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In 2016, The FAA set regulations that "allow" drones to fly below 400 feet to prevent interference with planes above that height, and makes it a felony for a landowner to block drones flying through the lower altitudes regardless of ownership.

Citation attached to that quote
I'd certainly say taking a shotgun to an aircraft is one way to "block drones".

Also, I don't get why the judge can rule that he "had a right to shoot at the aircraft" when the FAA clearly lays out that it's illegal to "[perform] an act of violence against or incapacitates any individual on any such aircraft, if such act of violence or incapacitation is likely to endanger the safety of such aircraft" Source.

What we may be seeing here is a repeat of what happened in the motorcycle industry happening to the car industry.

Motorcycle shift patterns have been standardized in US specification bikes since the 1960s due to http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/C... to enforce the 1N234 pattern on the left foot peg. Prior to this, it was not uncommon to find UK spec bikes with 32N1 and 1N234. Norton and Triumph are good examples of manufactures that changed during the 1960s when this standard came out.

Where things get interesting is there are scooter segments that use a N12345 pattern instead of the motorcycle pattern of 1N2345.

Because of this, I always ask what shift pattern is used on motorcycles when riding a new on for the first time.

But if you want some safety' changes that got taken off subsequent year models, BMW during the 1980s put a spring loaded auto retract side stand on at least the R series bikes to prevent you from riding off with the side stand down. No idea how many of these bikes got dropped on their side because owners looking to get off their bike would put the stand down, lean the bike over, and find the stand had already come back up. Another I actually liked was middle 1990s through early 2010s (model refresh time dependent) BMW had 3 different buttons for turn signals, Left handlebar for left, right handlebar for right, and a cancel instead of the 3 position toggle switch found on nearly every other bike before and since. Hazard was to hit both left and right at the same time. Midway, the bikes got auto cancel as a number of complaints came in that the cancel switch was hard to reach when wearing some types of gloves.

You're talking about 18 USC 2071. That wouldn't block election to the presidency. The Constitution runs supreme over everything else; a statutory prohibition to holding office of the president due to a violation of criminal law would be above and beyond the requirements set in the Constitution, and therefore void.

There's precedent for this, too. In the 1990s, a bunch of states added term limits to their congressional representatives, but the Supreme Court overturned these in 1995, saying that states couldn't add requirements not present in the Constitution. Even earlier, in Powell v. McCormack, the Supreme Court found that "the Constitution leaves the House without authority to exclude any person, duly elected by his constituents, who meets all the requirements for membership expressly prescribed in the Constitution." A footnote extends this holding to include the Senate. Other cases have held that felons can seek the office of the president even if state laws barring felons from holding public office would preclude them from doing so, and felons have run for president.

Prof. Seth Barrett Tillman goes into much more detail at this Washington Post article where he responded to claims by former Attorney General Michael Mukasey that Clinton would be barred from office under 18 USC 2071. For his part, Mukasey demurred, saying that Tillman was correct and that if elected, Clinton could serve as president.

Funny...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The Communist Control Act (68 Stat. 775, 50 U.S.C. 841-844) is a piece of United States federal legislation, signed into law by President Dwight Eisenhower on 24 August 1954, which outlaws the Communist Party of the United States and criminalizes membership in, or support for the Party or "Communist-action" organizations and defines evidence to be considered by a jury in determining participation in the activities, planning, actions, objectives, or purposes of such organizations.

You might also be amused/informed/scared shitless by this:
https://trello.com/c/arrNVNIt/...

Oh, an amusing note on the Wikipedia page:

The overwhelming support provided by the liberals has attracted much attention from historians such as Mary McAuliffe (The Journal of American History).

This is worth reading:
https://law.resource.org/pub/u...

It's important to note, and this is from Wikipedia, that this is also true:

Despite that, no administration has tried to enforce it.

Further reading and research can be done here:
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/gran... (Loading poorly.)
http://tucnak.fsv.cuni.cz/~cal... (Loads of good information.)

In other words, you're actually wrong. Now, the odds of it being prosecuted are nil and the US Communist Party exists to this day. But, it is very, very much a FEDERAL CRIME to be a Communist or a member of the Communist Party in the United States. The Nazi party is fair game, however. You can be a Nazi, if you want, but being a communist is right out.

There is absolutely no law banning communism, just like there is no law saying you can't put a white sheet over your head and march down the street with the KKK.

How in the fuck is this scored Insightful?

It's Insightful because it's unfortunately true. Check out this gem of American history: the Communist Control Act of 1954. You can also download the text from the Government Publishing Office. It very explicitly states that, according to law, anyone in the Communist Party is considered to be attempting to overthrow the government, and shall be punished according to the law of Internal Security Act of 1950.

Now you might be able to make the claim that if you generally believe communist principles but aren't part of the established Party, this won't apply to you. But I think that effectively takes away your rights to organize, does it not? Still effectively a ban on the idea, if nothing else.

No, it's British. The US government Style Manual specifically requires the period to go inside the quotation marks. See rule 8.141 (p. 217): "The comma and the nal period will be placed inside the quotation marks."

The ironic thing is that back in ~1992 that the Dept. of Commerce already warned about the the US's policy of encryption hindered the US more then it helped:

* https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/...

