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Bankruptcy shields them from legal payments just like any other creditor.

Not necessarily .
"Not all debts are discharged. The debts discharged vary under each chapter of the Bankruptcy Code. . . . The most common types of nondischargeable debts are certain types of tax claims, debts not set forth by the debtor on the lists and schedules the debtor must file with the court, debts for spousal or child support or alimony, debts for willful and malicious injuries to person or property, debts to governmental units for fines and penalties , debts for most government funded or guaranteed educational loans or benefit overpayments, debts for personal injury caused by the debtor's operation of a motor vehicle while intoxicated, debts owed to certain tax-advantaged retirement plans, and debts for certain condominium or cooperative housing fees."

It's not one sentence. You can use one sentence from a book. You can't use thousands of sentences. And certainly not arranged in the same in the same chapters (objects).

It can be fair use. To claim fair use, you need to consider all of the four factors. Copying a large portion doesn't prevent a use from being fair use.

"Using most or all of a work does not bar a finding of fair use. It simply makes the third factor less favorable to the defendant." Wikipedia suggests copying entire TV shows (which is more than thousands of sentences) as an example that was ruled fair use.

If you have time I strongly recommend reading the court's finding. It is clear and well reasoned.

I read the 21 relevant pages from Google's writ, and I'd say it'll be granted. The second half of it hinges on fair use, and it's a weaker argument. The first half is all about the disagreements among the circuit courts, and that always attracts the attention of the Supreme Court.

Lawyers are trained to be convincing, and they are by tradition only giving one half of the case. Thus when you read one side's argument (or sit in court listening to one side's argument), it will usually sound convincing. To get a clear view, it is necessary to read both sides. Even better, read the judge's conclusion. But don't make your analysis based on only one side's lawyers. They are biased by design.

So, how do you then avoid judges making decisions in favor of people/companies who they'll be working for when their time is up? Term limits doesn't only get rid of the less qualified, it gets rid of the top qualified. I'm all for term limits in Congress and Executive office. Not so much for SCOTUS.

There's nothing *now* from preventing that scary scenario of yours. Federal judges make $200k - 270k which is chump change for industries wanting to reward their friends.
In fact, it's likely that's been happening a lot in the past since their salaries were effectively stagnant or frozen for long stretches between 1990 and 2014
http://www.uscourts.gov/judges...

Being in favor of term limits for Congress but not for judges makes little sense; if they're corrupt, they'll cheat.
The private sector can always throw much more money at them than the public purse.

Jane Q. Public misleadingly stated:

At least a couple of federal courts have ruled that Customs needs a warrant to search your computer or phone.

First off, you're conflating Customs and Immigration with the TSA. They are two different agencies, and rulings that apply to the former don't necessarily bind the latter, either theoretically or practically.

By "a couple of federal courts," I presume you're talking about California vs Riley, the unanimous 2014 SCOTUS decision that Federal (and all local government bodies) agencies in general are prohibited from searching cell phones without a warrant, on the principle that they contain, in the words of Chief Justice Roberts, "the privacies of life," and are thus protected under the 4th Amendment? Because the problem with that argument is that the border search exemption, for the legitimacy of which there is a host of supportive court rulings at all levels, says, "Nuh-uh!"

Among those is the relatively recent 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in United States vs Vergara, where the majority held that Riley simply "does not apply at the border," (Judge William Pryor, writing for the majority), and the 2013 9th Circuit Court ruling in United States vs Howard Wesley Cotterman, which held that Riley did not apply in the case of a suspected pedophile whose laptop was siezed at the border and searched with neither his permission nor a warrant, on the grounds that the pattern of precedent established that Riley - and, indeed, 4th Amendment protections in general - did not apply to "routine" searches at the border. (Note that the 6th Circuit Court is generally (and accurately) perceived as the most liberal of the Appeals Courts, and that it heard the case en banc, with every member participating, rather than delegating it to a panel of 3 judges.)

Given that, in the latter case, Cotterman was on the Feds' radar for at least 6 months prior to him crossing the Mexican border - which prompted the U.S. Attorney in the appeal to argue that they had had sufficient "reasonable suspicion" to seize his computer (which one would presume would have prompted them to obtain a warrant beforehand, unless they felt they didn't have enough solid evidence to convince a judge to issue one, and didn't want to risk an on-the-record application for it having been denied for cause) - and the Court ruled that existing investigation was irrelevant, on the grounds that the seizure and search of his laptop was "routine," I see little support for your contention. Cotterman faced decades of prison time, but SCOTUS declined to review that 11th Circuit decsion, nonetheless.

There's still a chance that the 11th's decision in Vergara will be taken up for review by SCOTUS, (frankly, Cotterman was a thicket of complications I doubt they wanted to have to wade through, whereas Vergara seems a great deal simpler to me), but there's no guarantee that they will. In the meantime, the 11th's ruling in Vergara (especially in light of Cotterman) is the existing precedent.

So, no. Sadly, the Federal Court system has come down hard on the side of security theater vs Constitutional guarantees. From my perspective, that's a mistake - but I, personally, wouldn't cross the border with my phone, unless it was encrypted, protected by a strong passphrase, and fully and securely backed-up ahead of time. Not in this legal climate, I wouldn't ...

