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Well, the Supreme Court also said that the Supreme Court gets to decide the Constitutionality of laws, even though that power isn't assigned to them in the Constitution.

I agree with them that someone should be in charge of judicial review and they are probably the best equipped to handle it, but at the same time they seem to be taking on a lot of authority that wasn't delegated to them and using that to give undelegated powers to other branches.

What actually is the "law of the land" is on pretty shaky ground, constitutionally.

Binding arbitration clauses don't hold up in court.

The Supreme Court begs to differ.

Here's another limitation of fair use - you can't resell anything covered by copyright that you've imported from elsewhere..

WRONG!

As long as you're not creating copies or derivative works, the Doctrine of First Sale applies.

Joe Mullin at Arstechnica has a decent piece on the case: http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...

Or this

http://www.supremecourt.gov/op...

She's probably just fine with the *state* peeping into your (not her) business. That's the very definition of a self labeled "progressive". Guns, drones, private (no tax man involved) monetary interactions between people, healthcare, retirement, etc.

Actually, Sotomayor is a bit of an outlier on the Supreme Court and has been highlighted for laying the groundwork to reinstate stronger Fourth Amendment protections -- particularly against the government intrusions -- especially in her ruling in United States v. Jones . (For details on her privacy rulings before joining the Court, you can see EPIC's summary here.)

Note that in TFA she was warning about "Orwellian" surveillance, which specifically tends to refer to a world where the government is spying on you, not just private citizens. The quotation highlighted in TFS seems to focus on private citizen regulations, but she has also demonstrated more concern about many government invasions of privacy than most other Supreme Court members, including those who are definitely NOT ''progressives."

Basically they said if it can be interpreted that it looks like a duck then it is a duck, even if it is actually a goose. Specifically see pages 31 and 32 of the ruling for the reasoning spelled out based upon existing long standing precedent.

Also the ACA was also ruled not at tax by the supreme court so that there was standing. What has confused me about the ruling was the first and 3rd portions (the second being the part about removal of federal medicaid or medicare dollars). The first part of the ruling was to decided if the ACA individual mandate penalty was a fine or a tax since if it was a tax there wasn't standing. At this point the court ruled it was not a tax and thus the lawsuit could proceed. Then later in the 3rd part of the same ruling the court finds that it actually isn't a fine but is a tax and therefore allowable by the taxing power of congress. My question since this has been did the court overturn their own ruling within the same ruling or have we now entered a state of quantum law where things can exist in a superposition where depending on how you look at them you get the outcome you are looking for?

These 2 parts of the ruling did manage to accomplish one thing though which is I now have no faith in the supreme court to make logical well reasoned decision that is even coherent within the same ruling. This becomes most clear on pages 31 and 32 or the ruling where the court felt compelled to treat it as a tax for the purpose of ruling it constitutional yet somehow wasn't compelled to at the same time to rule it was a tax for purposes of standing. This line of reasoning I find rather disturbing since it basically states that if there is a way or reading or interpreting a law that might make it constitutional then the law must be ruled constitutional. There are 2 previous examples where this was done and any legal mind arguing before the supreme court would be wise to make use of this to ensure all laws government writes get ruled constitutional since there is a very long running president of this now (about 180 years).

If you think that is a silly idea, you should because it is. You claiming it is open for interpretation is silly too.

It isn't a silly idea. Interpretation and meaning of words is a well established part of philosophy. What meaning words have varies a lot depending on the previous experience of the interpreter.
Heck, even the Supreme Court disagrees with you.
But whatever, it's not like it is their job to interpret the constitution.

I do, though, so let me take a swing at it: they're just doing what is already being done, but they're doing it with a computer. Alice Corp. vs. CLS Bank clearly states that this is insufficient cause to grant a patent. The patent is invalid, based on this and numerous other observations.

2. If you invented such a church, it would not be a legitimate church

Says who, the government that is not allowed to enfranchise religions?

3. You are too honest to invent a church just to cheat someone out of health care

I bet the Scientologists wouldn't have that compunction. Why, I bet for a few million dollars, they'll let you believe that controlling pollution is a Xenu plot to prevent purification of Thetans. You pay a few million dollars a year, and after a few years it could even be a "long-held" belief.

4. The decision was limited to this issue of abortion drugs

Says you, and says Alito, but having read the decision myself, the statements in the majority decision absolutely do not say this.

We hold that the regulations that impose this obligation violate RFRA, which prohibits the Federal Government from taking any action that substantially burdens the exercise of religion unless that action constitutes the least restrictive means of serving a compelling government interest.

In holding that the HHS mandate is unlawful, we reject HHS’s argument that the owners of the companies forfeited all RFRA protection when they decided to organize their businesses as corporations rather than sole proprietorships or general partnerships. The plain terms of RFRA make it perfectly clear that Congress did not discriminate in this way against men and women who wish to run their businesses as for-profit corporations in the manner required by their religious beliefs.