In our April 29, 1992, testimony before your Subcommittee,
we stated that economic espionage hurts U.S. industry. U.S.
vendors of products with encryption capabilities and
telecommunications-service providers also testified that U.S.
government policy hinders both the safekeeping of U.S. industry's
competitive secrets and international competitiveness. They further
testified that because products with commercial encryption technology
are available internationally, the U.S. government should relax
restrictions on the export of such products to improve their ability
to compete in the world marketplace.

A study was commissioned a few years later "A STUDY OF THE INTERNATIONAL MARKET FOR COMPUTER SOFTWARE WITH ENCRYPTION"

* https://epic.org/crypto/export...

In the security specific software market, however, U. S. manufacturers
face competition in several foreign markets from such encryption exporting
countries as the United Kingdom, Germany, and Israel. To a large extent,
markets for these products tend to be "national. " Not only do export
controls affect sales, but local vendors of security-specific products are
at a competitive advantage in that they are better situated to work
closely with end- users and develop encryption solutions tailored to meet
the conditions of the local environment. (U)

In 2000, the "Revised U.S. Encryption Export Control Regulations" had this note:

* https://epic.org/crypto/export...

Note: Encryption software is controlled because of its functional capacity, and not because of any informational value of such software; such software is not accorded the same treatment under the EAR as other "software"; and for export licensing purposes, encryption software is treated under the EAR in the same manner as a commodity included in ECCN 5A002.

2. When Clinton was using the private email server, there was no law or policy that required her to use the government email server.

There were legal requirements. Per the National Archives and Records Administration's Code of Federal Regulations Hillary would have had to cc her official government email every time in order to maintain an official archive. Clearly she did not. This would fall under the section requiring all federal agencies to preserve records and assure the were readily available.

See the snip below from the FFA modernization and reform act of 2012. You will see that Congress specificly FORBIDS the FFA from creating ANY new rules in regard to model/hobby aircraft. So from a legal standpoint this and the initial attempt to regulate hobby aircraft is unconstitutional. You can find the full documents @ https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/...

SEC. 336. SPECIAL RULE FOR MODEL AIRCRAFT.
(a) IN GENERAL.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law
relating to the incorporation of unmanned aircraft systems into Federal
Aviation Administration plans and policies, including this subtitle,
the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration may
not promulgate any rule or regulation regarding a model aircraft,
or an aircraft being developed as a model aircraft, if—
(1) the aircraft is flown strictly for hobby or recreational
use;
(2) the aircraft is operated in accordance with a community-based
set of safety guidelines and within the programming
of a nationwide community-based organization;
(3) the aircraft is limited to not more than 55 pounds unless
otherwise certified through a design, construction, inspection,
flight test, and operational safety program administered
by a community-based organization;
(4) the aircraft is operated in a manner that does not interfere
with and gives way to any manned aircraft; and
(5) when flown within 5 miles of an airport, the operator
of the aircraft provides the airport operator and the airport air
traffic control tower (when an air traffic facility is located at
the airport) with prior notice of the operation (model aircraft
operators flying from a permanent location within 5 miles of an
airport should establish a mutually-agreed upon operating procedure
with the airport operator and the airport air traffic control
tower (when an air traffic facility is located at the airport)).
(b) STATUTORY CONSTRUCTION.—Nothing in this section shall
be construed to limit the authority of the Administrator to pursue
enforcement action against persons operating model aircraft who endanger
the safety of the national airspace system.
(c) MODEL AIRCRAFT DEFINED.—In this section, the term ‘‘model
aircraft’’ means an unmanned aircraft that is—
(1) capable of sustained flight in the atmosphere;
VerDate Mar 15 2010 03:52 Feb 04, 2012 Jkt 072595 PO 00000 Frm 00072 Fmt 6659 Sfmt 6603 E:\HR\OC\HR381.XXX HR381
pwalker on DSK7TPTVN1PROD with REPORTS
69
(2) flown within visual line of sight of the person operating
the aircraft; and
(3) flown for hobby or recreational purposes.

What about the conspiracy theory that 9/11 was an inside job orchestrated by the government?

They aren't competent enough to orchestrate something like that. They also weren't competent enough to stop it, despite getting plenty of notice about some of the orchestrators. That doesn't make them any less responsible.

It's hard to believe that the same government that built the SR71 blackbird and operated it in secret convincing many "useful idiots" that 'they aren't UFO's' is so incompetent that they couldn't stop a bunch of extremists from flying a plane into the largest buildings of the largest US city. How can any other security theatre be justified as effective in the wake of such a bungle.

Rather than theorize I ask if it is possible that the US military could develop drone aircraft technology in 2001 and deploy it onto a tanker aircraft? Is it possible to order remote crews to participate in an exercise that they will run from the pentagon as the bad guys flying a simulated plane into a building. Is it possible to order a missile crew to launch a missile as part of their exercise, who don't know it is aimed at a drone crew in the pentagon. Is it possible to use a hitman to take out the missile crew so there are no leaks.

OR

Is it possible to convince a few loonies to get on a plane and fly it into buildings so there are no leaks.

Of course not, it's all just speculation. Usually the simplest explanation fits which is really appealing to the dogmatic skeptic masses who want to believe they are just a little too smart to be deceived. No one would ever do such a thing because it would provide the justification is to clamp down on *your* freedoms to protect you from the extremists who hate you having those freedoms. You would somehow have to convince everyone that brainwashing a population is impossible, which of course it is because now we have a simple mathematical model to prove it.

