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but to suggest that emailing someone is equivalent to trespass

Trespass to chattels (personal property) is what they are probably referring to, which is different than trespassing on real property. Another way to think of it would be "interference with personal property." In other words, by spamming these servers, the spammers have deprived the owner of the full use of his property and therefore he should be compensated appropriately.

Similar to the argument made by Intel in Intel v. Hamidi. Although, I think Intel lost that one, but it was on a much smaller scale and the California Supreme Court basically said unless the computer system is damaged or has its functioning impaired, the plaintiff would be SOL.

I nonetheless cannot find any constitutional article or ammendment prohibiting it.

Look hard: Electronic Surveillance and the Fourth Amendment

While I am most certainly opposed to warrantless wiretapping, I nonetheless cannot find any constitutional article or ammendment prohibiting it.

For everyone complaining about this being unconstitutional make sure you look into its use first. The primary reason this was enacted was to replace the previous exemption in the staute of limitations for sexual harassment victims of clergy. This seems to be the primary thing it will be used for - to have a way to mark people who have been accused outside of statue of limitations - this is especially relevant because often times children who are abused take a long time before they are comfortable talking about it.
ARTICLE HERE
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2006/07_0 8/2006_07_01_Provance_SexOffender.htm
AND HERE
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hamilton/20060406.htm l

Some other articles mention that one of the big lobby groups pushing for this law were catholic groups - these people clame they wanted it enacted to protect the priests whom are being accused of molestation 35 years afterwards.

As far as civil liberties go the articles all point out that there will be the same requirements as those placed on person on the criminal registry inr egards to where you may live and whatnot. The question we should be asking is if the priest situation is the only reason this law can be envoked, the article is amazingly vague.

Please read the aforementioned articles so you can get a better view of the law.

Because it isn't science. Philosophy is probably on there.

Funny, I thought that that was its point.

Its intent was to recognize rights shared by all people. If the feds can't search your house for fun, but the local yokels can, what's the point?

And only one is science. You can study ID if you like, but you'll be getting a philosophy or religion degree.

I went ahead and looked at some case law myself, and none of it supports your position.

According to The Supreme Court in Katz vs. United States http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?n avby=case&court=us&vol=389&page=353

"That Amendment protects individual privacy against certain kinds of governmental intrusion, but its protections go further, and often have nothing to do with privacy at all. Other provisions of the Constitution protect personal privacy from other forms of governmental invasion. But the protection of a person's general right to privacy - his right to be let alone by other people is, like the protection of his property and of his very life, left largely to the law of the individual States."

In other words, the 4th Amendment does NOT apply to any entity other than the Government and does not protect a person's general right to privacy.

The ruling goes on to say:

"What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection."

You mean this 4th amendment? The one that says:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I fail to see how that supports your position. There is a difference between expecting documents sitting in your filing cabinet or on your hard drive to remain personal (which is supported by the 4th amendment), and information that you knowingly and intentionally turn over to a third party, while agreeing to their TOS that specifically state that they are retaining these records, and specifically require you to waive your right for privacy. If I take my medical history and tape it to the side of my mailbox or the windshield of my car, is that information still confidential? In the eyes of the law, it is not. If you post your medical history on the internet for all eyes to see, is it still confidential? Nope. If you mail me a personal document, is there some law that says I have to burn it and not store it in my filing cabinet? Nope. As soon as you release information to a third party, unless you have a confidentiality agreement with them, or unless they are your doctor or lawyer, you've waived your right to privacy, plain and simple. I find it funny that you wave the 4th amendment around, yet you can't provide any case law supporting your position, and a strict literal reading of the amendment itself does not support your position. Go ahead and try again though!

Also, the argument that there is no right to privacy in the constitution is getting ridiculous. I hear this all the time, and yet there have been countless cases decided in courts over the past 30 years that recognize a very real implicit right to privacy. Most famous example .. see ROE v WADE ..

In the article yesterday on this I posted about a SCOTUS ruling dealing with privacy in 1891. That case was Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford. More cases can be found at Findlaw.

Also, the argument that there is no right to privacy in the constitution is getting ridiculous. I hear this all the time, and yet there have been countless cases decided in courts over the past 30 years that recognize a very real implicit right to privacy. Most famous example .. see ROE v WADE ..

In the article yesterday on this I posted about a SCOTUS ruling dealing with privacy in 1891. That case was Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford. More cases can be found at Findlaw.

Privacy? No. Invented by the Supreme Court in some abortion case, as I recall.

The SC ruling you're thinking of just reafirmed the right to privacy. Prior to that case, sometime in the early 1800s, the SC ruled in a case that the First Amendment's free speech clause included the right to privacy. I couldn't find that case, the earliest case I've found yet is Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251 (1891):

"The Court today reaffirms the long recognized rights of privacy and bodily integrity. As early as 1891, the Court held, [n]o right is held more sacred, or is more carefully guarded by the common law, than the right of every individual to the possession and control of his own person, free from all restraint or interference of others. . . . Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251 (1891). Throughout this century, this Court also has held that the fundamental right of privacy protects citizens against governmental intrusion [505 U.S. 833, 927] in such intimate family matters as procreation, childrearing, marriage, and contraceptive choice. See ante, at 847-849. These cases embody the principle that personal decisions that profoundly affect bodily integrity, identity, and destiny should be largely beyond the reach of government. Eisenstadt, 405 U.S., at 453 . In Roe v. Wade, this Court correctly applied these principles to a woman's right to choose abortion."

The page from Findlaw above lists more cases some of which involve abortion but not all.

Privacy? No. Invented by the Supreme Court in some abortion case, as I recall.

