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No, until the ratification of the 14th Amendment and subsequent Supreme Court rulings interpreting it, it was settled law that the Bill of Rights only applied to the actions of the Federal government. That is why most states have a constitution that has an equivalent of the Bill of Rights incorporated into it.

To this day some clauses in the Bill of Rights have not be incorporated against the states. For example, states don't have to use a Grand Jury to indict a defendant, as the Fifth Amendment requires for the Federal Government.

No, Reagan didn't close them. This was a trend in the late 60's that mental patients shouldn't be incarcerated against their will, ultimately codified in O’Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U.S. 563 (1975), that said "There is...no constitutional basis for confining such persons involuntarily if they are dangerous to no one."

"Montanez was stopped for failing to yield properly. After being pulled over, the officer asked to search his car; Montanez refused, so the officer held him until a drug dog was brought in to give the officer enough probable cause to search the vehicle." https://www.oyez.org/cases/201... From the SCOTUS decision: "Absent reasonable suspicion, police extension of a traffic stop in order to conduct a dog sniff violates the Constitution’s shield against unreasonable seizures." Cop dun screwed tha' pooch.

The 1st Amendment says NOTHING about "citizenship". [...] Where in the phrase "no law" does it say that laws abridging the freedom of speech of non-citizens are permitted?

As with most contracts, it comes back to how you define your terms. The Constitution starts with "We the People of the United States", which some have argued implicitly defines "people" as "citizens of the United States". Following that train of thought, all succeeding clauses and amendments would then be interpreted through that same lens, suggesting that the First Amendment's protections may not apply to non-citizens.

Mind you, I don't agree with that line of reasoning, but you asked, so there it is.

The courts would say that the constitution protects non-citizens in many cases and there is quite a bit of precedent going back 130 years that this is the case. Tends to be much more hit and miss than for citizens but still not a principle of US law. For example: https://www.oyez.org/cases/185...

Freedom of association includes freedom to NOT associate - why the hell is it OK to FORCE a fundamental Christian baker to bake a cake for a gay wedding?

Same reason it's ok to force a racist hotel operator to rent rooms to people with no regards towards race. You did read Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, right? None of you "Oh no, they're making someone bake a cake" whiners ever want to look at that, for some reason. Why is it? Do you just not want to realize there are limits on your freedoms?

(Especially love the double standard there - Islamic homophobia makes fundamental Christians look sane - but hey, a fundamentalist Moslem is a "progressive" icon and close to being the DNC chair. Imagine Jerry Falwell actually being RNC chair [and here comes the real "fake news" strawmen from outraged "progressives", as if there's any other kind...])

What's quite telling is that you describe Keith Ellison as a fundamentalist Muslim. For some reason. It's like you don't know him at all.

Imagine me calling Ronald Reagan a star actor famous for many renowned and popular movies for the ages.

You have missed the words "well regulated militia". This part is also in the Constitution, you know. And it's not just a couple of random words.

The modern interpretation would restrict guns only to the US Army. But if you _insist_ on interpreting Constitution in its contemporary context, then you should know that the authors of the Second Amendment all agreed that individual states should have the right to regulate the militia.

Moreover, the Second Amendment protects the use of guns only for armed resistance against external or internal threats. The use of weapons for personal defense or hunting is NOT in any way protected. Indeed, a Supreme Court decision upholds bans of weapons that are not useful in military combat ( https://www.oyez.org/cases/190... ).

It's a tricky case. Basically, the doctrine says that a fugitive can't say "I'm not subject to this court" (by fleeing justice) and simultaneously use the court to his advantage, in different aspects of the same matter.
I am not a lawyer (IANL), but as far as I can see, this case is very similar to Degen v. United States (1996). In that case, the Supreme Court explicitly said that the government was not justified in using the doctrine of fugitive disentitlement to dismiss a challenge of forfeiture.
Reference and discussion: http://scholarlycommons.law.no...