(Disclaimer: IANAL. YMMV. Objects in mirror are closer than they appear. Contents are packed by weight, not volume. Some settling may have occurred in shipping. Yadda-yadda-yadda, yabba-dabba-do

Bitch got lucky. Here's the case - http://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/o...
If that TSA agent had showed up, she'd probably be in jail for a while and now with a violent criminal record.

I think the judges understood that she was being a bitch and just because her case was dismissed didn't entitle her to a lottery winning. They effectively gave her the finger. I just don't see where they were out of line, she was out of line. System worked.

First example you cite has been shown to be based on flawed statistics, i.e., the algorithm was shown not to produce biased results on the data. Bad things happen when journalists try to do statistical analysis.

  Reference: Flores, Bechtel, Lowencamp; "False Positives, False Negatives, and False Analyses: A Rejoinder to âoeMachine Bias: Thereâ(TM)s Software Used Across the Country to Predict Future Criminals. And itâ(TM)s Biased Against Blacks.â", Federal Probation Journal, September 2016, You can find the article here: http://www.uscourts.gov/statis...

Slight tangent: The article cites the ProPublica study on the Northpointe software in which journalists (not statisticians) reported the software as biased. What they left out is that an independent study found this study showing bias to be wrong.

Source: Flores, Bechtel, Lowencamp; Federal Probation Journal, September 2016, "False Positives, False Negatives, and False Analyses: A Rejoinder to “Machine Bias: There’s Software Used Across the Country to Predict Future Criminals. And it’s Biased Against Blacks.”", URL http://www.uscourts.gov/statis...

In fact the ProPublica analysis was so wrong that the authors wrote: "It is noteworthy that the ProPublica code of ethics advises investigative journalists that "when in doubt, ask" numerous times. We feel that Larson et al.'s (2016) omissions and mistakes could have been avoided had they just asked. Perhaps they might have even asked...a criminologist? We certainly respect the mission of ProPublica, which is to "practice and promote investigative journalism in the public interest." However, we also feel that the journalists at ProPublica strayed from their own code of ethics in that they did not present the facts accurately, their presentation of the existing literature was incomplete, and they failed to "ask." While we aren’t inferring that they had an agenda in writing their story, we believe that they are better equipped to report the research news, rather than attempt to make the research news."

The authors of the ProPublica article are no longer with the organization, but this article shows up in any news article about AI bias. The fake story just doesn't want to die...

With all that said, I have some hopes that algorithms will help make truly race-blind decisions in criminal justice. It's easier to test them for bias than humans, and decisions are made in a consistent, repeatable manner.

The FCC was never authorized.

Of course they were and the court agree.

Okay, apology due to original AC. Here's a link to the opinion issued by the 11th Circuit Court: http://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/unpub/files/201712466.pdf

From the PDF: "Lundgren entered into a plea agreement in which he pled guilty to conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit goods and criminal copyright infringement. The government dropped the remaining charges."

So, while I went and spouted off before reading the opinion, the point remains - while they got him on "counterfeiting", the economic cost to Microsoft was the $25.00 a pop and the suppression of selling new OS's.

However, I think the Washington Post should have covered that part in its reporting... It is of course my responsibility for spouting off half-cocked, but one would think such an august publication as the Washington Post should have covered that angle in their article. The official, stated reason this guy is being put in jail is for "traffic in counterfeit goods and criminal copyright infringement".

So - apologies to original AC for calling him a bullshit artist - he's not and I was wrong in that. I should have read the court opinion and not relied solely on the Washington Post article to come to a conclusion. However, this is still a ruthless sentence and in keeping with the finest traditions of Microsoft.

In 2017 (Trump): 26 Denied (1.6%), 50 Denied in Part (3.1%), 1147 Granted (71.1%)
In 2016 (Obama): 9 Denied (0.5%), 26 Denied in Part (1.5%), 1378 Granted (78.7%)

http://www.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/ao_foreign_int_surveillance_court_annual_report_2016_final.pdf

http://www.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/ao_foreign_int_surveillance_court_annual_report_2017.pdf

In 2017 (Trump): 26 Denied (1.6%), 50 Denied in Part (3.1%), 1147 Granted (71.1%)
In 2016 (Obama): 9 Denied (0.5%), 26 Denied in Part (1.5%), 1378 Granted (78.7%)

http://www.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/ao_foreign_int_surveillance_court_annual_report_2016_final.pdf

http://www.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/ao_foreign_int_surveillance_court_annual_report_2017.pdf

OK, let's do a little research and look at the actual data. We can get all the reports since transparency was mandated in 2015:

USCourts Report on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courts' Activities

According to FISA's data, in 2016:
"The FISC disclosed that it received 1,752 applications in 2016. After consideration by the court, 1,378
orders were granted, 339 orders were modified, 26 orders were denied in part, and 9 applications were
denied in full."

Meanwhile, in the latest report, from 2017, during the first year of the Trump administration:
"The FISC disclosed that it received 1,614 applications in 2017. After consideration by the court, 1,147
orders were granted, 391 orders were modified, 50 orders were denied in part, and 26 applications
were denied in full."