There certainly are plenty of conspiracy theories about other things however I've never seen a forensic investigation of the crime scene that was 9/11 so I doubt that we will ever know for sure on this one.

What I do know is that in the wake of "the conspiracy that wasn't" several laws that clamp down on *your* freedoms to protect you from the extremists who hate you having those freedoms reshape democracy into autocracy. Perhaps the conspiracy was "what if we could steal democracy from the people, how would we do that?".

Freedom, democracy, accountability have been demonstrated as the ultimate weapons against *any* terrorism because you might not have anything to hide, but you sure have got a lot to loose.

What about the conspiracy theory that 9/11 was an inside job orchestrated by the government?

They aren't competent enough to orchestrate something like that. They also weren't competent enough to stop it, despite getting plenty of notice about some of the orchestrators. That doesn't make them any less responsible.

It's hard to believe that the same government that built the SR71 blackbird and operated it in secret convincing many "useful idiots" that 'they aren't UFO's' is so incompetent that they couldn't stop a bunch of extremists from flying a plane into the largest buildings of the largest US city. How can any other security theatre be justified as effective in the wake of such a bungle.

Rather than theorize I ask if it is possible that the US military could develop drone aircraft technology in 2001 and deploy it onto a tanker aircraft? Is it possible to order remote crews to participate in an exercise that they will run from the pentagon as the bad guys flying a simulated plane into a building. Is it possible to order a missile crew to launch a missile as part of their exercise, who don't know it is aimed at a drone crew in the pentagon. Is it possible to use a hitman to take out the missile crew so there are no leaks.

OR

Is it possible to convince a few loonies to get on a plane and fly it into buildings so there are no leaks.

Of course not, it's all just speculation. Usually the simplest explanation fits which is really appealing to the dogmatic skeptic masses who want to believe they are just a little too smart to be deceived. No one would ever do such a thing because it would provide the justification is to clamp down on *your* freedoms to protect you from the extremists who hate you having those freedoms. You would somehow have to convince everyone that brainwashing a population is impossible, which of course it is because now we have a simple mathematical model to prove it.

There certainly are plenty of conspiracy theories about other things however I've never seen a forensic investigation of the crime scene that was 9/11 so I doubt that we will ever know for sure on this one.

What I do know is that in the wake of "the conspiracy that wasn't" several laws that clamp down on *your* freedoms to protect you from the extremists who hate you having those freedoms reshape democracy into autocracy. Perhaps the conspiracy was "what if we could steal democracy from the people, how would we do that?".

Freedom, democracy, accountability have been demonstrated as the ultimate weapons against *any* terrorism because you might not have anything to hide, but you sure have got a lot to loose.

See my reply to your other post. The NRO is publicly known for doing RF signal analysis using terrestrial equipment. If you cannot see how this would obviously dovetail with being able to conduct internet surveillance or remote exploits... I would say you are the one who is "not really thinking about this."

The NSA and NRO both predate the internet. The NSA expanded its role to include internet surveillance. The NRO obviously did the same, but it doesn't appear to be as widely known or admitted to the general public. There are a variety of reasons for this, not all of which I am willing to get into here. But if you still aren't convinced read my other reply, and educate yourself a little more about the NRO's budget shenanigans. If satellites are as expensive as you say, why did the NRO have such massive unreported surpluses? Why are NASA's scientific satellites apparently cheaper by at least an order of magnitude? And why is their budget structure so vaguely described?

The FAA can regulate the skies

The FFA can regulate the skies only to the extent that the regulations serve the purpose of the FAA as defined in the fucking law.

https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/...

The law is designed "to provide for the regulation and promotion of civil aviation in such manner as to best foster its development and safety, and to provide for the safe and efficient use of the airspace by both civil and military aircraft, and for other purposes".

The FAA has been shitting out regs that do NOT promote civil aviation in a manner that best fosters its development and safety. You could argue for safety and then claim safety trumps all, but we all know that's not true. Banning cell phones on airplanes has nothing to do with safety. Neither does granting flight attendants unlimited "fuck you, do as I say or I'll make the other passengers hog tie you and when we land you'll head straight to the rape room" powers over passengers. And we all know safety doesn't trump all - if that were true we wouldn't fly at all.

It really immaterial what the estimates of gifts were. In 2012, the FAA was ordered to have regulations in place by september 2015, to handle commercial UAS. They were explicitly prohibited from regulating hobby drones. UAS tech was blossoming, and the FAA knew this long ago.

In Sept 2015, they updated their AC-91 57, which had to do with hobby UAS. They had been running some tests for commercial flights, handing out occasional section 333 exceptions to movie industries and others.

In Nov 2015, they got feedback that this year's sales were expected to be around 1M+. Fearing what you stated, dumb people flying drones into manned aircraft, they cobbled together a site incredibly quickly requiring registration of all aircraft. They loosely, and wrongly, interpreted the law stating that they may not promulgate restrictions or regulations that affect any hobby or recreational UAS, to read that they may not promulgate rules that affect only hobby or recreational UAS. Despite having 3 years to see this and come up with regulations, they bypassed the mandatory 60 days of public comment stating that it was an emergency situation (caused by their own inaction, which case law has shown cannot be used as an excuse to consider it an emergency).

