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I like Article 2, Section 4:

"The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."

Then Article 1, Section 2, Clause 5:

" The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment."

and Article 1, Section 3, Clause 6:

" The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments."

are pretty spiffy. Clause 7 of that Section is OK, though the second half is sweet:

" Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law."

considering Article 2, Section 2, Clause 1 (the last phrase):

"he shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment."

.

In order to lock out competitors, everyone who invents something would simply publish their invention immediately. Many university researchers already do this. This is good policy, in that more applications are published more quickly, but bad because people can start working around the patents quicker -- in fact, before they're even filed. That's a reason the patent office holds off on publishing for 18 months. Overall, the policy damages the patent incentive, because you're now giving people 18 months less protection.

I certainly can't see any logical reason why anyone who invented something independently of another should be deprived of the fruits of their own effort.

This is the 'sweat of the brow' policy justification. Justice O'Connor thoroughly repudiated it for copyright in a landmark case[1]. The problem I see with this argument is that it is arguably unconstitutional. "Congress shall have power . . . to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."[2] The policy reason for congressional power to issue patents and copyrights in the first place is given in the same sentence that authorizes that power. The Constitution does not grant Congress any power to reward hard work by handing out patents. Therefore, arguably, any patent policy passed by Congress or the USPTO (by delegation) specifically to reward hard work, while not advancing science, exceeds Congress' constitutional powers.

Your 'sweat of the brow' policy would do precisely that -- it grants one person a patent for an invention which is identical to another person's invention. That second patent grant doesn't advance science. Notice that my argument doesn't extend beyond copyrights and patents. You can get rewarded for effort in lots of other places.

[1] Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991).
[2] U.S. Const. art. I sec. 8.

You keep saying that word[illegal]

I only said the word once. You asked for evidence that the 9/11 commission's report was a white wash. I provided some pointers. Hopefully, you'll take the time to read them and maybe do some research on the subject yourself.

Illegal election.
Illegal war.
Illegal wiretapping.

When did I mention an illegal election or illegal war? Please don't put words in my mouth. I can speak for myself.

Chances are all these things you call illegal were carried out to the letter of the law, but I doubt that would make any difference to you.

The gov't doesn't deserve my blind allegience. The gov't is meant to be my servant, not my master. A citizen(regardless of country) should always be questioning the actions of their government, it is the first defense against tyranny.

So yes, it would make a difference to me. Which part of warrantless(illegal) wiretaps am I misunderstanding?

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act(FISA) lays down the law under which the President may do warrantless wiretaps. The first case is if the subject or location of the wiretap is solely foreign, i.e. no americans or american soil involved. The second case does allow Americans to be an involved subject. BUT these warrantless wiretaps can only last for 15 days after the declaration of War. Sadly we have been at war for much longer than 15 days.

The law here is actually pretty clear because the Fourth Amendment demands it.

Instead of trying to assinate my character, please provide me with some pointers & reference material so that I may educate myself. If you are just going to talk past those you disagree with, neither party will learn anything.

And since you mentioned an illegal war maybe you would be interested to know that United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan did tell the BBC the US-led invasion of Iraq was an illegal act that contravened the UN charter.

The meaning of the 2nd amendment is not clear. Therefore, the presumption that it protects "the people" is incorrect (and not how the Supreme Court has decided on laws violating the 2nd amendment to the Consitution).

Actually, no, what she says (assuming from the handle "Queen B" that your correspondent is female) is completely and utterly wrong headed. The purpose of the Constitution is to protect us from the Legislature and the Executive, to keep their power from becoming absolute (regardless of any "authorizations for the use of force" they may try to distort into martial law).

The job of the Supreme Court is to interpret the laws, in the light of the Constitution. The Constitution enshrines rights against unreasonable search and seizure and other rights that taken together all require an underlying right to privacy, just as the establishment clause, the freedom of speech, and the freedom to assemble taken together all require an underlying right to freedom of thought (i.e., that you can't criminalize an idea).

They're applying straightjacketed fundamentalist thought - the kind of thought that believes the sun must circle the earth because the Bible says so, that the earth must have been created in 6 days because the Bible says so, that the earth is only 6010 years old, give or take a few hundred years, because the Bible says so - the presumption that the only thing a text can mean is exactly and only what the text says to the dumbest, most unperceptive reader: no metaphors, no similes, no implications, everything must be in black and white. What's particularly amusing about applying this kind of thought to the Constitution is that we have 1. an entire amendment dedicated to denying this kind of interpretation, and 2. a commentary on the Constitution, written in part by two of its principal authors (Hamilton and Madison), which explicitly says that they are most concerned about the possibility that the judicial system would be compromised by precisely the argument these nit wits are making, that the judiciary doesn't make law. Yes, Hamilton and Madison did later in life express disdain toward some of the decisions of the judiciary - but that was on issues of interest to themselves, at a time when they were no longer capable of maintaining the kind of detatchment that was necessary to write the Constitution in the first place.