The summary of that case (from http://www.oyez.org/cases/1990... ):
"Principles of deference to the other branches of government require a court to invoke its inherent power only as a reasonable response to the problems and needs that provoke it. No sufficient reason justifies disentitlement here. Since the court's jurisdiction over the property is secure despite Degen's absence, there is no risk of delay or frustration in determining the merits of the government's forfeiture claims or in enforcing the resulting judgment. Also, the court has alternatives, other than disentitlement, to keep Degen from using liberal civil discovery rules to gain an improper advantage in the criminal prosecution, where discovery is more limited. Finally, disentitlement is an excessive response to the court's interests in redressing the indignity visited upon it by Degen's absence from the criminal proceeding, and in deterring flight from criminal prosecution in general; it is a response that erodes rather than enhances the dignity of the court."

To follow up and clarify:

The current statement FTA is that the 5th protects you only from being forced to decrypt *A* hard drive. If you did that, you'd be saying in effect "that's my hard drive".
In this case, the FBI says the figured out it was that guy's hard drive.
The judge in this case has to say "OK, they know it's your hard drive; you lose nothing by providing the password now."

So, if you accept the current legal state that decrypting *your* hard drive is not protected, there is no protection for this guy.

Personally, I would have taken the simple "I'm not going to say anything because it might get me into trouble" as sort of the point of the 5th amendment, but that's not how the courts currently see it.

For common people, the rule seems to be that the *act* of supplying the documents (that is the decryption itself) is protected.
But the documents themselves (that is the unencrypted data) *derived* from that act is NOT protected.
http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/201112268.pdf

But, if you're a lawyer or politico, then the supplying of documents and the content of those documents are BOTH protected.
http://www.oyez.org/cases/1990-1999/1999/1999_99_166

EFF would like to see it go this way, too (good luck!)
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/EFF-Claims-Encrypted-Password-is-Protected-Under-5th-Amendment-560879/

Asshole eh? Wow.. somebody has sand in their vagina...

Yet Chicago has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the U.S. and oopsie...

I say this as a moderate Dem with a libertarian bent: civilian gun owership will not be outlawed in the US within your lifetime. Witness this and this. We need to disarm criminals, close the gunshow loophole, and find a mechanism to weed out the mentally unstable with respect to weapons purchases. The last is the trickiest, especially considering doctor patient confidentiality.

Bills can originate in either the House or the Senate except bills for raising revenue must orginate in the House. Americans: read your Constitution. It's only seven articles.

You can also get the audio version (search bittorrent).

Then hop over to oyezwhere you can listen to real recordings of Supreme Court cases to get a feel for how it all works.

As a non American I think you guys have the finest legal system in the world in the sense that it's open and it's not too difficult to understand.

However, on rehearing before the entire court, the court of appeals held that Ms. Redding's Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure was violated.

My comment does explain this case. The defendant obviously had enough money to support the appeals process. The original court gave SUMMARY JUDGEMENT. Without the financial ability to keep fighting, the administration can do whatever is damn well pleases.

A trivial search will show the Supreme Court will rule with only 8 voting members, example of a 5-3 decision.

The patent is probably much more specific than you are imagining.

How would that affect the Prior Art issue?

If I have prior art of a hinge and you put a hinge in the accelerator pedal of a car can you patent it?

Your claim is far more specific than the prior art, yet prior art (whether it be patented or not) is supposed to trump patent-ability. Use of the hinge would be an obvious application of the prior art and not patentable.

http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2006/2006_04_1350

In 1967, your confidence in the 4th amendment might have been justified. There are not enough Warrens, Brennans, Douglases, Fortases, or even Whites or Blacks on the Court today to be so certain.

(Interestingly, many justices at that time had never been judges beforehand. For instance, Warren had been a governor, Black had been a senator, and Douglas had been an SEC commissioner.)

Historical nitpick: it wasn't Holmes, it was Potter Stewart.

Give the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decisions regarding punitive damages and due process, she has a pretty strong argument.

In essence, the Supreme Court has held that awarding punitive damages that are more than 10x the amount of actual damages is out of line with the due process guarantees of the constitution. It follows that any mandatory award that is also grossly out of line with actual damages should be subject to similar constitutional problems. For those interested, check out Campbell v. State Farm, 538 U.S. 408 (2003). It was a 6-3 decision, with Scalia, Thomas, and Ginsburg as dissenters. Given the Roberts Court just gave a similar judgment in the Exxon case, it probably is still very good law. http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2002/2002_01_1289/

• Justice interments. "Oyez can pinpoint where your favorite Justice is buried, thanks to Google Maps."
• Oyez baseball. Which major league baseball player is most like Justice Samuel Chase? Take the quiz!

