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However, asbestos can be used safely, so allowing it under a set of well designed rules does make sense.

Until Trump or his successors decide that using it safely costs too much, so we need to get rid of those pesky "well designed rules" AKA: regulations. *Gasp!* Then it will be completely legal to use it unsafely.

BTW, you do know that asbestos causes lung cancer? Or how about that the only reason it wasn't banned outright in the US was due to it not being profitable enough to do so?

Once again, more proof the only thing these idiots care about is money. To hell with all of them.

In Schapper v. Foley, 667 F2d 102 (1981), the court ruled that the language of federal copyright law clearly allows "copyright in works prepared under Government contract or grant." OMB Circular A-110: "Uniform Administrative Requirements for Grants and Agreements with Institutions of Higher Education, Hospitals, and Other Non-Profit Organizations," also clearly specifies that "The recipient may copyright any work that is subject to copyright and was developed, or for which ownership was purchased, under an award."

You might also want to look at the Bayh-Dole act. It's about patents on inventions, not copyrights on publications, but it clearly states that people who receive government grants for their research own the intellectual property that results from the research.

Authors sign over copyright to publishers because the publishers give them a choice: Sign over the copyright and publish in our journal for free, or keep the copyright and pay us $2000 to publish in our journal. Authors often feel that the copyright for their article is worth less than $2000, so they choose to hand over the copyright instead of the money.

Check out McLaughlin US v. Seafood Inc (5th Cir. 1989). It pretty much directly addresses your argument (Spoiler alert: letting unskilled piece workers set their own hours or work for others doesn't matter much. They are employees.).

http://openjurist.org/861/f2d/...

Really? You're grasping at straws to support your allegorical argument rather than relying on case law which has already decided the relevant facts. Those are Wikipedia articles that I provided for your understanding, not authoritative documents, and you demonstrate a shocking lack of awareness of even the basic process of criminal trials.

Here is the cliffnotes version:

Judges decide what evidence is and is not allowed, and without evidence to support a given defense theory, it cannot be raised. Even if it could, let us agree that without evidence, it would be unconvincing.

Now that you understand how that works, here is the decision:

CONCLUSION

Because the necessity defense was not intended as justification for illegal acts taken in indirect political protest, we affirm the district court's refusal to admit evidence of necessity. [Emphasis mine.]
http://openjurist.org/939/f2d/...

It did not matter whether or not the actions met the requirements for necessity. In fact, the appeals court addresses this specifically and say that it does not matter.

As have courts before us, we could assume, as a threshold matter, that the necessity defense is conceivably available in these cases, but find the elements never satisfied. Such a decision, however, does not come without significant costs.

First, the failure of the federal courts to hold explicitly that the necessity defense is unavailable results in district courts expending unnecessary time and energy trying to square defendants' claims with the strict requirements of the doctrine.

Second, such an inquiry oftentimes requires the courts to tread into areas constitutionally committed to other branches of government.

Third, holding out the possibility of the defense's applicability sets a trap for the unwary civil disobedient, rather than permitting the individual to undertake a more realistic cost-benefit analysis before deciding whether to break the law in political protest.

Fourth, assuming the applicability of the defense in this context may risk its distortion in traditional cases.

Finally, some commentators have suggested that the courts have sabotaged the usually low threshold for getting a defense theory before the jury as a means of keeping the necessity defense from the jury.

In other words, they want to send a clear message that necessity defense is not available to people who use civil disobedience to gain attention to an issue other than the law they are breaking in the first place. If Snowden released information wantonly in order to protest laws against disclosure of classified information, that would be one thing, but he had a political agenda -- the very thing this decision prohibits using the necessity defense for.

If you still don't understand, then there's perhaps this will make it clear: The whole reason Snowden refuses to return for trial is that, as a contractor, he is not allowed to raise the whistleblower defense. Under your theory of trial law, he could raise whatever defense he wants. He can't.

Now, please go forth better educated and stop spreading misinformation and conjecture. Or don't. In any case, I've said all that I have to say on this, so I'm done responding to what is, at this point, willful ignorance.