Meanwhile the Republicans are using litmus tests to limit their choices to the court - using the powers of the Executive and the Legislature to pack the court and undermine its independence (not that it hasn't been done before, and by liberals) - and doing so while claiming to honor the true intentions of the founders, and claiming that Democrats are trying to impose THEIR political beliefs on the court (ever hear of Harriet Miers? Why do you think she was withdrawn? Because she didn't pass the political litmus tests - of the Conservatives)!

Their hypocrisy is monumental; and no one calls them on it because they fear the ignorant mob into which the Republican party have transformed the electorate with their Goeringesque propaganda tactics. Listen to the arguments that Gonzalez has used to try to justify the actions of this administration!

Do you honestly believe that the torture in Abu Ghraib was the work of a bunch of renegades? Why did Gonzalez write an opinion supporting the use of psychological torture tactics as legal BEFORE Abu Ghraib came out? Why did the administration withdraw from the International Criminal Court BEFORE Abu Ghraib came out? Because they planned it! When the administration claims that the authorization for use of force and the President's constitutional powers as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces (not commander in chief of the civilian population - the Constitution is quite clear in that distinction, despite Mr. Gonzalez's sophistries) give him the right to nullify the main requirements of a law explicitly passed to regulate the actions of the executive in a time of conflict because it grants him powers to prosecute a conflict, at the very same time they continue to make jokes about Clinton's arguments about "

Powerline isn't the best place for an unbiased opinion, but that aside his analysis is very one sided. He's not discussing a point but starting with a conclusion and cherrypicking legal cases - much the same way I did. ;)

I won't deny the legal issues are far from settled, but to say that they are all in favor of the NSA is ridiculous. I chose the particular case I mentioned because it's the most recent to deal with the 4th amendment in terms of wiretapping. I think it would be good to see this case end up in the USSC just to settle the issue.

If you want a good alternate opinion on the matter, check out John Dean's column on FindLaw here: http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20060224.html

It is universally agreed under Anglic law that the job of the jury is to return a verdict according to the factual evidence in the particular case before them. It is a matter of contention as to whether and to what extent the law itself should be judged by a jury. Most judges and lawyers consider outright nullification an irremediable error, and hold the view that it is the function of the judge to decide the questions of law, and the jury to only decide the questions of fact. Proponents of the right of jury nullification disagree, with considerable US historical precedent. Both sides feel that any flaws of the current arrangement are less than those of any proposed alternative to correct them.

Myself, I believe it is a right akin to that of the right to take arms against the government for purpose of establishing a new one: not justicable when sucessful, but the exercise of this right indicates a major problem in society (one way or another), and should be done neither lightly nor casually. That said, the prosecutor would have his work cut out extracting a "guilty" verdict out of me given the surrounding circumstances of this case, and the DA would also have no hope of extracting my vote for his re-election.

Those interested in the topic should read the oddly named Sparf v. US in its entirety. (No, it's not the trial of a Thundercat.)

Well, if you read the http://files.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/hdocs/do cs/terrorism/80601pdb.pdfpresidential daily briefing that I mentioned, it does mention hijacking planes in a couple of places. Or, you can read about all of the warnings that the government had that terrorists were planning on using planes as bombs http://www.oregonherald.com/n/trueblood/condi's_bi g_con.htmlhere.

So, yes, given the information that he was given, Bush was supposed to figure it out. Or he was supposed to assign resources in his administration to figure it out. But he was too focused on missile defense and Iraq to care.

What the heck are you talking about? It happens all the time. Sure, it's more common for it to be affirmed than reversed, but the Federal Circuit is notoriously fickle and random in its decision. Here's one example just from searching on google: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?c ourt=Fed&navby=case&no=011439

Kind of ironic, coming from somebody that is objecting to the contents of a speech he didn't hear and can't find a transcript of, isn't it? But I'll bite.

My claim, which you are objecting to:

This is now known to be false; the treatment was in fact authorized (by redefining torture) and Bush has yet to recant his position. It looked for a minute as if McCain had cornered him into showing some sense, but his signing statement makes it clear that he still endorses torture. The only thing that clearly wasn't authorized (and what the Bush administration has actually objected to) is taking pictures of the torture and leaking it to the media. The "perps" who have so far been charged are (last I heard) only the low level grunts who got caught.