The SC ruling you're thinking of just reafirmed the right to privacy. Prior to that case, sometime in the early 1800s, the SC ruled in a case that the First Amendment's free speech clause included the right to privacy. I couldn't find that case, the earliest case I've found yet is Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251 (1891):

"The Court today reaffirms the long recognized rights of privacy and bodily integrity. As early as 1891, the Court held, [n]o right is held more sacred, or is more carefully guarded by the common law, than the right of every individual to the possession and control of his own person, free from all restraint or interference of others. . . . Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251 (1891). Throughout this century, this Court also has held that the fundamental right of privacy protects citizens against governmental intrusion [505 U.S. 833, 927] in such intimate family matters as procreation, childrearing, marriage, and contraceptive choice. See ante, at 847-849. These cases embody the principle that personal decisions that profoundly affect bodily integrity, identity, and destiny should be largely beyond the reach of government. Eisenstadt, 405 U.S., at 453 . In Roe v. Wade, this Court correctly applied these principles to a woman's right to choose abortion."

The page from Findlaw above lists more cases some of which involve abortion but not all.

The problem is that too many people have come to accept that the government is just this entity, and that everyone serves it. They have forgotten that the radical idea behind this Great Experiment called the United States is that people can and should be self-governing. That the government is "instituted among Men, deriving [its] just powers from the consent of the governed" in order to ""secure these [inalienable] rights". And, that our federal government was established by "We, the people".

If you think banning toothpaste in carry-ons == giving up liberty, you've got some issues... I don't seem to recall a "right to convenient airline flight" in the Bill of Rights, but maybe I overlooked that.

See US Constitution: Fourth Amendment:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

That means, that the government has no right to even know I have toothpaste, much less to take it away from me, unless they have a warrant or at the least some reasonable probable cause to suspect that I am, in some way, committing a crime (and not simply the suspicion that someone somewhere might be committing a crime).

So yeah, what was that you were saying about being confused?

I don't seem to recall a "right to convenient airline flight" in the Bill of Rights, but maybe I overlooked that.

"Can you provide a link to the expansion of the licence? Thats interesting."

If you Google "Mickey Mouse" and "copyright act" you'll find plenty of info. Try starting with The Mouse That Ate the Public Domain

The Supreme Court of the US decided that you have an expectation of privacy when using a land-line phone, and a court order is required to allow people to violate that right of privacy.

But they ruled that you have no expectation of privacy when using a cordless phone (and by implication a cell-phone). As it is a transmitter, using the public airwaves.

Really? Do you have a citation?

IANAL also, but I can read. 18 USC, Section 2511, states:

(1) Except as otherwise specifically provided in this chapter any
person who -
(a) intentionally intercepts, endeavors to intercept, or
procures any other person to intercept or endeavor to intercept,
any wire, oral, or electronic communication;
...
shall be punished as provided in subsection (4) or shall be subject
to suit as provided in subsection (5).

Now, the only recent Supreme Court action regarding this part of federal law is Bartnicki et al. v. Vopper. My reading of this case affirms that intentional unauthorized interception of communications (in this case, cell phone) is unlawful. The case simply permitted the deliberate disclosure of information garnered through unlawful interception, when the person doing the interception was anonymous and not provably connected to the person doing the disclosure. That ruling weakened sections (c) and (d) of the code in question:

(c) intentionally discloses, or endeavors to disclose, to any
other person the contents of any wire, oral, or electronic
communication, knowing or having reason to know that the
information was obtained through the interception of a wire,
oral, or electronic communication in violation of this
subsection;
(d) intentionally uses, or endeavors to use, the contents of
any wire, oral, or electronic communication, knowing or having
reason to know that the information was obtained through the
interception of a wire, oral, or electronic communication in
violation of this subsection; or

So, that's what my "no legal library, no research assistants, no paralegals" research turned up. Do you have something more specific, relevant, and contrary?

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I agree a little knowledge is dangerous. Here you point out that Starr's position was eliminated and I was worried you didn't know about the new one, then you point that out and even point to an article that mentions the investigation into Valerie Plame. Ignore the investigations on torture and so on. You then still maintain that no investigations are being done. HUH? Whatever, ignorance is bliss I suppose. I'd like to see you tell Conyers that he can't do anything. That would be very entertaining. I could sell tickets to that. I'd like to be there and bring a pad of paper so I can write down some of the stuff he says.

I don't have a legal background.....These guys do.... Once again, Congress has not conducted such an investigation.

This one is really hard to explain to most people and it comes up in most administrations that I have studied. Sometimes the government wants to do something new (hard to believe sometimes). So they get their help to see if there is a law that prevents it. Legal opinions are formed and eventually the US Attorney General will decide if it is ok or not (for what we are talking about). Maybe it is already legal or maybe they need a new law. In the case of the electronic survailance, there was a case decided by the Supreme court in 1972 (aka case law, where you hear about decisis). Can be read here - http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?c ourt=US&vol=407&invol=297 (not sure if you have to be a member or not). Since the government isn't actually listening in on the conversation it is maintained that this is ok. All they are getting is who is calling whom, not what was said. I have a feeling that eventually they will win the lawsuit the EFF has brought and EFF will lose. Regardless, it is being looked into. Why do you expect Congress to get involved at this point? Maybe it would be very educational for you to write to your congressman and ask them to look into the issue you consider the most important. See what they say to you. Be very respectful (even if you can't stand him), clear and concise. Be sure to include your name and address on the letter itself. I can tell you it is far more effective than writting to me. Eschelon goes back to Harry Truman BTW (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON also as seen on /.).