Are you referring to this case?

I forget which case it was, I had to do a research project on it about 4 years ago, but it involved wiretapping in public areas. The incident involved wiretapping a payphone booth that was used regularly by the defendent for placing bets on sports events over the phone (both betting on sports and gambling over phone lines were illegal at the time.) The FBI claimed that because the pay phone was in a public area that they were free to tap it because it wasn't considered a private area. The court ruled in favor of the defendent, stating that conversations in this type of pay phone booth, which had a door that closed so nobody outside could hear, was reasonably expected by the publicto be a place where one could hold a conversation in private. The general ruling is that if there is a commonly accepted expectation of privacy, a warrant is required. The incidence for the case here is that the police were out in public on the streets. Nobody can reasonably believe that a conversation in the street is a private event. Therefore, this case should be closed and in favour of Mr. Kelly. Update: The case I referenced in the beginning of this post is Katz v. United States. I found an audio recording of the case 4 years ago that was in mp3 format. It can be found at http://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/case/198/argumen t.mp3, along with the transcript at http://www.oyez.org/oyez/audio/198/argument-ra.smi l

I forget which case it was, I had to do a research project on it about 4 years ago, but it involved wiretapping in public areas. The incident involved wiretapping a payphone booth that was used regularly by the defendent for placing bets on sports events over the phone (both betting on sports and gambling over phone lines were illegal at the time.) The FBI claimed that because the pay phone was in a public area that they were free to tap it because it wasn't considered a private area. The court ruled in favor of the defendent, stating that conversations in this type of pay phone booth, which had a door that closed so nobody outside could hear, was reasonably expected by the publicto be a place where one could hold a conversation in private. The general ruling is that if there is a commonly accepted expectation of privacy, a warrant is required. The incidence for the case here is that the police were out in public on the streets. Nobody can reasonably believe that a conversation in the street is a private event. Therefore, this case should be closed and in favour of Mr. Kelly. Update: The case I referenced in the beginning of this post is Katz v. United States. I found an audio recording of the case 4 years ago that was in mp3 format. It can be found at http://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/case/198/argumen t.mp3, along with the transcript at http://www.oyez.org/oyez/audio/198/argument-ra.smi l

Question

Do Medicare funds received by health care providers constitute "benefits" within the meaning of the federal bribery statute prohibiting fraud and other offenses against organizations receiving federal benefits?

Conclusion

Yes. In a 7-2 opinion delivered by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the Court held that "Health care providers such as the one defrauded by [Fischer] receive 'benefits' within the meaning of [the federal bribery statute]." Thus, the Medicare funds hospitals receive for treating Medicare patients subject people who bribe hospital officials to federal prosecution.

Furthermore, courts have clearly ruled that students in school still have civil rights, including protections from unreasonable search and seizure

Transcript of Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc. v. PSKS, Inc.

Audio of the hearing should be available at the same link in next week or two.

This is a much better summary.

The issue is whether mandatory price floors should automatically be considered anticompetitive price fixing. Even if the case ruled in favor for Leegin, one could still sue under the Sherman Act if they can establish that the price floor has an anti-competitive effect.

Many Slashdotters complain about how old laws adversely affect society when they don't keep up with the times. I think this is one of those cases, as current economic theory states that price floors aren't automatically bad (the US, for example, keeps price floors on agricultural products to prevent another mass deflation of prices as seen in the Great Depression).

and there's little that can be done about it now

Why is that, surely they can be expelled from WTO for using increased profits it brings for oppressing their own population and violating international laws?

Others doing something illegal is no excuse for one's own illegal actions.

It's a matter of legal debate

Here's the 2001 decision, which was unanimous. The key part is where Kennedy writes "one who seeks to establish trade dress protection must carry the heavy burden of showing that the feature is not functional, for instance by showing that it is merely an ornamental, incidental, or arbitrary aspect of the device."

I'm still trying to work out the story here. The submission appears to be saying that the RIAA doesn't like being countersued.

