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Seriously, it's right there on the affidavit. On top of that you can let the court know in a (circa 1993) web form what you think or contact Nagle's Deputy Courtroom Clerk yourself. Case number 10-2822M for your reference since the affidavit seems to be unable to be viewed by some.

You're an American citizen and you have the right to know who these people are that are making these decisions whether it be a judge or special agent. And they shouldn't have any fear of putting their name on these documents if they think it's right. I agree with you though that maybe it's not within their capacity to serve this position should they get something so painfully wrong.

I want countersuits and I want liabilities awarded to the defendants that rival the bullshit astronomical numbers that the court sends out to NASA for computation when the MPAA/RIAA wins. I hate that if the MPAA/RIAA wins it's eighty billion dollars but if the individual is exonerated it's a benjamin tops for having their webserver down. That is bullshit.

The question here isn't whether she's liable. It's for how much.

Alito's dissent (starting on page 26) is interesting, and gets into just how thorny a problem it is to prove an "innocent infringer" defense under 17 U.S.C. 504. (And again, an "innocent infringer" isn't off the hook--it just reduces the minimum statutory damages that may be awarded to the rights-holder.) Basically, the girl argued that she was too young, too technically unsophisticated--not a willful infringer for the purposes of awarding damages. The judge who originally reduced the damages more or less agreed with her (his ruling can be found here. The court of appeals then looked at the argument differently. (There order is here.. They considered the innocent infringer defense directly under 17 U.S.C. 402(d) (full text available here. Basically, that says you can't be an innocent infringer if you have "access to" published recordings that have the copyright notice on them. The court of appeals pretty broadly said that this provision prevented Ms. Harper from claiming innocent infringement. Bottom line, she never disputed that she had access to such recordings (whatever that might mean).

Alito doesn't like the appeals court saying that this "access to" argument may act as a matter of law to prevent someone from being an innocent infringer. I think he's right about that--access should be a question of fact that needs to be decided on evidence, and it seems like nobody in this case really talked much about it.

Debts not discharged include debts for alimony and child support, certain taxes, debts for certain educational benefit overpayments or loans made or guaranteed by a governmental unit, debts for willful and malicious injury by the debtor to another entity or to the property of another entity, debts for death or personal injury caused by the debtor's operation of a motor vehicle while the debtor was intoxicated from alcohol or other substances, and debts for certain criminal restitution orders. 11 U.S.C. 523(a).

Even reading that, I can't say for sure if copyright infringement would be dischargable or not. It's quite possible that courts would consider it 'injury to the property of another'.

Link to the actual decision, for those interested: http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/fdocs/docs.fwx?submit=showbr&shofile=09-3379_002.pdf

So, when you LEASE a copy of software, should you even be charged "sales tax" on it? The interesting thing is that most of those Shrink/Click-wrap licenses ALSO make it illegal to rent-out or lease-out the software. You may not (as this shakes out) even have the right to USE, or even POSSESS that "software you just bought", because of this complicated snarl.

Would you put a company advertisement in a publication (e.g. newspaper or magazine) for which the consumer had no rights to take that ad with 'em on the way to your store? Would you "buy" a book you can only (one time, and one person) read in one location, next to one lamp -- Hardbound? -- Paperback? -- How about an e-Book?

How does this "decision" affect your right to extract-for-comment?

According to the NEJM it is encephalopathy. http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp0802904#ref2 The catch is that the ruling mentions autism in the heading as that was the allegation. http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/CAMPBELLSMITH.%20DOE77082710.pdf The government settled with calling it encephalopathy with features of autism spectrum disorder.

This was a decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal, specifically. With any luck whatsoever, this unacceptable ruling will be overturned by the Supreme Court.

Each year the Supreme Court receives 7,000 writs of certiorari - petitions for appeal.

Perhaps 150 cases will make it to oral argument and 110 will end with the kind of fully expressed opinions that clearly establish precedents for future decisions. A History of the Supreme Court

The 9th Circuit is apparently the most overturned court in the country

The ninth circuit covers nine western states including California and Washington and two Pacific island territories. Court Locator.

4,000 civil appeals are filed here each year - and this is where all but a bare handful will end.

Yes. Here is the original (unanimous) opinion, by judges O'Scannlain, Smith, and Wolfe (sitting by designation). It was filed in January.

A petition for rehearing en banc was filed. The court denied it in an order filed August 12. Kozinski authored a dissent against this denial, and was joined by Reinhardt, Wardlaw, Paez, and Berzon. Reinhardt also wrote a short additional comment.

Yes. Here is the original (unanimous) opinion, by judges O'Scannlain, Smith, and Wolfe (sitting by designation). It was filed in January.

A petition for rehearing en banc was filed. The court denied it in an order filed August 12. Kozinski authored a dissent against this denial, and was joined by Reinhardt, Wardlaw, Paez, and Berzon. Reinhardt also wrote a short additional comment.