Since RFRA applies in these cases, we must decide whether the challenged HHS regulations substantially burden the exercise of religion, and we hold that they do. The owners of the businesses have religious objections to _____, and according to their religious beliefs the four ____ at issue are _____. If the owners comply with the HHS mandate, they believe they will be facilitating _____, and if they do not comply,they will pay a very heavy price—as much as $1.3 million per day, or about $475 million per year, in the case of one of the companies. If these consequences do not amount to a substantial burden, it is hard to see what would.

You are welcome to find me the text of RFRA that says the only thing allowed to go into those blanks is "abortion". Alito's best guess is "well, we told some kids to stop smoking peyote if they wanted unemployment benefits so we have some knob here we can twist to decide when the law does and doesn't actually permit religious beliefs to trump law, so when we need to, we'll twist it." AKA: "I Know It When I See It II: Electric Boogaloo".

It remains to be seen what will happen when the Christian Brothers Health Insurance Company sues, and I am sure they will once HHS says "fine, we'll let for-profits do the same as non-profits and make the insurance company pay for the pills". Alito will likely find this knob will come off in his hand when he tries to set it somewhere between "company buying insurance pays for contraceptives" and "company selling insurance pays for contraceptives"

"Riley v. United States is the name of the court case that triggered this new search warrant rule."

Wrong. The opinion is Riley v. California. See http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-132_8l9c.pdf

Actually, no, they don't. They acknowledged in oral argument that, while _some_ of the antennas are statically assigned, some are also dynamically assigned. See the transcript, bottom of page 32.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/or...

imagine you rent that DVR from an electronics rental company.

It's a shame that either the submitter or the Slashdot editor botched the PDF link because one of the first things SCOTUS tells us about, is how fucking crazy the copyright Act became in 1976. Everything that laymen think they know about copyright, is probably wrong. (But it's up to us to fix it. Will voting Republicrat in the 2014 elections fix it? Before you answer that question, answer these questions first: has voting Republicrat ever fixed anything in the past? Are 2014's Republicrats a brand new thing, never before seen in the realm of politics?)

Here's the craziness: See the part where you have that DVR, and then somehow it gets used?? I shall now blow your mind: that's a "performance."

It's a performance, even if it happens right in your own house, with you being the only person there. Or if it happens somewhere else. It's a performance when the antenna collects it for the DVR to record. It's a performance when the DVR records it. When the DVR plays it, it's another performance (no, not the same performance). When logmein scrapes the DVR's screen, it's yet another performance (!!) and another when the logmein software transmits the scraped screen over the Internet, where each router between that computer and your home computer also performs (!!) it, it's a performance when your logmein client renders it to the framebuffer and sound card, it's even yet another performance when it is transmitted over the HDMI cable, and another performance when the monitor and speakers show you, and (ok, I'm making up this last part, as a second-tier bullshit-detector test) another performance whenever you think back and remember what you saw or heard. The point is that many "performances" happened, not just one.

(If any of this sounds crazy to you, well that's fine, but I ask you to read the (a)(2) part on page two of PDF before you call me a fucking liar, and I don't blame you for just assuming that I must be lying. But read SCOTUS' PDF.)

Every one of those performances is an opportunity to violate the law. You may be able to complete this mission without running afoul of the law, but watch out, for it is littered with traps.

The decision goes on to describe "to the public" a little weirdly, basically says "Congress meant that even if they didn't say it," and without any really good arguments. There's the weakness. But when you have so many different performances happening, and it only takes a skewed look at any one of them to make it all fall down, so that's a high-risk scenario. Once you know what the government thinks a "performance" is, you know that Aereo's business is risky.

Aereo probably should have known that.

At this point, I think the best thing for the public to do in order to avoid trouble, is just give up on trying to comply with the law, and pirate all TV and movies. That is far easier and less risky than attempting to do things lawfully, and it's also better than all the attempt-but-fail-to-be-lawful methods, and cheaper than most of them. Just pirate.

As a bonus, when you pirate, you stop providing lobbying power (money) to be used against you. Instead, you can put that money into an IP reform PAC. This is zero-sum, so it's your civic duty to deny resources to the enemy.

Here's the actual decision text: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-461_l537.pdf

It's "publicly transmitting" inasmuch as the people it is transmitted to are "unrelated and unknown to each other", to quote the actual decision. Netflix very likely would be considered to be publicly transmitting as well, but because they've worked out licenses with the content owners, they're not running into any of these problems.

Mind you, I'm not suggesting by any means that I agree with the decision. I'm merely providing it.

Disclaimer: IANAL.

Regarding 1-to-1 vs. one-to-many, the ruling deals with this issue explicitly. See page 14.

Regarding it not being streaming to download your own data across the Internet, the ruling discusses this issue as well, see page 15.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/op...

The Supreme Court created a new definition for an "exceptional" case in its Octane Fitness decision:

We hold, then, that an “exceptional” case is simply one that stands out from others with respect to the substantive strength of a party’s litigating position (considering both the governing law and the facts of the case) or the unreasonable manner in which the case was litigated. District courts may determine whether a case is “exceptional” in the case-by-case exercise of their discretion, considering the totality of the circumstances

So it's not necessarily so much the "type" of case per se -- it's where a given case falls on the spectrum of silliness, how [un]reasonable either side was in litigating the case, etc. The bottom line is that district court judges now have a lot more discretion to declare a case to be "exceptional" than they did before.

