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The left oppose the notion of originalism. E.g. Roe v Wade decided people had always had a right to abortion because of an invented 'right to privacy'.

Nope, the right to privacy was not invented, it's natural.

The SCOTUS ruling on gay marriage was based on the notion that it was an inevitable consequence of Due Process under the 14th Amendment.

The SCOTUS ruling on gay marriage was actually based on the pattern of discrimination that had been demonstrated by the opponents of same-sex marriage.

Even though the people who wrote the original documents didn't believe in a right to abortion or a right to gay marriage.

They're dead. How exactly do you know what they'd believe, and why should we care anyway? Did I miss some declaration where we subsumed ourselves to their eternal dictatorship from beyond the grave?

Judicial activism is always about allowing your political views to alter the way you read the law. It's a sort of 'ends justifies the means' approach to law. If you agree with the ends, then the means
- twisting or inverting the meaning of the actual words in the law or inventing new rights that aren't actually there - doesn't matter.

That's actually original-ism, as found in numerous instances.

This is in of itself a good reason to distrust the US left. E.g. look at the gay marriage case. Both Obama and Clinton run on a platform of opposing it, but Obama set up a case which would legalise it and then celebrated. Even if left wing politicians say they won't do something, they may appoint judges who will twist the law to do it and then celebrate the result.

Both Clinton and Obama were wrong to take the cowardly position they did on same-sex marriage, and were roundly condemned for it, they set back civil rights for over a decade.

Now I'm not all that fussed about gay marriage. However even there you can see that the left will use it as a cudgel to beat the right - e.g. Christian bakers will be asked to bake a "I support gay marriage cake" and sued if they refuse.

Actually, it's the right that's upset that they can't get Confederate Cakes.

By the way if Gorsuch ruled in a way that you didn't like would you say "Well he's just interpreting the law. You can't say he's allowing his political beliefs to get in the way"? I'm guessing not, because he's an originalist and not a believer that the role of a judge is to invent new rights. if someone's political views explicitly include a different method of how to interpret law - e.g. 'Improving rights' vs 'Originalism' then those political views obviously alter how they'd rule when they were a judge.

That's because Gorsuch would allow his political beliefs to get in the way.

Look at the SC

Too bad, this channel is a social media account and not a press conference. Davison v. Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, 2016 WL 4801617 (E.D. Va. Sept. 14, 2016).

Defendants concede that in adopting a Social Media Comments Policy, see Compl. Exh. 11 [Dkt. 1-11], the County designated its Facebook page a limited public forum. See Mem. in Supp. of Mot. to Dismiss [Dkt. 4] at 13-14; see also Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of Univ. of Virginia, 515 U.S. 819, 830 (1995) (a state policy facilitating speech creates a "metaphysical" forum). Once opened, the public may utilize a limited public forum to the extent consistent with the restrictions placed upon it by the state. See id. at 829; see also Perry Educ. Ass'n v. Perry Local Educators' Ass'n, 460 U.S. 37, 71 n.7 (1983) (a limited public forum is "created for a limited purpose such as use by certain groups . . . or for the discussion of certain subjects.").

"Once it has opened a limited forum . . . the State must respect the lawful boundaries it has itself set." Rosenberger, 515 U.S. at 829. This rule applies as much to Defendants' Facebook page as to any other limited public forum. See Bland v. Roberts, 730 F.3d 368, 386 (4th Cir. 2013), as amended (Sept. 23, 2013) (noting that speech on Facebook is subject to the same First Amendment protections as speech in any other context).

Once you open a limited public forum, you cannot exclude those qualified to participate on the basis that they are posting content or expression that you do not like. Full stop, per the Rosenberger Supreme Court case.

Actually, it's more like the Pentagon Papers, which as you might remember were stolen, though they disputed the charge based on him not using them for personal gain and eventually got the charges thrown out due to illegal acts by the prosecution.