Since I haven't seen this link yet, here's a link to the coverage area of the 9th Circuit for those who might be interested. http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/content/view.php?pk_id=0000000135

http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/opinions/view_subpage.php?pk_id=0000010204

there was only $63,000 is attorneys fees because it was a default judgement and they did not have to present a case in front of the court. Likey the person will claim they were never served and demand there day in court.

There was only $63,600 in attorney fees because that's what they're capped at, per C.D. Cal. Local Rule 55-3 in a default judgment ($5,600 plus 2% of the amount over $100,000; they used the PayPal amount of $3,000,000 (rounded)): http://www.cacd.uscourts.gov/CACD/LocRules.nsf/a224d2a6f8771599882567cc005e9d79/0d9758b2da11901188256dc5005973fd?OpenDocument&Highlight=0,55-3

The defendant was served, personally, by a P.I. / process server, who swore an affidavit.

So who, exactly, wanted to assert this right ? Names, please, not agencies.

I have no idea why you care. The appelle is "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" aka the government, but here you go:

Peter S. Smith, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Roy W. McLeese III, John V. Geise, and Rachel C. Lieber, Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

So, as long as it's not in court, a company can tell lies... because most stories they tell about their products and business model are in the media basically for aesthetic purposes.

"Puffery" (lies a company tells in the media about their products) can, in fact, cross the slippery slope and be illegal under the Lanham Act. http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/00/00-10071.cv0.wpd.pdf

When your front door comes to me into my area of control, which is what a wireless signal does, it's entirely different. I dealt with this in the post to which I linked, but the short summary is, if you don't want people using something, don't send it to them in a form they can immediately use.

Your parking garage scenario is completely different precisely because it is done, as you say, under contract. In fact warrantless searches of vehicles by property owners are legal and do happen. (That last link is very long, but in short a circuit court of appeals upheld that Weyerhauser could search vehicles on its property, that the 4th Amendment was not violated (as it can only be with private entities if done under the color of law), and that it was acceptable that employees permission where it was obtained (some refused) was done so under threat of immediate termination.)

Now I will grant that many states are considering making cars a sort of extraterritorial sovereign entity as a response to this, but even the gun owners' rights community itself is divided about whether sacrificing private property owners' rights is acceptable.

Your problem is you are confusing what is legal and what is polite. If I repeatedly trespass my friends off my property, I'm going to run out of friends really fast, even if it's my legal right to do that. People don't usually get into their friends' cars for the same reason. There is social expectation that it just isn't done, but legally, it is possible.

You too glossed over an important point, as I said earlier: a deliberately open system is not distinguishable from an accidentally open system.

My network is open right now. I am conscious of this, want it to be that way, and if somebody is using it, fine. How does a user from the outside know this? Because the equipment is configured to let anybody use it with no extra steps. Users from the outside have no way of knowing whether a network is intended to open or accidentally open, and it's not their responsibility to figure that out. They aren't running the network. Whoever owns, operates, and configures the equipment is responsible for that. The end.

I see you haven't read the news over the last few years. Students can't pray in schoo

I see it's actually you who haven't read the news. Students can pray in schools, both private and public. A public school can't lead a prayer, or call on students to pray, however the students can still pray if they want to. This concept is not unlike the recent news about the National Day of Prayer: if the recent court decision is upheld, the government will not be able to declare a National Day of Prayer, however no one will be prevented from praying.

For the same reason the government and schools cannot forbid prayer. The government can't even declare a National Day of No-Prayer in which people are encouraged not to pray, since that would also be a government intrusion into religion. Freedom works both ways, and sometimes means the government isn't your official cheerleader.

Show me one quote anywhere in the law where it says 'downloading' is illegal. It does not exist - every single law is related to distribution.

The law obviously does not use the word "downloading", it uses the broader term "reproduce".Title 17 Section 106 (1)
106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works38
Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;

And here's is a court ruling that explicitly states on page 6 that any question about the distribution-infringement angle is irrelevant because of "the district court's finding that she had infringed Plaintiff's copyrights by downloading, and hence reproducing, the audio files."

There ya go. A court ruling explicitly stating downloading is legally considered to be reproduction, explicitly stating downloading is legally infringement.

Forgot about what is logical, forget how the law should work, this discussion is about what current existing law says and how current existing law works. The fact is that the law uses imposes an extremely broad definition for infringement and has an extremely strict application of copying. Hell, I can dig up a case for you where a court ruled that it was copyright infringement for someone to run software because running the software copied the program into RAM. Yes, I agree with you that that is an idiotic result, but that is how copyright law works. And as a result of that court ruling the US Congress had to pass a new law, Title 17 Section 117, which creates a special case making copying non-infringement when you install software you bought, and to also make it non-infringement when you run that software.