The reality was that Saddam was already scared to death, and had allowed the weapons inspectors the full access they had asked for in the past 12 years. From the UNMOVIC report in March 2003:

He had very good reason to be scared to death. Many of those reasons have nothing to do with anything outside of his own country. Regardless, just days before the war he turned over two scud missles to be destroyed - that up to then he swore he didn't have. He launched scud missles during the first hours of the war and to date over 500 other chemical shells have been found and recovered since the war began (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120137,00.htm l and many other web sites have this story). In short he did have WMDs. He did have nuclear scientists, Greenpeace of India showed pictures of the yellow cake sitting outside a refinery. Look here before it is gone - http://64.233.161.104/search?

One of the worst days in human history was the day in 1849 when a U.S. Federal judge declared that corporations have the same rights as individuals.

First, you've the date wrong. The case cited is Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 U.S. 394 (1886).

Second, it really wasn't decided by a judge as part of the case; it was merely a remark from one inserted into the decision by a court reporter.

Third, that wasn't the ultimate toll of doom. The real problem was Dodge v. Ford Motor Company in 1919, in which the Michigan Supreme Court first ruled that a corporation had no obligation to society other than seeking profit for its shareholders... a case oft cited by the SCOTUS since.

And thus, we have an entity with most of the legal rights of a person, and the legal obligation to act like a sociopath to whatever degree permitted by law.

The Constitution is clear on privacy, maybe you didn't read that part. Go ahead, I'll wait. Got it? good, here it goes:

4th Amendment

  The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Lets translate that for those of you who lack critical thinking skills.

"The right of the people..." doesn't say citizens, just people...

"..to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, effects..." This means MY stuff, MY crap, MY things, Stuff I own...get it?

"against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated" and just who determines what is unreasonable? Oh, this is the part you can figure out just who shall not do the violating. hint: it's the government) Remember, to seize something, you have to be able to see it.

"and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation" Oh, THATS, who determines what is unreasonable.. Warrents must be issued by who? A court. And under WHAT circumstances? Upon Oath or affirmation.

"and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Oh, they government must be specific in their search, such as specific in WHO they are going to search and WHAT they are looking for.

So now let's put this back together:

4th Amendment

The government of America shall not be able to look for, see or take from any person in America or it's territory any thing that a person owns unless the government has gone before a judge, presented evidence of wrongdoing, recieved a warrant from that judge to look for specific items in possession of specific people in specific places.

Feel better now? Oh, it doesn't SPECIFICALY mention privacy?!? Thats because in colonial America, someone wanting privacy as in "I need some provacy" meant using the restroon. Thats how we got to refere to out genitals as "private parts". They certainly wouldn't talk about pissing in the 4th Amendment right?

Oh, and privacy is not a modern concept as you asserted, see

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/am endment04/01.html#1

School is dismissed.

The real issue is the method in which the numbers were obtained. They were gathered without warrents or court orders, i.e. they were illegally obtained.

This bad is because 1) the President/gov't is *not* suppose to be above the law, 2) any evidence obtained from this ill gotten booty would not be usable in court, this in turn makes convicting the terrorist that much more difficult and 3) the harm done out weighs the benefits.

Wouldn't the right of free assembly(1st amendment) and the right against unreasonable searches(4th amendment) come into play when tracking calls? It's ok for the gov't to disregard those rights in the pursuit of ______?

The Constitution was written as an attempt to prevent tyranny, by chipping away at the Bill of Rights and increasing the Executive branch's power(back-boor vetos) US citizens continue to lose legal means of protecting themselves from a tyrannical government.

Here is some reading material for you:
Bruce Schenier on NSA & Bush's illegal wiretaps
Bush blocks internal probe into illegal wiretaps
An Imminent Threat (to the Constitution)

There is more involved than just tracking who you are calling. That's just the cover story to distract you while the power grab is going on.

The real issue is the method in which the numbers were obtained. They were gathered without warrents or court orders, i.e. they were illegally obtained.

This bad is because 1) the President/gov't is *not* suppose to be above the law, 2) any evidence obtained from this ill gotten booty would not be usable in court, this in turn makes convicting the terrorist that much more difficult and 3) the harm done out weighs the benefits.

Wouldn't the right of free assembly(1st amendment) and the right against unreasonable searches(4th amendment) come into play when tracking calls? It's ok for the gov't to disregard those rights in the pursuit of ______?

The Constitution was written as an attempt to prevent tyranny, by chipping away at the Bill of Rights and increasing the Executive branch's power(back-boor vetos) US citizens continue to lose legal means of protecting themselves from a tyrannical government.

Here is some reading material for you:
Bruce Schenier on NSA & Bush's illegal wiretaps
Bush blocks internal probe into illegal wiretaps
An Imminent Threat (to the Constitution)

There is more involved than just tracking who you are calling. That's just the cover story to distract you while the power grab is going on.

No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay. U.S. Constitution: Article I

The proper function of an interstate compact is to resolve fundamentally local problems, not to restructure the federal government. I would thinking long and hard before giving support to a cause that is intended to disenfranchise a minority.

http://contracts.corporate.findlaw.com/agreements/ amd/intel.license.2001.01.01.html

As far as I can tell this deal only covers patents made before 2001 (section 2). I could be wrong though, not very good at legalspeak, and didn't read the entire contract. AFAIK they have another cross-licensing agreement as well, but it only covers all x86 extensions and improvements. This is the deal that you're probably talking about as SSE and AMD64 are x86 extensions. So to answer your question: no they would not need to share tech acquired from ATI.

No, they are absolutely fake.