Even if we assume the DNC leak was a Russian hack despite the fact that most of the evidence boils down to what can be paraphrased as "trust our anonymous sources, they've got this, it's totally not like that time with the WMDs where we helped cause a war over nothing," the harm from these leaks were the revelations that peoples' votes for Bernie didn't matter and the media will print whatever the DNC tells them to, followed by the media carefully avoiding any actual reporting on the leaks. You saw this on Slashdot where they ignored the important, meaty submissions and posted fluffy crap like the "food groups" of VP candidates (they were sorted by race & sex, with Bernie off by himself in the special group), never mind that we had other leaks showing Tim Kaine was always going to be the VP pick in a quid pro quo arrangement and the entire exercise was a farce where they went through a dance to make it look legitimate.

I mean, just look at how pathetic the media has become:

“Because I have become a hack I will send u the whole section that pertains to u Please don’t share or tell anyone I did this Tell me if I f**ked up anything,”
- Politico reporter Glenn Thrush via the Podesta dump

Do you really expect journalism when we have pathetic hacks like this doing our reporting? I do more actual journalism than this and I have a real job and write comments whenever I'm bored or can't sleep.

Don't you mean "somdomite"?

Shut up you twatwaffle.

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/p...

What's the "privacy" issue?

Filling out the form. Informing the government of your being one of AirBNB renters — with details about yourself and the apartment(s) being rented.

Because you let somebody know all this "willingly", the information is available to the police under the Third Party Doctrine — no warrant needed.

Because it was the government, the information is now public records and/or subject to FOIA-requests by anyone, not just law enforcement.

Or even 1st amendment?

Privacy is not explicitly protected by its own Amendment, but by several of them combined — including the First.

Not really. When added the to Bill of Rights, the 2nd Amendment limited the ability of the Federal government to restrict ownership of firearms. Not the state governments. For example, guns were banned in Tombstone, AZ. You might also be interested in knowing why you can't walk into a gun store and by a fully automatic firearm, or silencer, grenades, RPGs, etc.

No it isn't protected by the First Amendment. "Commercial Speech" is commercial activity,* and not speech per se. [...] I, I'm too lazy too look them up right now.

I was not: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/p...

I wasn't able to find "driving a car" in my copy of the bill of rights.

So, it is your opinion, that government may declare anything, that's not explicitly enumerated in the Bill of Rights to be a privilege?

Walking on a street? Cooking a barbeque? Having children — or an abortion, as the case may be? Oh, wait!..

Of course, you may be onto something — because even something, that is explicitly enumerated as a right, is routinely treated as a mere privilege nation-wide... Point is, of course, it should not be that way...

GP never said anything about the US being a paragon of free speech protections.

Well, somebody should have said it — and I applaud you for saying it fairly well. Thank you.

The US is a paragon of free speech — not because there is no room for improvement, but because all (certainly most) other societies are worse in this regard. And though various Illiberals do come up from time to time with seductively-sounding proposals to ban "hate" speech, and even claim, the Constitution is outdated and "people can’t really protest like that anymore", the prevailing opinion remains, that any speech should be allowed and countered only with one's own speech.

Back to the question about UK, that country is certainly sliding farther away from liberty — along with the rest of the Western world. When a fatwa was issued calling for death of Salman Rushdie, for example, over his insulting Islam in an otherwise unremarkable book, the man received police protection and other support from his government. Nobody — except, maybe, that valiant Illiberal Jimmie Carter — blamed the victim for "deserving" the danger.

Years later, reaction to Mohammed-mocking cartoons is rather more mixed. And while it is still legal to burn American flag, if you decide to burn Koran, everybody from local to federal authorities will be on your case pressuring you to abandon your exercise of free speech.

The Constitution allowed slavery

Nope, there until the Thirteenth Amendment.

and no vote for women

Nope, the Constitution was silent on the matter until the Nineteenth Amendment.

We have to make the laws that are reasonable to our time.

Sure. The point was, for any such laws to be valid, the Second Amendment has to be abolished (or altered) first. Hardly unheard of — the Eighteenth Amendment, which prohibited the sale of alcohol, was repealed by the Twenty-first, for example.

Make arguments, please, that are really arguments, rather than hiding behind a document

I am making a legal argument, and I'm referencing (not "hiding behind" — whatever that means) a legal document — the Constitution.

Does it make sense now for individuals to buy and sell full-auto weapons? "Assault rifles"? Flamethrowers? Surface-to-air missles? What are the real distinctions?

As long as the Second Amendment is in effect, there are no distinctions. If you feel there should be, you need to discard (or reword) the Amendment — until then, any and all weapons are, indeed, legal under the Constitution.