Forget about reasonable, forget about rational, forget about any sort of "should". The REALITY is that copyright law takes the concept of copying so strictly that Congress had to pass a specific law allowing you to install and freaking RUN a program you bought. Copyright law is so fucked up that if you try to download a perfectly legal file and some other guilty party sends you some different infringing file, that under the law you are still technically and infringer, and in order to deal with this situation the law creates something called Innocent Infringer status to cover it. And the law is so fucked up that when you do prove your Innocent Infringer status in that situation, the law declared that the judge may, if he feels like it, lower the statutory minimum damages you have to pay from the standard $750 down to a $200 minimum. Copyright law is so fucked up that the NET act technically makes virtually all P2P infringement into a felony crime subject to several years in prison. Copyright law is so fucked up that if you buy a DVD and then write your own media player software to view it you are a felon under the DMCA and subject to a 5 years felony sentence. Copyright law is so fucked up that the AHRA (Audio Home Recording Act) forced DAT (Digital Audio Tape) manufactures to so fuck-up DAT devices that people couldn't make copies of recordings of their own band.... note that this was prohibiting the very COPYRIGHT HOLDERS from making copies of their own tapes of their own bands. Copyright law is so fucked up that the only reason MP3 players survived on the market is because they slipped through a loophole in the AHRA, the first MP3 players all came with idiotic little software applications just to ensure they qualified as "general computing devices" rather than as "audio recording devices". Copyright law is so fucked up that the Supreme Court was one vote away from making VCRs illegal in the 5 vs 4 Betamax case. Copyright law is so fucked up that not a single work has falling into the public domain in the last decade and not a single work will fall into the public d

They have never made laws. They make rules. ... What they exceeded was their rulemaking authority.

In this case, their rule -- not being backed up with statutory authority -- amounted to an invention of new law. That's the point I made. This is how it is often described when an Executive agency tries to enforce something it has no right to enforce.

You can say it's not actually law, just an unauthorized rule, but that is an arbitrary distinction. The reason why the FCC cannot make rules it's not authorized to make is because virtually anything the government does must be backed by the law; and the law is made by Congress, and not the FCC; and thus, any rule made without existing legal authority is as if a new law had been invented.

If you can find anything in the Court's opinion about "violat[ing] our civil rights" please quote it

Shrug. They didn't say it, but the logical path is undeniable. As I noted above, this is akin to making new law. One of our civil rights is to elect our own representatives who make our law. When someone else makes law and enforces it over us, it violates our civil rights, obviously. I didn't say the Court ruled this way: I merely asserted it, being obviously true.

They're doing this to follow the letter of the law.

And it's amazing so many people are in favor of violating the law.

And yes, they DO have authority to reclassify services because they're the ones who reclassified the service to begin with.

That isn't dispositive. You're assuming that the original classification was proper, and that a further change in classification won't cause harm the FCC is prohibited from making. That said, yes, they facially have that authority, but that doesn't mean it would withstand a legal challenge if they did.

You appear to think that, just because the way they did it overstepped their bounds that there's no way for them to do it without overstepping their bounds.

That's not correct. I was specifically addressing the situation as it existed.

The Court did NOT say they couldn't do this.

If by "this" you mean this "third way," well, I'll wait to see what the "third way" actually is before agreeing with you.

> yah, this particular rule was unconstitional,

The Court didn't rule on constitutional grounds at all. The ruling was based on a lack of FCC jurisdiction because they thought that the FCC did not properly apply its rulemaking authority. That has nothing whatsoever to do with constitutional claims. Maybe you could point out that Comcast raised a Due Process claim, but the Court didn't bother addressing it (they don't have to; they would only have to address that if they had found in the FCC's favor, in which case they would have spent all their time explaining why they didn't buy Comcast's argument).

But don't take my word for it, read the Court's opinion [PDF] for yourself. If you find anything indicating that the Court (not just Comcast) thought this was unconstitutional, please quote it.

> It is NOT LEGAL. It VIOLATES OUR CIVIL RIGHTS. You're not getting it. This is simply unacceptable. Unelected bureaucrats have no right to make laws to tell us what to do. Period.

They have never made laws. They make rules. And the rulemaking authority is delegated to them by Congress. I realize that the difference between "law" and "rule" may seem arbitrary, but that's how it works. What they exceeded was their rulemaking authority. If you can find anything in the Court's opinion about "violat[ing] our civil rights" please quote it, because I believe that the opinion says nothing of the sort. That's probably what you want it to say, but it doesn't actually say that anywhere. While Comcast did indeed claim that "the Commission’s adjudicatory action was procedurally flawed because it circumvented the rulemaking requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act and violated the notice requirements of the Due Process Clause," the Court only addressed the matter of jurisdiction. As the Court wrote, "We begin—and end—with Comcast’s jurisdictional challenge." In short, they didn't decide that issue. At all.

But yes, the FCC was ruled to have exceeded its rulemaking authority. But you're wrong if you think they can't do anything about that. They're doing this to follow the letter of the law. And yes, they DO have authority to reclassify services because they're the ones who reclassified the service to begin with.

You appear to think that, just because the way they did it overstepped their bounds that there's no way for them to do it without overstepping their bounds. I don't believe that is correct. The Court did NOT say they couldn't do this. The Court never addressed what they're doing now, because they're doing it in response to the ruling, so the Court never gave its opinion of what they're doing now.

Any appeal to "they just lost in court!" is therefore irrelevant to the matter at hand.