I know it is difficult to accept, but such a claim has never been substantiated. The best you can do is say the documents have not been proven to be copies of the authentic documents showing that George Bush stopped showing up for his plum National Guard service duty (back when the National Guard stayed in the United States) the very same month mandatory drug testing was implemented. And, as the substantiated records very clearly show, George Bush never showed up for his mandatory physical this same year he went missing from his duty. Kill two birds with one stone -- stop showing up for duty and never have to fail your drug test. That's our boy!!

Next you will tell me the August 6, 2001 presidential daily briefing was a fake: Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US (more than one month before 9/11).

Then again, you will probably deny George Bush has a substance abuse problem. These documents (very presidential) must be fakes!

In your comment about the "cut list" I think you must be referring to the 'cleaned DVDs' topic of a few days ago, and I think you're misunderstanding that ruling.

What was prohibited in that case was the reproduction that Clean Flicks was doing in order to produce the edited versions. They were taking a movie, editing it, and then selling the edited version -- yes, they were selling each edited version packaged along with an unedited version, but they were reproducing the film just the same. That's where they ran into copyright problems.

Other companies who took a different tactic towards the problem, and avoided the reproduction step (by delivering to the customer an EDL that would cause the player to fast forward through various 'offensive' parts) were allowed under the ruling.

There's a pretty good analysis of the verdict on FindLaw, which isn't too long and is worth reading. In particular: "The defendants also argued that they were protected by the so-called "first sale" doctrine ... [they] failed to win on this affirmative defense, because they were not just dealing in the hard copy, but rather making copies of it." (Emphasis mine.)

If you're willing to spend some more time reading things actually written by folks who have law degrees, I recommend this substantial article from the Georgetown Law Journal, which was written in 2004 and examines the viability under copyright law of several video-censoring technologies, including old-school razorblade tape splicing, CleanFlicks-type digital editing, and EDL-based 'skip over' systems.

Although CleanFlicks no longer offers the edited copies of DVDs, another company, ClearPlay, still offers an EDL-based product (which IMO is a much more elegant solution to the problem anyway, since it lets you pick what types of smut you personally dislike), as can be seen on their website.

This type of on-the-fly editing is legal, and was clarifed as such by President Bush's passing of the "Family Movie Act of 2005," which specifically allows you to make changes to an authorized copy of a motion picture, as long as you don't create a fixed copy of the edited version. The best part of the law? It's not limited purely to obscenity edits; according to one Forbes article, it could be used just as easily to protect a fan's removal of the more obnoxious parts of Star Wars Episode 1 as it could the removal of Kate Winslet's nudity from Titanic. (Sadly, apparently the technology can't replace Jar Jar Binks with a naked Kate Winslet. Yet.)

So the next time you think that G.W. hasn't done anything for you, it seems that he may have let some good slip through after all.

The Olympics was an Australian case. Target was not "successfully sued"; that's still pending. Southwest Airlines won a case over that issue, Access Now vs. Southwest.; their "virtual ticket counter" does not have to be handicapped-accessable. Access Now appealed, and the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit rejected the appeal. That's the only final US court decision on the subject to date.

As the court put it, it's up to Congress to change the ADA if Congress wants it to apply to the Internet.

Then you are foolish as well as ignorant Im sorry for laughing, but poeple who conctantly toss out names of court cases with no links to back them up are usually the ones that are making stuff up to help prove their points. If you would have done a nexus search, you would have found this little tidbit from a 1972 9-0 decision by none other then the US Supreme Court that not only said the president does have inherent constitutional authority to spy on Americans working for or foreign agents or Americans in contact with foreign powers that we are in conflict with, but that the President would be derelict in his powers of office and Constitutional authority and requirement to keep this country safe, if he did NOT do so. The US Supreme Court in the "Instant" decision in 1972, clearly gave the President the authority for the wiretaps! I quote "The Instant case requires no judgement on the scope of the Presidents surveillance power with respect to the activities of foreign agent(s) or foreign power(s) that are operating within or without of this country." U.S. Supreme Court UNITED STATES v. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, 407 U.S. 297 (1972) 407 U.S. 297 UNITED STATES v. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN ET AL. (PLAMONDON ET AL., REAL PARTIES IN INTEREST) CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT No. 70-153. Argued February 24, 1972 Decided June 19, 1972 You can locate the decision here http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?c ourt=US&vol=407&invol=297 thus SCOTUS gave a finding that the domestic spying against an agent or foreign powers or someone speaking to same while operating in the US while in a time of national Emergency or war was INDEED CONSTITUTIONAL. As it stands, You would have to get over 2/3rds of the full US Congress to overturn this decision, and that you are not going to get. So for you or anyone else to say that this is illegal and Unconstitutional is irrational and not based on anything valid or the letter of the law. Now since I found this with a simple nexus search, care to explain why this constantly slips the notice of people complaining about this when they can find this fact in less time then they took to write their complaint letters or post here??

Im sorry for laughing, but poeple who conctantly toss out names of court cases with no links to back them up are usually the ones that are making stuff up to help prove their points. If you would have done a nexus search, you would have found this little tidbit from a 1972 9-0 decision by none other then the US Supreme Court that not only said the president does have inherent constitutional authority to spy on Americans working for or foreign agents or Americans in contact with foreign powers that we are in conflict with, but that the President would be derelict in his powers of office and Constitutional authority and requirement to keep this country safe, if he did NOT do so. The US Supreme Court in the "Instant" decision in 1972, clearly gave the President the authority for the wiretaps! I quote "The Instant case requires no judgement on the scope of the Presidents surveillance power with respect to the activities of foreign agent(s) or foreign power(s) that are operating within or without of this country." U.S. Supreme Court UNITED STATES v. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, 407 U.S. 297 (1972) 407 U.S. 297 UNITED STATES v. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN ET AL. (PLAMONDON ET AL., REAL PARTIES IN INTEREST) CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT No. 70-153. Argued February 24, 1972 Decided June 19, 1972 You can locate the decision here http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?c ourt=US&vol=407&invol=297 thus SCOTUS gave a finding that the domestic spying against an agent or foreign powers or someone speaking to same while operating in the US while in a time of national Emergency or war was INDEED CONSTITUTIONAL. As it stands, You would have to get over 2/3rds of the full US Congress to overturn this decision, and that you are not going to get. So for you or anyone else to say that this is illegal and Unconstitutional is irrational and not based on anything valid or the letter of the law. Now since I found this with a simple nexus search, care to explain why this constantly slips the notice of people complaining about this when they can find this fact in less time then they took to write their complaint letters or post here??