Is Scalia seriously suggesting police can act on a tip only after proving that tipster is telling the truth?

As much as I hate to find myself anywhere near Scalia (through he's joined here by Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan), police can legitimately act on a tip only after proving that a tipster is *likely* to be telling the truth. In this case, after following the car for five minutes and not seeing anything that gave them suspicion that the driver was drunk, there's no way that they could have reasonable suspicion this guy was a drunk driver. Given the documented existence of SWATing, anonymous tips cannot be considered credible grounds for intrusion into a person's liberty.

Interestingly, in this case the tip was not anonymous, but that fact wasn't brought up in the original prosecution and so the tip is dealt with as anonymous.

Lucky for Scalia most progressives still believe in elections, democracy, rule of law and that SCOTUS interpretation of the constitution is the only legal interpretation.

Really? You believe that most progressives believe that in 1857, no person of African descent could be a citizen of a state, despite zero evidence for this decision in the text of the Constitution? And that in 1896, states could comply with the equal protection clause via "separate but equal" bullshit? Well, it does seem that "progressive" has been defined downwards since Obama came into office.

Human rights, democracy, the rule of law, and SCOTUS decisions, are areas that overlap sometimes but not always. Genuine progressives put human rights before the others.

Here it is:

Monsanto using MPAA and RIAA tactics (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Tue Apr 08, '14 06:24 PM (#46700087)

Monsanto and Cargil do some really shitty things with their IP when it comes to their seeds - like suing farmers for having Monsanto's crops growing in their fields when they weren't purchased and suing seed washers for alleged violations of IP.

That wasn't a case of cross-pollination at all, that was a case of a farmer (who normally used Monsanto seed and had a contract with them) buying soybeans intended for consumption, planting them and spraying them with roundup to kill any non-roundup ready stock, then using that seed stock year after year for planting. The supreme court ruled (9-0) that he was intentionally violating the patent that Monsanto holds on that variety of Soy. Bowman's defense was "patent exhaustion", basically the right to sell something that you had previously bought. The courts found that this was not the case and ruled that Bowman was creating new copies of a patented invention and so patent exhaustion did not apply. From the Supreme Court decision:

the purchaser of that article could make and sell endless copies, the patent would effectively protect the invention for just a single sale. Bowman himself disputes none of this analysis as a general matter: He forthrightly acknowledges the “well settled” principle “that the exhaustion doctrine does not extend to the right to ‘make’ a new product.” Brief for Petitioner 37 (citing Aro, 365 U. S., at 346).
Unfortunately for Bowman, that principle decides this case against him. Under the patent exhaustion doctrine, Bowman could resell the patented soybeans he purchased from the grain elevator; so too he could consume the beans himself or feed them to his animals. Monsanto, although the patent holder, would have no business interfering in those uses of Roundup Ready beans. But the exhaustion doctrine does not enable Bowman to make additional patented soybeans without Monsanto’s permission (either express or implied). And that is precisely what Bowman did. He took the soybeans he purchased home; planted them in his fields at the time he thought best; applied glyphosate to kill weeds (as well as any soy plants lacking the Roundup Ready trait); and finally harvested more (many more) beans than he started with. That is how “to ‘make’ a new product,” to use Bowman’s words, when the original product is a seed.

So not only did you not provide what was asked (an example of accidental cross-pollination where Monsanto sued a farmer who did not take specific steps to exploit the accident) but the example you did provide the farmer is clearly in the wrong. If the SC rules unanimously against your case, there is not a ton of ambiguity on the merits.

In case you didn't get the memo, Ron Paul and Rand Paul sold out to big business years ago.

A month before the Snowden leaks began, Rand Paul proposed legislation to reform the Third Party Doctrine: http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th/senate-bill/1037/text

The 3PD is the principal that if you share information with a third party, even if that third party promises you confidentiality, and even if that confidentiality is never actually compromised, the 4th Amendment doesn't apply and the Feds can simply demand the information willy nilly. The 3PD totally guts the 4th Amendment -- it is the basis upon which politicians can say that the NSA's masspionage is "legal". Without the 3PD, everything the NSA is doing, at least with respect to people in America, is so unconstitutional a third grader could litigate and win the case against it.

Fortunately, even Justice Sotomayer is questioning the wisdom of this rule in the modern world where everything a person does requires sharing information with third parties -- you cannot navigate the modern economy without such sharing. See the paragraph beginning on PDF page 19 for her thinking on this issue: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/10-1259.pdf

Whatever Rand Paul's faults are, he was aware of the eviscerating effect of the Third Party Doctrine and took action to protect the 4th Amendment PRIOR to the leaks. This is not the type of legislation that $megacorp loves and supports. It's a pure civil rights issue. However, I don't think his reforms don't go far enough because the only effect it would have is to exclude illegally obtained information at trial. Considering how the Feds engage in intelligence laundering, it is clear that a mere exclusion is insufficient -- there must be personal and agency penalties for a violation. To be fair to Paul, he didn't have this information when he wrote the legislation, but without personal consequences, it won't be that meaningful.