So what does this tell us? Applications for survellience were actually a bit lower, but denials went from .5% of Obama's FBI to 1.5% of Trump's FBI's requests. Does that mean the requests were of lower quality in 2017? The FISA court was feeling a little chastened by all of the publicity of its usual rubber-stamp policy? Or the FISA court is a bunch of liberal cheeto-haters? Hard to say?

Going to the actual case, it looks like you are correct:

https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2014/09/02/11-17676.pdf

We begin with Chan, who alleges that Yelp extorted her by removing positive reviews from her Yelp page. Chan asserts that she was deprived of the benefit of the positive reviews Yelp users posted to Yelp’s website, and that, had she received the benefits of the positive reviews, they would have counteracted the negative reviews other users posted.

But Chan had no pre-existing right to have positive reviews appear on Yelp’s website. She alleges no contractual right pursuant to which Yelp must publish positive reviews,nor does any law require Yelp to publish them. By withholding the benefit of these positive reviews, Yelp is withholding a benefit that Yelp makes possible and maintains. It has no obligation to do so, however. Chan does not, and could not successfully, maintain that removal of positive user-generated reviews, by itself, violates anything other than Yelp’s own purported practice. “[W]hat [Yelp] may do in a certain event [Yelp] may threaten to do.” Rothman, 912 F.2d at 318.

So the conclusion apparently is that it's OK for Yelp to behave reprehensibly; that they are in fact violating their own purported method of publishing unbiased reviews in an unbiased manner; and that if you want to find trustworthy reviews you should look elsewhere.

I remember something about Tennessee...
http://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.go...

Maybe related?

...to send me your life savings?

Actually the hysteria is mounting.

Fixed that for you.

The Russian's hacked power plants storyline was bullshit.
CrowdStrike is bullshit.
The "17 intelligence agencies" line was bullshit.
The Russia hacked election systems is bullshit.

find this report by the Director of National Intelligence particularly interesting

Sure, lets look at this - while remembering the FBI wasn't allowed to examine the DNC servers so how exactly would they have "high confidence" in any thing - but this time noting the weasel words:

We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump's election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him. All three agencies agree with this judgment. CIA and FBI have high confidence in this judgment; NSA has moderate confidence.

Zero evidence provided, only claims and accusations. Well guess what Chem Trailers, Sandy Hook Truthers and Birthers have? Claims and accusations.

Then there's the fact the entire "Russia wanted Trump to win so hacked the election" makes no sense whatsoever. The election was Hillary's to lose, right up until she picked Tim Kaine as her running mate and decided to skip campaigning in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Michigan. So according to the storyline, Putin was crafty enough to dig up dirt on Hillary (which was all true) but dumb enough to collude with someone as dumb as Trump. Which means the CIA, NSA & FBI would know all about it. Which meant Hillary would too, who had already campaigned on shooting down Russian jets in Syria. So what's really going on?

The entire "Russian hacking" storyline is nothing but Swiftboating from Clinton supporters, as she was the candidate who engaged in corrupt collusion with Russian interests to sell a fifth of America's uranium.

And you can skip that Snopes link that handwaives away Hillary's culpability for a number of reasons:
1) Access is corruption
2) Avoiding the appearance of impropriety applies to politicians, not just judges
3) Her own campaign was warned internally that the deal was a political liability for her
4) Hillary flat-out broke her confirmation promises on keeping a wall between the State Department and the Clinton Foundation

At this point, Chem Trailing anti-vaxxer Birther Sandy Hook Truthers have more respectability than Russiagaters.

I've read through some of the comments (but not all) and this may have been covered somewhere else. I think in order to discuss the concept of free speech it would be helpful to understand the official definition from the courts. So I found this, http://www.uscourts.gov/about-....
tl;dnr
Free speech does not mean you get to say anything you want without consequences. It also doesn't mean you can't get fired for speaking freely. What it does mean is "Congress shall make no law...abridging freedom of speech". If a company makes false claims then you as the consumer have the right to sue them. If they claim medical benefits that are unsubstantiated they must declare them noticeably. For example if you buy an herbal supplement from the store it usually says something to the effect of "not validated by the FDA". If they don't say that then they must be held accountable. The same thing goes for politicians, they must be held accountable.

DACA wasn't law. It was "policy".

You know, the same way there is a law against speeding, and then a myriad of policy that goes into enforcing it. Where I live the law says speeding is exceeding the posted speed limit. In practice, the usual policy is not to stop anyone within 10km/h. And in practice the police only selectively enforce it -- high traffic areas, accident prone areas, some might point cynically at areas where the limit is set to low as 'revenue generating' areas. (I KNOW this is a real issue in some areas, im less convinced it is a significant motivation locally.) Meanwhile, in practice the police are mostly enforcing the cellphone ban, because that is what they have been directed to focus on that. So speed traps are rare right now, but cell phone traps are all over the place. They'll still bust you for speeding if you are obvious / dangerious / etc but that's not what they're looking for.