Used my Delorian to find the link for you. http://www.ded.uscourts.gov/JJF/Opinions/Recent/Apr2010/06-726.pdf

Until I read it to the end:

SOURCE AU Optronics Corp.

I'm not disputing the facts, but I'm damn sure a press release from AUO is not the best place to get an impartial view...

Well, I submitted the article. I guess I don't know what to do about the second link. The first link is by IDG and should be unbiased. Every single article I could find about that ruling linked back to AOU's news service. Granted I didn't search the entire internet but everyone's spewing the same thing. I couldn't find anything about this on LG Display's site. I couldn't find any court records from the super awesome District of Delaware's web site (holy sh*t, 1993 called and wants your site back).

I don't know what to say ... if you had offered a better link I wouldn't even be responding to this but I came up empty. I guess next time I submit a PR from a company I should put a disclaimer in the summary? It was meant to augment the first link, not be the focus. That was the only link where the patents were named. Any suggestions on how to make submissions better are welcomed. Suppose it's time I installed RECAP on all my home machines.

(And no, I'm not an LG sockpuppet).

I also certainly hope I didn't come off as an AUO sockpuppet ... apologies if I did/do. They do hold 16-17% of the LCD display market so I think they may be justified in this patent and counter patent suit action. It's not like they're a non-practicing entity patent troll.

The Judicial Conference of the United States approved a measure in March 2010 stating that you will not owe a fee unless your account accrues more than $10 of usage in a given quarter. If you accrue less than $10, your fees are waived for that quarter and your billing statement will have a zero balance. This policy change will be effective for the April 2010 statement. So you're basically safe for 125 views on any random account you make. EE~

Better link: http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/common/opinions/201004/08-1291-1238302.pdf

The FCC's charter only carries weight if it is backed up by legislation and the constitution. And according to the summary on page 2 of the opinion, they conceded the lack of explicit statutory support and argued from the perspective of necessity.

Opinions are free. Other court documents cost $.08/page, but opinions are free.

http://www.uscourts.gov/Press_Releases/2010/JudicialConferenceMar2010.cfm

https://ecf.cadc.uscourts.gov/cmecf/servlet/TransportRoom?servlet=ShowDoc&dls_id=01206657831&caseId=23733&dktType=dktPublic

Indebtedness that is the result of certain criminal acts is not usually allowed to be discharged in bankruptcy. If you destroy someone else's property, then declare bankruptcy after being convicted of the crime, you will still owe THAT debt. The risk of not being paid back is supposed to be burdened only by those specifically choosing to do business with the party that might declare bankruptcy. However, this matter still has to be raised in the bankruptcy court. If you are owed money for a criminal act, and the debtor files bankruptcy, and you just sit and do nothing, it could be discharged, and it might not be possible to re-open the bankruptcy (if you knew about it).

Whether spamming falls under this is the big question. I believe there is no case law to test it.

For more information, see "Chapter 7 - Liquidation Under the Bankruptcy Code". The relevant paragraphs are near the end, just above "NOTES".

That's the problem.. the article is slashdotted and I don't trust a summary. In a legal case the term "third party" is not necessarily what you think it means. If a plaintiff is suing a defendant then a "third party" could be anyone the plaintiff chose to send an email to.

That's the problem...a person writing as though he's an authority on the subject can't do a web search for Rehberg v. Paulk 11th circuit and thus read the court's ruling for themselves. I'm no legal expert, but at least I was able to get that much info out of the summary and find the direct link to the court's opinion...in less time than it took to write the first sentence of my response...

http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/200911897.pdf

Email is a post card. Anyone can read it along the route. Anyone can choose to use that information. The government can request the information anywhere along the route.

If you write a death threat on a postcard, your mail carrier may report that information to the authorities.

http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/200911897.pdf

"Rehberg does not allege Hodges and Paulk illegally searched his home computer for emails, but
alleges Hodges and Paulk subpoenaed the emails directly from the third-party
Internet service provider to which Rehberg transmitted the messages."

So there was a subpoena, and the court says when you send someone information, the receiver can share your letter with anyone.

I may have missed it, but I didn't red where the government broke into anyones home without a Subpoena.

"Conversely, the fact that the recipient of the mail does not have Fourth Amendment rights in the copy does not mean that the government can break into the recipient's house to read the original."
Yes it does, if the "government" has a subpoena. For clarifications, the 4th Amendment:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, 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."

http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/200911897.pdf

For are foreign friends:

4th amendment of the US constitution:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, 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."

From the case:

“a legitimate expectation of privacy in an e-mail that had already reached its recipient”);

This is correct. If yo send me a letter, you do not have any rights of privacy that forbid me from sharing the letter with others.
\
All other email references in the case were gathered after a Subpena was issued.