This is a view that has come into vogue fairly recently, but in terms of practical impact it is generally considered unfounded. Johnson & Johnson has a long demonstrated history of massive spending on advertising and lobbying efforts promoting the safety of Tylenol, while working to suppress and discredit evidence of harm wherever possible. This has also extended into legal efforts such as this example from 1988 and large volumes of new litigation in 2013.

While I fully acknowledge the existence of people (who are in fact scum) who would prefer to see addicts die, their actual influence is minimal compared to the billions spent by companies like Johnson & Johnson. However, I do suspect there exists some overlap between the two groups.

No, it just gets you something else to use in a show trial once you've already decided the person is guilty.

You need actionable information or some way of verifying it. Example: Leon v. Wainwright:

"Leon [one of the kidnappers] and Frank Gachelin [a relative of the kidnapee] met in the shopping center parking lot at 2:00 a.m. During the confrontation Leon drew a gun on Frank. The police officers, who had accompanied Frank to the meeting, immediately arrested Leon and demanded that he tell them where he was holding Gachelin. When he refused to tell them the location, "he was set upon by several of the officers." Leon v. State, 410 So.2d 201, 202 (Fla.3d DCA 1982). "They threatened and physically abused him by twisting his arm behind his back and choking him until he revealed where Louis [Gachelin] was being held." Id. The officers went to the apartment, rescued Gachelin and arrested Armand [the second kidnapper]."

Sure, you can practice crude torture, get signed "confessions" and boatloads of real and made up information. But to say you can't get any information from torture is just trying to shortcut the argument.

1) It's very arguable whether you'd have any legal standing to refuse such a search, under long-established case law.

2a) Exigent circumstances are most certainly not limited to "hot pursuit." Go read up on it before you spout off with inane assertions that are demonstrably false. Here's a appeals court decision specifically related to whether or not "exigent circumstances" existed for the police to make an arrest - based on them observing a sawed off shotgun in a home through an open door, when they went to a house to ask the owner some questions. There was no hot pursuit; the appeals court vacated the suppression of the shotgun as evidence, and remanded the matter to the district court for further proceedings.

2b) The affected area of searches was limited to an ~20 block area where the suspect was chased to, cornered, and hiding. The searches did not occur "across the whole of Boston." The searches WERE confined to the "immediate vicinity of the suspects' last known location.

2c) The suggestion that "people stay home" was not a "search and seizure" in any way. if you want to be taken seriously, don't try to conflate the issues in an attempt to make the situation sound worse than it was.

3) Such evidence is trivially suppressed in court by any competent defense attorney. Their discovery of your dimebag was in no way associated with the exigent circumstances that would have allowed them to come in and search your property against their will. Motion to suppress, granted, case dismissed.

4) So you're saying that all your shouting about restrictions on freedoms are moot, since no freedoms were restricted?

I'll see you some speculative discussions and raise you an actual legal precedent

If you bothered following my links, you'd find that they actually contain citations to many, many legal precedents.

As for your citation, first, it's dicta - you'd do better following the citation to the Boylan case.
Second, as your citation notes the previous paragraph, the "aggressive" investigation they're referring to is direct questioning. Lawyers may not directly question jurors, nor, in fact, may they communicate with them. However, they are certainly allowed to, for example, search state records to determine if there was a suit filed with one of the jurors as a party. They are also allowed to search other publicly available information, including jurors' websites, Facebook pages, etc., provided they do not contact the juror to obtain access.

So, no, doing research on a juror to find out if he has previously filed suit against a subsidiary of one of the parties is not illegal at all, as you'd know if you read either of my links.

While a trial is ongoing, lawyers may not conduct the kind of aggressive investigation of jurors they would of other witnesses.

Doing that kind of investigation is not only unneeded. It would actually be illegal.

I find this opinion to be substantially similar to this one...

Though I suppose the document is public domain, so perhaps I shouldn't have bothered.

The court asserted that there must be some deliberate action to save/store said images, not just a transitory download via a browser.

Actually, that's not completely accurate. The court said that the prosecution failed to prove that Kent knew about the browser cache. At least two previous cases (here and here) left open this possibility but those cases had clear-cut cases of the defendant accessing and using the browser's cache. The transitory download is still illegal if you know about it.

http://openjurist.org/991/f2d/669/allstate-insurance-company-v-prasad

Shows civil responsibility.