My proof (or at least a sampling thereof--there's lots more):

• The Bush administration redefined 'torture' to permit techniques such as used at Abu Grabe
• The Bush administration defends the need for torture
• The Bush administration has a system of secret prisons in which such torture is conducted
• McCain pushes to have torture outlawed
• Bush dodges with a "signing statement" saying he isn't bound by the ban
• The Bush administration primarily objects to the fact that pictures were taken
• ...and blames the leakers
• Only the low-level grunts who got caught have been nailed, and they got slaps on the wrist

There is, of course, a lot more where that came from.

Now, can you please back up your claim that Gore told the Arabs to attack us?

--MarkusQ

Correct. Google's commercial states does weigh against them in attempting to claim Fair Use. I am in no way dissagreeing with the parent poster.

However I would like to clarify for others that commercial use can in fact be Fair Use. To clarify that money and profit are not incompatible with Fair Use. One of the landmark cases in the field of copyright law and Fair Use was the US Supreme Court case CAMPBELL v. ACUFF-ROSE MUSIC, INC. (1994) which ruled that copying for the direct and explicit purpose profit could in fact fall under Fair Use.

The publishing industry routinely missrepresents the law on copyright, especially in relation to Fair Use. Anyone who says that any single factor 'X' (such as commercial use or the copying of the entire work), that any single factor 'X' rules out Fair Use, that person either missunderstands the law and is unintentially missrepresenting the law, or that person *does* understand the law and they are deliberately missrepresenting it. A finding of Fair Use is based on a weighing of multiple factors, and no single factor is determinative. A use can "fail" any number of "tests", yet still qualify as fair use on the basis of any other factor the court deems outweighs them.

In fact something could "fail" all four of the "tests" commonly cited in relation to fair use, could fail all four of the factors written into law, yet still pass as Fair Use on the basis of some other unlisted factor. It would be improbable in the extreme to fail all four of those factors and still manage to qualify as Fair Use, but it is legally possible. The court has the power to consider other unlisted factors, and the court has the power to weigh them as it sees fit. The court could give the four listed factors zero weight in relation to some other overriding issue.

-

There are more federal laws than just the US code.

http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/constitution/
http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/cfr.html
http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/fed_register.html

So, next time you decide to clarify something for me, make sure you're clear on it yourself first.

There are more federal laws than just the US code.

http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/constitution/
http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/cfr.html
http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/fed_register.html

So, next time you decide to clarify something for me, make sure you're clear on it yourself first.

There are more federal laws than just the US code.

http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/constitution/
http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/cfr.html
http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/fed_register.html

So, next time you decide to clarify something for me, make sure you're clear on it yourself first.

Free speech is the absolute foundation of democracy and freedom.

<sarcasm>
Agreed. It's a good thing we Americans don't live in a country where the amount of money you have determines the amount of speech you have, and therefor the amount of democracy and freedom afforded you. We live in a country where the wealthy class can't use their money to drown out the voices of common working people. That's what makes us great.
</sarcasm>

For those less cognizant of the current state of American thought, money *is* considered by American courts, libertarians, and conservatives to be equivalent to speech. That means that in America, some people have more free speech than others. Remember when you visit America and hear someone say they believe in freedom, ask them whose.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/c onlaw/commercial.htm

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/am endment01/17.html#2

thank fvcking god for that.

The copyrights protect Mickey Mouse films, not Mickey himself (so it seems), who is actually fine just under trademark. Here's an interesting FindLaw article on the issue: http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20020305_s prigman.html

This article is neither interesting, nor informative. In fact, the summary is very misleading. The application for a pen register requires, "a certification by the applicant that the information likely to be obtained is relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation being conducted by that agency." No evidence of wrongdoing, my ass.

Plus, as the article mentions, it was the intention of Congress to bring these type of "trap and trace" orders for email in line with phone lines when they amended the law more than 4 years ago, so this isn't really news.

The Supreme Court ruled as early as 1979 that the fourth amendment doesn't require a warrant for a pen register, because you have no expectation of privacy in what phone numbers you call. I can't fathom any reason why federal investigators should have to meet one standard to get a pen register on your phone, and a different standard to get the same information for your email.

There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even tacitly take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears, and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus. And you've got to make it stop.