I think this http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/Campbell-Smith%20Mead%20Autism%20Decision.pdf is the right one, the court of claims website has several http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/node/5026/ The principal evidence against the parents are several large studies (> 100,000 children) where they compared autism in groups with and witout mercury vaccines (thimerosol). There was no difference. further, the scandinavians have looked at autism rates before and after useage of thimerosol; no difference. This is probably the best data we can hope to get showing htat mercury in vaccines doesn't cause autims. to get around this, the parents argued that thimerosol causes a special, rare kind of autism (regressive autism), and that studies on large numbers of children are meaningless because they don't have the statistical power to see a change in a small percent of the population (if you have 100,000 kids with thimerosol, and 100K without, and the general autism rate is 1% and the regressive autism rate is 0.1%, you won't have statistically sign numbers for the rare form of the disiease. the master dismissed this argument concluding that there was no evidence for a distinct disease called regressive autism. there was a lot of stuff about how mercury enters the brain and what it does; sort of inconclusive; the parents didn't really have any good data to support their theorys, eg although distinct, measurable changes occcur ain humans and animals at levels of mercury much higher then what childrne are exposed to, the parents argued that their children have a genetic makeup that makes them hypersensitive to mercury; the problem with this is that they dind't have any data to support this theory, which is perfectly plausible; the parents brought up wilson's disease, which is hypersensitivity to copper. aused the childs autism; he said that there was no plausible theory or data after reading the pdf

I think this http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/Campbell-Smith%20Mead%20Autism%20Decision.pdf is the right one, the court of claims website has several http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/node/5026/ The principal evidence against the parents are several large studies (> 100,000 children) where they compared autism in groups with and witout mercury vaccines (thimerosol). There was no difference. further, the scandinavians have looked at autism rates before and after useage of thimerosol; no difference. This is probably the best data we can hope to get showing htat mercury in vaccines doesn't cause autims. to get around this, the parents argued that thimerosol causes a special, rare kind of autism (regressive autism), and that studies on large numbers of children are meaningless because they don't have the statistical power to see a change in a small percent of the population (if you have 100,000 kids with thimerosol, and 100K without, and the general autism rate is 1% and the regressive autism rate is 0.1%, you won't have statistically sign numbers for the rare form of the disiease. the master dismissed this argument concluding that there was no evidence for a distinct disease called regressive autism. there was a lot of stuff about how mercury enters the brain and what it does; sort of inconclusive; the parents didn't really have any good data to support their theorys, eg although distinct, measurable changes occcur ain humans and animals at levels of mercury much higher then what childrne are exposed to, the parents argued that their children have a genetic makeup that makes them hypersensitive to mercury; the problem with this is that they dind't have any data to support this theory, which is perfectly plausible; the parents brought up wilson's disease, which is hypersensitivity to copper. aused the childs autism; he said that there was no plausible theory or data after reading the pdf

Sort of? If you mean the lower court by "the court," the answer is largely no it is not precedent because the lower court's rulings were overturned on appeal.

However, the settlement came after an appeal to the Federal Circuit. The appeal resulted in a vacated judgment and the case was remanded to the lower court. The opinion of the appellate case, found here, will be precedential and binding on all federal courts. This settlement ends the "further proceedings" part of the case. As a result, there is no final decision by the court, but there is a final appellate decision.

If main stream news sources in copious quantities isn't sufficient corroboration for you, call the court and ask.

Not my fault the school administrators are monumentally stupid.

Oh, and dial back the paranoia a notch. It got away from you.

I wanted to read the actual court opinion so I logged into PACER, the official web site of the US federal courts. I was unable to find any opinion (or even any docketed case) for a Paul Little or Max Hardcore dealing with obscenity in ANY federal appeals court.

Does anyone have the docket number or a copy of the opinion?

http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/unpub/ops/200815964.pdf

The 11th Circuit didn't reject a national standard. Rather, it said that the district court DID NOT ERR in applying the community standard, which comes from a 1973 SCOTUS case, Miller v. California.

There is a difference. What this means is that another district court, even in the 11th Circuit, could still use a national standard under similar circumstances. In other words, the 11th Circuit has ruled that such a call can currently be made by the trial court.

The area of the law is unclear, and courts have been applying it differently. While there has been some discussion of applying a national standard of decency by O'Connor, the Supreme Court as a whole has yet to rule this way. Until it does, Miller applies, and an interpretation of it that uses a community based standard is not an error.

Here's the actual opinion, this issue is discussed on pages 6-10: http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/unpub/ops/200815964.pdf

The summary here contains a pullquote that has been specifically edited in a misleading way to turn what is basically a non-story into a story.

The summary says:

Judges are going to take an even dimmer view of jury member use of Blackberry, iPhone, or other electronic devices as a judicial policy-setting group has told district judges they should restrict jurors from using electronic technologies to research or communicate. ... The instructions state jurors must not use cell phones, e-mail, Blackberry, iPhone, text messaging, or on Twitter, or communicate through any blog or website, through any internet chat room, or by way of any other social networking websites, including Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and YouTube."

Pay close attention to the ellipses after "communicate".

This quote appears to be from the committee report, but the committee report link is broken; it contains no href, just anchor tags.