Take a look at this. There are several instances where the SCOTUS has thrown out federal laws as not being valid under the Commerce Clause.

You seem to "know" a lot of things that aren't true.

The gathering of phone metadata by NSA may be disagreeable, but it isn't a "general warrant." Since a court is supervising it and Congress has authorized it, you seem to be on weak ground as to what is constitutional. I disagree with you since you are making a variety of fundamental errors, including the suggestion that I would rather be living in North Korea.

I'm still waiting for this list of "fundamental freedoms" that have been lost.

You should look into the history of privacy in the Constitution. It is just one more thing you don't have a good handle on.

The Right of Privacy

So these people are nobodies now (this one just happened by the way, complete with a Gadsden flag)?

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/06...

Whataboot this (spread of American values north)?

http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

And this?

http://www.crimelibrary.com/te...

Of course, this -

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/p...

It is because it is a more complex issue that first thought.

I don't know what's more ridiculous - the fact that this contrarian tripe gets regurgitated every time the subject of Galileo comes up, or the fact that it keeps getting modded up.

Meanwhile, back in the real world... Papal condemnation of Galileo:

We say, pronounce, sentence, and declare that you, the said Galileo, by reason of the matters adduced in trial, and by you confessed as above, have rendered yourself in the judgment of this Holy Office vehemently suspected of heresy, namely, of having believed and held the doctrine—which is false and contrary to the sacred and divine Scriptures—that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from east to west and that the Earth moves and is not the center of the world; and that an opinion may be held and defended as probably after it has been declared and defined to be contrary to the Holy Scripture; and that consequently you have incurred all the censures and penalties imposed and promulgated in the sacred canons and other constitutions, general and particular, against such delinquents. From which we are content that you be absolved, provided that, first, with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, you abjure, curse, and detest before use the aforesaid errors and heresies and every other error and heresy contrary to the Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church in the form to be prescribed by us for you.

Your cow/goat swapping comment implies you've bought into the common myth that money developed as a replacement for barter. http://thememorybank.co.uk/pap... http://cas.umkc.edu/econ/econo...

There isn't really anything he could say. That's even if the trial were fair - and it wouln't be.

He could be aquitted through Jury Nullification

Jury nullification occurs when a jury returns a verdict of "Not Guilty" despite its belief that the defendant is guilty of the violation charged. The jury in effect nullifies a law that it believes is either immoral or wrongly applied to the defendant whose fate they are charged with deciding.

Privacy had nothing to do with the opposition to the Bill of Rights. The main opponents of the Bill of Rights were the Anti-Federalists, who mostly wanted to have the Constitution remain objectionable so they could form a second constitutional convention to rebuild the entire thing. Some Federalists also opposed the Bill of Rights, but on the grounds that it was unnecessary as the states already held independent power.

Privacy didn't really enter the realm of law until the 20th century. Prior to that, privacy was generally simply expected to be nonexistent, as cities weren't really built to encourage privacy. Everyone in a community would simply hear or see what happened, and everyone would likely recognize everyone else of importance.

As for the "fishing expeditions", no, they haven't always been rejected. They're only rejected if the police want to search something that has been established to be within the realm of the Fourth Amendment, which does not cover anything done in public or given to a third party. The Fourth Amendment was, after all, originally written only to protect against British-style harassment by police officers, which would mainly be used to disrupt a citizen's life until they acquiesced to the officers' demands. The idea of a search that didn't disrupt daily life was never really a concern until more modern times.

I wonder if the Finns report Ammattikoulu (dumb kids' school) test scores or just Lukio (smart kids' school)? I know every other country that has a vocational vs. academic track pulls that bullshit on these international test rankings.

The US states that don't have unionized teachers are also the states that do the worst on measures of education.

Only according to the cherries you pick. Let me show you just how bullshit it all is. Let's take Utah, for example.
Utah's education is annually ranked one of the 10 worst states as far as education goes. (This site interestingly puts Virginia as 4th best in the nation -- Isn't Virginia supposed to be one of your "worst" states?)
Yet, somehow, Utah kids are testing in the top 10 states when it comes to the ACT/SATs and Utah somehow shows up at #4 for state enlightenment index. 10 years later, it scored square in the middle... So according to the rankings, Utah's all over the board. It's at the top. It's at the bottom. It's in the middle. It's 100% inconsistent. The reports are done by companies and organizations that have something to gain by telling people that schools are failing, so you cannot take their word for it, and since all peer review shows wildly inconsistent data, education rankings must be declared as ultimate bullshit. You, sir, are full of it.

