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The FCC either farms out the enforcement (Amateur Radio is farmed out to the ARRL) or simply makes no enforcement action at all.

ARRL has no enforcement power. It does have an Official Observer program. These operators do look for improper operation and can document this behavior. They do send out notices of improper operation to ham operators (amateur radio is usually called ham radio). There are no teeth behind this notice. An important part of their role is sending out notices when hams operate particularly well.

Documentation of improper operating can end up being forwarded to the FCC in hopes that they will act on it. It is only the FCC that has actual enforcement power. Many submissions never get acted upon. The ones that seem to get immediate action are if you interfere with another licensed service (interfering with police, emergency medical, aviation, commercial broadcast).

Lack of enforcement by the FCC is a problem. Many field offices have been closed down. Lack of funding is definitely making the problem worse.

ARRL is a great organization. They do provide great training materials for proper operation. They do a lot of lobbying for the Amateur Radio Service. They work to protect the service from band encroachment. They watch for well intentioned but poorly worded legislation that impacts the service. For example: North Carolina has been considering legislation (SB 393) that would ban use of almost any electronic communication device in a vehicle. ARRL is organizing operators in the state to ask their representatives to amend the verbiage to exclude amateur radio. Mobile operation is an important part of the amateur radio service. Banning it would make much of the value that the amateur radio service provides impossible. In addition, amateur radio mobile operation has a stellar safety record.

ARRL cannot enforce, but it can educate and work to influence.

What you see in the above post is a mindless defense of an organization which I wasn't criticizing in the first place.

I'm a life member of the ARRL BTW. And still- the FCC has no budget to enforce. And the "Official Observers" send notices to stations who break the rules. That seems pretty "farmed out" to me.

What's next? If the FCC won't do enforcement maybe the ARRL should begin levying fines. It would be better than nothing at all being done.

The FCC either farms out the enforcement (Amateur Radio is farmed out to the ARRL) or simply makes no enforcement action at all.

ARRL has no enforcement power. It does have an Official Observer program. These operators do look for improper operation and can document this behavior. They do send out notices of improper operation to ham operators (amateur radio is usually called ham radio). There are no teeth behind this notice. An important part of their role is sending out notices when hams operate particularly well.

Documentation of improper operating can end up being forwarded to the FCC in hopes that they will act on it. It is only the FCC that has actual enforcement power. Many submissions never get acted upon. The ones that seem to get immediate action are if you interfere with another licensed service (interfering with police, emergency medical, aviation, commercial broadcast).

Lack of enforcement by the FCC is a problem. Many field offices have been closed down. Lack of funding is definitely making the problem worse.

ARRL is a great organization. They do provide great training materials for proper operation. They do a lot of lobbying for the Amateur Radio Service. They work to protect the service from band encroachment. They watch for well intentioned but poorly worded legislation that impacts the service. For example: North Carolina has been considering legislation (SB 393) that would ban use of almost any electronic communication device in a vehicle. ARRL is organizing operators in the state to ask their representatives to amend the verbiage to exclude amateur radio. Mobile operation is an important part of the amateur radio service. Banning it would make much of the value that the amateur radio service provides impossible. In addition, amateur radio mobile operation has a stellar safety record.

ARRL cannot enforce, but it can educate and work to influence.

How did HB2 help people get left alone?

HB2 addresses men imposing their presence on women in bathrooms;

No, it doesn't. It actually contains zero content relevant to criminal harassment, though as North Carolina already had such laws, it had no need to impose further upon people by forcing them to undergo genital inspections before entering a bathroom facility. Why lie? Did you think I hadn't read them?

SB 1070 and HB 56 addresses foreigners coercing Americans to support them financially and associate with them;

Nope. SB 1070 did nothing for that, as its provisions were directed at Law Enforcement, instructing them to impose themselves on individuals to determine their immigration status REGARDLESS of any other status. It had nothing to do with welfare.

Now HB 56did impact public benefits, however, that was not its exclusive content, sorry. By some arguments, it even criminalized giving an illegal immigrant a cup of coffee. It was very broadly written. It also forbade contracts and agreements, in some cases.

And in fact, some of the individuals investigated under the law had valid passports, international driver's licenses, and work permits.

I'm going to suspect that neither of those individuals was on welfare.

Prop 8 addresses gay men and women being able to coerce other Americans to do business with them against their moral conviction.

No, it didn't. It denied people's right to marry. Marriage is inherently a sanctioned practice by the state, and yes, it is coercive. Given the vast majority of marriages that remained in effect, its only result was discriminatory upon a particular group.