Which I guess could be all there exists. I would think it to be a bare minimum though. No different than getting high and then harming others.

The United States of America. Direct quote from the Napster case:

We agree that plaintiffs have shown that Napster users infringe at least two of the copyright holders' exclusive rights: the rights of reproduction, 106(1); and distribution, 106(3). 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.

With all the other control freak governments there's bound to be more...

"The district court found that the Cole claims in suit read on a system disclosed in German, French, and British patents issued to Dirks between 1948 and 1957, none of which were considered by the examiner during the prosecution of the Cole patent application. The district court agreed with HLA's assertion that "The Dirks system ... is the Cole system implemented in 1940's technology, and, since the Cole claims are drawn to cover all digital systems generically, as opposed to a new implementation, they are anticipated by [the] foreign Dirks' patents"

The principal issue in Appeal No. 83-782 is whether the district court correctly found that claims 1, 2, and 3 of RCA's patent, covering a digital video character generator, are anticipated by the disclosure in the "Dirks" patents. We reverse the holding of invalidity in view of Dirks alone link

"Data General also contends that the Cole patent was anticipated by the prior art and by a printed publication stored at the Stanford Research Institute" link

"The following stuff is from Electronics magazine, Jan. 3rd 1958 issue .. Generating Characters: Summary Although may plans have been devised in the past for scribing numeric and alphabetic characters on a scope face by spot deflection" link

--

"Cole at RCA developed the technology as part of a response to an FAA RFQ .. a long, long, time ago, back in the dark ages, the 1970's. In the decades of litigation which followed, RCA's FAA bid proved to be the undoing of the Cole patent", sillivalley

Do you have any citations for all this?

--

The agent lists the basis for the forfeiture on page 66 of the affidavit. U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2323 allows the U.S. government to seize "Any property used, or intended to be used, in any manner or part to commit or facilitate the commission of [the following offenses]:" 506 of title 17, or section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320, or chapter 90 section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320.

I found the affidavit to be pretty sound, and the evidence was fairly damming. I don't think this will ultimately stop the pirates, however, as a close study of the affidavit will give you all the ideas you need to run a pirate site that obeys the letter of the law, but not the spirit.

The agent lists the basis for the forfeiture on page 66 of the affidavit. U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2323 allows the U.S. government to seize "Any property used, or intended to be used, in any manner or part to commit or facilitate the commission of [the following offenses]:" 506 of title 17, or section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320, or chapter 90 section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320.

I found the affidavit to be pretty sound, and the evidence was fairly damming. I don't think this will ultimately stop the pirates, however, as a close study of the affidavit will give you all the ideas you need to run a pirate site that obeys the letter of the law, but not the spirit.

The agent lists the basis for the forfeiture on page 66 of the affidavit. U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2323 allows the U.S. government to seize "Any property used, or intended to be used, in any manner or part to commit or facilitate the commission of [the following offenses]:" 506 of title 17, or section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320, or chapter 90 section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320.

I found the affidavit to be pretty sound, and the evidence was fairly damming. I don't think this will ultimately stop the pirates, however, as a close study of the affidavit will give you all the ideas you need to run a pirate site that obeys the letter of the law, but not the spirit.

The agent lists the basis for the forfeiture on page 66 of the affidavit. U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2323 allows the U.S. government to seize "Any property used, or intended to be used, in any manner or part to commit or facilitate the commission of [the following offenses]:" 506 of title 17, or section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320, or chapter 90 section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320.

I found the affidavit to be pretty sound, and the evidence was fairly damming. I don't think this will ultimately stop the pirates, however, as a close study of the affidavit will give you all the ideas you need to run a pirate site that obeys the letter of the law, but not the spirit.

The agent lists the basis for the forfeiture on page 66 of the affidavit. U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2323 allows the U.S. government to seize "Any property used, or intended to be used, in any manner or part to commit or facilitate the commission of [the following offenses]:" 506 of title 17, or section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320, or chapter 90 section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320.

I found the affidavit to be pretty sound, and the evidence was fairly damming. I don't think this will ultimately stop the pirates, however, as a close study of the affidavit will give you all the ideas you need to run a pirate site that obeys the letter of the law, but not the spirit.