So was every gay person who engaged in relationships with other gay people an activist? Or were they all criminal scum because they didn't intend to get caught?

In accordance with due process, anyone "getting caught" through a well-regulated surveillance system would first have been caught through normal means. This is why I specified that any information coming out of queries should simply be handed over to the judicial branch. Even with clear evidence, it's still the prosecutor's job to make a case, and there is always the possibility of legitimate jury nullification. Prosecutors are not required to prosecute every crime, whether or not anyone was harmed.

Anyone engaging in a forbidden relationship could indeed be caught by surveillance and charged by an oppressive prosecutor - but a camera produces less paperwork and better evidence.

As a matter of course, we already can see the results of this. We already have drug cases where police have received secret tips and then manufactured a false chain of events to justify an arrest and hide the real source of information.

Except that's not how it really works. Rather than manufacturing evidence, the DEA is an advisory source of more accurate information that is never actually brought to trial. Again, this is why the surveillance system should have no power in itself. All information coming out to the public should be passed through a trial judge to ensure its relevance and importance.

It doesn't matter if the will of the people is to silence speech, it is not the governments job to enforce that.

Sure it is. Speech is silenced all the time, for many reasons. Mostly, it's just for ease of conducting business. For example, you're allowed to submit any petitions or express any opinions you want at the appropriate time, but many states have various laws against interrupting the legislature. The US government's job is to "establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty". Being a representative republic, it is the will of the people that determines how to pursue these things. Personally, I'm inclined to agree that free expression is one of those "blessings of liberty", but I prefer having functional authority.

Those limits specifically include protections against search... I cannot believe that the people who wrote the 4th and 5th amendments would have envisioned such a program as falling within their powers to implement.

The people who wrote the 4th and 5th amendments likely wouldn't have cared. The second through eighth amendments are all aimed to counteract the colonial British harassment tactics, and really had little to do with personal rights when they were written. Do note that that was over two centuries ago, when walls were thin and gossip was a major source of entertainment. The locally-posted British military would routinely close down colonists' businesses without reason, severely disrupting the owner's life. Goods would be confiscated under weak excuses, and if the colonist resisted, they'd likely be arrested and held indefinitely while their family starved.

The application of the 4th amendment to privacy is a fairly new concept, made possible by the Supreme Court recognizing that the will of the people had changed to demand such protection. Since the surveillance I describe would not unreasonably disrupt the target's life, would be ineffective for harassment, and could more easily be used as a tool to prove one's innocence under the sixth amendment, I see no conflict with the Constitution.

Yes, SCOTUS exists to reconcile laws with the current views. Laws are slow to change, whereas technology and morality can change overnight.

When current societal views say [bad things] are we still okay with SCOTUS...

Just stop right there. "We" are society. If current views are in favor of censoring speech, that means that Americans generally consider such censorship to be right. Since this is a democracy, ruled by the people, it is ultimately the people's opinions that matter most, even more than the original wording of the law.

There are many good reasons to reject the morality of 1776 to suit modern tastes. Eliminating the three-fifths compromise is a glaring example, along with expanding voting rights, abolishing slavery, implementing term limits, and federating infrastructure. When the Constitution was written, society generally assumed that such changes would be unnecessary. After all, it was really only white male landowners who did anything politically anyway, so naturally they were the only ones who needed to be able to vote.

Privacy, as you so blindly pointed out, is another reason to diverge from the Constitution's original intent. In the decades leading up to the Constitution's writing, the British military had used searches as a means to deny service to colonists. If someone had annoyed the local commander, they could expect their shop to be shut down for the next week while soldiers searched/destroyed it for no particular reason, with no oversight. The Fourth Amendment was included not to ensure secrecy, but to protect only against harassment. Note that it's placed in context with the right to not quarter troops, and the right to not incriminate yourself. That's why the Fourth Amendment's applicability to third-party storage is in question, because a search that doesn't interrupt your daily business is much less likely to be harassment.