The article says:

"the suggested instructions specifically inform jurors that they are prohibited from using these technologies in the courtroom, in deliberations, or outside the courthouse to communicate about or research cases on which they currently serve"

Not convinced yet? Here is the complete first paragraph from the committee report mentioned, but NOT linked to, in the quote contained in the summary:

"At its December 2009 meeting, the Judicial Conference Committee on Court Administration and Case Management (CACM) endorsed a set of suggested jury instructions that district judges should consider using to help deter jurors from using electronic technologies to research or communicate about cases on which they serve. The suggested instructions are included as Attachment 1."

Emphasis is mine in previous two quotations. In other words, you are not banned from using these devices or services. The article mentions that you may not use these things to discuss or research the case. The networkworld article uses the inflammatory word "ban" in its headline (inappropriately) and the Slashdot post goes even further, deliberately eliminating context crucial to understanding the actual guidelines and replacing them with ellipses.

Okay, I think you knew that my comment about the mandamus was rhetorical hyperbole. No, I don't think that would stick in a trial. But I think you'd have to agree that E.D. Tex has raised quite a few eyebrows in higher courts, that particular case aside. You've read it, I assume? I wonder about you if what the C.A.F.C. had to say doesn't make you at least a little uncomfortable with the Rocket Docket.

Also, you know exactly what I mean by "fired". These things never get to the point of a Senate trial; the judge resigns with what remains of his dignity, when it's clear that the House Judiciary wants him gone.

What I meant to convey with my very helpful definition of "misleading" is this: misleading != not technically true.

The meme "district court judges are appointed for life tenures" is misleading, while technically true. Article III is not. See the difference? It's not the Constitution that's misleading, it's your statement.

The meme is too general a statement to be informative to those not familiar with the federal courts. It completely avoids the very important distinction between the supreme and inferior courts, and it suggests that there is nothing that Congress can do about abuses; this is false, as it is the very institution named to ordain and establish these courts, from time to time!

As I'm sure you're aware, being an attorney, changes to the district court system happen every couple of decades. As it should be, as it is Congress's job. As a matter of fact, the very court which issued the mandamus writ was established by Congress in 1982!

You didn't address my point about the path of cases through the system; this is an integral part of the original point of contention.

I'd like to reiterate that I think a close look at ethics in this court would be much more likely with a change in membership of a certain committee in the House. The idea that your vote does not affect the district courts is simply wrong.

I'm just a simple country computer programmer, but I can read.

"What if they played any other sort of RPG?"

No. The policy that was upheld in the ruling was:

"In a December 6, 2004 letter to Singer, Muraski informed Singer that 'inmates are not allowed to engage in or possess written material that details rules, codes, dogma of games/activities such as 'Dungeons and Dragons' because it promotes fantasy role playing, competitive hostility, violence, addictive escape behaviors, and possible gambling.'"

http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/tmp/UP0VO8EC.pdf

This is US vs. Kilbride, decided last October. It apparently took Sedo a few months to notice.

It's actually a porno spam case left over from the Bush Administration. It's not like the Justice Department was doing anything effective about spam in general.

And Slashdot editors no longer even post FED-related stories, despite on-going activity in Japan.

Hmm. And things have been going on that I hadn't noticed because of it.

Sony was the last company to attempt production. They seem to have intentionally scuttled the project by spinning it off as Field Emission Technologies and starving it of funds. The subsidiary was trying to put together a factory for production of carbon nanotube-based displays for production in 2009, but failed due to an inability to raise capital. (As a wholly-owned Sony subsidiary. Bullshit meter is ticking up pretty high, here...) Looks to me like the powers that be in southeast Asia are determined to wring every last drop of revenue out of their LCD panel factory investments before they produce a substantially better quality display. Or possibly I'm attributing to malice what can more easily be explained by Sony's raging incompetent management...

SED technology, also substantially superior to LCD for reasons very similar to FED, may finally resurface, more than a decade after the original patent license agreement. In May of 2007, Canon lost the patent lawsuit (in a Texas court, suplies!) brought against them by Applied Nanotech (or Nano-Proprietary; the name seems to have changed). The jury decided that Applied Nano had suffered no damage, however, so Canon was not required to pay any penalty. The judge ruled that Canon had breached the license agreement, thereby allowing Applied Nano to terminate the license agreement while keeping the $5.5 million license fee they got from Canon. Applied Nano had also tried to claim fraud on the part of Canon and assorted other crap. All of that was dismissed.

The lawsuit brought out that number, and here we understand the reason for the lawsuit. Applied Nano got greedy. Very greedy. Somebody showed them the size of the worldwide TV/monitor market and they decided they deserved more than a one-time $5.5 million. They wanted the right to terminate the license and renegotiate it on a per-unit basis, and rake in the dough on every unit sold. They were happy to accept millions for the license, until they got the idea they could rake off hundreds of millions over the lifetime of the patents.

For once, greed lost. Canon appealed and in July of 2008, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that while Canon's establishment of SED, Inc. as a joint venture with Toshiba did not qualify as a subsidiary, Canon's buyout of Toshiba's stake in SED means SED, Inc. does now qualify as a Canon subsidiary, and that termination of Canon's license to use the Applied Nano patents was not an available remedy for Canon's material breach of license. The court reinstated Canon's license, under its original terms. They quoted from the original contract:

Canon paid a onetime lump sum of $5,555,555.55 and received a "fully paid-up, worldwide, royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual, nonexclusive license (without the right to sublicense)" that "shall continue in full force and effect until expiration of the last to expire of the LICENSED PATENTS."