DACA was kind of the same thing... basically it was policy directing immigration to be lenient in specific cases (like not enofrcing a speedlimit if you are 1km/h over -- even though the law says that is illegal) and directing officers not to bother even looking for those cases, and to focus on something else instead.

THAT is well within the purview of the executive branch of government. Enforcment policy, and enforcement priorities is WELL within the purview of the government.

Did DACA overstep the bounds of policy into creating new law? Maybe. Maybe not. Probably not, given that it has survived plenty of constitutional challenges already... e..g http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/op...

Personally, think DACA should be ended in favor of real legislation that does what DACA does. However that is not what the Trump administration is doing. They're just ending the policy because they want to, not because of any constitutionality. And that's fine, that's the new administrations prerogative; I don't agree with it... but the Trump administration has the same authority to set policy as Obama did.

DACA wasn't just not deporting - work permits were issued. It is an unlawful amnesty.

This same group had DAPA (the parental version) thrown out due to unconstitutionality and the argument against DACA is essentially identical. They would win in court

The 5th circuit disagrees

DACA wasn't law. It was "policy".

You know, the same way there is a law against speeding, and then a myriad of policy that goes into enforcing it. Where I live the law says speeding is exceeding the posted speed limit. In practice, the usual policy is not to stop anyone within 10km/h. And in practice the police only selectively enforce it -- high traffic areas, accident prone areas, some might point cynically at areas where the limit is set to low as 'revenue generating' areas. (I KNOW this is a real issue in some areas, im less convinced it is a significant motivation locally.) Meanwhile, in practice the police are mostly enforcing the cellphone ban, because that is what they have been directed to focus on that. So speed traps are rare right now, but cell phone traps are all over the place. They'll still bust you for speeding if you are obvious / dangerious / etc but that's not what they're looking for.

DACA was kind of the same thing... basically it was policy directing immigration to be lenient in specific cases (like not enofrcing a speedlimit if you are 1km/h over -- even though the law says that is illegal) and directing officers not to bother even looking for those cases, and to focus on something else instead.

THAT is well within the purview of the executive branch of government. Enforcment policy, and enforcement priorities is WELL within the purview of the government.

Did DACA overstep the bounds of policy into creating new law? Maybe. Maybe not. Probably not, given that it has survived plenty of constitutional challenges already... e..g http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/op...

Personally, think DACA should be ended in favor of real legislation that does what DACA does. However that is not what the Trump administration is doing. They're just ending the policy because they want to, not because of any constitutionality. And that's fine, that's the new administrations prerogative; I don't agree with it... but the Trump administration has the same authority to set policy as Obama did.

No it does not.. Wow you really are clueless when it comes to the term, "authorized copy". You are aware of the FBI Warning screens in EVERY single DVD and Bluray movie right?

These films are sold for home use only. Any duplication, reproduction, public performance or commercial use is strictly prohibited

As a private citizen you can rip the video for the purposes of format and space shifting. You cannot sell the ripped digital video in any way. You can publicly broadcast the video, etc. As a business, VidAngel has even less rights under Fair Use.

But don't take my word for it: The 9th Circuit decision says it all.

The panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that VidAngelâ(TM)s copying infringed the plaintiffsâ(TM) exclusive reproduction right. Because VidAngel did not filter authorized copies of movies, it was unlikely to succeed on the merits of its defense that the Family Movie Act of 2005 exempted it from liability for copyright infringement. VidAngel also was unlikely to succeed on its fair use defense.

So either a panel of judges don't know about the Family Movie Act even though they cited it. OR you don't know what the term "authorized copy" means.

Your argument is that Google had only two options. You bear the burden of supporting that contention; I only have to point out that you haven't done so.

Once you learn how logic works, here is some typical reading: http://www3.ce9.uscourts.gov/j...

To prove your contention, you'd need to show two legally false premises: first, that this essay constituted unlawful harassment; second, that Google had no alternative way to address that than to fire this guy.

The CFAA applies immediately or when the defendant (or defendant to be) exceeds the permitted access. This could be also through a cease and desist letter. See Facebook, Inc. v. Power Ventures, Inc., No. 13-17102 (9th Cir. July 12, 2016) https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/d...

You are permitted to grant different people different terms or access. Look at https://qz.com/981029/a-federa...

The story goes like this, based on my reading of the DC court decision: PDF

1) The Obama-administration EPA made the rule, with 90 days of public commentary period before going into effect. During this period, oil and gas groups raised objections.

2) The Trump-administration EPA director, Pruitt, published a notice of staying the rule, only two days AFTER the original deadline had passed. His notice of stay said that the stay had came into effect three days BEFORE its publication. More than one week later, Pruitt asked to extend the stay for two more years.

3) The court says that Pruitt effectively altered the nature of the original rule by changing the key dates, therefore the court can hear the case. Moreover, the court thinks he cannot perform the alteration retroactively. The court says that the EPA's process to modify its own rules breached the Administrative Procedure Act [my tldr summary of a huge chunk of text]. The court find the EPA acted in an "arbitrary and capricious" manner (their words, not mine). The EPA's argument that the regulated industry had no opportunity to raise comments were dissected and rejected by the court, because the court found the EPA's arguments completely contradictory to the records.