The agent lists the basis for the forfeiture on page 66 of the affidavit. U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2323 allows the U.S. government to seize "Any property used, or intended to be used, in any manner or part to commit or facilitate the commission of [the following offenses]:" 506 of title 17, or section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320, or chapter 90 section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320.

I found the affidavit to be pretty sound, and the evidence was fairly damming. I don't think this will ultimately stop the pirates, however, as a close study of the affidavit will give you all the ideas you need to run a pirate site that obeys the letter of the law, but not the spirit.

The agent lists the basis for the forfeiture on page 66 of the affidavit. U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2323 allows the U.S. government to seize "Any property used, or intended to be used, in any manner or part to commit or facilitate the commission of [the following offenses]:" 506 of title 17, or section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320, or chapter 90 section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320.

I found the affidavit to be pretty sound, and the evidence was fairly damming. I don't think this will ultimately stop the pirates, however, as a close study of the affidavit will give you all the ideas you need to run a pirate site that obeys the letter of the law, but not the spirit.

The agent lists the basis for the forfeiture on page 66 of the affidavit. U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2323 allows the U.S. government to seize "Any property used, or intended to be used, in any manner or part to commit or facilitate the commission of [the following offenses]:" 506 of title 17, or section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320, or chapter 90 section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320.

I found the affidavit to be pretty sound, and the evidence was fairly damming. I don't think this will ultimately stop the pirates, however, as a close study of the affidavit will give you all the ideas you need to run a pirate site that obeys the letter of the law, but not the spirit.

The agent lists the basis for the forfeiture on page 66 of the affidavit. U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2323 allows the U.S. government to seize "Any property used, or intended to be used, in any manner or part to commit or facilitate the commission of [the following offenses]:" 506 of title 17, or section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320, or chapter 90 section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320.

I found the affidavit to be pretty sound, and the evidence was fairly damming. I don't think this will ultimately stop the pirates, however, as a close study of the affidavit will give you all the ideas you need to run a pirate site that obeys the letter of the law, but not the spirit.

The agent lists the basis for the forfeiture on page 66 of the affidavit. U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2323 allows the U.S. government to seize "Any property used, or intended to be used, in any manner or part to commit or facilitate the commission of [the following offenses]:" 506 of title 17, or section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320, or chapter 90 section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320.

I found the affidavit to be pretty sound, and the evidence was fairly damming. I don't think this will ultimately stop the pirates, however, as a close study of the affidavit will give you all the ideas you need to run a pirate site that obeys the letter of the law, but not the spirit.

The agent lists the basis for the forfeiture on page 66 of the affidavit. U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2323 allows the U.S. government to seize "Any property used, or intended to be used, in any manner or part to commit or facilitate the commission of [the following offenses]:" 506 of title 17, or section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320, or chapter 90 section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320.

I found the affidavit to be pretty sound, and the evidence was fairly damming. I don't think this will ultimately stop the pirates, however, as a close study of the affidavit will give you all the ideas you need to run a pirate site that obeys the letter of the law, but not the spirit.

The agent lists the basis for the forfeiture on page 66 of the affidavit. U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2323 allows the U.S. government to seize "Any property used, or intended to be used, in any manner or part to commit or facilitate the commission of [the following offenses]:" 506 of title 17, or section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320, or chapter 90 section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320.

I found the affidavit to be pretty sound, and the evidence was fairly damming. I don't think this will ultimately stop the pirates, however, as a close study of the affidavit will give you all the ideas you need to run a pirate site that obeys the letter of the law, but not the spirit.

The agent lists the basis for the forfeiture on page 66 of the affidavit. U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2323 allows the U.S. government to seize "Any property used, or intended to be used, in any manner or part to commit or facilitate the commission of [the following offenses]:" 506 of title 17, or section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320, or chapter 90 section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320.

I found the affidavit to be pretty sound, and the evidence was fairly damming. I don't think this will ultimately stop the pirates, however, as a close study of the affidavit will give you all the ideas you need to run a pirate site that obeys the letter of the law, but not the spirit.

Once again, wrong.

The U. S. Supreme Court has held that jeopardy attaches during a jury trial when the jury is sworn.

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/double+jeopardy

And from the same wikipedia article you quoted:

Jeopardy attaches in a jury trial once the jury and alternates are impaneled and sworn in.