More recently, though, the expectation for a "reasonable" search has grown to include respect for secrecy as well. Society's idea of "reasonable" has now shifted enough that a SCOTUS ruling in accordance with the original intent would be outrageously wrong. Remember that in 1776, walls weren't insulated, glass windows were expensive, and gossip was the primary local news source. The only expectation of privacy happened outside the town - and somebody probably would see you leaving.

By the same principle, consider that the morality of today may not apply in the future. One opinion currently changing is how free speech applies to corporate entities. Currently, corporations are allowed to choose how they conduct business as a matter of expression. This is how companies can choose not to do business with a group they find offensive or otherwise don't like. It's also how a company can make political donations to further their own goals. There's growing controversy surrounding both of these issues, so I expect that within the next few decades, we'll see a SCOTUS ruling clarifying how much free speech corporations (along with store managers, employees, and other representatives) can actually have while operating.

It was probably the most comfortable house arrest in history.

Yeah, after they very nearly burnt him to death, they generously agreed to keep him fed while locking him up for life. Bleeding hearts that they were.

While history has shown his theory to be correct, it is for the wrong reason. Copernicus was wrong on the parallax shifts and if they had better instrumentation he would have seen the shifts. So in a way both sides were correct at the time. The heliocentric model was correct, although that was never really disputed, but the Church was correct in that it failed the rigors of scientific proof.

BS, BS, and more BS.

From the original Papal Condemnation of Galileo:

"We say, pronounce, sentence, and declare that you, the said Galileo, by reason of the matters adduced in trial, and by you confessed as above, have rendered yourself in the judgment of this Holy Office vehemently suspected of heresy, namely, of having believed and held the doctrine—which is false and contrary to the sacred and divine Scriptures—that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from east to west and that the Earth moves and is not the center of the world; and that an opinion may be held and defended as probably after it has been declared and defined to be contrary to the Holy Scripture; and that consequently you have incurred all the censures and penalties imposed and promulgated in the sacred canons and other constitutions, general and particular, against such delinquents."

By its own admission, the Church condemned Galileo for one single reason: he kept telling people that the Earth moves around he Sun.

You know these people who insist that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery - even after you show them the original declarations of secession? Same difference.

That particular example is specific to the military, though; soldiers have never been considered to have the same freedoms as civilians, even in the early years of the US.

Civilian government employees do have some degree of free-speech protection. The main caveat is that any employer (including a private-sector employer) can fire employees for speech criticizing the employer, in some cases, and that is also true when the government is acting in its role as an employer. However the government is somewhat more limited than a private-sector employer in how it uses this power.

The 4th what? Surely you don't mean the 4th amendment? After all, that amendment protects against unreasonable searches, which is completely unrelated to the issue at hand.

Is it? After all, the 4th Amendment defines a reasonable search as one that is Warranted, "but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

In other words, no legal warrant == not a Constitutionally reasonable search.

The 4th what? Surely you don't mean the 4th amendment? After all, that amendment protects against unreasonable searches, which is completely unrelated to the issue at hand.

The Fourth Amendment's protection of "papers" has never applied to the external surface of mail. The outside of mail must be read by the USPS for the service to function, so when you drop a letter in the mailbox, you're implicitly giving the USPS permission to read the visible surface. To my knowledge, there has never been a law preventing the USPS (or any other courier, for that matter) from reading anything visible from the outside. If the surface of mail is particularly confidential, it's not "unreasonable" to expect the mailer to put it in a plain outer envelope.

Wait. What?

Cite source?

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/states/uschartsat.html
http://www.publicagendaarchives.org/charts/state-state-sat-and-act-scores ...But even using your source, change it to "Utah is in the top 20, California is in the bottom 20".

And I really don't care about cultural bias because college admissions boards don't really care about cultural bias, they care about SAT scores.

And to get a reasonable picture, you should compare spending per capita by state:

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/compare_state_spending_2013b20s

California spends more than 7 times what Utah spends, and gets a poorer result.

But if you don't like Utah because you don't like mormons, pick another state higher up in the second table, and compare it to California; California is only going to look worse.

I mean Tennesseans are barely sentient beings, so can we really hold this guy accountable for his actions?