4) In conclusion, the EPA has no authority to stay the rules in the first place.

Disclaimer, IANAL, yadayada
Captcha: ironies

From the decision:

Accordingly, EPA must point to something in either the Clean Air Act or the APA that gives it authority to stay the methane rule, and as we explain below, the only provision it cites â" CAA section 307(d)(7)(B) â" confers no such authority.

Like you said, there's a process, and the court didn't think that the EPA was following it.

Japan does not have a first amendment protecting freedom of religion.

Since the travel ban doesn't affect all the other muslim majority countries, it is hard to argue there is a correlation with religion.

That is exactly the issue before the Supreme Court.

Here is the 4th Circuit Court's words: https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/d...
[The question is whether the constitution] "protects Plaintiffs’ right to challenge an Executive Order that in text speaks with vague words of national security, but in context drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination. Surely the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment yet stands as an untiring sentinel for the protection of one of our most cherished founding principles—that government shall not establish any religious orthodoxy, or favor or disfavor one religion over another. Congress granted the President broad power to deny entry to aliens, but that power is not absolute."

And, for good measure, here is the Western Circuit Court's ruling: https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/d...

Japan does not have a first amendment protecting freedom of religion.

Since the travel ban doesn't affect all the other muslim majority countries, it is hard to argue there is a correlation with religion.

That is exactly the issue before the Supreme Court.

Here is the 4th Circuit Court's words: https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/d...
[The question is whether the constitution] "protects Plaintiffs’ right to challenge an Executive Order that in text speaks with vague words of national security, but in context drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination. Surely the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment yet stands as an untiring sentinel for the protection of one of our most cherished founding principles—that government shall not establish any religious orthodoxy, or favor or disfavor one religion over another. Congress granted the President broad power to deny entry to aliens, but that power is not absolute."

And, for good measure, here is the Western Circuit Court's ruling: https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/d...

Hiring free market, limited government judges.

But only 2 judges have been confirmed, and 15 more have been nominated even though there are 132 federal judicial vacancies.

Relaxing burdensome regulations - coal mine opening (and no the coal is not used for heating or electricity but for the production of steel)

But a lot of those regulations were issued in late December, so he's just revoking regulations that weren't in place very long anyway.

Pushing for (instead of against) the Keystone Pipeline

Sure, I'll grant you that.

Pushing for (instead of against) fracking

Pushing for (instead of against) off-shore drilling

I'm not sure there's actually much of a difference from Obama's policies. For instance, environmental groups were upset that the Obama administration approved 1500 offshore drilling and fracking applications from 2010 to October 2014 and oil production boomed under Obama.

Getting out of the TPP

That's different than what Obama pushed for, but Bernie Sanders, and eventually Hillary Clinton, both came out against the TPP. I'll grant you that it is a change in policy from the previous administration, though.

Getting out of the Paris Treaty

Yes, I agree that he did do that.

And, as you mentioned, increased funding and activity on illegal immigration.

But even that's a mixed bag. ICE arrests were up, but deportations were down during the first 100 days of Trump's presidency compared to the previous year.

But back to the subject of the article. The closure of federal data centers started before the Trump administration, and it seems as though he's now trying to take credit for it.

Not to mention that he's gotten no major legislation through. So I really do believe he's not very effective.

Hiring free market, limited government judges.

But only 2 judges have been confirmed, and 15 more have been nominated even though there are 132 federal judicial vacancies.

Relaxing burdensome regulations - coal mine opening (and no the coal is not used for heating or electricity but for the production of steel)

But a lot of those regulations were issued in late December, so he's just revoking regulations that weren't in place very long anyway.

Pushing for (instead of against) the Keystone Pipeline

Sure, I'll grant you that.

Pushing for (instead of against) fracking

Pushing for (instead of against) off-shore drilling

I'm not sure there's actually much of a difference from Obama's policies. For instance, environmental groups were upset that the Obama administration approved 1500 offshore drilling and fracking applications from 2010 to October 2014 and oil production boomed under Obama.

Getting out of the TPP

That's different than what Obama pushed for, but Bernie Sanders, and eventually Hillary Clinton, both came out against the TPP. I'll grant you that it is a change in policy from the previous administration, though.

Getting out of the Paris Treaty

Yes, I agree that he did do that.

And, as you mentioned, increased funding and activity on illegal immigration.

But even that's a mixed bag. ICE arrests were up, but deportations were down during the first 100 days of Trump's presidency compared to the previous year.

But back to the subject of the article. The closure of federal data centers started before the Trump administration, and it seems as though he's now trying to take credit for it.

Not to mention that he's gotten no major legislation through. So I really do believe he's not very effective.

The 2012 law explicitly prohibited the FAA from doing exactly what it did. The court's opinion is only 10 pages and gets directly to the point:

In short, the 2012 FAA Modernization and Reform Act provides that the FAA “may not promulgate any rule or regulation regarding a model aircraft,” yet the FAA’s 2015 Registration Rule is a “rule or regulation regarding a model aircraft.” Statutory interpretation does not get much simpler. The Registration Rule is unlawful as applied to model aircraft.