How exactly does that serve in the interests stated above? I might respect such an argument if it were repudiating all marriage as a state-practice, but nope, that's not going to happen.

All these laws were in response to coercive laws and practices in the US. Now, they were flawed responses, but they were the best people could do under the circumstances.

Seems they did poorly. All of them were almost completely overturned. Others were heavily challenged. And their effectiveness was less than salutary.

Did you want to discuss that, instead of the actual character and behavior of the professed conservatives as exemplified by their patterns and practices?

On the whole, I have no complaint with the character or behavior of conservatives. I do have a big problem with the bigotry, intolerance, and greed of progressives and Democrats, which is why I left the Democratic party recently.

Oh? Well, I suggest you examine the character and behavior of conservatives, or self-proclaimed conservatives, especially the ones claiming Republican Party membership.

Wasn't what we we discussing before, though.

North Carolina shares your view (NCGS 75-36) and has done so since 2003.

In fact it was Lexmark's business practices that prompted the General Assembly to enact this law, so you know it's gotta be bad when even politicians enact a law aimed directly against the interest of a big company with big pockets.

Unfortunately I fear a SCOTUS ruling might invalidate, or otherwise be used against, state law on this matter.

Obligatory disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and the following is merely opinion that does not constitute legal advice.

From what I can gather, and anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, Virginia's castle doctrine is kind of convoluted and doesn't allow you to use lethal force against trespassers and you have a duty to retreat unless the invader is in your home and the threat is immediate to life and limb.

Now further south the law in North Carolina is that you have the right of stand-your-ground and in the home invasion scenario you can use lethal force against any invader trying to force their way into the "curtilage" of your home but you cannot use lethal force in the protection of property or against aggressors who are fleeing from you. In other words the law is designed to give you the tools necessary to neutralize a legitimate threat but once the threat ceases to be (either because, for example; the aggressor is fleeing or is incapacitated) the use of lethal force no longer becomes legal.

My guess is, if anything, the woman in the article might be found liable for property damage but nothing more. Also hitting a target with a shotgun loaded with birdshot is not as an amazing feat as the article would make it seem.

tl;dr: Castle doctrine and stand-your-ground is not as clear-cut as people think it is.

"So why is it bad when the Federal Government tells a State what to do, but it's a-okay when the State tells a City what to do?"

Why is it bad, or why is it illegal? The federal Constitution reserves powers not granted to the feds for the states. Whether a state has power over a city is a matter of that state's Constitution. From a quick look at the NC Constitution, the state General Assembly seems to have the power to enact "general laws uniformly applicable throughout the State," which seems to give them authority to preempt local laws, so long as it's done uniformly.

"the Federal Government is perfectly authorized to regulate interstate commerce, right?"

Even accepting that the Internet is interstate commerce, the issue is how much of that authority has Congress given the FCC. The linked article specifically mentions that - "to overrule a state law ... the court said, requires an agency's power to be clearly stated in federal law."

Heaven forbid you use the article to find the link to the bill.

http://ncleg.net/Sessions/2015...

Furthermore, please point out how the "money elites" are trying to change the law in this instance. You keep saying they are and I keep trying to figure out what you're referring to. The only thing I see here is a state government overriding the democratic process of its local governments.

Bull.

Part 1. The law states that sex-specific restroom and changing rooms are reserved for the technical sex of the user, as indicated on their birth certificate. If one undergoes sex reassignment surgery, one can have one's birth certificate amended.

Part 2. The state is exercising its right to preemption on the matter of statutory minimum wages.

Part 3. The state is exercising its right to preemption on the matter of discrimination in employment and public accommodations.

Parts 2 & 3 , as specified, are to prevent a patch-work of local laws on matters the state has determined are in the vital interest of all if its citizens.

Yes, it does mention "biological sex". Males have penises, females have vaginas. If one has a penis, wearing a dress and singing Shiana Twain's "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!", will not make one female.

The law:
http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/...

This law removes the right of all citizens to access state courts to sue for employment or housing discrimination based on age, race, national origin, or sex. The Republicans are using the bathroom stuff as cover because they think a majority of voters don't identify with transgender people. But the real impact is to legalize all forms of discrimination in North Carolina.

That appears to be a blatant lie. Here is the law, and a key section below:

PART III. PROTECTION OF RIGHTS IN EMPLOYMENT AND PUBLIC ACCOMMODATIONS

SECTION 3.1. G.S. 143-422.2 reads as rewritten:

" 143-422.2. Legislative declaration.