Doesn't this kind of behavior qualify as racketeering? If so, I'd be interested to hear from someone with a legal background as to whether RIAA could be prosecuted under RICO (FindLaw: http://criminal.findlaw.com/crimes/a-z/racketeerin g_rico.html)

Federal and state racketeering, profiteering, and RICO (Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organization) laws make it illegal for criminal organizations to profit from any legitimate business operations. Many of these laws allow for the confiscation and seizure of the criminal organization's legitimate enterprise assets, and are typically used against known "organized crime" groups. The goal is to cripple the operation financially, and cut off sources of cash that support ongoing criminal activity.

The only court that squarely has addressed the relative powers of Congress and the President in this field suggested that the balance tips decidedly in the President s favor. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review recently noted that all courts to have addressed the issue of the President's inherent authority have held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information. In re Sealed Case, 310 F.3d 717, 742 (Foreign Intel. Surv. Ct. of Rev. 2002). On the basis of that unbroken line of precedent, the court [took] for granted that the President does have that authority, and concluded that, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President s constitutional power. Id.14 Although the court did not provide extensive analysis, it is the only judicial statement on point, and it comes from the specialized appellate court created expressly to deal with foreign intelligence issues under FISA.

But the NSA activities are not simply exercises of the President s general foreign affairs powers. Rather, they are primarily an exercise of the President s authority as Commander in Chief during an armed conflict that Congress expressly has authorized the President to pursue. The NSA activities, moreover, have been undertaken specifically to prevent a renewed attack at the hands of an enemy that has already inflicted the single deadliest foreign attack in the Nation s history. The core of the Commander in Chief power is the authority to direct the Armed Forces in conducting a military campaign. Thus, the Supreme Court has made clear that the President alone is constitutionally invested with the entire charge of hostile operations. Hamilton v. Dillin, 88 U.S. (21 Wall.) 73, 87 (1874); The Federalist No. 74, at 500 (Alexander Hamilton). As commander-in-chief, [the President] is authorized to direct the movements of the naval and military forces placed by law at his command, and to employ them in the manner he may deem most effectual to harass and conquer and subdue the enemy.

And again...

The courts uniformly have approved this longstanding Executive Branch practice. Indeed, every federal appellate court to rule on the question has concluded that, even in peacetime, the President has inherent constitutional authority, consistent with the Fourth Amendment, to conduct searches for foreign intelligence purposes without securing a judicial warrant. See In re Sealed Case, 310 F.3d 717, 742 (Foreign Intel. Surv. Ct. of Rev. 2002) ( [A]ll the other courts to have decided the issue [have] held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information . . . . We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President s constitutional power. ) (emphasis added); accord, e.g., United States v. Truong Dinh Hung, 629 F.2d 908 (4th Cir. 1980); United States v. Butenko, 494 F.2d 593 (3d Cir. 1974) (en banc); United States v. Brown, 484 F.2d 418 (5th Cir. 1973).

and more... (notice this is pre-war)...

As noted in Part I, on May 21, 1940, President Roosevelt authorized warrantless electronic surveillance of persons suspected of subversive activities, including spying, against the United States. In addition, on December 8, 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt

You can find out exactly what authority is being asserted from this 42-page DOJ Whitepaper. Read the document to fully answer your question. From the summary:

-The Constitution gives the President sole authority to conduct warrantless surveillance of enemy forces for intelligence purposes to detect and disrupt armed attacks on the United States
-On 9/18/2001, Congress gave the President authority to "use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided" in terrorist attacks and to "prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States."
-The supreme court rule in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld that warrantless electronic surveillance was included in the joint authorization passed on 9/18/2001
-FISA specifically states that Congress can authorize surveillance by a statute other than FISA. The USSC confirmed in Hamdi that the 9/18/2001 joint authorization was an allowable statute.
-The NSA activities all fell within the 4th Amendment exception to the warrant requirement and satisfies and the fundamental requirement of reasonableness

Read the entire document for complete case references and quotes.

Article I, Section 9:

"The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases or Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

I'd say that terrorists invading the USA to endanger the public safety may require that the Writ of Habeas Corpus be suspended in these cases.

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.

Now, before you get out your boolean logic analyzers for a legal statement with centuries of precedent built on it, grok the fact that

"searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment--subject only to a few specially established and well-delineated exceptions."

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.

Now, before you get out your boolean logic analyzers for a legal statement with centuries of precedent built on it, grok the fact that

"searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment--subject only to a few specially established and well-delineated exceptions."

It's illegal under FISA.

1802(a)(1) Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year if the Attorney General certifies in writing under oath that -

• (A) ...
• (B) there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party; and
• (C) ...