It is possible to be a terrorist without being a traitor, as in the case of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

*Should* I be expecting privacy? As a point of law? As a courtesy?

Yes.

Not according to Supreme Court that is not. Read the TLO case, which is quite applicable here.

Now, I made a Google query for you. Please confirm your statement that minors waive their constitutional rights. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&rls=GSPA%2C GSPA%3A2006-27%2CGSPA%3Aen&q=minor+right+waiver+pu blic+school+constitution

There is your proof that kids do have rights - http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?c ourt=us&vol=468&invol=1214

The following is just my opinion of a reasonable person who read the text of findings of the Supreme Court. I think the article I am replying to misleading in general, and FUD specifically.

Let me make it abundantly clear SCHOOL IS GOVERNMENT. All restrictions against government apply except as limited by the Supreme Court.

Here is the text of the 4th Amendment - http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/am endment04/

I've been looking into general causes for the failure of US Education system, and found quite a few interesting references a couple of days ago, so this is not totally new. My goal is to entice some reforms once I can afford to do so.

Now, I've been upset about this policy and its potential impact for several hours since I got back from a nightclub... so thanks for giving me some Supreme Court cases to read. Since you likely haven't read them, I'll post the relevant parts. The TLO case is pretty thorough by itself, but I also think that your "free speech is moot" argument not confirmed by the Hazelwood case. Please read it in your spare time. It concerns limited special circumstances school censorship and disruptions to classroom, but it doesn't waive the 1st Amendment. In case of 4th Amendment, the TLO case reduces "probable cause" to a lower standard and does not require a warrant but doesn't change much else. It doesn't authorize a random baseless search.

Citing the cases is all well, but let's include full quotations omitted from this text with regards to special circumstances as it's quite key :-). Rights are being stripped daily, and something must be done to stop it. Ironically, it seems like kids will have to read some Supreme Court rulings and get familiar with http://www.flexyourrights.org/

Looking at New Jersey v. T.L.O. (1985) at http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?n avby=CASE&court=US&vol=469&page=325

Here is the full paragraph related to 4th Amendment from TLO:

1. The Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures applies to searches conducted by public school officials and is not limited to searches carried out by law enforcement officers.
Nor are school officials exempt from the Amendment's dictates by virtue of the special nature of their authority over schoolchildren. In carrying out searches and other functions pursuant to disciplinary policies mandated by state statutes, school officials act as representatives of the State, not merely as surrogates for the parents of students, and they cannot claim the parents' immunity from the Fourth Amendment's strictures. Pp. 333-337. [469 U.S. 325, 326]

2. Schoolchildren have legitimate expectations of privacy. They may find it necessary to carry with them a variety of legitimate, non-contraband items, and there is no reason to conclude that they have necessarily waived all rights to privacy in such items by bringing them onto school grounds. But striking the balance between schoolchildren's legitimate expectations of privacy and the school's equally legitimate need to maintain an environment in which learning can take place requires some easing of the restrictions to which searches by public authorities are ordinarily subject. Thus, school officials need not obtain a warrant before searching a student who is under their authority. Moreover, school officials need not be held subject to the requirement that searches be based on probable cause to believe that the subject of the search has violated or is violating the law. Rather, the legality of a search of a student should depend simply on the reasonableness, under all the circumstances, of the search. Determining the reasonableness of any search involve

The following is just my opinion of a reasonable person who read the text of findings of the Supreme Court. I think the article I am replying to misleading in general, and FUD specifically.

Let me make it abundantly clear SCHOOL IS GOVERNMENT. All restrictions against government apply except as limited by the Supreme Court.

Here is the text of the 4th Amendment - http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/am endment04/

I've been looking into general causes for the failure of US Education system, and found quite a few interesting references a couple of days ago, so this is not totally new. My goal is to entice some reforms once I can afford to do so.

Now, I've been upset about this policy and its potential impact for several hours since I got back from a nightclub... so thanks for giving me some Supreme Court cases to read. Since you likely haven't read them, I'll post the relevant parts. The TLO case is pretty thorough by itself, but I also think that your "free speech is moot" argument not confirmed by the Hazelwood case. Please read it in your spare time. It concerns limited special circumstances school censorship and disruptions to classroom, but it doesn't waive the 1st Amendment. In case of 4th Amendment, the TLO case reduces "probable cause" to a lower standard and does not require a warrant but doesn't change much else. It doesn't authorize a random baseless search.