A decent example of such penalties is contained in the WA State statute regarding hidden mic recordings of conversations: See paragraphs 10 & 11: Violating the process for authorizing and recording a conversation surreptitiously, subjects the officers involved to personal prosecution for a class C felony and the agency to substantial fines ($25,000 per occurrence). The Feds need to have a little fear put into their hearts -- they need to ask themselves "If I can't do the time or pay the fine, do I really want to commit this crime?" And make no bones about it, the Federal government, due to its rampant lawlessness (e.g. collateral construction/intelligence laundering), is a criminal organization and needs to be treated as such.

Finally, back to the original point, Rand Paul might be a dick, but if you will step out of your partisan political mindset and consider the possibility that he just might have a good idea, we can get America back. Same goes for the tribal GOP -- both of you, Demoplicans and Republocrats alike, quit being so fricken tribal. The two parties are basically fungible anyway -- latch onto the very few good ideas and push them no matter who makes the proposal.

You can't fix something that is fatally flawed. The problem isn't the website, the problem is the cluster fuck of a law they passed. No amount of code can fix a bad idea.

From the Supreme Court opinion that upheld the individual mandate:

It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.

Try google: http://morallowground.com/2011/01/21/on-this-day-2010-us-supreme-court-rules-corporations-are-people-money-is-speech/

Or if you prefer somethign from SCOTUS : http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf

This is what allowed the corps to run the US.
Once they were allowed to donate to make sure "Their guy" one.

Funny, as a Canadian i'm aware of this and you are not?

Since we seem to have a group of moderators running around today that are ignorant of the functioning of the US court system, I'll restate.

Lower courts have the authority to rule acts of the Federal government unconstitutional and stop them. This case has little chance of being accepted by the US Supreme Court. It isn't proper procedure for it to start there, and it isn't the type of case that the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction over. This is a matter for the lower courts to start with. Any citizen or corporation that received a gag order from a court could challenge it in the same court, or appeal it.

A Brief Overview of the Supreme Court

“In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”

Hopefully this is clear, and modding me down doesn't change the law even if you don't like it.

It isn't just a question of standing before any court, but a bigger problem before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court only has original jurisdiction for a limited scope of issues.

A Brief Overview of the Supreme Court

“In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”

Original Jurisdiction

The Court has been assiduous in protecting the Constitution's core grant of original jurisdiction from congressional expansion. The Court explicitly declared in Marbury v. Madison (1803) that Congress cannot add to the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction.

Once again, no proof.

I hate it when people can't be bothered to do simple research. From the collection of opinions for the ruling, it states exactly what I claimed. First, that individual mandate was determined as unconstitutional by Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, and Alito. The dissenting opinion of the last four starts on page 126. Roberts's opinion is first referred to on page 2 where he states that the individual mandate isn't backed by either the commerce or the "necessary and proper" clauses.

Similarly, the opinions on the state medicaid program are in there with only two justices supporting the program.

I find it rather annoying how the matter can be a statement of record, easily found on the web, and yet still be questioned by the ignorant.

You say that throwing out a part of a law is counter to the will of Congress. Throwing out a whole law is even more so.

You obviously don't get it. Congress can always pass the law again in a modified form that addresses the Supreme Court's concerns. By allowing the Supreme Court to decide what law is valid and not, without direction from Congress is to allow the Supreme Court to upset political compromises and subvert the written will of Congress. There is no balance here. The Supreme Court never was given the power to make law.

If your view is that SCOTUS should attempt to not overrule the will of Congress, then the ability to strike parts of a law is absolutely necessary.

This is a non sequitur since striking parts of a law is just as clear an overruling of Congress as reversing the whole law is.

The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional. There's nowhere to go after the Supreme Court.

No they did not. They ruled the ACA is not unconstitutional based on the arguments presented to them. The Supreme court does not deem anything constitutional, it determines if something violates the constitution and infers the constitutionality of it when it is not unconstitutional. Don't let the wording trip you up. When a court's opinion says something is constitutional, it is only in reference to the arguments of it not being constitutional that was presented to it.

The distinction there is that a law or aspects of a law found to not be unconstitutional under one set of arguments can be unconstitutional under another. For instance, segregation and the voter rights act have been in front of the supreme court several times and by the same mentality *deemed constitutional* but ultimately were found unconstitutional. The supreme court is only supposed to decide on the issue in front of it, not the entirety of a law or the policy within the law. Stop and Frisk has been deemed constitutional but the way New York is applying it, it will likely be determined unconstitutional. The DC gun ban is also an example of this where certain aspects of the law were perfectly legit and even if implemented and enforced differently would have remained so but according to the court but it was ultimately unconstitutional.

You're saying that they ruled it a "tax". That's not their ruling. If they ruled that way, that would imply they could make a law constitutional, but by ruling in such a way, the law is then unconstitutional. They cannot make up a paradox like that, that's not how the court works. Especially not the 9 justices of the Supreme Court.

Boy, you sound just like the dissenting opinion on the Obamacare case. You should actually pick up the opinions and read them- they are available from the Supreme court's website.