(a) It is the public policy of this State to protect and safeguard the right and opportunity of all persons to seek, obtain and hold employment without discrimination or abridgement on account of race, religion, color, national origin, age, biological sex or handicap by employers which regularly employ 15 or more employees.

(b) It is recognized that the practice of denying employment opportunity and discriminating in the terms of employment foments domestic strife and unrest, deprives the State of the fullest utilization of its capacities for advancement and development, and substantially and adversely affects the interests of employees, employers, and the public in general.

(c) The General Assembly declares that the regulation of discriminatory practices in employment is properly an issue of general, statewide concern, such that this Article and other applicable provisions of the General Statutes supersede and preempt any ordinance, regulation, resolution, or policy adopted or imposed by a unit of local government or other political subdivision of the State that regulates or imposes any requirement upon an employer pertaining to the regulation of discriminatory practices in employment, except such regulations applicable to personnel employed by that body that are not otherwise in conflict with State law."

That seems to directly contradict your claims.

This law removes the right of all citizens to access state courts to sue for employment or housing discrimination based on age, race, national origin, or sex. The Republicans are using the bathroom stuff as cover because they think a majority of voters don't identify with transgender people. But the real impact is to legalize all forms of discrimination in North Carolina.

That appears to be a blatant lie. Here is the law, and a key section below:

PART III. PROTECTION OF RIGHTS IN EMPLOYMENT AND PUBLIC ACCOMMODATIONS

SECTION 3.1. G.S. 143-422.2 reads as rewritten:

" 143-422.2. Legislative declaration.

(a) It is the public policy of this State to protect and safeguard the right and opportunity of all persons to seek, obtain and hold employment without discrimination or abridgement on account of race, religion, color, national origin, age, biological sex or handicap by employers which regularly employ 15 or more employees.

(b) It is recognized that the practice of denying employment opportunity and discriminating in the terms of employment foments domestic strife and unrest, deprives the State of the fullest utilization of its capacities for advancement and development, and substantially and adversely affects the interests of employees, employers, and the public in general.

(c) The General Assembly declares that the regulation of discriminatory practices in employment is properly an issue of general, statewide concern, such that this Article and other applicable provisions of the General Statutes supersede and preempt any ordinance, regulation, resolution, or policy adopted or imposed by a unit of local government or other political subdivision of the State that regulates or imposes any requirement upon an employer pertaining to the regulation of discriminatory practices in employment, except such regulations applicable to personnel employed by that body that are not otherwise in conflict with State law."

That seems to directly contradict your claims.

Show me in the law where there is discriminating. Not someone telling you that it is discriminating, but the actual portion of the law which is discriminating. The majority of the bill is defining what exceptions exist for the use of the bathroom by someone of the "other" gender. The only complaint I can find (not the hysterics and ranting) is that people are legally restricted to the restroom matching their biological gender, and that local ordinances can not nullify or supersede the law. That last part being painted as nefarious and unconstitutional ignores the fact that nearly every State Law does this same thing. Your city can not pass a law reducing the drinking age to 12, or make it's local speed limits 200MPh, or allow 9 year old kids to get married, legalize heroin injection, etc.. etc... because the State Law is written to prevent usurpation by lower levels of Government. Federal laws prohibit States from usurping their power too. In other words, it is not only Constitutional for the State to claim exclusive powers but nearly boilerplate in the bill writing process at the State and Federal level.

If you are going to point to Section III, and the use of the term "biological sex" I have to ask WTF? If a transgender woman wanted to teach physical education to boys they can not be discriminated against due to being a biological woman. That wording is not discriminating, it's inclusive. If your complaint is that they didn't also call out every possible politically correct term we can find for gender then you are extremely short sighted. That level of detail would be discriminatory if they did not also call out every possible religion, ethnicity, handicap, etc..

The people complaining about a transgender person using the rest room are not men. As I said below in a different comment I can not find a single case of a woman being criminally charged for using the men's room without additional circumstances and charges (drunk, narcotics, violence, criminal trespassing/vandalism, etc..). Transgender does not make a difference, there are simply no charges I can find being filed, and no law suits to stop a person that I can find either. You may be able to find the 7-leaf clover, but that is not indicative of a systemic problem requiring legal protection.

I can find plenty of cases where men are arrested for being in the woman's bathroom. There is a pretty even split between transgender men and perverts in a brief search. So who are you trying to protect exactly? The men who are the subject of the overwhelming majority of the complaints benefit, not the women attempt to portray as needing the protection.