"...the [Supreme] Court held that the right to travel is an inherent element of "liberty" that cannot be denied to American citizens. Although the Executive may regulate the travel practices of citizens, by requiring them to obtain valid passports, it may not condition the fulfillment of such requirements with the imposition of rules that abridge basic constitutional notions of liberty, assembly, association, and personal autonomy."

Kent v. Dulles
357 U.S. 116 (1958)

Summary from http://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/case/1053/

EPIC cites other cases in their comments on the proposed rule:
"The Supreme Court has long recognized that there is a constitutional right to travel
internationally. The right to travel is "not a mere conditional liberty subject to regulation and
control under conventional due process or equal protection standards . . .," but "a virtually
unconditional personal right." Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 642-643 (1969); see also
Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U.S. 500, 505 (1964); Kent v. Dulles, 357 U.S. 116, 126
(1958)"

Vote, damn it. If you haven't before, call your local Secretary of State's office and ask what the rules are. You might be registered automatically in some places. You might be able to cast a provisional ballot if not. Check http://www.canivote.org/ if you prefer, but in the name of everyone who has crawled through mud, spent years with combat flashbacks and nightmares, or *died* to preserve basic rights, drive to your polling place. It won't solve the problems but it's an indispensable first step.

I assume you mean inventing since 'innovating' and inventing are not the same thing. For the best part of the twentieth century people have had no difficulty inventing things, all without the benefits of IP protection. This all changed in 1981 when an appellate court decided in favour of a patent for rubber curing under software control which led to directly to such nonscense as the above Tivo patent.

was Re:never getting a TiVo now

I'm not sure you understand both terrorism or communism, but today's US culture is much different than even our recent past. I think the Gini coefficient does a pretty good job of expressing this on a graph (esp post-1970s).

Long story short, if you want to change the US, you fundamentally can not be short-sighted over a single issue. Well, actually you could if that issue was overturning Buckley v Valeo which found money equals political (free) speech (w/ minor restrictions). Excising money from politics would certain shift the political climate. But I'm afraid you're a handful of Supreme Court justices short for that endeavour and still subject to some very powerful entities who would strongly oppose. Still, being a single-issue political party is not a particularly effective course of action within a severely limiting two party system. Becoming an interest group (ex. Political Action Committee) would be adapted to the current US political climate. Of course, you'd still be outspent but maybe you will find the perfect coalition.

Sorry I am a wet-blanket, but I tell this because it is the truth and because I want the OSS & IP reform movements to succeed where they can under, you know, reality.

Garcetti v. Ceballos
Docket Number: 04-473
Abstract

Argued:

October 12, 2005
Facts of the Case

Richard Ceballos, an employee of the Los Angeles District Attorney's office, found that a sheriff misrepresented facts in a search warrant affidavit. Ceballos notified the attorneys prosecuting the case stemming from that arrest and all agreed that the affidavit was questionable, but the D.A.'s office refused to dismiss the case. Ceballos then told the defense he believed the affidavit contained false statements, and defense counsel subpoenaed him to testify. Seeking damages in federal district court, Ceballos alleged that D.A.s in the office retaliated against him for his cooperation with the defense, which he argued was protected by the First Amendment. The district court ruled that the district attorneys were protected by qualified immunity, but the Ninth Circuit reversed and ruled for Ceballos, holding that qualified immunity was not available to the defendants because Ceballos had been engaged in speech that addressed matters of public concern and was thus protected by the First Amendment.
Question Presented

1. Should a public employee's purely job-related speech, expressed strictly pursuant to the duties of employment, be protected by the First Amendment simply because it touched on a matter of public concern, or must the speech also be engaged in "as a citizen?" 2. Was immediate review by the Supreme Court necessary to address the growing inter-circuit conflict on the question of whether a public employee's purely job-related speech is constitutionally protected, especially where the lack of uniformity dramatically impacted the ability of all public employers to effectively manage their respective agencies?

Then the question comes - does it make sense for someone to have exclusive rights to a series of actions? Does this constitute a patentable "process"?

In case of computer programs capable of being run on a regular desktop computer, those steps are by definition just plain mathematics. And mathematics are not patentable subject matter.