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT
BUSINESS v. SEBELIUS
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-393c3a2.pdf

It clearly states in the opinion around page 58 of the PDF,

The Affordable Care Act is constitutional in part and unconstitutional in part. The individual mandate cannot be upheld as an exercise of Congressâ(TM)s power under the Commerce Clause. That Clause authorizes Congress to regulate interstate commerce, not to order individuals to engage in it. In this case, however, it is reasonable to construe what Congress has done as increasing taxes on those who have a certain amount of income, but choose to go without health insurance. Such legislation is within Congressâ(TM)s power to tax.

In the dissenting opinion by SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ, it clearly says

In answering that question we must, if âoefairly possible,â Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22, 62 (1932), construe the provision to be a tax rather than a mandate-with-penalty, since that would render it constitutional rather than un- constitutional (ut res magis valeat quam pereat). But we cannot rewrite the statute to be what it is not. âoeââoe[A]l- though this Court will often strain to construe legis- lation so as to save it against constitutional attack, it must not and will not carry this to the point of perverting the purpose of a statute . . .â or judicially rewriting it.â(TM)â Commodity Futures Trading Commâ(TM)n v. Schor, 478 U. S.

Congress passed it. The president signed it. It went before the Supreme Court and passed judicial review. It's the law, designed and built by democracy. The Republican party should respect that.

No future government will ever be constrained by a previous government unless

the court ruled, unanimously, that human genes cannot be patented, though synthetic DNA, created in the laboratory, can be.

If only that were true! Read the SCOTUS decision, already.

Quoting directly from the SCOTUS decision...

Held A naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated, but cDNA is patent eligible because it is not naturally occurring.

All that stuff is published in the Guardian, the proof is right there. Oh, yea, the staffers and military bases are banned from viewing The Guardian, I forgot about that. I guess you'll have to go somewhere that you can access a private Internet connection so you can view the documents.

I suggest you read the opinion in United States v. Jones, because the government's argument was exactly the one you make here: That since the information can be gathered publicly, then it was not a search requiring a warrant. The court rejected that argument, and stated that it was a search, because the information could not have been gathered without modern electronics. There is no need to address the NSA data gathering specifically, because the actions and principles are exactly the same.

This is Slashdot, not the Supreme Court. Slashdot has no power over the law. At most, some of the views expressed here might influence some voters that visit here for technology news and discussion, and that is it. If you want to complain about the decision, here is the place to go:

Supreme Court of the United States

If you don't like the status of the law, take it up with your legislators. If you want to comment on that policy, there is another active discussion on that subject. You should post there. Complaining here in this story on that subject is useless and annoying, and complaining on Slashdot won't change anything.

The (democratically elected, BTW) AG, in her professional opinion as, you know, an attorney, determined that the law was unconstitutional and refused to enforce it.

He, under oath, swore to enforce laws passed by her constituents.

She swore, under oath, that she would "support and defend the Constitution of the United States."

That's kind of a big deal. It's like, the granddaddy of all laws here in the US. All other laws, passed by constituents or otherwise, are secondary.

You should read it sometime. You'd learn a lot.

It isn't her job to determine where something in unconstitutional or not.

It absolutely is, firstly because she is a state officer [see above] and secondly, because she is the attorney general, who is first and foremost an attorney. And as such, she was required to give honest counsel to her clients, in this case the State of California.

People always complain around here about a theocracy and this sounds like a pure theocratical power grab by the AG.

I don't think you know what that word means. Are you alleging that the AG of California is claiming to be herself god? Or that she is claiming [a] god is guiding her legal opinions? On what do you base this assertion?

And yes, you can vote the AG out, eventually, but the AG in the case should be downright impeached for not upholding what he vowed to uphold.

You mean...the Constitution?

Well, yes, there is always the potential for the abuse of elected (or appointed, however your AG works) power.

That was the meat of the decision: The Supremes carefully considered whether anyone was screwed, and decided that the people complaining had, in fact, not been screwed.*

The people complaining just wasnt about them bring *screwed but all the of the people of the state of california being *screwed as well.

Seriously, go read that decision. It's linked. Go read it. Try to understand it.

Why have an amendment that the people of california vote on that can so easily be refuted?

That is, ironically, very close to what the Court asked. The Supremes said, "It doesn't affect you in any way that gay people are getting married. Therefore, it doesn't matter to anyone whether the ban is enforced or not. If it ever does harm you in any way, you can come back and we'll consider that, but right now, why should you or us give a rats ass?"

That doesn;t seem like something the founding fathers would have wanted or approved of.

Go read your history. And go read the Constitution, which you appear to be totally ignorant of.

The Founding Fathers were extremely suspicious of things like this ban, passed by majority vote of the population That's why they created things like the Electoral College, and Congress, and the executives, and all the other ways that our government is insulated from the whims of the majority.

On top of that the very same people (and a small group of people in question here that was sent to represent everyone else who voted for Prop 8.) can't even defend what was voted on because the AG refuses to enforce it? This just wasnt about harm to the 6 or 7 individuals before the court but to rest of the people of california and harm to amendment system as well.

This is the system working as designed: government working to restrict the whims of an angry majority to curtail the rights of a minority. Not one person or group was harmed in any way, so sayeth the Court.