Citing the cases is all well, but let's include full quotations omitted from this text with regards to special circumstances as it's quite key :-). Rights are being stripped daily, and something must be done to stop it. Ironically, it seems like kids will have to read some Supreme Court rulings and get familiar with http://www.flexyourrights.org/

Looking at New Jersey v. T.L.O. (1985) at http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?n avby=CASE&court=US&vol=469&page=325

Here is the full paragraph related to 4th Amendment from TLO:

1. The Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures applies to searches conducted by public school officials and is not limited to searches carried out by law enforcement officers.
Nor are school officials exempt from the Amendment's dictates by virtue of the special nature of their authority over schoolchildren. In carrying out searches and other functions pursuant to disciplinary policies mandated by state statutes, school officials act as representatives of the State, not merely as surrogates for the parents of students, and they cannot claim the parents' immunity from the Fourth Amendment's strictures. Pp. 333-337. [469 U.S. 325, 326]

2. Schoolchildren have legitimate expectations of privacy. They may find it necessary to carry with them a variety of legitimate, non-contraband items, and there is no reason to conclude that they have necessarily waived all rights to privacy in such items by bringing them onto school grounds. But striking the balance between schoolchildren's legitimate expectations of privacy and the school's equally legitimate need to maintain an environment in which learning can take place requires some easing of the restrictions to which searches by public authorities are ordinarily subject. Thus, school officials need not obtain a warrant before searching a student who is under their authority. Moreover, school officials need not be held subject to the requirement that searches be based on probable cause to believe that the subject of the search has violated or is violating the law. Rather, the legality of a search of a student should depend simply on the reasonableness, under all the circumstances, of the search. Determining the reasonableness of any search involve

Students lose some rights by attending schools, but not this one. For search and seizure, the relevant case would be New Jersey v. T. L. O.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?n avby=search&court=US&case=/us/469/325.html

Now, in this case, a girl was caught smoking and in hte principals office, upon denying that she smoked, they searched her purse and found evidence of her being a pot dealer. When the case went to court, her lawyer made a motion to supress based on an invalid search, and it was denied.

The ruling on this case basically sets a standard for there being a 'reasonable suspicion' before a search is performed, and states that the schools do not have an expemtion from the fourth amendment like parents would. They don't need a warrant, but given the fact that talking on your cellphone or texting isn't directly related to drug use or violence, an argument could be made that searching the phones is improper.

And that wouldn't have anything at all to do with PayPal being a property of eBay and further lining their pockets. ;-)

Ooooh, while IAmNotALawyer, I remember this one from the Microsoft case:

Tying arrangements. Sellers with more than one product may seek to tie the sale of one (which the customer presumably desires) with that of another (which it presumably does not want). Such tie-ins are governed not only by the general language of the Sherman Act, but the more particular provisions of Section 3 of the Clayton Act, which prohibits such arrangements if the likely result is substantially to lessen competition. Tie-ins are per se unlawful if the seller possesses sufficient market power in the tying product, and coerces the buyer to take the tied product as a condition to obtaining the desired product.

While I for one am NOT AT ALL HAPPY at the moment with the security on the Google payment system, I think this is a major mistake by Ebay. The only clause that I see that gives eBay any grounds for banning Google checkout is "Whether the payment service has a substantial historical track record of providing safe and reliable financial and/or banking related services (new services without such a track record generally cannot be promoted on eBay)"... which may make matters worse. Such terms can be portrayed in court as purely a restrictive practive intended as a barrier to entry to help protect PayPal's near monopoly by leveraging eBay's de facto monopoly.

I wonder how many lawyers eBay has on staff at the moment....

Alright so besides the point that call monitoring is unconstitutional,

I think so too. However, the Supreme Court has said there is no expectation of privacy on call records. So conversations may be protected by the 4th, but numbers dialed and length of time are not according to SC. As much as I hate his policies, this is the argument Atty. General Gonzales uses when defending the call record monitoring. See US v. Miller

Does anyone know if this decision is still in effect, or if it has been overturned? Btw, careful when googling, there are at least 2 US v. Miller's, the one from 1939 is a 2nd amendment case.

Would the DHS take the risk of these codes being communication between hostile agents and possibly ending up with another PR desaster of "why didn't you see that major terrorist attack coming?"?

Yeah, especially since we know the Bush Administration would never ignore a clear warning of an imminent terrorist strike, such as a Presidential Daily Brief entitlted "bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US."

Since all the clear warnings are already taken care of, let's go after the vague ones!

But since I don't agree that free speak and "owning a gun" are the same thing, or even that the later is an intrinsic right ...

You are wrong, then. The US Constitution explicitly spells out that the right to bear arms is an intrinsic right (militia mish-mash aside, as the vast majority of us ARE militia, as section 311 of US Code Title 10 still declares to this day, "the people" means us, individual people), on equal footing with the First, Fourth, etc., etc.

Wait a moment. It is not up to me if my neighbor owns a gun and is completely umprepared to own it ? He is risking MY life too.

So did everyone who rode around on a horse in a town when they weren't prepared (to avoid the "but we need drivers' licenses!" side road). As I've already stated, we have a system in place already to deal with neglegence which results in harm to another.

April 21, 1976, the Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the Fifth Circuit in United States v. Miller, holding that the bank depositor had no legitimate expectation of privacy in the contents of checks and deposit slips since the documents were not confidential communications, but rather were negotiable instruments voluntarily conveyed to the bank. Moreover, the Court ruled that the fourth amendment does not prohibit a third party from obtaining information and conveying it to the government.

Again, it would be nice if not only /. posters would research the relevant law before they accuse the President of trampling civil rights, but it would also be nice if the NY Times, the Post, and all the other liberal MSM's would do some legal research as well.

Someone may wish to inform congress of this fact because several congressmen, including one quoted in the fair and ballanced (tm) Fox News article you link to below.

If you are going to be such a smartass that you won't even read a byline, I can't help you. The article was an AP story carried by Fox. AP is of course left-leaning (by American political standards). The reality is that several congressmen who are on their respective intel committees did call the newspapers asking them not to run the story (I actually saw this on a news report). Remember that these congressmen are sworn not to divulge what they have been briefed on, so they can't just come out and confirm the stories!

