability to deal with future despots with nuclear weapons.

I've usually found ./ to be populated with people who are a step above the median in intellegence. Why don't we see many people taking the long term view, looking 20-50 years down the line, and the kind of world we want to live in then? You think a festering cesspool of little dictators with access to nukes or radiological bombs would be a bright place to live? If nothing else, Iraq 2 has started to drain the swamp.

You've missed another point. There aren't a finite amount of terrorists, and if we kill them all we win. New ones are created every day, and all using overwhelming force like we have done in Iraq does is create new ones. Invading Iraq was the wrong move to make. It made the world less safe of a place. If your judgment is so faulty that you can't see that simple fact, then you're certainly not someone I can trust to look 30-50 years in the future.

Yeah. You'd think there should be some sort of law against excessive bail.

Digidyne v. Data General. No requiring hardware to legally use software. It even involved a company which sold clones of Data General's. Precedent is on Psystar's side. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=473&invol=908&friend=nytimes

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; [emphasis added]

This clause is commonly referred to as the Tax and Spend Clause and has been commonly read to give Congress the power to tax and spend for the general welfare, not to regulate for the general welfare. Thus, if Congress wanted to tax pollution for the general welfare, it could. This specific clause does not give Congress the power to regulate pollution for the general welfare. Congress has no general police power.

If you want to know more about the history and interpretation of the clause, there is some excellent reading here.

I'm not actively disagreeing with you, but your reading of the 10th Amendment is expressly contradictory of the way courts have read it. For most of the Modern Jurisprudential (post-Lochner) Era, the Supreme Court's interpretation of the 10th Amendment has been the following:

The Tenth Amendment was intended to confirm the understanding of the people at the time the Constitution was adopted, that powers not granted to the United States were reserved to the States or to the people. It added nothing to the instrument as originally ratified.

United States v. Sprague, 282 U.S. 716, 733 (1931).

Thus in effect the 10th Amendment is a nullity in terms of its scope and power. There have been attempts to revive the 10th Amendment as a restriction on the Commerce Power--some as recently at the 1970s--but the Court has been quite divided over whether it wants to do this. There's some interesting reading on the subject here.