As bjdevil said earlier, this is WRONG. He should be at least impeached. At least.

Okay, I have no idea

The (democratically elected, BTW) AG, in her professional opinion as, you know, an attorney, determined that the law was unconstitutional and refused to enforce it.

He, under oath, swore to enforce laws passed by her constituents. It isn't her job to determine where something in unconstitutional or not. People always complain around here about a theocracy and this sounds like a pure theocratical power grab by the AG. And yes, you can vote the AG out, eventually, but the AG in the case should be downright impeached for not upholding what he vowed to uphold.

Well, yes, there is always the potential for the abuse of elected (or appointed, however your AG works) power.

That was the meat of the decision: The Supremes carefully considered whether anyone was screwed, and decided that the people complaining had, in fact, not been screwed.*

The people complaining just wasnt about them bring *screwed but all the of the people of the state of california being *screwed as well. Why have an amendment that the people of california vote on that can so easily be refuted? That doesn;t seem like something the founding fathers would have wanted or approved of. On top of that the very same people (and a small group of people in question here that was sent to represent everyone else who voted for Prop 8.) can't even defend what was voted on because the AG refuses to enforce it? This just wasnt about harm to the 6 or 7 individuals before the court but to rest of the people of california and harm to amendment system as well.

As bjdevil said earlier, this is WRONG. He should be at least impeached. At least. And this is a BAD precedent. Next thing you know some other law will get passed and the AG will say, "hey i don't llke that law, *screw it!, I am not going to enforce it.

I see where the gay marriage ban in California will be overturned because the found that the people didnt have the right to appeal to a lower court. Why did the people do this? Because the AG refused to appeal because he didn't like the gay marriage ban.

The (democratically elected, BTW) AG, in her professional opinion as, you know, an attorney, determined that the law was unconstitutional and refused to enforce it.

Suppose that, say, the Mississippi legislature, passed a law making it legal to hold slaves in that state. (Again, I mean.) By your standard, the AG of Mississippi couldn't say, "No, sorry, we tried this already, and it's not legal under the US Constitution. Anymore." He or she would have to attempt to enforce it, up to and including going before Federal judges and saying, "Yeah, look, my constituents are idiots, I know this is illegal, you know this is illegal, but I am totally going to try it anyway because state law."

So what kind of precedent does this set? If the officials of the state don't appeal a ruling then the citizens are pretty much screwed? What kind of crap is that?

Well, yes, there is always the potential for the abuse of elected (or appointed, however your AG works) power.

Supposing the officials of a state failed to enforce some law, any citizens who were, in fact, screwed would be able to sue. But they'd have to show standing; they'd have to demonstrate that the state actually screwed you in some way. Which these folks from California failed to do, because "OMG the state totally allowed these two dudes who live here to get married!" does not constitute "harm."

In this case, "the people" were not screwed. That was the meat of the decision: The Supremes carefully considered whether anyone was screwed, and decided that the people complaining had, in fact, not been screwed.* Whether anyone had been screwed was crucial to the decision; had there been anyone who could show that they were screwed, they would have standing and would be able to sue.

(*The only people getting screwed** were the gay newlyweds, and, hell, that's why they got married. So they could, you know, screw each other. At least until that whole newlywed glow wears off and they sette into the everyday grind of married life.)

(** Yes, I am enjoying the double entendre of the word "screwed." Glad you noticed.)

They can't solve a case but have DNA and a vague description, they will simply "arrest" anyone and everyone who is a close match to the description on trumped up charges that will be dropped after they get their DNA.

Actually, the opinion requires the arrest to be for a serious offense. So littering or seatbelt violations are not going to cut it.

For comparison, the Maryland law at issue here essentially limits the DNA testing to arrests for crimes of violence: murder, rape, robbery, assault. These are not victimless crimes and so are much harder to trump up -- you need to find putative victims in order to be credible.

Though true, it's also a pretty good implication that seeds are patentable as IP, because patent ineligibility would be something the Supreme Court could raise sua sponte (deciding an issue on their own initiative, as opposed to merely deciding issues addressed by the lower court).

I don't see why the court would ever do that in this case. The court doesn't give a rats ass why the executive branch has deemed Monsanto's plants patentable under the laws passed by the legislature (i.e., the Patent Office issued a patent in accordance with the law) and it's the legislative branch's job to change the law if the executive branch is doing something the people don't like. Since the legislature has done little more than add to the list of patentable plants (U.S. Plant Patent Act of 1930, U.S. Plant Variety Protection Act of 1970, amended in 1980 and 1994 to further restrict farmer and breeder rights) the court can't really argue that these type of patents are weak, untested, or even unusual. The laws in the US are not even significantly different than those in Europe, as most of the amendments above were made to bring US law in line with European under UPOV.

So, why is it the judicial branch's job to curb the patent office when the executive and legislative branches are ostensibly OK with the patent and laws (as is the international community) and there are no constitutional issues surrounding the case? The question before the court was "Does a patent right for self-replicating technology expire after an authorized sale?" and the answer was "No." If the answer were "yes" then you essentially couldn't patent plants, and given the body of law that explicitly says you can it seems unreasonable to think that the laws were made to be so pointless.