And here is where the wheels came off of Applied Nano's ideas of revoking and renegotiating. Canon is incorporated in New York State, in the US, where the law says that the plain language of the contract applies. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals acknowledged that and said that contract terms that specifically say "irrevocable and perpetual" really are irrevocable and perpetual. If one of the parties materially breaches the contract, the aggrieved party has the right to force the perpetrator to mend their ways and move back into compliance with the terms of the contract, but they don't have the right to terminate the contract.

So in theory at least, the way is clear for Canon to start manufacturing SEDs. And has been for a year and a half. There wasn't a single SED to be seen at

The fact the SCOTUS took this up is a concern for businesses and sys admins. I would have thought it obvious there's no freedom of speech issues here.

I'm not sure where you read that. This is a fourth amendment issue. You can see some info in the decision from the appeals court. The appeals court considered some things such as the California constitution, but that won't be considered in SCOTUS.

Still, it is awfully suspicious that patent trolls seem to be significantly more successful in East Texas compared to other District Courts. Patent issues are Constitutionally a Federal issue, so there's no legal reason for this one court to consistently rule contrary to the Federal standard for patent infringement. Perhaps a higher court should hear an appeal from one of this court's patent infringement cases and make precedent whether they are really following the law or simply "legislating from the bench."

This paragraph does not make a lick of sense. The court in question is the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. It is a federal court hearing matters of federal patent law. And like all federal courts, its decisions are appealable to a Federal Court of Appeals. And since federal patent law is such a specialized area, Congress even gave us a special Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which hears all patent appeals and sets precedent. The CAFC has heard LOTS of cases from the Eastern District of Texas, and has reversed when they felt it was necessary.

Seriously, reading a patent thread on Slashdot is like watching a couple of MBAs argue heatedly about whether it's better to write Linux drivers in AJAX or SCSI.

I'll be slightly less lazy than you and provide criminal procedure in the US. Can you find something that states a limitation on appeal?

Well, if it isn't in wikipedia, it didn't happen. Sign of the times, I guess.

"A litigant who files an appeal, known as an "appellant," must show that the trial court or administrative agency made a legal error that affected the decision in the case. The court of appeals makes its decision based on the record of the case established by the trial court or agency. It does not receive additional evidence or hear witnesses. The court of appeals also may review the factual findings of the trial court or agency, but typically may only overturn a decision on factual grounds if the findings were "clearly erroneous."" --http://www.uscourts.gov/understand03/content_6_5.html

So now I guess it's incumbent upon you to find a source that says a valid grounds for appeal is, "the jury found me guilty, and that bums me out."
 

And that is overlooking how dramatically disappointing (and pedantic) your most recent reply was.

I'm sorry, but I thought you were done repeating yourself. Clearly you believe that you know better than the affected party what is in his best interest. I believe you do not. Can we agree that we are basically at an impasse now?

This is a life-changing - no, life-ending - choice that you are suggesting he make.

For what it's worth, all I am saying is that you do not have enough perspective or information to tell the guy what to do. I am not familiar with the facts of his case, and I am not personally facing the prospect of a lengthy prison term; therefore, I have no choice but to trust the affected party to act in his own self-interest. I already told you how I would have handled it differently if it were me, but it isn't me, so it doesn't really matter what I would have done.

All that said, I do find funny, your belief that a felony conviction is life-ending. Several of my tenants have had felony convictions, and their lives do not appear to have ended.

CORE CRIMINAL LAW SUBJECTS: Crimes: Article 127 - Extortion

2008 (September Term)

United States v. Brown, 67 M.J. 147 (Article 127, UCMJ, prohibits the communication of threats to another person with the intention thereby to obtain anything of value or any acquittance, advantage, or immunity; the MCM explains that, unless it is clear from the circumstances, the advantage or immunity sought should be described in the specification; the MCM further explains that an intent to make a person do an act against that person's will is not, by itself, sufficient to constitute extortion).

(in this case, the specification was sufficient to state an offense of extortion under Article 127, UCMJ, in that it described the advantage that appellant sought to achieve (the participation of the victim in sexual relations) and further described the threat communicated to the victim to obtain that advantage (to expose their past sexual relationship in a manner that would harm her military career); as such, the specification was consistent with part IV, para. 54.c.(4) of the MCM, which expresses a preference for an express description of the advantage; moreover, the specification was consistent with the additional guidance in para. 54.c.(4), which states that an intent to have "a person do an act against that person's will," would not be sufficient "by itself" to constitute extortion; here, in addition to alleging that appellant sought to have the victim engage in an act against her will, the specification further alleged that appellant intended to obtain an advantage through her participation with him in sexual relations; as such, the specification did not rely solely, or "by itself," on an allegation that appellant sought to have her engage in an act against her will).