Actually, it's not so clear and may very well be overturned on appeal. The problem is this. (Excerpt from ruling which quotes the Act which supposedly makes the FAA's regulation illegal.):

The Act defines “model aircraft” as “an unmanned aircraft that is — (1) capable of sustained flight in the atmosphere; (2) flown within visual line of sight of the person operating the aircraft; and (3) flown for hobby or recreational purposes."

The problem is part (2): "flown within visual line of sight of the person operating the aircraft." Drones do not need to be in the operators visual line of sight because they typically have an on board camera which the operator can use to navigate even when the drone is out of the visual line of sight. That's what distinguishes a drone from a remote controlled aircraft, and it is drones, not RC aircraft which were required to be registered by the FAA before this ruling. I think this is an obvious error on the part of the Court of Appeal and I expect the ruling will be overturned.

Note that I'm not saying I agree with the FAA's policy. I'm just saying I think this court got it wrong from a legal point of view.

The 2012 law explicitly prohibited the FAA from doing exactly what it did. The court's opinion is only 10 pages and gets directly to the point:

In short, the 2012 FAA Modernization and Reform Act provides that the FAA “may not promulgate any rule or regulation regarding a model aircraft,” yet the FAA’s 2015 Registration Rule is a “rule or regulation regarding a model aircraft.” Statutory interpretation does not get much simpler. The Registration Rule is unlawful as applied to model aircraft.

If they had been able to dismiss it successfully, would that have set a legal precedent?

It would have set precedent within this court's jurisdiction, which would have had a powerful impact, since it encompasses Silicon Valley, San Francisco, and all of coastal California from Monterey to the Oregon border.

It would not have set binding precedent in other jurisdictions, but other courts would still tend to tilt toward an established ruling.

TL;DR: If it had gone the other way, it would have been really bad.

leave it to California to add retarded regulation to anything. Their district 9 judges need to fist themselves for their unconstitutional over rules. Sorry your state is filled with a fuckton of whackjobs, it shouldn't have a say in one thing. Welfare state, you're beneath me and your so called population.

So you think the Ninth Circuit consists covers just California? There's 8 other states and 2 other territories that disagree with you. The full Ninth Circuit consists of

Ninth Circuit Districts
1. Alaska
2. Arizona
3. Central District of California
4. Eastern District of California
5. Northern District of California
6. Southern District of California
7. Guam
8. Hawaii
9. Idaho
10. Montana
11. Nevada
12. Northern Mariana Islands
13. Oregon
14. Eastern District of Washington
15. Western District of Washington

https://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/j...

So when you talk about whack jobs you need to be a bit more specific. Because whack jobs from California are a totally different breed to the whack jobs from Montana.

It's not that sites that use moderators can lose their safe harbor protection, but rather sites that give too much direction as to how to moderate AND where moderators exercise prior restraint such that no post goes up without having been reviewed by a moderator, can cause said moderators to be viewed as agents of the sites they moderate for rather than uninvolved third parties (and hence the Safe Harbor no longer applies).

In this case, moderators for a Livejournal community knowingly used photographs that were clearly watermarked such that any reasonable person would know they were copyrighted and they had no fair use rationale for posting them. Because Livejournal provides such explicit direction to moderators, and these moderators held posts for review, there is no way they couldn't have known what they posted, and they thus appeared to do so on behalf of Livejournal.

Communities that don't want to run into this problem simply need to avoid giving too much direction to moderators (since that could be viewed as exercising arbitrary control over them such that they are your agents), don't exercise prior restraint or otherwise hold comments for review, and remove infringing content when you become aware of it.

If you want the real story without the hyperbole and clickbait, try reading the actual fucking ruling.

Why have courts if you do not demand that they do justice?

Courts and judges are part of the legal system.

There IS NO 'justice system'.

Really, why? Is there somewhere this is defined? What principles of government specifically establish these contentions of yours? Nowhere?

Or are you just making a poor attempt at fallacious reasoning in order to ignore the problem? Nowhere are your terms used in either the US or Utah Constitutions, making any reference to them as a matter of distinction on your part into a purely arbitrary contention of no particular merit.

And in fact, FWIW, there are courts specifically referred to as "Courts of Justice" or "Justice Courts" such as Montana's, Kentucky's, and yes, even Utah.

So no, you can't even assert that they make a pointed effort to avoid such terms in their own usages just by their states names. Furthermore, by observing their statements of principles and moral axioms, of course, you can see that they do make a concerted and deliberate reference to actual justice.

Or how else am I supposed to take their oath of office: "I, _________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as _________ under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God." ?

There are further examples, both in historical reference and modern development, to establish the place of "Justice" in the provenance of the courts, and even int the executive (It is called the Justice Department, not the Law Department), but I think the mere existence of the oath shows that your argument lacks merit.

It does not exist and never did except as a set of moral goals and standards in the hearts of men. "Justice" is moral and relative, changing with individual circumstance and the opinion of the observer, and therefor can never be codified into law.