As usual, though, I encourage people to read the actual opinion of the court, which always explains things very well even if it ends up being very dense.

I am, however, laughing about this:

David F. Snively, Monsanto's top lawyer.

That's a horrible name for a lawyer, especially a corporate lawyer. I immediately think he looks like Snidely Whiplash.

It is worth adding that both of the Monsanto patents mentioned in the Supreme Court judgment either are, or will shortly become, history. The Supreme Court judgment itself can be read at http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-796_c07d.pdf.

One of the Monsanto patents is U.S. Patent 5,352,605, issued October 4, 1994 http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5,352,605.PN.&OS=PN/5,352,605&RS=PN/5,352,605

and the other is U.S. Patent RE 39,247E, a reissue of U.S. Patent Number 5,633,435, originally issued May 27, 1997
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5,633,435.PN.&OS=PN/5,633,435&RS=PN/5,633,435.

Both these were filed before mid-1995 (see linked information at US Patent Office website) , and so they seem to have arisen from the 'old-law' US patent regime, when the patent term used to be '17 years from issue date'. Under that old regime the normal expiry dates for these two patents would be October 2011 and May 2014 (unless Monsanto manages for any reason to obtain some patent-term extension).

(The current patent-term regime doesn't seem to apply to these two, but if the last patent applications in the chains leading to these patents had been filed under the current law, with a 20-year term from application date, then the normal expiry dates would have been determined from the earliest dates in the chains of patent applications from which the two patents eventually issued. These chains began in 1983 and 1990, and would have led to normal expiry dates in 2003 and 2010, so the patents would on that basis already have been history for some time now.)

-wb-

The ruling is here:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-796_c07d.pdf

It's not too long and is interesting. Read it before complaining too much.

Link to opinions: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-697_d1o2.pdf

Main opinion is first.
Concurring opinion begins at 38.
Dissenting (written by Ginsburg) begins on page 42.

As another poster point out you can read the opinion here. From what I have read of previous supreme court opinions they are fairly readable unlike the laws that are drafted. I haven't read this one but that may be a task for lunch time today. This is also the same court that ruled that something can be both a tax and not a tax within the same ruling so strangeness is to be expected.

may be found at this link. Surprisingly, Scalia was the only justice from the conservative wing to dissent.

Sorry, but I could give two shits about your little pissing match with EA. Wait... no, sorry, couldn't give even a single shit, let alone a matched pair.

I'm far more concerned about the possible implications of an unfavorable SCOTUS decision in John Wiley & Sons, Inc. v. Supap Kirtsaeng, AKA the "First Sale Doctrine" case.

Srlsy, you kids and your fucked up priorities...

From Heller vs DC oral arguments:

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Well, that may be true, but that concedes your main point that there is an individual right and gets to the separate question of
whether the regulations at issue here are reasonable.

MR. DELLINGER: Well, the different kind of right that you're talking about, to take this to the question of -- of what the standard ought to be for applying this, even if this extended beyond a militia-based right, if it did, it sounds more like the part of an expansive public or personal -- an expansive personal liberty right, and if it -- if it is, I think you ought to consider the effect on the 42 States who have been getting along fine with State constitutional provisions that do expressly protect an individual right of -- of weapons for personal use, but in those States, they have adopted a reasonableness standard that has
allowed them to sustain sensible regulation of dangerous weapons. And if you -
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: What is -- what is reasonable about a total ban on possession? MR. DELLINGER: What is reasonable about a
total ban on possession is that it's a ban only an the possession of one kind of weapon, of handguns, that's been considered especially -- especially dangerous. The CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: So if you have a law that prohibits the possession of books, it's all right if you allow the possession of newspapers?

MR. DELLINGER: No, it's not, and the difference is quite clear. If -- if you -- there is no limit to the public discourse. If there is an individual right to guns for personal use, it's to carry out a purpose, like protecting the home. You could not, for example, say that no one may have more than 50 books. But a law that said no one may possess more than 50 guns would -- would in fact be I think quite reasonable.

GENERAL CLEMENT: Okay. I would like to talk about the standard and my light is indeed on, so let me do that.I think there are several reasons why a standard as we suggest in our brief rather than strict scrutiny is an appropriate standard to be applied in evaluating these laws. I think first and foremost, as our colloquy earlier indicated, there is -- the right to bear arms was a preexisting right. The Second Amendment talks about "the right to bear arms," not just "a right to bear arms." And that preexisting always coexisted with reasonable regulations of firearms.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/07-290.pdf

No it doesn't. The Supreme Court refuses to hear most of the cases that seek certification to appeal.

According to the Supreme Court website they agree to hear about 1% of the petitions they receive. This case was part of the 99%.

AT&T vs. Concepcion is what allowed companies to get away with this crap. The California Supreme Court rightly ruled that such clauses are "unconsionable" where there is disparate baragaining power between the two parties. Even before reading this case, I had the exact same train of logic. When I am negotiating with a peer, it is fine to agree to such clauses. When I have the upper hand, the court should not recognize such abusive clauses.