Have you even read the Constitution?

The word 'serve' isn't even in it.

And since you seem to be pretty clueless about the constitution:
"The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States"
So, yeah to protect the American people is his top priority.
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/prespowers.html

Cute rhetoric, but let's do the requested reading together.

In Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967), the Supreme Court ruled that a search occurs when 1) a person expects privacy in the thing searched and 2) society believes that expectation is reasonable.

That's the first time privacy was ever a fourth-amendment issue. Prior to that, the only privacy that really mattered was personal possessions and actions - not information. Health matters were protected as early as the 1920s, but that protection did not extend to anything outside medicine.

Rather tangentially, you're missing the main point of my original post. It's not the intent of the fourth amendment that matters; it's the interpretation by the SCOTUS. The Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution over two centuries ago, in a time when America's viability was questionable at best. The latest information technology was a piece of parchment and a sharp quill. The necessary applications of the Constitution today are far beyond anything they could have imagined, so why do we hold their original intents so damned sacred?

Personally, I'm of the opinion that the Constitution is a living document, and for the most part I agree with Jefferson's ideas on the matter:

Thomas Jefferson wrote, "I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors." But he also warned against treating the Constitution as "a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist, and shape into any form they please."

I'd like to see an amendment to the constitution to the Constitution to make a framework for today's information-based society. It should clarify that a person's information is as vital and valuable as their tangible posessions, recognizing that as much work goes into intellectual creation as into physical manufacturing. I'd also like to see it declare (or support legislation to declare) that copyrights and other IP must benefit the public culture more than their owners, and that corporations, being artificial nonsentient entities, must have certain rights to function, but must be denied certain rights to reflect their nonsentient statue.

Also tangentially, who the fuck is Sean Hannity? I assume it's a pundit on some side or another, but I generally try to avoid all pundits. They like to forget history in favor of their particular talking points, like claiming the interstate commerce clause doesn't actually apply to interstate commerce.

Now, I won't defend the Army's treatment of Manning after his arrest. But he shouldn't have been surprised he was charged with the crimes he is accused of.

This is different from the Ellsburg case, in that Ellsberg did not have an active clearance at the time he acquired and distributed the Pentagon Papers.

This false. Ellsberg had a clearance while working at DoD and then RAND Corporation, during which time he both contributed to the Pentagon Papers and later copied and distributed them. See, for example, here.

Bradley Manning was an active-duty serviceman, and as such was subject to the restrictions imposed on him by his security clearance. Every person with security clearance is required to sign a document stating that if you ever disclose classified material acquired in the course of your duties to anyone not entitled to have it, the government will prosecute you to the hilt. It's not an ambiguous or hard-to-understand document.

The above link explains that during Ellsberg's trial, the government did attempt to use the fact that he'd signed a security statement, like Manning.

Beyond these details, your broader suggestion that Manning's actions were different from Ellsberg's is contradicted by no less an authority than Daniel Ellsberg himself, who has said, among other things, that "I was Bradley Manning."

Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 3. The Constitution allows Congress to regulate commerce among the states, with no stated restrictions. This is the biggest source of Congress' power, including the power to form the Department of Justice in 1870, which formed the FBI in the early 20th century.

The usual test for validity is whether Congress' actions have a cumulative effect on the economy of the states. Given the FBI's budget and employment, it looks like they'd pass that test.

The FBI is still required to have probable cause to conduct a "search", but as per my other post, not everything investigative is a search.

There is a mechanic to change the constitution, and it's not called an "executive order", but rather amending the constitution.

But why bother when the partisan supreme court can just continue to find that "shall not be infringed" means "shall be infringed"? A bunch of two-year-olds could do better than that.

No, people fly planes into buildings, people fly ships into space, and people do a great number of other things. What separates the ones flying planes into buildings from the ones flying spaceships is that the first group is crazy in a bad way, and being crazy in a bad way is wholly independent of religion.

For instance, Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, identified his religion as science and claimed to be agnostic, the crusaders identified as Christian, and the 9/11 terrorists identified as Islamic (quick note: I'm not suggesting that science is a religion; rather, I'm suggesting that crazy acts can be perpetuated by someone regardless of their claimed religion or lack thereof). The most you could say is that certain religions attract that sort of crazy more often than others.