18 U.S.C. 873 : US Code - Section 873: Blackmail

Whoever, under a threat of informing, or as a consideration for not informing, against any violation of any law of the United States, demands or receives any money or other valuable thing, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

Neither crime requires "profit". The crimes entail forcing an outside party to take an action. There is no requirements on what those actions are in most Common Law jurisdictions other than that the victim has been coerced into them.

Here is an example of such a case within the US armed forces:

http://www.armfor.uscourts.gov/digest/IIIA55.htm

A English example would be Jean Violette's extortion conviction. In this case the victim was using the Hell's Angles name. Mr. Violette wanted him to stop using the name. You can read a bit more about this case below (or do web search):

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Crown+seeks+year+prison+sentence+Hells+Angel+convicted+extortion+weapons+offences/2188869/story.html

For the US Government (Fed.) you can find the actual statue under 18 USC Chapter 41:

http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/18/I/41

The meat of the issue is in the passage, "...demands or receives any money or other valuable thing..." "Other valuable thing(s)" has been interpreted multiple times to include non-monetary services. For example, a politician can be blackmailed or extorted to vote a certain way. An attorney can be coerced into not prosecuting a case with due diligence (look into the history of the Mob for many such examples).

Here would be I belive the relevent law in Texas:

http://law.onecle.com/texas/government/432.162.00.html
 
 

432.162. EXTORTION. A person subject to this chapter
who communicates threats to another person with the intent to
obtain anything of value or any acquittance, advantage, or immunity
is guilty of extortion and shall be punished as a court-martial
directs.

Acts 1987, 70th Leg., ch. 147, 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1987.

Besides, intelligent design is not creationism (though creationists tend to use it as a sort of disguise, hence the confusion). ID simply says that an intelligent wossname helped guide evolution. Depending on how you formulate it, it's either the weak form: a nice thought but not really provable either way (the approach the Vatican takes, FWIW), or the strong form, which says evolution couldn't happen without a guiding hand.

People may use "intelligent design" to mean something other than strict young earth creationism, but the term was made specifically to disguise to get creationism into the American public schools. In 1987, in Edwards v. Aguillard, the US Supreme Court ruled that "creation science" was the same thing as "creationism" which couldn't be taught in public school biology classes because it violated the First Amendment. Then the creationists decided to start talking about intelligent design. Indeed, the very next draft "Of Pandas and Peoples", a creation science textbook that was in the works did a search and replace for every single use of "creationists" or "creation scientists" or "creationism" and replaced them with the correct form of "intelligent design." However, in a truly ironic step, they screwed up in the next draft and actually left a transitional form of "cdesign proponentsists". This strange hybrid of "creation scientists" and "design proponents" was corrected in the next draft. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cdesign_proponentsists#Pandas_and_.22cdesign_proponentsists.22 However, this draft, which remained unpublished, was disclosed during the Kitzmiller v Dover trial where it was decided that intelligent design really was just a cheap disguise for creationism. The decision in the Dover trial is really worth reading. The text can be found at http://www.pamd.uscourts.gov/kitzmiller/kitzmiller_342.pdf. It includes a lot more very clear evidence that ID was made solely as a term to disguise creationism and get it into our public schools.

Understanding the meaning of legally operative words is essential to understanding the logic or reasoning of a legal decision. That's one of those things you would understand if you bothered to listen to people in the field you keep trying to discuss.

When Judge Mosman writes that the e-mails are exposed to employees, it does not mean that employees are allowed to rummage through them as a matter of policy, or even that employees actually look at the e-mails. Consider California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35 (1988), in which the Supreme Court ruled that individuals did not have a legitimate expectation of privacy in their garbage because it was exposed to the public, despite the fact that California law explicitly protected the rights of individuals to their garbage placed out for collection. Also consider Google's privacy policies, which allow Google to examine the contents of users' emails for advertising, preventing spam, or enforcing the terms of use. Gmail Privacy Notice, http://mail.google.com/mail/help/intl/en/privacy.html; Google Terms of Service, http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS. The fact that a user conveys their information to Google, and that Google has the ability to read that information (absent steps such as encryption), could easily be sufficient to "expose" these e-mails to Google under existing law.

Were you someone with a degree of skill in legal writing, you might have seen fit to do a little more research. Had you done so, you would have found a Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals case, Warshak v. U.S., No. 06-4092 (6th Circ. 2007), available at http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/07a0225p-06.pdf (vacated en banc), which deals with this precise question. In its original panel discussion, the Sixth Circuit held that end users do have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their e-mails, highlighting prior decisions of the Fourth and Ninth Circuits coming out each way on the question dependent on their specific facts. Over a vigorous dissent, the Sixth Circuit overturned the decision in it's en banc review, Warshak v. U.S. No. 06-4092 (6th. Circ. 2008), available at http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/08a0252p-06.pdf, arguing that the case was not yet ripe for review.

As I said previously, your interpretation could very well be correct. It's certainly my preferred outcome. That doesn't change the fact that your analysis was the work of a rank amateur whose writing shouldn't be treated as if it had merit.