There is always going to be a gray zone like the Diamond vs Diehr case (and in practice, most people won't care whether or not that is patentable, since it does not affect general purpose computing in any way), but unfortunately the logic followed in that and other cases has been extended ad absurdum, so that basically as soon as a computer executes something it's no longer considered to be pure mathematics, but a patentable process.

In 200 years, not ONE new technology or idealogy has surfaced that the Constitution does not completely cover. Name one. You can't.

You can't possibly claim that the constitution clearly covered all eventualities without being subject to some debate over its intent or explicit prohibitions. The framers didn't think so-- that's why there's a Supreme Court.

In 200 years, not ONE new technology or idealogy has surfaced that the Constitution does not completely cover. Name one. You can't.

You can't possibly claim that the constitution clearly covered all eventualities without being subject to some debate over its intent or explicit prohibitions. The framers didn't think so-- that's why there's a Supreme Court.

What Diehr said is that a claim does not become unstatutory just because software is a part of it. They affirmed Benson and Flook, in that if the only novel/non-obvious part of a patent is the software, then the invention as a whole cannot be taken as novel/non-obvious. They also pointed out you can't just remove the software and look at what's left. The way the software interacts with other elements may be novel and non-obvious. However, practically none of the "software patents" that are discussed on slashdot fit that description. The kind of invention Diehr opened the way for would include software elements, but wouldn't be what we call a "software patent".

Yes, I'm aware lots of people see it differently. That's because lots of people are wrong. Hardly anyone reads the case carefully. For example the oyez summary incorrectly attributes to Stevens the idea that no software can ever be patentable. He said no such thing, and in fact said he had no difference of law with the majority, only difference of fact (his reading of the claims.) The bitlaw summary says the majority saw the software as the only novel part of the invention. The majority said the opposite. I don't care that lots of people agree that Diehr opened the way for software patents. Lots of people are wrong.

I'm not going to take sides in the debate over the Gitmo detainees, but it is far from settled what protections and privileges they enjoy. You may want to look at United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez at 494 U.S. 259. If you don't want to read the whole case, there's a very brief summary here. In general, the protections of the Constitution apply to citizens or aliens within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States who are "part of the national community." These guys are battlefield detainees being held as prisoners of war. They are not in the territory of the United States voluntarily (as was the case in Verdugo). I'm not sure our Constitutional jurisprudence guarantees them much of anything (I'm not saying that's right or wrong, just that it is). Also, these combatants are not sponsored by any state, so (in the Administration's analysis) they're not even subject to the Geneva convention. I'm not a constitutional scholar (so anyone who is can feel free to correct me), but I'm not aware of any precedent that grants enemy combatant POWs any of the rights and privileges of citizens.

Of the 108 Supreme Court Justices, 48 died in office, of whom eight were Chief Justice. Source: Oyez.org.

1. William H. Rehnquist (CJ)
2. Fred M. Vinson
3. Wiley B. Rutledge
4. Robert H. Jackson
5. Harlan Fiske Stone (CJ)
6. Frank Murphy
7. Benjamin N. Cardozo
8. Edward T. Sanford
9. Pierce Butler
10. Joseph R. Lamar
11. Edward D. White (CJ)
12. Horace H. Lurton
13. Rufus Peckham
14. Howell E. Jackson
15. David J. Brewer
16. Melville W. Fuller (CJ)
17. Lucius Q.C. Lamar
18. Samuel Blatchford
19. Horace Gray
20. Stanley Matthews
21. William B. Woods
22. John M. Harlan
23. Morrison R. Waite (CJ)
24. Joseph P. Bradley
25. Salmon P. Chase (CJ)
26. Samuel F. Miller
27. Nathan Clifford
28. Levi Woodbury
29. Peter V. Daniel
30. John McKinley
31. John Catron
32. Philip P. Barbour
33. Roger B. Taney (CJ)
34. James M. Wayne
35. Henry Baldwin
36. John McLean
37. Robert Trimble
38. Smith Thompson
39. Joseph Story
40. Thomas Todd
41. Brockholst Livingston
42. William Johnson
43. John Marshall (CJ)
44. Bushrod Washington
45. William Paterson
46. James Iredell
47. William Cushing
48. James Wilson

You didn't read the link at all, did you?