Your description isn't quite correct. What the law does is state the basis for protections of rights in employment and accommodations and make the law consistent across the state.

PART III. PROTECTION OF RIGHTS IN EMPLOYMENT AND PUBLIC ACCOMMODATIONS
 

SECTION 3.1. G.S. 143-422.2 reads as rewritten:

" 143-422.2. Legislative declaration.

(a) It is the public policy of this State to protect and safeguard the right and opportunity of all persons to seek, obtain and hold employment without discrimination or abridgement on account of race, religion, color, national origin, age, biological sex or handicap by employers which regularly employ 15 or more employees.

(b) It is recognized that the practice of denying employment opportunity and discriminating in the terms of employment foments domestic strife and unrest, deprives the State of the fullest utilization of its capacities for advancement and development, and substantially and adversely affects the interests of employees, employers, and the public in general.

(c) The General Assembly declares that the regulation of discriminatory practices in employment is properly an issue of general, statewide concern, such that this Article and other applicable provisions of the General Statutes supersede and preempt any ordinance, regulation, resolution, or policy adopted or imposed by a unit of local government or other political subdivision of the State that regulates or imposes any requirement upon an employer pertaining to the regulation of discriminatory practices in employment, except such regulations applicable to personnel employed by that body that are not otherwise in conflict with State law."

There is one other effect. Remember a week or two ago on Slashdot when the hot discussion was the FBI and Apple? The widely endorsed view was that the FBI and the court involved couldn't force Apple to modify its code to bypass the boobytrap it contained because of a Supreme Court precedent that said that code=speech and the general principle that government can't force people to engage in speech against their will. Most of the Slashdot audience was all about free speech then.

With this law it is unlikely that bakers in North Carolina will be forced to engage in speech and creative expression against their will as they have been in some other states by homosexual activists wielding local laws as a club with threats of high fines and other adverse consequences. The funny thing is I seem to recall that lots of people on Slashdot were against free speech in that case and were all in favor of using the law to bash people until they complied against their will in preparing creative materials and speech for use in gay weddings.

I guess freedom depends on how close you are to the 1%. Software engineers among the top 5-3% in income get free speech in the thinking of the Slashdot audience, but blue collar bakers don't. Free speech for me, but not for thee? I don't think that works out well in the long run.

the Andy Griffith type cop is becoming a minority in this day and age.

The Andy Griffith type cop never existed, and was unique even within the context of the show (remarked on by outsiders visiting Mayberry constantly). At best, you might get Adam-12 or Dragnet type cops.

I guess I should have said a caring friendly neighborhood cop but at the time I was thinking Andy Griffith to be an analogous example of what I was thinking.

Interestingly I actually live near Mount Airy (aka Mayberry, however there is no actual Mayberry) and I can't really say much for the cops in Mount Airy but I've had run-ins with the local county sheriff's department and the state troopers stationed there and in both encounters the officers seem to have something of a condescending superiority complex, but I do want to say though that Sheriff Graham Atkinson himself is a super nice guy and from personal experience always makes himself available to residents. I've always had really great encounters with cops in nearby Winston-Salem which is located just a couple counties away. Some of the smaller communities in between I don't particularly trust the small town cops because if you get in a car accident or something the officer will always take the side of the local resident.

In one particular case I took a picture from my porch of a car accident literally in front of my house and the officer got in my face and yelled at me that he was going to arrest me and confiscate my expensive camera and when politely and calmly asked him about relevant statutes prohibiting my activity it made him even angrier and louder.
I was rather shook up and asked the EFF for help, or at least some advice, but they told me that since I was intimidated into complying with the officer's demands and never asked him if I was under arrest I had no basis for a complaint and they couldn't help me (I can at least say that is where my deep interest in law and the legal processes began).
That being said I really would prefer the Joe Friday type cop from Dragnet because at least those cops in that show had the utmost respect for the law let alone knowing the law like the back of their hands.

These film were stored in North Carolina. It is actually illegal there to predict sea level rise. There is some question about whether the law makers there banned the prediction of sea level rise or the banned sea level rise itself. But anyway these NASA scientists need to tread carefully in North Carolina.

Total bullshit on the part of the media.
You've got to learn to not believe what reporters say. Read the actual bill.
http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/...