There is not just a conern about "your money's privacy" there is a concern about your and my privacy in total. Levying a tax is not the same as snooping through your financial transactions and it's very prejudicial to suggest otherwise. These two things are apples and oranges.

Again, if you can't see the irony in placing a privacy right (nowhere articulated in the Constitution) above the very property right the privacy concerns (clearly articulated in the Constitution) then I can't help you. That the left distrusts the government completely, except to take away and redistribute my property is another irony that you may fail to grasp.

And I seriously think that there is a large segment of conservative America that honestly thinks that Bush has to trample our civil rights to defend us. Bush was give temporary emergency powers in the wake of 9/11. They've had FIVE YEARS to put the legal structures in place to carry out these kinds of investigations legally. Hell, there was even a special court setup for this sot of thing PRIOR to 9/11 that rarely ever turned down warrant requests. Why is it that court warrants and REAL congressional oversight were acceptable and effective for every president we've elected prior to this one

You assume that everyone agrees with you about the "trampling" of our civil rights. What exact program are you referring to that didn't exist in some shape or form prior to 9/11? I think if you look at Echelon (which CBS News and all the MSM have conveniently forgotten about now that Bush is President) you'll see that the government was doing this back when it was Governor Bush. As for the Patriot Act, that merely took existing tools that law enforcement has used for decades and applied it to intelligence.

As far as warrants go, the Fourth Amendment doesn't say all searchs have to have warrants, just that searches not be unreasonable. I'll bet the framers would be all for intercepting the international calls of enemies of the Republic without warrants (the Clinton adminstration actually did searches without warrants, in the FBI spy case). Perhaps liberals believe that we would need a warrant to listen to a call Adolf Hitler made to agents in America in 1944? This is a war, not a law enforcemn

Read Justice Breyer's dissent in Eldred v. Ashcroft. The whole thing, including the Appendix (which really shocked the hell out of me). I quote: "the value of a 95-year copyright is more realistically estimated . . . as 99.996% of the value of a perpetual copyright." More juicy tidbits if you follow the link.

Hey, if the "youth" voted,
* The drinking age would be 18 again.

Got that wrong buckwheat. Unfortunately the federal govt. links all sorts of monies including the all important highway money to the drinking age/BAC levels. Which is legal according to the Supreme Court, which ruled in http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?n avby=CASE&court=US&vol=483&page=203 South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203 (1987) that Congress had engaged in a valid exercise of its power under the Taxing and Spending Clause, and did not violate the Twenty-first Amendment.

Bottom line: it's still private property even if you really really really don't like that idea.

Not in California. See this case.

The US constitution applies to US citizens only.

That requires a pretty "activist judge" interpretation of the amendment. The US Constitution applies to the federal and state governments. The text exists as a body of granted powers and limitations on the government. The Bill of Rights exists mostly as a check on the federal government's powers (including that of the U.S. Army). Let's look at the 6th Amendment:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Note that nowhere in this Amendment is "the accused" defined as a U.S. Citizen. Similarly, the 1st Amendment doesn't state that Congress can't limit the speech of citizens, the 5th Amendment doesn't state that only citizens can't be forced to incriminate themselves, the 8th Amendment doesn't prevent cruel and unusual punishment only against citizens, etc. Additionally, the 14th Amendment states in Section 1:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Note that the first part talks about citizens, but the second and third parts talk about "any persons." The way that the government tries to skirt 14th Amendment protections is by claiming that Guantanamo Bay is not "within its jurisdiction," but no such limitation exists on the 6th Amendment. That's jurisdictional limit has been a large part of the government's arguments against habeus corpus rights for detainees that they would certainly have if on US soil.

Gitmo violates several parts of the 6th Amendment. Prisoners do not have a right to a speedy and public trial there. They don't have a right to an attorney, and they don't have the right to confront witnesses against them. In fact, the trials that they do have exist in a sort of legal black hole. The Bush administration even went so far as to assert before the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that prisoners had absolutely no right to question US actions in Guantanamo even if the government went so far as to torture or commit summary executions.

The government claims that "these are bad men," "the worst of the worst," but we've released a great many of them after we've gotten all the useful information we could out of them and determined that they weren't serious threats. Farsically, we've refused for a long time send some of them home for fear that they'd be rounded up in their homelands upon release and kept them imprisoned "for their own safety."

How many US citizens are being held under "indefinite detention"? To my knowledge, zero. If you can prove otherwise, you have a case I can agree with.

Currently, none that I'm aware of, but that wasn't the case from 2002-2005. Enter Jose Padilla, a natural born US citizen who was declared an "illegal enemy combatant" and thus not subject to the protections of US law by the President. He's not a great guy by all accounts -- a former gang member who converted to Islam in prison and hung out with al Qaeda members according to government allegations. He was arrested on his return to the US in 2002 from a tour of Muslim nations as a "material witness" to the September 11th hijackings and put in a military brig in South Carolina and was held for three yea

Before the Civil War, there was strong arguments for the idea that the limitations on the federal government (as noted in the 1st Amendment "Congress shall make no law") did not apply to the state governments. The state governments could theoretically pass laws abridging the freedoms of its citizens that the federal government could not. The 10th Amendment is in fact the strongest source of support for that idea. A restriction barring the federal government from doing something is not "power delegated to" it -- it's the opposite.

After the Civil War, the 14th Amendment was passed specifically to prevent Southern states from passing laws that discriminated against blacks in the way that the federal government could not. This is known as the Equal Protection Clause (and has sadly been used to defend the rights of corporations far more than it has been used to defend the rights of minorities). It reads like this:

"Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

This is the clause that extends limitations on the powers of the federal government to the state governments and prevents the abridgement of free speech by them.