Oh, did you think that this is an inherent objection to justice then? If so, why? You seem to be troubled over circumstances and observations, as if it was not a known obligation of justice, which is accepted and recognized, but perhaps you can explain if you meant something else.

In order to achieve the closest thing to "justice" within the limitations of men, the law must be interpreted as written in all cases, because courts and judges are determiners of legalities, not warriors for someone's opinion on what is "just".

You left off your reasoning(which is a bad thing), and contrary to your asertion, if the law is written in some way that is not just, then it is actually going further from justice when you adhere to the law over justice and when you rely on the naive view that purporting to adhere to the law as written is superior, the only thing you are doing is subsuming your obligation to responsibility for your moral decisions by passing it others.

However, even if you had bothered to make such an argument, it would not do anything to undo how your first assertion rings false, to the contrary, judges and their courts are bound by their own statements to justice. That alone is severely discrediting to you. It comes across as if you are merely making slipshod, unconsidered statements to try to advance some pre-established narrative cause, rather than making a truly principled argument that can be weighed and measured on its own merits.

Sorry, Bluestrat, you may used to dealing with people ignorant enough to be fooled by your pomposity, but there are people who can point out the hollow

As Gorsuch said in his dissent: "And there’s simply no law anyone has pointed us to giving employees the right to operate their vehicles in ways their employers forbid. Maybe the Department would like such a law, maybe someday Congress will adorn our federal statute books with such a law. But it isn’t there yet. And it isn’t our job to write one — or to allow the Department to write one in Congress’s place." He is being lambasted for not being compassionate, but compassion is not the job of the court. The job of the court is to interpret what the law says, not what it SHOULD say. Full ruling here: https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/...

But seeing how well that separation of church and state worked, I'd rather not hold my breath.

Are you talking about the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment or the Thomas Jefferson Letter to the Danbury Bishops?

If it's the former, I'm not aware the Federal Government established a National Religion...

If it's the latter, Jefferson himself allowed that individual states could keep their state-sponsored religions, that the federal government would not create a national religion.

Jefferson's letter is the only source of the phrase "separation of church and state" and as a private letter is not a binding legal document.

With 'adverse reaction' you mean encephalopathy, or even autism?
Even GSK in an internal report stated that INFANRIX caused autism.

'herd immunity', another one of those none-science-based concepts. Never proven, but made into a holy cow.

That would be quite difficult as the medical establishment bullying of Dr. Andrew Wakefield and Prof. John Walker-Smith has made it quite clear to 'the medical scientific community' that one is not supposed to seriously investigate that kind of things.
Funny enough, Prof. John Walker-Smith had the money to actually appeal the decision of the GMC in court, and was vindicated by the judge. So he (and Wakefield) was right after all. But of course the media that you are reading has filtered this inconvenient fact out for you as it would only confuse you more. Wikipedia comes to mind...
However, later the CDC found out by itself that MMR led in a disproportional way to much more cases of autism in African Americans than in white Americans.
Further there is a 'Vaccine Compensation Court' in the USA that has already awarded billions of dollars to vaccine victims, including Mojabi Campbell-Smith because he, guess what, got autism from his MMR shots.
So, no, vaccines are not always safe and my opinion is that parents should be fully informed about the risk, including this pesky autism risk from the Merck MMR at early age, and have the right, duty and prerogative to choose for their children whether or not to inoculate them.

That is part of the reason the judge(s) in this case found that swiping of the magnetic strips was no a violation of the 4th amendment, since there was no reasonable of expectation to privacy regarding the contents of the magnetic stripes:

http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/op...
----
Another Fourth Amendment consequence flows from the commercial
purpose of gift cards. Unlike cell phones and computers, whose function of
storing personal information often results in access being restricted by a
password, the raison d’être of gift cards means that third party cashiers will
often be doing the same swiping that law enforcement did here. DE L’Isle, 825
F.3d at 430 (“[T]he purpose of a . . . gift card is to enable the holder of the card
to make purchases, and to accomplish this, the holder must transfer
information from the card to the seller, which negates an expressed privacy
interest.”); Bah, 794 F.3d at 633 (“A credit card’s stored information . . . is
intended to be read by third parties. That is the only reason for its existence.”
(second emphasis added) (quoting United States v. Benjamin, No. 4:14-CR-
3089, 2014 WL 5431349, at *11 (D. Neb. Oct. 24, 2014))); see generally Smith
v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979) (discussing the third party doctrine); United
States v. Miller, 425 U.S. 435 (1976) (same).
We thus join the other courts that have considered this issue and
conclude that society does not recognize as reasonable an expectation of privacy
in the information encoded in a gift card’s magnetic stripe. See Bah, 794 F.3d
at 631; DE L’Isle, 825 F.3d at 432; Alabi, 943 F. Supp. 2d at 1285; Medina,
2009 WL 3669636, at *11.
----

Not just DC. Most Federal courts, and many other Federal buildings, require a valid, current Government-issued ID to enter.

The bar to voting is lower than that to simply interact with the Federal Government. Shameful.

Not just DC. Most Federal courts, and many other Federal buildings, require a valid, current Government-issued ID to enter.

The bar to voting is lower than that to simply interact with the Federal Government. Shameful.