Fascinating. When McVeigh was "executed", it was widely reported that no "Autopsy" of his "dead" body was performed "because of religious grounds."

More proof that Oklahoma City was faked, and that "Terrorist" Timothy McVeigh had nothing to do with it (other than to play his part in a Psyops road-show). (Remember that other story about how he was "captured" while "driving out of town" in a car "with no license plate."?)

You should check this out

Obviously modern mormans aren't this bad.... But they definatly have done some aweful things over the years. Of course, what religion hasn't?

Frankly I'm not hugely bothered by it.

Nowhere is freedom of speech absolute, it's limited by the ability of the society to tolerate it. Even in the US advocating violence can get you in trouble along with forms of obscenity. Quite relevantly public nudity, which I'd qualify as a form of speech, will get you arrested in a lot of places, but if society was more comfortable with the idea than that restriction would be removed.

In these countries video they're not used to this level of freedom of speech and their society needs time to adapt. I like pushing the boundaries of free speech in these countries, but sometimes things go viral and push past their ability to deal with it. Given that people are dying as a direct result of this video I can see the justification of some limited censorship (given that it's far beyond what they're allowed to do in their own society).

As to whether it's effective is another matter, censorship can easily be circumvented, but maybe it's enough of a hindrance to stop it from going viral.

First, indecency standards can certainly still have meaning, because indecency is invariably derived from intent.

When it comes to somebody's boobs or genitalia hanging out, the intent really doesn't matter. Whether you're performing a naked art show in the park or protesting, it's the kind of thing society has decided that they don't want to be confronted with in public.

If it truly meant what you claim it to mean, the very act of mentioning religion specifically would be utterly redundant.

No, it wouldn't. That same argument was made for all the Bill of Rights, but the Founders eventually decided that it was best to be explicit in highlighting the most common and important rights that are trampled on. Reference.

As the case law surrounding the Amish clearly shows, this is not, and never has been, the case in US jurisprudence.

I'm not sure what law you are referring to, but US case law is a checkerboard of inconsistent and unprincipled rulings. Name a principle of law, and I'm sure I can find two inconsistent interpretations of it.

And regardless of what the courts say, I'm talking about what should be the case based on what the Constitution says. The Constitution has been stretched and abused beyond recognition in many aspects (like the Commerce Clause).

The part that you highlighted, "approval of his or her goods, services, or commercial activities by another person" is regarding third party endorsements. In other words, the statute is referring to when, for example, a celebrity is made to look like they endorse a particular product when in fact they do not. Which, as I explained earlier, is why sub(A) is not pertinent to this discussion. Here's a 9th circuit decision mentioning this matter. It says, in part:

Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. 1125(a), prohibits the use of false designations of origin, false descriptions, and false representations in the advertising and sale of goods and services. Waits' claim under section 43(a) is premised on the theory that by using an imitation of his distinctive voice in an admitted parody of a Tom Waits song, the defendants misrepresented his association with and endorsement of SalsaRio Doritos.

At this point, if you still care about this matter, I can only suggest that you research the subject on your own or find an attorney who will be willing to look up further case law.

"If they'd even take the time read music lyrics that were being sung 50 years ago, they'd easily see that things are even worse now than they were before."

Worse for who and in what ways and please be SPECIFIC.

There is no draft so everyone who goes to war is an eager volunteer with no illusions. (I served as an eager volunteer with no illusions, BTW, and would cheerfully do so again.) The Iraq war is over, A-stan will be shortly.

The economy is recovering (it's just another Recession, we've had MANY Recessions, they are NORMAL parts of the economic cycle!) and there are no serious civil rights problems _compared_to_fifty_years_ago_.

Fifty years ago was 1962. Civil rights workers were in routine danger of being SHOT. Things got worse before they got better:

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/price&bowers/price&bowers.htm

Have some school bombing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16th_Street_Baptist_Church_bombing

Now we have a (b)lack President, vastly more civil rights for LGBT folks, legal cannabis in a few areas, greater social mobility, and a much higher standard of living.

Ummm that humans were created at one single time in their present form within the last 10,000 years and you think that is a scientifically valid theory? Arguing where the Universe originated is valid (and unprovable) but arguing where humans came from? Not so much. Even Pope John Paul II didn't argue AGAINST evolution.