However, pornography and obscenity have long been ruled by the Supreme Court as having lesser protection that political speech. The case Miller v. California set forth a test to determine pornography that has been used ever since. Justice Burger in his opinion wrote the following:

The basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be: (a) whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

Change "sexual conduct" in part (b) to "violence to people" and you've probably got a bill that would survive a Supreme Court decision. Whether or not the list of barred things is overly broad and violates the second test is where it's most likely to stand or fall. The third test is where a lot people think that works will escape, but as Burger says in the sentence immediately following this test, "We do not adopt as a constitutional standard the 'utterly without redeeming social value" test of Memoirs v. Massachusetts.'" You can read more about obscenity and the 1st Amendment here.

Also should that actually end up in court infront of a jury, one thing that alot of people dont realize is that the jury can also look at the validity of the law.

All too true, but unfortunately all too many people in the US don't kow about jury rights and nullification. Actually some politicans, prosecuters, and judges try to make sure people on jury either don't know about them or are told they can't use them. Recall the case, Raich v. Ashcroft a few years back in CA? After the state passed the medical marijuana initiative the feds busted a group on drug charges and when the trial started the judge specifically told the jury they couldn't use state law as a basis for an acquittal.

Ask any Jew about what Hitler did just after coming into power.

After Hitler and the NAZIs came to power they tried to get European Jews to leave Europe before any camps were opened. In 1933 the NAZIs signed The Haavara Agreement with Jewish leaders wherein Jews were encouraged to move to Palestine. Because the British didn't want more Jews settling there the NAZIs trained Jews in fighting and gathering intelligence to be used against the British.

I'm not aware of anything that reconizes an EULA as a contract.

Another easy way to insure that the only people that can put out music are mainstream artists sponsored by major labels. They can pay for samples. You cannot. They control the samples and can refuse to allow you use.

So since we can't judge how useful this is, what it comes down to is a matter of principle: do we have a God-given right to private conversations? And the answer is clearly no.

We do have the right to privacy which includes private conversations. Though by no means all, many of writings during the Revolutionary War or War of Independence were written anonymously. One of the few writers who signed his tracts was Thomas Paine and England put a price on his head and branded him a traitor. Fact is is many of the USA's Founding Fathers knew how important privacy and remaining anonymous was. And, though I don't recall what case or year though I'm thinking it was in 1812, in the early 1800s the USSC made a ruling saying that the right to privacy was embedded in the First Amendment's Right to Assemble. Actually this ruling was one of the rulings used by the USSC when it ruled on Roe v Wade. Another ruling used was GRISWOLD v. CONNECTICUT, 381 U.S. 479 in 1965. This link provides many other cases wherein the right to privacy is affirmed. From that page:

In NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449, 462, we protected the "freedom to associate and privacy in one's associations," noting that freedom of association was a peripheral First Amendment right. Disclosure of membership lists of a constitutionally valid association, we held, was invalid "as entailing the likelihood of a substantial restraint upon the exercise by petitioner's members of their right to freedom of association." Ibid. In other words, the First Amendment has a penumbra where privacy is protected from governmental intrusion.

As for a "God given right", recall the First Amendment's Freedom of Religion? It's not just a freedom of religion it's also a freedom from religion. Simply, people have the right not to have another's religion forced down their throats, to be bludgeoned on the head, or be forced to live by the other's religion. Also, nowhere do any of the the documents of the founding of the USA say or use the phrase "God given right". What may be the closest saying in a document is the Declaration of Independence, DOI, is where Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the DOI, writes "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God". It should be known that Thomas Jefferson was a Christian only in that he believed Christ was a teacher, but not that he was the "Son of God". In that regard TJ was a Deists.

So since we can't judge how useful this is, what it comes down to is a matter of principle: do we have a God-given right to private conversations? And the answer is clearly no.

We do have the right to privacy which includes private conversations. Though by no means all, many of writings during the Revolutionary War or War of Independence were written anonymously. One of the few writers who signed his tracts was Thomas Paine and England put a price on his head and branded him a traitor. Fact is is many of the USA's Founding Fathers knew how important privacy and remaining anonymous was. And, though I don't recall what case or year though I'm thinking it was in 1812, in the early 1800s the USSC made a ruling saying that the right to privacy was embedded in the First Amendment's Right to Assemble. Actually this ruling was one of the rulings used by the USSC when it ruled on Roe v Wade. Another ruling used was GRISWOLD v. CONNECTICUT, 381 U.S. 479 in 1965. This link provides many other cases wherein the right to privacy is affirmed. From that page:

In NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449, 462, we protected the "freedom to associate and privacy in one's associations," noting that freedom of association was a peripheral First Amendment right. Disclosure of membership lists of a constitutionally valid association, we held, was invalid "as entailing the likelihood of a substantial restraint upon the exercise by petitioner's members of their right to freedom of association." Ibid. In other words, the First Amendment has a penumbra where privacy is protected from governmental intrusion.

As for a "God given right", recall the First Amendment's Freedom of Religion? It's not just a freedom of religion it's also a freedom from religion. Simply, people have the right not to have another's religion forced down their throats, to be bludgeoned on the head, or be forced to live by the other's religion. Also, nowhere do any of the the documents of the founding of the USA say or use the phrase "God given right". What may be the closest saying in a document is the Declaration of Independence, DOI, is where Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the DOI, writes "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God". It should be known that Thomas Jefferson was a Christian only in that he believed Christ was a teacher, but not that he was the "Son of God". In that regard TJ was a Deists.