They are now requiring everyone 13 years old and up to publicly register their names and addresses. In a searchable database, publicly accessible. Failure to do this carries up to a 3 year jail sentence and $25,000 fine. This is the potential penalty for little johnny flying a drone at TWO INCHES above ground level in his own back yard. No joke, the FAA has asserted control from the top of a blade of grass (their words) to the top of the atmosphere. If a neighbor complains about little johnny in his back yard playing with a helicopter that looks like it weights more than 500g, a federal cop has probable cause.

The FAA had orders to have this in place 3 years ago, and failed. Based on that failure, they're claiming an emergency gives them rights to break the law and forgo public comment. The estimates for drone gifts don't matter... the FAA was given 3 years to solve this before it became an issue. Now they are breaking the law that literally requires an act of congress to reverse. (See section 336 which prohibits them from regulating hobby craft.)

There were so many other ways they could have handled this correctly. They could have requested hobby drone manufacturers enclose a copy of AC-91 57 in their packaging. They could have petitioned congress to change the law, allowing some regulation of hobby drones. They could have made a system that didn't allow searching for names and addresses of minors. They could have asked drone manufacturers to, by default, activate geofencing (but not require it). I'm sure there are other even better ways to handle this, too.

I think you're right that it doesn't count but not because it's "trivial to bypass" but because the javascript copy-block is not necessary to access the work and doesn't "[require] the application of information, or a process or a treatment" to access the work.

If you did a simple ROT13 encryption of the text and had javascript decrypt it on load and included copy/paste blocking then I think it'd probably count even though it wouldn't be very effective.

Or if the javascript only "allowed" you to copy/paste 1 word at a time then I think it'd count but wouldn't be very effective.

My layperson interpretation:

(a)(1)(A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
(a)(3)(A) to “circumvent a technological measure” means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and

Definitely bypassing a technological measure here but does it "effectively control access"? ...

(a)(3)(B) a technological measure “effectively controls access to a work” if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.

... I don't think our javascript copy-block technological measure here qualifies as effectively controlling access to the work.

(b)(2)(B) a technological measure “effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title” if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, prevents, restricts, or otherwise limits the exercise of a right of a copyright owner under this title.

Sounds like the simple javascript copy-blocking would count as a technological measure protecting the right of a copyright owner. But (b)(2)(B) shouldn't apply to (a)(1)(A) as they're different subsections dealing with different issues.

The DMCA: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/...
The US Code is modifies: https://www.law.cornell.edu/us...

It wouldn't have been useful here. The line item veto was extremely limited:

``Sec. 1021. > (a) In General.--Notwithstanding the provisions of parts A and B, and subject to the provisions of this part, the President may, with respect to any bill or joint resolution that has been signed into law pursuant to Article I, section 7, of the Constitution of the United States, cancel in whole-- ``(1) any dollar amount of discretionary budget authority; ``(2) any item of new direct spending; or ``(3) any limited tax benefit;"

So a section of the law that authorizes allows or requires activity, but does not fund it is not covered by the old line item veto. The president also had to show that the veto would directly reduce the deficit, not hurt national interests and not impair any government functions.

It was one of those laws that politicians are very fond of passing. They can talk up how great they are for passing it and giving the government the tools to save the country from whatever crisis, fear or worry they are pumping up to get votes out of people, while still being almost completely useless in reality.

He didn't "hit it on the nose," he has it completely wrong. Try reading this at Cornell law school and see if it cuts through the fog for you. I've already corrected him in another place. We're 14 years into this at this point, I would hope that people still aren't clueless after all this time. And while you're at it, read this. Legally is it equivalent to a declaration of war. And the rest of your statement is rubbish too. Good grief. (I suppose I should mention this final clue: LAW OF WAR vs CRIMINAL LAW - different things, different standards.)

You do know that the US Congress has authorized military action, right? That authorization is legally equivalent to a declaration of war.

I would have thought that you might have heard a thing or two about since it has been in force for 14 years.

Here's the executive order.
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/F...

I should have noted that it actually doesn't only apply to companies which do any business with the federal government, it also applies to companies which provide services or to those companies , and those who provide services to thise second-level companies , and so on down the line.

It would be LEGAL under this EO, though inconvenient, to move only the lower-paid jobs (interns, entry-level positions"that don't require a degree) oversees while keeping the rest of the facility in the US. Of course there are other penalties for hiring in the US for higher-paid jobs. As we've seen, many companies, like HP, decide to just move the entire facility overseas.

So..here we go with Obama and the PC folks, basically needing to re-write history again. No more old symbols, if it is something a white guy did, gotta take that down, etc.

Geez...why are we needing to tear down everything old or rename it in the name of political correctness or whatever. Let things be and build from there, eh?

every time i see someone whine about "political correctness", i notice what they're really asking for is continuing permission to be a jerk to others.

Denali was originally known by that name not only by native peoples in the area, but also locally by the state of Alaska.

so not only are you really asking, "hey, why can't i continue being disrespectful to native Alaskans?", you also hate states' rights. good work there.

This.

I'm sure when the native Alaskans claimed changing the name of Denali was political correctness, they got a rifle but to the face.

I firmly believe that anyone who whinges about "PC" needs the same. After all, that is the world they're so desperate to bring back.

So..here we go with Obama and the PC folks, basically needing to re-write history again. No more old symbols, if it is something a white guy did, gotta take that down, etc.

Geez...why are we needing to tear down everything old or rename it in the name of political correctness or whatever. Let things be and build from there, eh?

every time i see someone whine about "political correctness", i notice what they're really asking for is continuing permission to be a jerk to others.