If the Supreme Court (led by Scalia in a 5-4 decision) won't shoot down suck idiotic clauses, then it is up to our Congress to do so. How many of you want to hold your breath waiting for that to happen.

if you are interested in more details, read the ruling here: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-893.pdf

There was a California Supreme Court precedent, Discover Bank v. Superior Court, 36 Cal. 4th 148, 113 P. 3d 1100 (2005), that held that arbitration agreements for class actions were unconscionable under California law. That decision was struck down by the Supreme Court of the US on April 27 2011 as it was preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act. See AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, 131 S. Ct. 1740 (2011)

There are actually two opposing rulings on this case—if you read the summary of the question before the court from their web site, you can get a clear picture. But my point is that it doesn't apply to patents. And you should read the appellate court decision more carefully—it explicitly refers to "Importation into the United States, without the authority of the owner of copyright under this title..." IOW, not what you said.

Original case here.

Our permissive reading of these powers is explained inpart by a general reticence to invalidate the acts of theNationâ(TM)s elected leaders. âoeProper respect for a co-ordinate branch of the governmentâ requires that we strike downan Act of Congress only if âoethe lack of constitutionalauthority to pass [the] act in question is clearly demonstrated.â United States v. Harris, 106 U. S. 629, 635 (1883).Members of this Court are vested with the authority tointerpret the law; we possess neither the expertise northe prerogative to make policy judgments. Those decisions are entrusted to our Nationâ(TM)s elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.

I interpret this as meaning that to an extent the Supreme Court, and Justice Roberts in particular has refused to rule that Obamacare is unconstitutional. That burden is the voters' choice. Do they respect the legal infrastructure that has lead to such a successful nation or uphold Obamacame, in the process pulling another block out and bringing things closer to the end of the US?

As to the people who bleat here about "free riders" and such in ERs. It's worth remembering that you wanted to create free or cheap healthcare which can be exploited by free riders. The resulting emergence of said free riders is a natural outcome. Your impulse to then control the rest of us so that no free riders can exist is merely an odious impulse which must be resisted. I simply cannot subordinate my freedom to your incompetent and naive whim, here, just because someone receives less healthcare than you think they should receive.

There's a section in the dissent where Wickard v Filburn is discussed as precedent, but not even Thomas Scalito goes that far.

The striking case of Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111 (1942), which held that the economic activity of growing wheat, even for one’s own consumption, affected commerce sufficiently that it could be regulated, always has been regarded as the ne plus ultra of expansive Commerce Clause jurisprudence. To go beyond that, and to say the failure to grow wheat (which is not an economic activity, or any activity at all) nonetheless affects commerce and therefore can be federally regulated, is to make mere breathing in and out the basis for federal prescription and to extend federal power to virtually all human activity.

Source: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-393c3a2.pdf

The text of a statute can sometimes have more than one possible meaning. To take a familiar example, a law that reads “no vehicles in the park” might, or might not, ban bicycles in the park. And it is well established that if a statute has two possible meanings, one of which violates the Constitution, courts should adopt the meaning that does not do so. Justice Story said that 180 years ago: “No court ought, unless the terms of an act rendered it unavoidable, to give a construction to it which should involve a violation, however unintentional, of the constitution.” Parsons v. Bedford, 3 Pet. 433, 448–449 (1830). Justice Holmes made the same point a century later: “[T]he rule issettled that as between two possible interpretations of a statute, by one of which it would be unconstitutional and by the other valid, our plain duty is to adopt that whichwill save the Act.” Blodgett v. Holden, 275 U. S. 142, 148 (1927) (concurring opinion).

The most straightforward reading of the mandate isthat it commands individuals to purchase insurance.After all, it states that individuals “shall” maintain health insurance. 26 U. S. C. 5000A(a). Congress thought itcould enact such a command under the Commerce Clause, and the Government primarily defended the law on thatbasis. But, for the reasons explained above, the Commerce Clause does not give Congress that power. Under our precedent, it is therefore necessary to ask whether theGovernment’s alternative reading of the statute—that itonly imposes a tax on those without insurance—is a reasonable one.

Under the mandate, if an individual does not maintain health insurance, the only consequence is that he must make an additional payment to the IRS when he pays his taxes. See 5000A(b). That, according to the Government,means the mandate can be regarded as establishing acondition—not owning health insurance—that triggers atax—the required payment to the IRS. Under that theory, the mandate is not a legal command to buy insurance.Rather, it makes going without insurance just another thing the Government taxes, like buying gasoline or earning income. And if the mandate is in effect just a tax hike on certain taxpayers who do not have health insurance, itmay be within Congress’s constitutional power to tax.

The question is not whether that is the most naturalinterpretation of the mandate, but only whether it is a “fairly possible” one. Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22, 62 (1932). As we have explained, “every reasonable construction must be resorted to, in order to save a statute from unconstitutionality.” Hooper v. California, 155 U. S. 648, 657 (1895). The Government asks us to interpret the mandate as imposing a tax, if it would otherwise violate the Constitution. Granting the Act th

Maybe you should try actually reading the Supreme Court's opinion... pay special attention to Part IV and Roberts & Alito's concurring opinions.