Are you serious? There is hardly a concensus. From your Wikipedia link: "FISA ... makes it very clear that this is not the case. It allows the President to authorize electronic surveillance without a court order so long as, "there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party." (1802 B)" A link to the FISA law in question: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/50/ chapters/36/subchapters/i/sections/section_1802.ht ml

5,436,960 - "Electronic mail system with RF communications to mobile processors and method of operation thereof"
5,625,670 - "Electronic mail system with RF communications to mobile processors"
5,819,172 - "Electronic mail system with RF communications to mobile radios"
6,067,451 - "Electronic mail system with RF communications to mobile processors"
6,317,592 - "Electronic mail system with RF communications to mobile processors"

all at www.uspto.gov

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/fed/0316 15p.pdf

the QOTD at the bottom of this page was:

Destroy the most important thing.

In my opinion, Disney was just about to do this. They have been saved from this mistake. Maybe Disney can now go forth and innovate, rather than taking the tired Hollywood path of cranking out sequel after dismal sequel.

However, there may be a few other things they have to give up:
1. They might have to stop purchasing legislation to guarantee income from ancient work:
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20020305_s prigman.html
2. They might have to give up a little of the endless profits that they make to the creators (or their heirs) of the very thing that makes them so much:
http://www.svmedialaw.com/content-219-9th-circuit- rules-in-winniethepooh-case.html
3. They might have to stop the entire culture of cronyism at the highest levels that pays out huge amounts of money for no better reason than "friends":
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1117/p01s01-ussc.htm l
4. Speaking of the highest levels, they might have to clean house... oh wait! they already started:
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/BUSINESS/03/03/disney. eisner/

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/9th/0415 736p.pdf (warning, pdf file)

Long story short:

Asking for identification at the airport is not unduly burdomsome beacause asking for ID is reasonable, and giving him the option to be searched instead of having to produce his ID is reasonable.

The burdens on a single form of interstate travel does not implicate the fundemental right to interstate travel. Furthermore, a request for ID is not a seizure under the 4th Amendment.

Uh, the Constitution does not "grant" rights, to anonymous travel or anything else.

Go to the source -- " Amendment IV ".

From the Gilmore website:

The right to travel involves a number of constitutional issues:

The 1st Amendment

Physical travel and the First Amendment are inextricably intertwined. If you can't travel, then how can you exercise your right to Assemble? You can't Associate either, because you won't be able to get anywhere. Your right to Free Speech is also affected. You can say what you want, just not at that conference you wanted to attend but couldn't because you weren't allowed to get on a plane.

The 4th Amendment

Refusing a government "request" for ID triggers a severe penalty, such as loss of free movement. And lest we forget, having to show your ID is a search without a warrant.

In this court case, the core issue of our right to travel has been obscured by other side issues, secret law being the most outrageous of them.

Secret Law

There is no published statute or regulation requiring traveler identification. The airlines and the federal government insist that federal law requires passengers to show identification, yet can point to no published source of that requirement.

IMHO: Judges are smart, and they can see through rhetoric. This isn't an issue of freedom to travel, it's an issue of secret regulations and star chambers. The Bush administration will be remembered for two things: the so-called 'war on terror', and the vast and secret power grabs by the executive branch in order to fight that war. Maybe if Gilmore had focused his primary attack on the secret law angle, he might have had better success. Instead, he treated it as a "side issue".

I hate to say it, but this is what happened in Nazi Germany before World War II and just like in Nazi Germany, the people went along with it rather than putting a stop to it immediately. Just like we didn't stop Hitler from invading other countries because, as Hitler said, Germany could run the country better and make things better for everyone who lived there. It wasn't a good thing then - it's not a good thing now.

Amendment IV:

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.

On people having the right to move freely between the various states in the United States of America:

The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these States . . . shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States, and the people of each State shall have free ingress and regress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof respectively. . . [p764]

What (to me) is being done is called Divide and Conquer. Where you continue to split up something that is unified until it is in small enough parts to destroy it. In this case - it is your rights they are chiselling away at. "United we stand, divided we fall" is not just a saying. It has real meaning in today's world. If our government is allowed to continue to attack its own people we will become a military state or states run by an emperor or dictator. The stops in our laws were put in to prevent such a thing from happening. But if we just allow it to happen - it will. You want this nonsense to stop? You want it to go back to like it was before 9/11? Then you have to write your congressional person(s) and senators and tell them you want the government to stop trying to protect you from yourself. There are certain problems that go along with having as much freedom as we do and one of those is the fact that someone could decide to do something nasty to us. But the only way to be perfectly safe is to lock yourself in a steel vault situated on some remote planet in the universe. Since you can't do that you have to decide whether or not you are willing to give up all of your rights and live life as a slave or keep your freedoms and do the reasonable and sensible things to keep you and yours safe. This is not to say there should be NO security at airports but people moving between states should not be searched unless there is some kind of suspicious activity going on.