Here's another reference:

http://openjurist.org/367/us/364

Once a jury has been impanelled and sworn, jeopardy attaches and a subsequent prosecution is barred, if a mistrial is ordered—absent a showing of imperious necessity.3 As stated by Mr. Justice Story in United States v. Coolidge, 25 Fed.Cas. page 622, No.14,858, the discretion is to be exercised 'only in very extraordinary and striking circumstances.'

Only in the case of a mistrial (a hung jury is considered a mistrial) would Jeopardy not attach after a jury is sworn in. In non-jury trials it attaches when the first witness is sworn in and begins to testify.

I'll be looking for you in the next airport security line, then.

You probably won't see me, at least until a little sanity is restored to airport (in)security. And if I do have to fly, you'll see me raising a ruckus if TSA steps over the line.

Most people don't feel it (at first) when their rights are taken away, because they're submissive to authority and have no desire to attract its wrath by rocking the boat.

There's nothing necessarily wrong with submitting to authority, as long as your submission is reasonable. For example, when my boss assigns me a task at work, I'll get it done because that's what I'm getting paid to do (provided, of course it's a legitimate task, and neither legally nor morally wrong). Someone who rejects authority just for the sake of rejecting authority isn't a striking a blow for freedom. They're just being a rebel without a clue.

As humiliations mount, they justify them by thinking, "Well, this is necessary to protect us from the terrorists."

Some do, but I'm not one of them. I've slowly been escalating my activism as I've seen rights being removed. I'm still a loudmouth here on /. as well as elsewhere on-line and to anyone who will listen IRL because let's face it, the government isn't going to change because one person wants them to. It will take a critical mass of activists to achieve any significant measure of change. I have already started writing letters to my Congressman and Senators about the airport searches, and I encourage anyone else who opposes the TSA scope-n-grope to do likewise.

Are your rights intact because you're standing up for them, or because you're not planning on using them anyway?

As I said, I've been making pretty good use of my 1st Amendment rights. I'm hoping I won't need to take the step of civil disobedience to stand up for my 4th Amendment rights, but if necessary, I will. As long as the airport searches were "reasonable", the 4th Amendment didn't apply, since it provides freedom from "unreasonable" searches. However, the courts have ruled that x-ray searches are not "reasonable" without due process, so the new x-ray backscatter searches or optional "enhanced pat-downs" are over the line, IMHO.

Ultimately, peoples' response to authority tends to depend upon the circumstances and to the request. This is a Good Thing. A fireman ordering you out of your house because it's on fire and about to explode isn't going to cause you to scream about your rights. OTOH, a TSA agent electronically strip-searching you should. Submitting to the fireman's authority but rejecting the TSA's doesn't make you a hypocrite; it makes you rational.

The Supreme Court. http://openjurist.org/676/f2d/379 676 F. 2d 379 - United States v. Ek

We hold that the stricter standard required for a body cavity search also applies to an X-ray search. An X-ray search, although perhaps not so humiliating as a strip search, nevertheless is more intrusive since the search is potentially harmful to the health of the suspect. It goes beyond the passive inspection of body surfaces. We think that the use of such medical procedures should be restricted to situations where there is a clear indication that the suspect is concealing contraband within his body.

All of which apply to border searches and not routine air travel. There's probably very little legal standing for these searches apart from the "license with the airlines" argument.

Here's an illegal checkpoint based on that law. here (warning: pdf) is a whole slew of them. This article tells of one specific victim. So does this one. Here's a dragnet for you folks in the UK. This case is the one where they stretched it to include all mail sent anywhere in America. But wait! There's more!

linky
linky
linky

While not specific to the case of searches inside borders based on these laws you may find this link enlightening, it's what our congresscritters are reading about these things.

Warrentless stops and searches inside our borders are being done and it needs to stop.

There has been a bit of progress on that front, though not as much or as fast as most of us would hope obviously. But there are some circuit-court cases putting some stronger standards on seizures, like Krimstock v. Kelly, and of course the case this article is about.

#2 - If you are a PASSENGER in said motor vehicle, you are required to be able to identify yourself to an officer as well. This is constitutional.. Reference: US v. Slater.

Nice try, but US. v. Slater is a case about copyright infringement and has nothing to do with passengers being required to carry identification.