All of the Catholics I know disagree with one or more tenants of Catholicism. And evolution isn't a tenant; there are only statements that evolution of the human body is compatible with Catholicism. Views of the rest, i.e. the mind, and the prime sources are in conflict. So there are in fact YEC Catholics. I don't know the percentage but I'd guess it's something like 40% in the US.

To illustrate the issues with the Catholic Church's views as being compatible with Darwinism, let's look at the Humani Generis points 2 and 3:

2. Catholics must believe, however, that the human soul was created immediately by God. Since the soul is a spiritual substance it is not brought into being through transformation of matter, but directly by God, whence the special uniqueness of each person.

[From http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/vaticanview.html%5D

In an essay on the Popeâ(TM)s evolution message called âoeYou Canâ(TM)t Have it Both Waysâ the controversy-loving biologist [Richard Dawkins] accused Pope John Paul of âoecasuistical double-talkâ and âoeobscurantism.â (SAR, 209) Dawkins took issue with the Popeâ(TM)s declaring off-limits theories suggesting that the human mind is an evolutionary product. In his address the Pope said: "[I]f the human body takes its origin from pre-existent living matter, the spiritual soul is immediately created by Godâ¦Consequently, theories of evolution whichâ¦consider the mind as emerging from the forces of living matter, or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man."

3. All men have descended from an individual, Adam, who has transmitted original sin to all mankind. Catholics may not, therefore, believe in âoepolygenism,â the scientific hypothesis that mankind descended from a group of original humans.

Clearly Darwinism and this view are incompatible.

Therefore there is no constitutional right to privacy.

Many Supreme Court justices and rulings would disagree with you on that point. Here's a fairly well-sourced discussion on the right of privacy.

Which begins with EXACTLY what I said above: The U. S. Constitution contains no express right to privacy.
It then goes on to list the depressingly small instances where specific privacy rights are protected.
Be careful what you cite.

Wikipedia says this:

Concerning privacy laws of the United States, privacy is not guaranteed per se by the Constitution of the United States. The Supreme Court of the United States has found that other guarantees have "penumbras" that implicitly grant a right to privacy against government intrusion, for example in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965). In the United States, the right of freedom of speech granted in the First Amendment has limited the effects of lawsuits for breach of privacy. Privacy is regulated in the U.S. by the Privacy Act of 1974, and various state laws. Certain privacy rights have been established in the United States via legislation such as the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (GLB), and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

The Ninth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America:

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

Privacy was recognized as a right some time ago. It isn't just the 4th amendment that is under attack here.

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/rightofprivacy.html

Therefore there is no constitutional right to privacy.

Many Supreme Court justices and rulings would disagree with you on that point. Here's a fairly well-sourced discussion on the right of privacy.

There's a commentary on the Constitutional support of right to privacy at U Missouri KC (and that, I had not expected, but hey, score one for democratic discourse)

Last I checked, the US Supreme Court ruled that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment, and is thus subjected to local "community standards" and jurisdictions. Before everyone gets all outraged that Tunisia bans pornography (and likely overreaches), maybe you should look at your own laws first.

http://k.web.umkc.edu/keltons/Papers/501/functional%20finance.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_finance#History_of_use

The same people who sued to stop the Camp Fire Girls from singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" in the woods around a fire as a "public performance" will be making accusations and shutting down web sites en mass. Because all it takes is for a site to be a suspected offender.

Citation please. That song was written in it's modern form in 1881.

In reference to the Girl Scouts, a source is here: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/communications/ASCAP.html

They cite ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) as the perpetrators. A different source describes the particulars of how they decide who and what infringes: http://woodpecker.com/writing/essays/royalty-politics.html, which specifically says ASCAP has more than 80 arrangements of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" under copyright. So the song is public domain, but if you infringe upon their arrangement, they are going to get you.

Note on sources: more reliable sources may be available, this is all I had time to find.

Starting this summer, the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers (ASCAP) has informed camps nationwide that they must pay license fees to use any of the 4 million copyrighted songs written or published by ASCAP's 68,000 members.

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/communications/ASCAP.html

With a quick search, there is this : http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/communications/ASCAP.html I think it is ridiculous...