A PDF of the 9th Circuit Court Opinion is available at the link.

It is eerie how clearly these crisis were anticipated by the first US Supreme Court to fully grapple the wiretap issues.

It happened back in 1928. It is well worth reading.

The case was OLMSTEAD v. U.S., 277 U.S. 438 (1928)

There is a wikipedia article discussing this case at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmstead_v._United_St ates

The decision is available on Findlaw at:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?c ourt=us&vol=277&invol=438

Then, about 40 years later, it seems like the US had to explore just how bad things could get during the abuses of Operation Shamrock.

Now, 40 years later AGAIN, we appear to be doing it all over again.

Then, as now, the government appeared to have the best of intensions. Then, as now, the government violated the law in order to perform the wiretaps.

Back in 1928, Associate Justice Louis Brandeis clearly anticipated our current situation. His words back then are extremely relevant today:

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.
[SNIP]
Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means-to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal-would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this court should resolutely set its face.

You might think it's that simple but it's not.

Findlaw has legal justification here. You can cry how you've been theoretically violated but it doesn't change the fact that this specific act of tapping foreign calls will remain legal until ruled otherwise by the courts. (appeals and all)

Napster users who upload file names to the search
index for others to copy violate plaintiffs' distribution rights.
Napster users who download files containing copyrighted
music violate plaintiffs' reproduction rights.

Clearly every one of them is literate, very literate.

Except, apparently, when it comes to the Constitution of the United States...

Why don't you simply admit I'm right? I showed you.

No, you haven't. No citation of a law such as you describe has yet been provided.

Along with that question of who you are (which you have no choice but to admit such laws exist in those states, because they do), the very next thing that cop will say to you is "Let's see some ID."

Yes, they will. That doesn't mean that it is a crime to not have any such ID on you. That was your claim: "most states, if not all states, it is illegal to not have a photo identification on your person if you are over 16 years of age". I'm asking you again to substantiate it: name the state and the statute. (California once had one, it was struck down by Kolender v. Lawson.)

I've already stipulated that having and showing an ID can be a useful means of removing any reasonable suspicion. That does not mean that your claim, that it is unlawful to fail to carry such ID, is true. (After all, it would also be a useful means of removing reasonable suspicion to have a tattoo on my face so that I can't easily be confused with someone else.)

I think you should conceed that the Terry stop laws are effectively what I said.

So your arguement is that "stop and identify" laws, which require people to state their name to cops, somehow make it a crime to not carry photo id? No.

The Hiibel opinion states, "The Court is now of the view that Terry principles permit a State to require a suspect to disclose his name in the course of a Terry stop", not "require a suspect to produce identity papers." It also says, "As we understand it, the statute does not require a suspect to give the officer a driver's license or any other document. Provided that the suspect either states his name or communicates it to the officer by other means--a choice, we assume, that the suspect may make--the statute is satisfied and no violation occurs."

Requiring to see my papers is a search under the text of the Fourth Amendment - "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures". A Terry stop is not a warranted search, but a mere "frisk".

Again, I stipulate that concenting to such a search - showing papers - may be in some circumstances a wise means of removing suspicion and preventing arrest for some other crime, but that does not mean that choosing to not carry or display such papers is a crime in itself, as you assert.

Otherwise it is meaningless - I could say I'm one of (Benedict Arnold, John Gacy, Teddy Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Bill Gates), or some other made up name (John Jobs, Jack Sky).

Or I could be carrying an easily obtained fake id. So what? Both lying to the cops and showing fake id are crimes. Leaving my wallet at home while I go walk the dog is not.

Even the best lawyers in the country disagree on the law. That is why we have courts.

Disagreements are over the interpretation and application of law, not on the text of the law itself.

I have worked with the poorest of the poor for over 10 years and I have NEVER found one single solitary poor person that didn't have a photo ID...I have yet to see a good argument as to how getting an ID is somehow hard. It is a myth.

It is a fact that thousands of people in Georgia do not have government-issued identification. And they are hard to

"The legal burden is already on the uploaders, not the downloads."

Absolutely wrong. Read through the Napster decision. It specifically states that both uploaders and downloaders are infringing.