It's a "service" and yes they can.

I'm guessing you've never taken a single class in contract law. This is not even a grey area, IMHO.

Yes, it is true that they can change the terms at any time, but until such time as you agree to those changed terms, they have no right to operate under the assumption that you have agreed to them as Facebook does. More to the point, if the change to the terms is considered large enough to constitute a substantive change to the nature of the contract, they are required to explicitly get agreement to the updated terms or else the new contract is NOT valid.

This is very basic law, people. We're talking first year of law school. Heck, I'm not a lawyer and even I know enough about contract law to know that these terms are invalid. Some citations to start you off:

• Union Pac. R.R. v. Chi., Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pac. R.R. (among other things, ruled that a substantive change is sufficient to make a contract invalid)
• Affirmed by Douglas v. US District Court ex rel Talk America, and a blog about the case

And a few older ones that I didn't have time to find links for:

• Hanson v. Puget Sound Navigation Co., 52 Wash.2d 124, 323 P.2d 655 (1958)
• Marnon v. Vaughan Motor Co., 184 Or. 103, 194 P.2d 992 (1948)
• Carothers v. Carothers, 260 Or. 99, 488 P.2d 1185 (1971)
• Miller Construction Co. v. Watts Construction Co., 223 Or. 504, 355 P.2d 215 (1960)

Even if a police officer opens fire on you, your legal options are still to comply and then fight it out in court later.

Actually there is legal precedent that you have the right to defend yourself against unlawful arrest. Read up on John Bad Elk v. United States, which upheld the common law idea that "If the officer had no right to arrest, the other party might resist the illegal attempt to arrest him, using no more force than was absolutely necessary to repel the assault constituting the attempt to arrest."

Given our contemporary police state (mostly-benign, at least to the middle class, as it might be). I wouldn't necessarily expect this right to be recognized today -- some states have legislated against it, but whether such legislation would stand a Constitutional test, I dunno, IANAL, etc.

Of course, if some crazed cop has opened fire on me, I suppose my choices would be to wait around until he hits me, run away, or shoot back. If running away were not possible or safe, I'd have to say shooting back and hoping I survive to argue about it in court would probably be a better choice than waiting to take a bullet.

Police authority is pretty awesome

Police have power, what with guns and clubs and radios for calling other people with guns and clubs. But no person has any more authority over you than you choose to grant them.

If Wikipedia had reliable information about that torture the government would start arresting people in a heart beat.

In the United States, conspiracy to torture is a felony. Dick Cheney admitted, on national television that he "was a big supporter of waterboarding", reliably implicating himself in such a conspiracy. Yet the federal government has not, so far, shown any interest in prosecuting him.

Link to this law http://openjurist.org/293/f3d/791

There are current efforts to open the law up for all. http://openjurist.org/

John STEVENSON, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
TRW INC., Defendant-Appellant.
No. 91-7142.
United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

TRW Inc. is a credit-reporting firm that appeals a judgment against it for violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. ÂÂ 1681-1681t). Following a bench trial, the district court awarded John M. Stevenson actual damages of $30,000 for mental anguish, punitive damages of $100,000, and attorney's fees of $20,700 for TRW Inc.'s negligent and willful violations of the Act. After carefully reviewing the record, we affirm the district court's findings of negligence and the award of actual damages and attorney's fees, but we reverse the finding of willfulness and vacate the award of punitive damages. 987 F2d 288 Stevenson v. Trw Inc

Saying you owe something you don't is defamation of character, the credit bureaus know that a SSN isn't an unique identifier, there are 304,059,724 people in the US and approximately 18 million people use a SSN assigned to someone else. Even with almost 809 million possible SSNs, because the first three digits are an Area number collisions are very likely and sooner or later will be unavoidable.

It may be an industry-wide practice, but that doesn't mean the courts like it.

Lexmark tried to do this with its ink cartridges, but it's a terrible argument, and the courts recognized that, ruling that their access-control mechanism wasn't actually controlling access to a copyrighted work.

This sort of practice really has nothing to do with copyright and everything to do with trying to exert control over aftermarket products. Unfortunately, it would be so expensive to go and litigate this, and the outcome is never certain, so they were probably smart to give up.