Not just DC. Most Federal courts, and many other Federal buildings, require a valid, current Government-issued ID to enter.

The bar to voting is lower than that to simply interact with the Federal Government. Shameful.

Well alright, if the cops don't need a warrant to go find the location data from anyone's cell phone, then neither do I.

Gimme the past 2 years of movement of Trump, Clinton, and Sanders. And the names and paths of all those who intersected them within 30 feet for more than an hour.

Let me see who has visited the white house in the past decade, and what rooms they went into.

When have the paths of two congressmen crossed for more than 20 minutes outside of congress? Hell, let's throw CEOs in that search as well.

Here's the list of all the judges on that court of appeals. Let's see where they go eat lunch. Where they've slept at night and in whose room. Lets see who has gone to what sort of doctors office. Who do they golf with?

As none of this is now protected by the 4th amendment and enjoys no legal right to privacy, they should be perfectly fine with this data being openly searchable by the masses. If big brother wants to watch, then little brother should stare right back.

There's more information at Wyden's press release.

In addition to Senators Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., the original cosponsors are Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., Steve Daines, R-Mont., and Jon Tester, D-Mont. I would hope Bernie Sanders would support the bill but I don't personally know how much one can read into him not being an original cosponsor.

The above press release includes a link to a readable (warning, PDF) 1-page summary. The last sentence lists other supporters/commenters of the bill:

For more information, see comments by ACLU, Google, EFF/Access, OTI, CDT, NACDL, the security researchers Bellovin, Blaze, and Landau, and the Agenda Books from the U.S. Courts.

All snark aside, politics is not commerce.

Not true. Look at Radiance Foundation v. NAACP and Hershey v Hershey. Political activity is a service.

Ok. Let's look at Radiance:

To find Lanham Act violations under these facts risks a
different form of infringement -- that of Radiance's expressive
right to comment on social issues under the First Amendment.
Courts have taken care to avoid Lanham Act interpretations that
gratuitously court grave constitutional concerns, and we shall
do so here. We hold that Radiance is not liable for trademark
infringement or dilution of defendant's marks by tarnishment. We
vacate the injunction against Radiance entered by the district
court and remand with instructions that defendant's
counterclaims likewise be dismissed.

The danger of allowing the "in connection with" element to
suck in speech on political and social issues through some
strained or tangential association with a commercial or
transactional activity should thus be evident. Courts have
uniformly understood that imposing liability under the Lanham
Act for such speech is rife with the First Amendment problems.

Policy stances are neither goods nor services, though the
means of conveying them may be.

Radiance's use of the marks was undeniably to criticize the
NAACP's perceived position on abortion, thus falling squarely
within the statute's explicit exclusions. See 15 U.S.C. Â 1125(c)(3).

That case agrees with my analysis, not yours.

I'm not going to waste my time analyzing a 4th circuit district court case that is still in progress and is in severe trouble in view of the intervening Radiance decision by the 4th circuit appellate court.

Care to try again?

They do operate under the same rules. The problem is that humans aren't robots. If you show two humans the same set of rules you will get two interpretations of what exactly they mean.

Actually, I believe each of the District Courts has "Local Rules", too.

Yep, in fact they not only have Local Rules, but they (no surprise) even have Local PATENT Rules! Three guesses as to who APPROVES THEM...

Animal fighting has been around for a very long time http://www.lb7.uscourts.gov/do... and has become illegal in most places. As towards beating women, I am rather sure it's illegal in the USA.

http://www.cand.uscourts.gov/e...

District Judge Edward M. Chen

Federal Judicial Service:
Judge, U. S. District Court, Northern District of California

Nominated by Barack Obama on August 6, 2009 and renominated on January 20, 2010, September 13, 2010, and January 5, 2011, to a seat vacated by Martin J. Jenkins; Confirmed by the Senate on May 10, 2011, and received commission on May 12, 2011

U.S. Magistrate Judge, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, 2001-2011

Education:
University of California, Berkeley, A.B., 1975
University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law, J.D., 1979

Okay, serious now. Why this particular district is so popular for patent trolls? Easy to bought corrupt judges? Or too stupid judge to realize the malicious intent of the troll? Both?

I can answer this, having been through the wringer wrought by a patent troll.

• It has the appropriate US district court presence. This is pretty important, as patent infringement cases are brought to a US district court.
• It is an area that has a mediocre pool of jurors. Not highly educated, not too ignorant, but enough to be dangerous.
• It is really really hard to get to. You fly into College Station and drive hours east, or into Louisiana and drive hours west. Yes, this is part of the patent troll modus operandi. Make it super inconvenient for the players to get to. Look it up in google maps, and see.
• Back to the jurors, the pool is made of people who are at the bottom of the middle class or close to poverty. They view big companies as deceitful, and the bad guys. The patent trolls' lawyers play on this David vs. Goliath, and the jurors love having the power to put the hurt on.

Almost all the major patent toll companies have a small presence in the county, so as to be able to file and force the suit to go through Marshall Texas.

The 12 hours I was deposed was probably the worst 12 hours of my life, and the 30 days of rigorous prep I had to do beforehand was just awful.