And all (important) crimes do require intent. It's called mens rea.

There are a very very few that do not, like speeding or parking violations, where the mere facts of the evidence makes you guilty, called 'strict libability' crimes, but those are never felonies. They're usually ticketable offenses, in fact. Everything else requires intent to commit the crime.

The difference between homicide and manslaughter is that homicide requires intent to kill, whereas voluntary manslaughter merely requires 'intent to harm', without the actual malic reaching a level of murder.

And involuntary manslaughter? Well, there are two version. One's misdemeanor version of felony murder. The intent required there is to merely commit another crime. If you a committing a misdemeanor when you kill someone, it is involuntary manslaughter, just like it's felony murder when you kill them during any felony.

The other version of manslaughter is negligence, and I suspect it's what you're thinking of when you talk about 'manslaughter'. However, crimes that require negligence require intent. In fact, negligence is a form of intent. That sounds strange to have phrased that way, but failure to do something that you should have know needed to be done is a form of intent.

Basically, the difference between manslaughter and murder is what your intent is, but both of them require intent, aka, mens rea, as do all felonies. Suggesting that manslaughter doesn't require intent is just ignorance.

And your 'intent to take' concept is stupid. No law, anywhere, has ever defined theft as that. It's defined as 'intent to permanently deprive'. (I probably should have pointed out the 'permanent' earlier, but I was trying to point out the 'deprive' part. Some forms of 'theft', BTW, do not require it being permanent, like embezzlement, which is illegal even if you intend to get the money back. But basic theft, aka, larceny, aka, theft by taking, does. I think all 'theft' does.)

And, you know, you'd look less ignorant if you googled a bit and found specific examples of where it is explicitly stated that borrowing is legal. That's according to the University of Texas Criminal Law Department and the Georgia Bar Ass., BTW. Search for 'borrow'.

It's just that court cases where that was argue successfully are had to find.

Here's an appeal where the lawyer said it should worked as a defense, although for some reason he couldn't legally argue it at that point. Normally it's larceny if you move things, even slightly, in an attempt to take them, but he argued that the defendent couldn't have possibly been attempting to steal giant earth-moving equipment.

And here's a very interesting Supreme Court transcript where they talk about the specific lack of the word 'intent' in a certain bank robbery statute. Where they actually talk about people stealing money from a bank with the intent to return it, and how while larcency laws would say that's legal, the Federal bank robbery laws, as written might imply it's not, as they just require 'stealing'. And they don't know if they were meant to be written that way or not, as it happened when they rewrote the definition of steal of be 'intent to deprive' as a 'clean-up', apparently not in an attempt to change the actual crime.

That's the Supreme Court, for those not paying attention. And regardless of whether the bank robbery laws require intent to deprive or not, that doesn't change what they think about 'larcency'. They all accept it requires the intent to permanently deprive. (Robbery, FYI, requires taking from the physical possession of people, usually by intimidation or force.)

If you have a legal bent, you can listen to U.S. Supreme Court arguments at oyez.org. The nerd side of you should love hearing Lawrence Lessig argue in Eldred v. Ashcroft. Lots of other great stuff here, going all the way back to the 1950's. I've listened to a lot of this on my iPod during my 3-hour (rountrip) commute. You'd be surprised how much more interesting law can be when you hear it this way.

If you have a legal bent, you can listen to U.S. Supreme Court arguments at oyez.org. The nerd side of you should love hearing Lawrence Lessig argue in Eldred v. Ashcroft. Lots of other great stuff here, going all the way back to the 1950's. I've listened to a lot of this on my iPod during my 3-hour (rountrip) commute. You'd be surprised how much more interesting law can be when you hear it this way.

They provide a basis for our legal system, and reflect some pretty important times in our history. Plus, there are inevitably arguments for and against that I had never considered, (Can I mod justices +1 insightful?)

The difference is that I can't take Crim Law next semester (you take each class once and that's it; even if you get an F, you take your F and try to keep your GPA up notwithstanding it), but I will be able to read the oral argument transcripts probably within a month and will be probably be able to listen to the recording from oyez.org as well (I'm assuming they'll make this one available).