Alito explains his position better than I can

Back to my original point. Judge Alito explains his position better than I can, and covers everything you have mentioned and more. I encourage you to read his opinion for the case. I think it is very difficult to read that opinion, especially considering it is his only anti-abortion opinion in 15 years on the bench, and come away thinking he would vote to overturn or cripple Roe v. Wade. However, that is what people on both sides of the debate are focusing on.

The Supreme Court case Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Company, 259 U.S. 20 (1922) is worth reading when politicians propose this type of law. Basically, a law may not use punitive taxation for the purpose of regulation of an item or activity that would not otherwise be within the scope of regulation. For instance, if violent video games are protected speech, you may not regulate them by using punitive taxation. The same would apply to abortion or to firearms to the extent that they are protected. The power to tax is indeed the power to destroy.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?c ourt=us&vol=259&invol=20
http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/ USSC_CR_0259_0020_ZO.html

Better go buy your ObL pennant and jersey, then; corporations have had legally recognized status as persons, with all kinds of rights, since the late 1800's. That's why junk mail is legal; prohibiting it infringes on corporations' "free speech rights". The Supreme Court case is Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company.

GOOG is just following the market down. Every time the market moves, the analysts have to come up with an explanation, which is almost always bogus.

It seems extraordinarily clumsy of the Justice Department to subpoena this information from the search engines. First and foremost, by what right can the US government require confidential information from a company or person when there is no criminal action contemplated? The fourth amendment protects against unreasonable search and seizure, and this seems to be just such a case.

Fourth Amendment

Second, the traditional way for the US government to get this kind of information is to fund a 'study' and pay the web search companies for a series of analyses on a given topic of interest. The companies get to keep their methods confidential, get some return for their trouble, and the government has the benefit of expert analysis. Is this ethical? I'm sure Google and the government could agree on a degree of data anonymity that would satisfy both parties.

In this specific case, it appears that the government is trying to access data that isn't going to satisfy their objective. By being confrontational, they aren't going to get the benefit of Google's guidance.

Finally, it's pretty cynical to try to extract this information under the guise of combating child pornography. They are trying to get their nose in the tent using an issue that no one dares to counter.

Read FISA itself: 50 USC 1809. The part that says "not authorized by statute".

In other words, you'd be right, unless it's authorized somewhere else. Which the administration believes it is. And considering they went through all kinds of legal review, and modified the program at least once to address some legal concerns, flatly calling the surveillance "illegal" is wrong.

Read the full argument here (it's 42 pages long - that's lots of evidence to support the case that the surveillance is legal):

http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/nsa/dojnsa11906 wp.pdf

The best you can say is that this is a pissing contest between lawyers.

Ok. Here's one. I don't know too much about insidehighered.com, but I doubt it's a front for the aryan brotherhood.

In summary (because this is /., so RTFA is right out. ;->), white female candidate was one of the finalists for a job. Employer's EOO ADDED a male african-american candidate to the finalist pool. White female came in second from the top[1], while african-american came in second from the bottom. University gave the job to the african-american "candidate". Here's a link [pdf, you've been warned] to the decision by the seventh circuit to allow the case to proceed. So does she sound like she qualifies as "one good man or woman"?

Then there is the case of University of California Regents v Bakke[2]. Where it was held that the UC system had discriminated against a white applicant by admitting lesser-qualified minority applicants. Yeah, that's academic reverse discrimination as opposed to employment. And it was back in the 70's so it's completely irrelevant... Except that the exact same issue came before SCOTUS again in 1996. Unless you think PBS is an angry blogger. There have been a host of similar decisions handed down over the last few years, btw.

In a more general way, this site [3] points out in #12, that "less than 2 percent of the 91,000 employment discrimination cases pending before the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission are reverse discrimination cases." Working on the assumption (because I'm too lazy to mine for the actual numbers :-P) that the number is between 1% and 2% (If it were under 1%, I would have expected the site to say so), it appears that there are between 910 and 1819 [less than 2%, after all ;->] reverse discrimination claims working thier way through the EEOC at the moment.

I don't really have a dog in the fight, and to the best of my knowledge have never been passed over for a job based on either my race or my gender. Nor do I know anyone IRL who has claimed to have been so discriminated against. But you asked for proof of "even one" example. While implying that such was a high burden. Btw, google is your friend.

A now await the flames and downmods. /me dons asbestos suit.

[1] I'm personally curious where #1 fits into all this, but that's another issue.
[2] I don't think that Findlaw counts as an angry blogger-especially as it is just the literal SCOTUS decision.
[3] Which appears to be dismissive of the idea of reverse discrimination, btw.