"The Commission shall direct the Science Panel to include in its five-year updated assessment a
comprehensive review and summary of peer-reviewed scientific literature that address the full
range of global, regional, and North Carolina-specific sea-level change data and hypotheses,
including sea-level fall, no movement in sea level, deceleration of sea-level rise, and
acceleration of sea-level rise. When summarizing research dealing with sea level, the
Commission and the Science Panel shall define the assumptions and limitations of predictive
modeling used to predict future sea-level scenarios. "

The first version of the bill was the one that the news picked up and, well, just plain made up bald-faced lies about.
Here it is:
"Historic rates of sea-level rise may be extrapolated to estimate future rates of rise but shall not include scenarios
of accelerated rates of sea-level rise unless such rates are from statistically significant,
peer-reviewed data and are consistent with historic trends. Rates of sea-level rise shall not be
one rate for the entire coast, but rather the Commission shall consider separately oceanfront and
estuarine shorelines."

See the part about not including 'acccelerated rates of sea-level rise"? That's the controversial part of the bill. By taking the most extreme sea-level rise predictions, some sea-side community was announcing a need for huge sums of money to prepare for the "predicted rise". The bill was simply saying that you had to use peer-reviewed data and historical trends.

I don't have a problem with the legislature requiring both historical and peer-reviewed data for predictions of sea-level rise, and I cannot imagine any scientist having a problem with that.

I've lost a lot of trust for the police. I still respect them and the law they're supposed to uphold but that doesn't mean I trust them.

Unfortunately I've had some negative encounters with police like this one particular state trooper who threatened to arrest me and steal my camera. I took a picture of a wrecker pulling a car out of a ditch from my porch and when the trooper saw I had a camera he walked across my lawn onto my porch and started yelling at me that he was going to have to take my camera or arrest me so I asked him under what statute at which point he straightened his posture, raised his voice and said "WHAT STATUTE?!" and then he proceeded to tell me that I was illegally taking pictures of a crime scene and that doing so is indecent and if I didn't delete the pictures he'd have to confiscate the camera and arrest me.

I later consulted an attorney was told that the officer was likely in the wrong but it probably wasn't worth pursuing.

Why yes, $1,000,000,000 is what it will cost over 9 years cost actually. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9133961/Apple_picks_N.C._for_1B_data_center

NC crafted a law specifically saying that the tax incentives vanish if a company coming in failed to invest $1 billion within 9 years. http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2009/Bills/Senate/HTML/S575v4.html

Even if you are not in Wilson, or NC write your US representative to bring light to the issue. If your in Wilson or NC write all your government agencies. Just copy paste a letter. Send it to your mayor, councilman, state and us senator... hell write your local news agency. The more noise you make the more likely you will get listened to.

http://www.ncleg.net/

In August of 2005 North Carolina unanimously passed a law to meet the 2002 HAVA requirements. Our law requires a VVPAT and random audits of the paper. Without random audits a paper trail is useless. This law also requires vendors to post a US$ 7.5M bond to cover the costs of any problems. Additionally the law requires the CEO of any vendor to sign off on personal responcibility for any problems. The law carries felony penalties for things like switching the software version. The law requires the vendors to allow the state board of elections to examine their source code.

Three vendors were certified to sell their wares in our state; ES&S, Diebold and Seqouia. Diebold and Sequoia decided to not sell their products in NC. Gee, I wonder why? Maybe someone was scared of doing time in one of our fine correctional facilities.

The rest of the US needs to take a look at the law passed in NC.

S223

I stand or rather sit amazed at how poorly informed many /.'ers are on this crucial issue.

Full Disclosure: I worked providing tech support for the ES&S M-100 in NC's March primary. I have also been active in getting a law passed that required a voter verifiable paper trail in NC. NC's Law

Paperless is absurd. Currently the best electronic solution is paper ballots scanned by an optical scan machine with random audits required. Without the random audits citizens are still trusting the computer (optical scan device) which can be comprimised. Currently only 26 states require a VVPT, of those only 12 require random audits of the paper.

There is a law in the House now that would create a Federal requirement for VVPT. It is HR 550. In North Carolina it took a multi-partisan effort to get a good law passed. The only thing missing from our law is a requirement for open source, although our law does require vendors to supply their source code for review. It also requires a $7.5M bond to cover any problems that may occur as well as felony level offence for violations (like switching source code). No wonder Diebold and Sequoia, though certified, decided they didn't want to do business in NC!

More good reading on this can be found at The Brennan Center for Justice.

http://www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/records/local/school schedulefinal.pdf

(I found this after a little digging; my primary source was an article I read in the Raleigh News & Observer some time ago, but their archive is non-free.