Denali was originally known by that name not only by native peoples in the area, but also locally by the state of Alaska.

so not only are you really asking, "hey, why can't i continue being disrespectful to native Alaskans?", you also hate states' rights. good work there.

Section 1924 of Title 18 makes it illegal to store classified information at an unauthorized site. This is not new. Hilary's only real defense is that she never transmitted any classified information during her term as SoS (you can be the judge on the likelihood of that).

Most of the post-Hilary changes to either procedures or guidelines had to do with shortening reporting periods (they made it mandatory for records to be shipped to retention withing 20 days) but States internal rules about email retention already forbade the use of personal email for work related communications.

These general guidelines were in place as far back as Powell although back then it was considered ok to just cc a state rep to ensure all his emails were stored on site. That was later determined to be too loose a rule and was changed to requiring a State dept. address. That requirement was in place before Hilary ever took the job but as I stated, it was a State Dept. rule and not a law.

The laws deal with the contents of the emails she stored on her server (as stated above) as well as the requirement to ensure all work related communications be sent to the National Archive (which she also failed to do).

The interesting thing is that some of these records laws she's been skirting actually have as a penalty the inability to ever hold public office in the United States.

"no one was under time pressure to drill what wasn't even a production well."

Yeah... only the date to finish the works on it was March 8th and any delay past this date was incurring overruning and opportunity costs since the Deepwater Horizon was already assigned to a new project.

Accident was on April 20th. These 43 days costed around 21M US$ to BP. The very same day of the accident a recommended 9-12 hours and 128,000US$ test of cement status was cancelled.

"Now please educate yourself beyond the daily telegraph."

It is not the messenger the one that makes the message true or false but, anyway, do you find the U.S. Government Publishing Office to be more reliable? Ok, try here for the same cite: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/C...

So the US Goverment publicly states that: "Whether purposeful or not, many of the risk-enhancing decisions that BP, Halliburton, and Transocean made saved those companies significant time (and money)."

Maybe its some thegarbzs overthere the ones that should better educate themselves before asking others for the same.

"terrorism-related category codes" what does this even mean? And "initial for a first name and missing social security numbers", those get a free pass too per OIG-15-98. "Social security number (SSN) is not currently a required field on the aviation worker credential application" quite surprising, as that is the primary means for tracking a worker. And "TSA did not receive certain terrorism-related category codes as part of the watchlist extract they used for vetting" tells me that it wasn't the TSA but whomever is compiling the list FOR the TSA that screwed up on this.

I finally found http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/C..., which has a list on page two. Still don't know if these are the "category codes" as mentioned though...it's all rather obscure. Interesting that "controlled substances" is mentioned twice as much as murder.

Except that Boeing asked the FAA for a Special Condition to allow just such an interconnection.

Which was granted: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/granu...

Actually, there were a lot of people complaining about the deficit in Bush's last two years in office.

Let's look at all the numbers and not just your cherry-picked selection (these numbers are total - both on- and off-budget, source is the GPO):

2002 - 157 billion
2003 - 377 billion
2004 - 412 billion
2005 - 318 billion
2006 - 248 billion
2007 - 160 billion
2008 - 458 bilion
2009 - 1,412 billion

What, you might ask, happened in 2008? Oh yeah, that's the first fiscal year where the budget was passed by a Democratic controlled Congress. There were plenty of us begging that Bush veto those Congressional bills and he failed to do so in order to keep up the support he needed for the war.

The last year of the Bush presidency is very interesting as it relates to the budget. At the time there were a number of companies failing. Obama had been elected and Bush asked Obama what he wanted to have done. The incoming Obama administration had a lot of say in what was passed and Bush gave him full support. Even more interesting is that the TARP fund was fully funded in that budget and, hence, the huge number. However, the repayments of TARP were accounted for in the fiscal years in which they occurred. In essence, much of the budget deficits until TARP was repaid were artificially lower because they, in essence, borrowed from fiscal year 2009.

> Hawaii wouldn't have voted to join the U.S. in 1959 by 93%.

Out of a population of 600,000 only 140,000 voted for statehood. Including tens of thousands of US military servicemen.

Can you say voter disenfranchisement and ballot stuffing?

Furthermore, in 1993 Congress and the President acknowledged that fact in public law 103-150 where they declared:

the indigenous Hawaiian people never directly relinquished their claims to their inherent sovereignty as a people or over their national lands to the United States, either through their monarchy or through a plebiscite or referendum;

When just 20 years ago both governing branches of the US government acknowledged the vote was not representative, it is pretty arrogant of you to claim otherwise.

That's an interesting read. While nothing in the order says criminal penalties it mentions the laws which apparently let one person rule by diktat so I expect that they specify the penalties.

Isn't that the entire point of emergency powers? The order specifically says "national emergency."

Anyways, let's look at the laws that are cited:
Termination of existing declared emergencies: 50 U.S.C. 1601
Unusual and extraordinary threat; declaration of national emergency; exercise of Presidential authorities: 50 U.S.C. 1701
General authorization to delegate functions: Section 301 of Title 3
Inadmissible aliens: 8 U.S.C. 1182(f)

Presidential authorities: 50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(2)
Banning entry to aliens covered by the order: section 1 of Proclamation 8693 of July 24, 2011 [really long name] (PDF)
Critical infrastructure definitions: Presidential Policy Directive 21
Reporting requirements to Congress on spending for emergency orders: 50 U.S.C. 1641(c)
Reporting requirements to Congress in general for emergency orders: 50 U.S.C. 1703(c)

The only ones that I think worth quoting are:

50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(2)
  (b) Exceptions to grant of authority
The authority granted to the President by this section does not include the authority to regulate or prohibit, directly or indirectly--

• (1) [not what is cited]
• (2) donations, by persons subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, of articles, such as food, clothing, and medicine, intended to be used to relieve human suffering, except to the extent that the President determines that such donations

• (A) would seriously impair his ability to deal with any national emergency declared under section 1701 of this title,
  (B) are in response to coercion against the proposed recipient or donor, or
  (C) would endanger Armed Forces of the United States which are engaged in hostilities or are in a situation where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances; or [2]

8 U.S.C. 1182(f)
  (f) Suspension of entry or imposition of restrictions by President
Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate. Whenever the Attorney General finds that a commercial airline has failed to comply with regulations of the Attorney General relating to requirements of airlines for the detection of fraudulent documents used by passengers traveling to the United States (including the training of personnel in such detection), the Attorney General may suspend the entry of some or all aliens transported to the United States by such airline.

If the war on terror never ends, neither will these emergency powers.

In the Target case, the court certified the plaintiff as a class that could initiate a class action suit on the basis that they may have been being discriminated against in the "enjoyment of goods, services, facilities, or privileges". An out-of-court settlement was reached between Target and the plaintiff, so the matter was never settled in court.

The problem? The court handling the Target case is in the 9th Circuit Court's jurisdiction, and the 9th Circuit Court had already established a precedent over this exact same topic way back in 2000 (if that case looks familiar, it's because it's the same precedent they're citing in the current case). If you look in section II.B, what you'll see is that the 9th asserts the whole "enjoyment" thing only pertains to places of "public accommodation", and that if you understand "public accommodation" in the context in which it was used, it's abundantly clear that Congress was specifically talking about physical locations (it really is pretty clear...even without being a lawyer, the language is easy to understand). Congress even gave examples, like zoos, restaurants, auditoriums, and laundromats. Notably missing: mail order catalogs, infomercials, or any number of other ways that people might have procured goods and services (that text was written in 1990, so it's understandable that the Internet wouldn't have been mentioned).

Which is to say, the lower court decided that instead of following precedent, they'd ignore it and interpret the ADA text in a way that was both contrary to how the relatively plain and easy to understand language was written by Congress and was also contrary to how the higher court they are under had said it should be interpreted. The judge in the Target case even made comments indicating their interest in seeing the plaintiff's success in the case help extend the law into areas where it hadn't reached before (i.e. places where it wasn't supposed to reach to begin with, a fact which the judge was ignoring). Moreover, had that case been allowed to progress, it would have established a wide-reaching precedent that could have been used to impose ADA restrictions on practically anything and everything, even when it would make no sense to do so.

All of which is to say, whatever precedent might have been set by that court would have been wiped out by the 9th's earlier decision that was completely contrary to theirs. Had Target not settled, I'd wager that they'd have easily won in appeals, since the next court up is the 9th, and they appear to have a better memory for precedent than the lower court does.

Disclaimer: IANAL

Here's the actual law

which you will note is dated October 11th 2010.

Here's the Wikipage for that congress

which proves the Democrats controlled that US Senate at the time by a 56-to-42 margin.

The NASA particulars ware driven by the Senate rather than the House (which is both why it's called the "Senate Launch System" AND how it got passed, given that Harry Reid (D-Nevada) ran the senate and refused to allow any House bills to even be debated in the Senate between 2010 and 2014; when Harry lost the majority last fall he had parked over 400 House bills in his desk without debate or vote.

Liars like you pollute the internet with misinformation. The fact that you feel compelled to lie proves that you know the facts are contrary to your beliefs and you cannot win an argument truthfully.

The FAA has proposed drone rules. See http://www.faa.gov/news/press_... and http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/F... (Federal Register Vol. 80 No. 35, Feb 23, 2015) for details. Read them and send in comments.

Note to people complaining about the restrictions on Amazon and other drone operators: Now's your chance to make a difference. If you don't read the NPRM and send in comments you only have yourself to blame when the final rules aren't agreeable to you.

It specifically is illegal actually.

No, it specifically ISN'T illegal.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/F...

"Agencies that allow employees to send and receive official electronic mail messages using a system not operated by the agency must ensure that federal records sent or received on such systems are preserved in the appropriate agency recordkeeping system."

And the State Dept allowed it. Because it was perfectly normal. The requirement for the Secretary of State to use federal email systems only became law in 2014, after Clinton had left office.

Use of a stingray then arguably becomes a violation of 47 U.S.C. Section 333, prohibiting the causing of interference with radio communications.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/U...

https://www.fcc.gov/encycloped...

An alarm clock that shreds money? I'm pretty sure that destruction of legal tender is a somewhat serious crime.

Cutting US currency is a crime, but not all that serious a crime - a fine or imprisonment of not more than six months isn't exactly hard time.

Your mileage will vary with other nations' currency (vary from "shred all the Canadian bills you want" to "it's OK to shred some Euro notes privately" to "we're not sure whether it's OK to shred Brazilian real notes" to "no, you may not shred {Australian dollars, New Zealand dollars}".

Whether the Long Arm Of The Law will bother reaching out and touching you if your alarm clock shreds a few bills is another matter.

He might have already been a convicted felon, and if he was then even possessing it could be a felony.

I wonder if the definition of use is a matter of carrying the firearm while engaging in an illegal activity (ie, drug trafficking and distribution) even if his intention in carrying the firearm was to prevent someone from mugging him and taking the cash he had on his person.

The Supreme Court actually reversed *all nine* of the Federal Circuit Courts of Appeal on the issue of whether simply carrying a firearm during the commission of a felony was enough to prosecute them for "using" the firearm. It was kind of a landmark case. That being said, Congress just amended the law to make carrying the firearm during the commission of a felony an additional offense.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The court documents including the indictment are here. The charge for the firearm says: COUNT TWO

The Grand Jury for the District of Maryland further charges that:

On or about August 22, 2012, the defendant,

DAVID LAWRENCE HANDEL
did knowingly use and carry a firearm, that is a Glock 26, Serial Number SRP018, during and in relation to a drug trafficking crume for which he may be prosecuted in a court of the United States, that is, Conspiracy to Distribute and Possess with Intent to Distribute a controlled. Substance in violation of 21 U.S. C 846, as alleged in Count One of this Indictment.

Here's the law they're prosecuting under: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/U...

The law clearly states: is punishable by imprisonment or fine or both which may not exceed the maximum punishment prescribed for the offense”.
"Life" is either terrible reporting by Tiffany Kelly or deliberate misrepresentation to get more hits on ars.

Congress and the President did. It's Title VI, Subtitle D of the "Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012."

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/P...

You're incorrect. Part 15 devices are absolutely required to not cause interference. From the link, emphasis mine:

(a) Persons operating intentional or unintentional radiators shall not be deemed to have any vested or recognizable right to continued use of any given frequency by virtue of prior registration or certification of equipment, or, for power line carrier systems, on the basis of prior notification of use pursuant to 90.35(g) of this chapter.
(b) Operation of an intentional, unintentional, or incidental radiator is subject to the conditions that no harmful interference is caused and that interference must be accepted that may be caused by the operation of an authorized radio station, by another intentional or unintentional radiator, by industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) equipment, or by an incidental radiator.
(c) The operator of a radio frequency device shall be required to cease operating the device upon notification by a Commission representative that the device is causing harmful interference. Operation shall not resume until the condition causing the harmful interference has been corrected.

Republicans are in favor of Civil Asset forfeiture laws.

You mean 'republicans' like Joe Biden?

...Since you and I were the ones that wrote the forfeiture law years ago, Mr. Chairman [Strom Thurmond]...

Yes, they are very bipartisan when need be.

Fuck 'em all. And kill the charade, okay?

This is said repeatedly, and yet the previous administration, with a Republican house and senate, never advanced a bill for it

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/B...

No, the previous administration didn't introduce the bill. It was introduced back in 1993 by a group of about 20 Republican sponsors. It didn't get enough traction to go anywhere.

There are a lot of similarities between the ACA and HEART, but there are differences too.

http://www.politifact.com/pund...

You need some cites for that.

First, if we read the Iraq war resolution the claims seem to be "continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations"

Troops were told to keep quiet about finds because those finds were part of a monumental fuck up by the coalition forces in that they were originally UN sealed sites which had been left unattended for months after the invasion

This specifically needs a cite. As far as I'm aware of, all of the known stockpile sites which did not have the WMDs destroyed were actively targeted for bombing during the initial invasion. It's not like the UN seal sites were secret or anything.

I know you need to keep the narrative alive in order to prevent discovery of your world view being fabricated but you should be able to find some authoritative sources you can share.

This is exactly what I was thinking when I read the summary.

If this were any other company in the world talking about doing this they would be sued into oblivion.

Google may still be sued. If I remember correctly, Google has been sued before over financial gain with other people's content on youtube. Ah, here's the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....

According to that Wikipedia link (yes, do more research.) the case was settled based on lack of knowledge of infringement on youtube's part. However, I'd doubt that would have been the case if Google had been charging subscription fees.

The DMCA allows a safe-harbor (protection from being held liable for copyright infringement of users) for internet service providers if they meet certain requirements. See section 512c in US Code Title 17: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/U...

One of those requirements is no direct financial benefit. This goes away if Google starts moving to a paid subscription model for Youtube content. (I'd imagine even if it's for removing ADs only, they would still get sued.)

I fully expect to see Google get dragged back into court again over this. I just wonder what affect it will / may have have on other services.

I refer you to Public Law 107-40. It is legally equivalent to a declaration of war. That is settled law.

Identifying the enemy is a trivial exercise left to the reader.

HIPAA requires them to provide it to you, and sets limits on the fees for doing so. The fees are limited to cover copying the records.
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/C...

It's not "UNREGULATED", it's unlicensed. Similar to CB radio, you don't need a license to operate a device transmitting on this band. There are explicit regulations Title 47 CFR Part 15. 15.5 part C specifically says that you're not allowed to cause harmful interference. http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/C...

If it were unregulated, it would be perfectly legal for me to set up a 100MW transmitter adjacent to your university broadcasting noise on the wifi band.

You could have looked that up yourself. I'm going to assume you haven't read this before.

Iraq War resolution

Of course you can continue to believe it was because of WMD's and Halliburton if you want.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13526

Executive Order 13526 was issued on December 29, 2009 by United States President Barack Obama. It is the latest in a series of executive orders from US Presidents outlining how classified information should be handled. It revokes and replaces the previous Executive Orders in effect for this, which were EO 12958 (text) and EO 13292 (text).

Within this order, and previous orders signed by President Bush, and other Presidents, exists the ability to create classified systems called Special Access Programs. In a Special Access Program, the entire program is black and hidden. And it bypasses the FISA court just the same, as normally only those involved in the operation even have knowledge of it's function or existence.

Within these programs you'll find space capability, military radar, electronic warfare systems, ground and building penetrating tomography, and brain hacking / surveillance technologies, to which the FBI, CIA, NSA, DOD, and local and state governments are all utilizing to spy on and even to commit rapes and murders of American citizens. Details of operations with insider whistleblowers, NSA Russell Tice and DOD/CIA/US DOJ/NASA Dr. Robert Duncan: http://www.oregonstatehospital.net/d/story.html#nsabrainlink. There's a good Russell Tice article talking about how Edward Snowden didn't have access to the juiciest documents, those hidden in Special Access Programs, Exceptionally Controlled Information programs, and Very Restricted Knowledge programs.

Video w/ Russell Tice available on this page and that previously mentioned page. http://www.oregonstatehospital.net/d/russelltice-nsarnmebl.html.

Two technologies are involved in these programs: NSA Remote Neural Monitoring and NSA Electronic Brain Link.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2011-title10/html/USCODE-2011-title10-subtitleA-partI-chap2-sec119.htm.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13526.

Sec. 4.3. Special Access Programs.

(a) Establishment of special access programs. Unless otherwise authorized by the President, only the Secretaries of State, Defense, Energy, and Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and the Director of National Intelligence, or the principal deputy of each, may create a special access program. For special access programs pertaining to intelligence sources, methods, and activities (but not including military operational, strategic, and tactical programs), this function shall be exercised by the Director of National Intelligence. These officials shall keep the number of these programs at an absolute minimum, and shall establish them only when the program is required by statute or upon a specific finding that:

(1) the vulnerability of, or threat to, specific information is exceptional; and
(2) the normal criteria for determining eligibility for access applicable to information classified at the same level are not deemed sufficient to protect the information from unauthorized disclosure.

(b) Requirements and limitations.

(1) Special access programs shall be limited to programs in which the number of persons who ordinarily will have access will be reasonably small and commensurate with the objective of providing enhanced protection for the information involved.
(2) Each agency head shall establish and maintain a system of accounting for special access programs consistent with directives issued pursuant to this order.
(3) Special access programs shall be subject to the oversight program established under section 5.4(d) of this order. In addition, the Director of the Informat

No, bullshit, it's even worse than you think. Have a look. http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/G...

You mean like the freewheeling misinterpretations of the Supreme Court for the last century?
Perhaps you would like a look... http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/G...
You would think they had no command of the language at all, no recollection of history, or any idea of the intent of the founders.
How's that for "just putting the head in"?

14 CFR 137.49

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/C...

FAA has no authority below the mandated altitudes for air travel.

Wrong. FAA's authority applies to any flying vehicle in the airspace of this country. Don't believe me? Here's the quote from the law that established the FAA:

The Administrator is authorized and directed to develop plans for and formulate policy with respect to the use of the navigable airspace; and assign by rule, regulation, or order the use of the navigable airspace under such terms, conditions, and limitations as he may deem necessary in order to insure the safety of aircraft and the efficient utilization of such airspace. He may modify or revoke such assignment when required in the public interest.

Property owners have air rights above their property up to the FAA's mandated altitudes or as locally mandated by code.

Nope. Another common misconception, but "he United States Government has exclusive sovereignty of airspace of the United States." (source).

Consider reading the Wikipedia page for some interpretation. Basically the idea is that you have airspace rights to the extent that you can use the space to have useful stuff on it (i.e., you can't build a 600 foot pole just to keep planes away, it has to be for some useful purpose). It's not at all clear that using drones grants you these rights, since they're definitely more aircraft than building.

So, the FAA should kindly go fuck itself. It does not tell us what we can do in the immediate vicinity around our homes or property.

If I want to hire a drone to do a fly through of my home, or my realtor offers to do it themselves, I will do it and the feds can shove their rules as far up their ass as they please.

Nobody's talking about flying a drone inside your house, they're talking about flying one over your house. You know, airspace. As far as thumbing your nose at the FAA - go nuts, but be prepared to win in court, suffer the consequences, or start a (successful) revolution. You could say the same thing about any other law or regulation - it's basically a question if whether you accept the rule of law or not.

Just so we're all clear on the sequence of events: the law creates the FAA and says "you regulate our airspace". The FAA, in the course of performing its legal mandate, creates a number of regulations (such as how pilots and aircraft are certified, standards for airports and navigation, etc) through a process called "rulemaking". They also issue more specific interpretations of the rules they've already enacted. (None of this is unusual; all federal agencies work the same way.) One such opinion decides that drones are basically model aircraft and that's OK so long as they follow the rules - one of which is no commercial use. The court decided that an opinion wasn't good enough here, so the FAA is going through the rulemaking process like they're supposed to. The end result will not be "yeah do whatever the hell you want", it'll probably be "be a hobbyist model aircraft (and comply with the rules, including noncommercial use) or get certified like an aircraft/pilot".