The exact same thing happened in 1980 when someone tried to patent an artificial bacteria. The USPTO rejected the claim, and it went all the way to the Supreme Court in Diamond v. Chakrabarty, where In a 5-to-4 decision, the Court explained that while natural laws, physical phenomena, abstract ideas, or newly discovered minerals are not patentable, a live artificially-engineered microorganism is. So I suspect this is nowhere near over. As a matter of fact, (IANAL), I think the ideas set forth in that case would seem to be on Mr. Newman's side. If the court rules against him, they're going to have to come up with some kind of legal dividing line to explain why artificial bacteria are patentable but artificial humans/humanoids aren't.

Theft is based in the legal principle of property, whereas copyright infringement is based on the legal principle of limited monopoly. The Constitution makes it very clear that this is not property, and that eventually the copyright holder will relinquish their monopoly for the good of the people. This muddling between theft and infringement on the part of the RIAA/MPAA is intentional.

For excellent further reading/listening on this subject, read Lawrence Lessig's book Free Culture (ISBN: 1594200068), or listen to the oral arguments in Elred v. Ashcroft (audio link on the left side). I think Lessig makes some brilliant points, but he ultimate lost the battle because of the unfortunate shortsightedness of our founding fathers.

Sorry, that's not just wrong, that's stupidly wrong.

If the Constitution was supposed to change with the times, via court interpretation, why did we need a process (two, actually) to amend it?

The Constitution was intended to be chains to bind the government, including the judiciary. The original intent was to express natural law, which never changes, by definition. Suggesting that the founding fathers intended for the meaning of the words in the constitution to change is like suggesting that Newton believed that the laws of physics would change over time. To give a more modern example, it's like quibbling over the meaning of ``is''. You can say it, but don't expect thinking people to take you seriously.

By the way, that Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing decision that you cite is an early example of judicial activists ignoring clear precedent and settled law to legislate from the bench. It's not their first big mistake, nor their most famous (I think Dred Scott wins both titles), but it's a biggie.

You're right. I don't often get to say that on this forum! That phrase comes from Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut. The confusion between semi-private letter and constitution seems to have first become official in 1947, in the case Everson v. Board of Education, where the Supreme court followed the grand old tradition of Dred Scott and screwed things up royally.

And as every 3rd grader knows, it is the judicial branch of government that interprets law.

You either have a grudge against the federal district court in D.C. or your point is completely incomprehensible.

Hell, even this summary of the Diamond v. Diehr case demonstrates that you don't know what you're talking about. small words are easy to understand

The summary clearly indicates that a court ruling (i.e. the judicial branch of government interpreting the law) ruled that virtually all computer programs are patentable.

You think you are Neo and the world of IP law is The Matrix. In reality, you are the guy who posts on Slashdot about how cool Windows is because it is easy to use. You are that guy. You are not Neo. While I knew you were full of it from the first, it took me 4 seconds to Google for a summary of your reference which demonstrates that you are wrong.

ok, then, due to the fact that my parent post is "redundant", i offer this to redeem myself.

still more

Generally speaking, the Ex Post Facto prohibition has been interpreted by the Supreme Court to only apply to criminal proceedings. Calder v. Bull (1798)

Since this is an administrative proceeding, the Ex Post Facto prohibition doesn't apply.

Take a look at 17 USC 106, 602, the MAI v. Peak case, and the Quality King case.

I'm not sure how the MAI v. Peak case fits in exactly. It establishes that simply running a program creates a copy in RAM, which is actionable under copyright law. Since we're talking about transferring data here, I don't think there's much argument about whether or not a copy has been created.

And as for the Quality King case, here's the synopsis. A producer of hair products sold stuff in different countries for different prices. One distributor got wise, bought the stuff in a country where the product was cheap, and then imported it to the US to resell at a higher price. What's the catch? The producer copyrighted all the labels on their products and tried to use copyright law to prevent this 'unauthorized' importation of their products. The judge ruled that the distribution company was allowed to import the product.

You seem to be saying, "Its illegal because somebody got sued!" So far, none of the items you've pointed out make me think that downloading from allofmp3.com is illegal.