I suspect that the law says that companies have to disclose what "intellectual property" they own, not what they use.

Sarbanes-Oxley says a lot, but as far as I can see, the law itself doesn't directly talk about intellectual property at all (e.g. a search for "intellectual" turns up no hits at all).

From reading through it, it looks to me like the basic requirements are 1) if the company in question is claiming part of the company's value is based on intellectual property, they need to report what it is and substantiate their claim, and 2) if they have liabilities, they disclose what they are.

With GPL software, they could be breaking either (or both) of the two. If they claim to own software that really falls under the GPL, that would probably violate the first part. If they don't report the fact that their violation of the GPL exposes them to liabilities, that would probably violate the second part. Note that the second only involves violation of the GPL, but the first could happen even if the GPL was actually being followed (i.e. they could be distributing source code to users who want it, but still claim in their annual report that what they were distributing belonged to them).

Keep in mind, however, that the summary I've given above is basically of what look to me like relevant parts of a long (66 pages) law that's mostly amendments to existing laws, so parts are hard to read. Worse, a lot of it directs the creation of a board, and then gives directions about what kinds of rules that board will make and enforce -- but a lot of the details are really in the board rules, not directly in the law itself. IOW, while I've tried to be reasonably accurate, if you're in a position where this matters much to you directly, you certainly do NOT want to take my word on any of this.

Here is what http://supreme.lp.findlaw.com/constitution/amendme nt01/13.html says about the apparently conflicting ideals of protection against illegal search and seizure, and the need for protecting national security.

"Preservation of the security of the Nation from its enemies, foreign and domestic, is the obligation of government and one of the foremost reasons for government to exist. Pursuit of this goal may lead government officials at times to trespass in areas protected by the guarantees of speech and press and may require the balancing away of rights which might be preserved inviolate at other times. The drawing of the line is committed, not exclusively but finally, to the Supreme Court..."

So.... I suppose if pressed we might see the answer from the supremes... but certainly I see your point, and support the "idea" of a right to privacy as an important constitutional principle. It's just hard to think that we might know about something like 9/11 and do nothing because of attempted congressional tweaking of the constitutional balance of power. Almost all legislative action on electronic privacy has been a hyperreaction to super bureaucrats like J. Edgar Hoover and presidential taping within the palace (also note the hype and legislation surrounding using COTS scanners to tap congressional cell phone calls in the early nineties). Let's face it, the real reason for oversight laws like the FISA were to protect members of the elite from folks inside the government who have some pretty fantastic capabilities from using them without controls. The FISA and other laws like it were never intended to protect Joe Fabeetz (a wise guy) from some faceless bureaucrat. The FISA was likely intended to protect a congressman caught on the phone accepting "favors" from some high powered lobbyist in DC. The idea was to put a huge crimp in any bureaucrats nose who thought it might be wonderful to use any of these capabilities in a vigilante way. It would be extremely naieve for anyone to think FISA was intended to protect you from some computer doing statistical analysis, and then escalating the results (assuming they were pretty damning in the first place) to a human, and eventually netting some sort of prosecution on some child pornography, adultry, tax cheating, internet fraud (ebay), reckless driving.... charge (or whatever). I can promise you, 99.999999999999% of this stuff would never make the first statistical cut. I would also hazard that unless you happened to get two "wrong number" phone calls within some really short period from two very hot countries, from two hot cell phone numbers, while somehow amassing some other pretty significant alerts flags from national law enforcement, you are not likely to have a visit from any law enforcement or DoD agency any time soon. Nor is any monitoring (as long as you don't exceed some statistical threshhold) going to continue very long. I doubt they have the time or manpower to deal with all the "REAL" threats.

I guess I think of the framers as pretty sophisticated people by comparison with most in congress today who attempt to pass laws to modify, tweak, influence, interfere with and limit the judicial, and executive branches. Yet at the same time the current crop find it pretty cool (and certainly an unassailable principle) that they themselves can dodge, manipulate, twist, distort, or foil every rule, take money from any cause, violate any law, mouth any half truth, spout any invective, engage in partisan rhetoric for personal agrandizement, reveal national secrets, abuse every moral tenet, and pass their own raises and fringe package, while always attempting to hold others in government and out to the "higher standard".

I don't think the president is perfect (quite the contrary), and I certainly have grave doubts about making a habit of using echelon as a paractice on US citizens, but I definitely think 9/11 presents a pretty compelling case, and ce

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:--''I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.''

...he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed