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Did Rehnquist Compromise Ethics On Microsoft Case?
Several folks noted a blurb running over at ZD about
Supreme Court Justice Rehnquist's questionable position on Microsoft. Apparently his son is representing Microsoft in antitrust matters. Here's a longer story with a bit more information. Since
they decided not to advance the case directly to the Supreme Court, this may have a significant effect on the case.
That is why this whole thing is rediculous. So what if he's his son. It's not like his son is paying him to sympathize with Microsoft. A lawyer's job is to represent his client; not to create empathy in the judge/jury.
Really, I think we need to grow up about these kinds of things.
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I am the dot in slashdot.org
The court could have simply decided not to hear the case at all, in effect upholding the first level court's decision.
:)
:)
Yes, they could have. But why would they? Judges love to write opinions; they love to take laws and slice them apart, dissect them under a legal microscope and reassemble them. US v Microsoft is the biggest trial of this century (1901-2000), and it pits 21st Century business models against 19th Century laws.
To a legal scholar, this is like crack cocaine. There's no way they can put down this case. Every judge I know says that they're glad they're not Judge Jackson, due to all the scrutiny he's under... but every single one of them wishes he was Judge Jackson, just so that he could get to write the opinion in US v Microsoft.
Remember: this case is legal crack. Every judge simultaneously fears and lusts for this case.
The Supreme Court is psychologically incapable of giving this case a pass. It's not going to happen. It's going to go to the Court and they're going to write opinions left and right, putting flourish on them worthy of Papal encyclicals. This is another Roe v Wade, another Brown v Topeka School Board... it's big, very big.
So it's a given that SCOTUS is going to hear this case. The only question is when, and after how much legal scholarship? The decision to hand it back to Appellate court is entirely defensible. To continue with the drug analogy, right now they've got a dime bag of crack in the form of Judge Jackson's Findings of Fact, Findings of Law, and his breakup order. Once the Appellate Court is done with it, they're going to have a semi-truck filled with crack. SCOTUS is going to spend six months on a legal high smoking that stuff.
The only way a person ever gets an automatic appeal in a legal case is if they are convicted of a capital crime.
Yes. It's done this way for a reason; a lot of times, people don't want to go through the expense and trouble of an appeal. You only get an appeal if you want one. The exception is in capital crimes, which has a mandatory appeal just because the government wishes to make absolutely certain that innocent people are not wrongly convicted in capital cases.
This is another example of how the law is designed to look fair upon cursory examination...
The law is exquisitely fair. The same laws apply to both sides equally. That's the textbook definition of fair. Now, there are a lot of concerns about the competency of public defenders, et. al., and there's a lot of merit to those concerns--but the law is brutally fair. That's why so many people hate it.
Fair, in a legal context, doesn't mean everybody's happy. Fair means everybody gets screwed over equally. That's why smart people avoid trials whenever possible. While I like fairness, I'd rather avoid getting screwed over.
Think for a second about the symbol of justice that they give to us.
Who's they? Answer: they is us. We're the ones who gave that symbol of justice to the courts; they didn't give it to us.
If I were going to swing the sword of justice based upon the results of a weighing, would I wear a blindfold?
Wrong symbolism. The woman represents the judicial system. The blindfold represents judicial fairness (or, screwing over everyone equally); it's a metaphor for the courts not paying any respect to social class, position, political power or, for that matter, anything else save the law. The scales represent fair judgment; courts "weigh the evidence" to come to a decision, without once looking at who's well-dressed and who's homeless. The sword represents the screwing-over; while the court is fair (and screws everyone over equally), if you're deemed to be a naughty person who just murdered sixteen people because you were frustrated about finding walnuts in your brownie, buster, that sword is for you, and you are not going to like it.
That symbol is a little joke that the evil people couldn't resist.
Friend, I hate to tell you this, but the evil people are us.
We're the ones who gave the courts that symbol. If you think justice has been hoodwinked, then by God, man, act on it.
Write a letter to your Congressional representatives. Tell them to change the laws regulating the courts so that they make more sense. If they won't respond to you, run for office yourself.
Write a letter to your local judges, expressing your frustrations and asking them to exercise better judgment and discretion in the future. They won't write back to you--they're forbidden from doing so by ethics laws--but according to the Constitution, they must read your letter! (The right to petition the government for the redress of grievances is useless if the government is permitted to throw away petitions unread. Hence, the government is required to read your complaints.)
You have a lot of recourse here, as do I, as does everyone. Stop griping and start using your recourse. The government does not care about someone who sits on their couch, watches a little CNN and bellyaches about problems. Really, they don't care a damn.
The instant your feet hit the ground and your ass leaves the couch, Uncle Sam will tremble in fear and throw himself at your feet, begging for mercy. The government knows how powerful the people are when they're motivated to do something.
After all, that's how our nation was established.
No. No. No.
Dell, IBM, Gateway, Compaq and others sell Linux machines without any MS OS at all, and MS does not receive one red cent of Windows licensing for them.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
Years ago, MS was stopped (using anti-trust laws) from putting blanket restrictions on PC manufacturers that if they sold ANY PC with MS-DOS, they had to pay a license for EVERY PC they sold.
Not exactly true. Microsoft agreed to no longer do this, and signed a binding contract with the government to abide by that agreement. This was a peace offer of sorts to get the DOJ off of MS's back, and avoid a trial. No laws were involved other than contract law.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
Uhm...That's what anti-trust law does.
Wait, ethics in Los Angeles??! Bwaahahahahah!! ;)
Wait, ethics in D.C.??! Bwaahahahahah!! Double Bwaahahahahah!!
Besides, you shouldn't be so hard on the guy. Teaching law is an impressive accomplishment for a man whose own father once referred to him as a "little green monster".
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Freeper Logic
I just got off the phone with someone who is over 2000 miles away, and I paid less than 5 cents a minute.
Libertarians are idiots.
it can be very good for a family to have one eldery person bust his ass, work the system, then, as an insider, the genetic leavenings can slide into positions of high authority w/o really doing much.
Albert Gore begat Al Gore.
George Bush begat G.W. Bush (and Jeb).
Joe Kennedy begat...oh shit let's not go there.
the real problem is the corruption. I mean, the smartest thing Bill Gates and Co. can do now is start doing background/lineage checks on all the appeals court Judges to see where they stand as far as employing their offspring in Microsoft or a shadow affiliate.
You can bet Rehnquist's son will have favor in the law firm, as a result in this decision, even though it wasn't even close. My gut feeling : it made no difference. Had the vote been closer, then I think he should have bowed out.
Remember, this is the richest man in the world, living in a highly corrupt country. It's unlikely that MSHAFT will ever get more than a handslap/$1 fine, for example.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Perhaps it is because I was not educated in America, but I do not believe that justice is simply legal revenge for the victims. I deplore the emotional victim testimony during sentencing, and I'm deeply suspicious of the victim "pressing charges".
Justice only exists to protect society by discouraging illegal acts. "Innocent until proven guilty" is an important element in this. Punishment should be appropriate to deter the perp and others from similar crimes.
That said, you are absolutely right that the additional delay is highly advantageous to MS. I would expect the DoJ to request commensurately more severe penalties and remedies. If Appeals cannot increase sentencing, then deterrence is undone.
Try reading this
Damn sounds pretty good to me, although I wasn't using Linux at the time, hell i was still using win3.11 on top of IBM lan manager 1.0.
Read my plan to save the Bengals
Well sure antitrust has been spottily enforced. Not everyone at the DOJ thinks its a good idea either. (either generally, or more usually I suspect, in very specific cases)
But when it has been exercised, I still don't think that it usually has been for ill. Are cases frequently brought by competitors? Sure. The DOJ has better things to do. They don't start antitrust cases themselves that frequently. But let competitors try to do it to each other and they'll police themselves to our benefit.
While the effects may indeed raise prices (East India Tea was cheap too, for all the good it did) since when have they reduced competiton? (Innovation varies - yeah, it's great to have Bell doing pure research, but it's also great to have cellphones, phone cards, PBX software, faxes, etc.)
And had IBM bought MS at the beginning... people still would have flocked to them just for the name. But the clones would have died - w/o an RE'd OS they wouldn't be legal, just as it was with the BIOS. Would DR have written an RE'd OS? Would IBM have renewed Apple's basic license? (MS had them by the balls in real life) I think that it would have eventually ended up in something along the lines of the PS/2. A closed but otherwise nice debacle for us. Not at all fun if there was nothing significant competing with it.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
If you really wanna seriously discuss this, I'm game, otherwise I'm dragging and dropping all flames to the Recycle Bin
/dev/null :->
I think you meant to say
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
If Microsoft wins or loses it will realy change things? What should be with Microsoft was already well put by RMS. Require them to have all thier API well documented and made public or a reasonable cost. They can not use patents for market dominace.If I find the link I will post up here.
I don't know... but I've used MSDN, and LinkExchange, and haven't seen those spams. I am getting sick of zzn.com though...
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
Kennedy Clan, Bush (George, Jeb, George W.), Albert Gore (Al Gore).
This is a country that runs on nepotism, political favors, bribes, payoffs and kickbacks.
If the vote had been closer, then it would have mattered, and he should have bowed out. I suspect that the Supreme Court, for the most part, did not feel they had cause to fast track this case, so it's no big deal.
If we were at war, and it involved national security or something, then, yes, I think they would have heard it.
The bigger picture, where the two lead candidates for the USA's presidency both come from "political families", is scary. It's like having fucking royalty all over again.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
So, nothing to do with justice and the law, Microsoft will get off scott-free because the appeals judges will have a tantrum because they didn't get invited to the party. US law must be great fun to practice.
I personally think that if you have made it to the position that Judge Rehnquist holds, you'd pretty much know what you are doing. I definatly wouldn't think a Supreme Court Justice would play favorites at that level.
See politicians, also J. Danforth Quayle
That's certainly true *now*.
But if I recall correctly, and I could be wrong of course, the court was discussing M$'s bundling practices (Netscape and OS) of the past 10 years, before Linux was a choice, while OS/2 was still a contender, and when Netscape was still a solvent, independent company.
Now the landscape is radically different. It makes no sense to talk about today's situation in the context of yester-year's behaviors.
The nick is a joke! Really!
GPL Deconstructed
Obviously I agree that even had Rehnquist recused himself the case would've gotten bounced back to the lesser appeals courts.
But Rehnquist should have recused himself; judges must avoid even the appearance of impropriety.
And I totally disagree with your opinion that MS will win, or that they ought to. The cure is an old one - antitrust legislation has been around for about a hundred years, and it has been pretty damn good too. But I find it difficult to believe that you don't think that MS has been acting illegally. It's a pretty cut and dry case.
Certainly MS never had any problems with antitrust legislation existing until recently. (given that IBM would be the only computer company, had a number of cases not been persued against it)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
IANAL, but I do not believe that current US Antitrust law includes imprisonment for induhvidual officers. Even less likely for the two sections Judge Jackson found MS guilty on.
Perhaps Gates, Ballmer et al should be imprisoned. But you cannot imprison them unless that was the penalty at the time they committed their crimes. The law would need to be changed, and then broken for new penalties to apply.
Or perhaps you believe in retroactive law??? Imprison Napster users maybe?
Has anything like that happened before, and if so, what would happen next? Would the lower court's ruling stand, or would M$ be in the clear? Hmmmm....
Okay /. legal scholars, (including the IANAL bunch), whadya think?
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Supreme Court justices can also be impeached, though I can't recall any instances of this ever happening.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Actually, it may be 'technically' unethical, but Rehnquist would not have to recuse himself unless the MS case actually got to the Supreme Court. IMAO, he should not have given an opinion at all, but based on the overwhelming majority to send it back to appeals, it really doesn't matter.
Is it wrong? Maybe. Does it actually have an effect on the disposition of the case? Not really.
The Appeals Court will view the case pretty much the same way. The Supreme Court returns cases to the Appeals Court, or refuses to hear them, all the time. Just because one of the Justices is related to one person involved with the MS case is really irrelevant. Again, it would make a difference if it came to the Supreme Court, but that's an arguement for if it ever happens, which I highly doubt, no matter what MS pulls.
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
The Chief Justice, and all other federal judges, may be impeached by the House and tried by the Senate just like the President.
If the President can be impeached for failing to volunteer incriminating personal information when he was never asked a straight forward question as to what physical activities actually took place between him and another consenting adult, then certainly a Chief Justice who apparently violates the Judicial Ethics Laws in the US Code should be subject to at least a further investigation.
Think of all the Supreme Court nominees who were rejected because they didn't understand the tax witholding laws for their nannies. If this was on a court nominee's record, there is no way they would be approved for the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court Justices, must hold themselves to the highest standards of ethical conduct, both in fact and in appearance, if nothing else, there is certainly the appearance of a conflict here and he should have recused himself.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
It couldn't possibly be because the Supreme Court is somewhat conservative, and prefers to have major cases such as this one go through the entire process before appearing on their docket. It couldn't possibly be because judges (including Justices) are loathe to circumvent the appeals process. It couldn't possibly be because the Supreme Court docket is already full, and having such a critical case thrown before them without the full weight of appeals already built doesn't exactly make the Justices happy. Nope, it's got to be a conspiracy.
Call me a blind optimist, but I believe that, unlike Congress or the President, the Supreme Court still takes its responsibility to the Nation and the Constitution very seriously. I don't believe they're in any way, shape, or form, corrupt. Indeed, if they were to become corrupt, we would truly be doomed, for they are the final arbiters of the Constitution.
Yes, but the only reason they would have agreed to such restrictions is because of anti-trust laws. If these laws didn't exist, Microsoft would have had no motivation to sign such a contract.
There is no way that that post deserves to be modded all the way to the top.
Slashdot isnt about promoting Linux above other platforms, instead it is about posting news, rumors, and "Ask Slashdot".... its about being open to new ideas.
Linux isnt the best OS, nor is Windows, nor Solaris, Irix, QNX, BSD.... etc.... there is no perfect OS.
Harm caused by slashdot is well deserved as it is just bringing to light news/events/ideas that interest geeks. That is why the slashdot pages always say "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters". It really does matter.
Ever need an online dictionary?
"I will gladly pay you today, sir, and eat up
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
Doesn't everyone who uses a computer have a interest of one sort or another in this case? So therefore this case should go to the amish court!
-HobophobE
-HobophobE
Nothing laughs forever.
Maybe in ignorant 3rd world countries where religion and government are one and the same. But not here in America where there is separation of church and state.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Funny how someone seems to care about this, but nobody raised a finger at the lunacy of the antics in the 2600 case.
Moo
You should ask some older black and Hispanic voters in Phoenix Arizona about that!
From 1958-1962 William Rehnquist ran the "Ballot Security" team for the Republican party in Phoenix. The purpose of the "ballot security" team there as elsewhere in those days was to harass minority voters at the polls. They passed themselves off as polling station workers and election officials, accosting minority voters at the polls and insisting that they prove their eligibility with literacy tests (not administered to whites), not allowing them to pass, challenging them repeatedly on the authenticity of their voter registrations, telling minority voters that their papers weren't in order and that they could go to jail or be fined a large amount for voter fraud. Occasionally even in Phoenix they threatened and pushed and shoved those who knew their rights and would not be cowed. In a Federal prosecutor's report from Phoenix in 1962, Rehnquist was named as a prinicpal source of the problem.
During his 1986 confirmation hearings as Chief Justice, Rehnquist's defenders made much of a possible mistake in one such report where Rehnquist was supposedly confused with another man who was carried away by the police for using violence to intimidate minority voters at a polling station. Somehow it was glossed over that Rehnquist was the coordinator of that man's activities and of all the other ballot security team memebers, despite the testimony of eyewitnesses in the Senate chamber who corroborated the Federal prosecutor's report with accounts placing Rehnquist in the trenches of voter harassment, not just directing from a safe distance.
You can certainly trust William Renquist to be an enemy of the voting rights of minorities.
I can't say for sure how he would voted if he were presiding over Supreme Court cases testing the legal validity of child labor bans, but you can know for sure how he would have ruled in Brown v. Board of Education. As a clerk to Justice Robert Jackson, Rehnquist wrote a memorandum in which he said "Plessy v Fergusson was right and should be reaffirmed." In other words he endorsed Apartheid in America. Forever. His justification? He went on to say that it was "time that the [Supreme] Court faced the fact that white people in the south don't like the colored people". So much for the guiding ideal that all men must be held equal before the law and so much for the 14th Amendment provisions that nobody may be deprived of the law's equal protection without due process. My group doesn't like this other group and that's justification enough to set aside the Constitution and make a separate set of laws for these other people crafted in the image of our hatred.
Is there really any doubt how this man would have ruled in the Dred Scott case? If it were up to fuckers like him the US would still recognize slavery as a form of property.
Sure, you can feel like trusting a Justice because he wears a black robe, but that's not what the law says should happen: in the history of US code regarding recusal, the standards have been broadened and toughened repeatedly until now it is the Judge's duty to step aside if there is an appearance of a possible conflict. Not an actual conflict, not after debate about whether there is or isn't a conflict, just the possible appearance of a conflict is enough. Judges must be above suspicion. Chief Justice Rehnquist is beneath contempt and therefore cannot make the standard. Maybe he can claim some sort of Federal exemption on account of his handicapped status as a flaming asshole.
But the Federal Government is unarguably the stupidest customer in the entire marketplace. They're the lowest common denominator, folks, and that's exactly where MSFT targets it product line.
The state where I live is one of the states suing MSFT. But the state CIO published a standard that says that WinNT is the only permitted O/S for new installs. Go figure....
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton
Wow! I had no idea. So we can't trust Judge Rehnquist. I stand by my statement that the media is looking for senstionalism, though. If they wanted proof that Rehnquist had ethics problems, they should've cited some of the information that AC posted.
We live in obscenely materialistic times and as such I imagine Microsoft (the perfect corporation, really, because it has the motivation of a cancer cell) and its money has, and will attempt to corrupt each and every person it comes into contact with. That's why the only people you can trust anymore are those who can't be bought. Linus understands this. So does Babel. Keith Richards used to say that when he quit heroin his new high was watching the faces of his dealers when he told them he didn't want any because he'd quit. Try it when Microsoft tries to interview you. Let them wine and dine you, lead them on, then simply spring it on them: "Sorry, your company just doesn't have any morals or ethics and I do." It's the best high there is. ;-)
My name is Carlos Montoya. You share files of my music. Prepare to die.
Would you rather have it that when Joe Consumer buys a PC he gets a blank box and has to go about installing an OS himself ? That would be a great way of killing demand for PC's overnight.
Of course, MS has no qualms about telling Joe Consumer to re-install the OS. I don't see that killing demand for PC's...
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
Take away Rehnquist's vote and the DoJ still gets spanked 7-1. But surely, the other seven are corrupt too, right?
Cheers,
Uhm...That's what anti-trust law does.
Except that it dosn't. If a contract clause is illegal then it is never any threat to anyone.
Compaq (and everyone else) could simply ignore such a clause and Microsoft couldn't sue them beacuse they'd at best lose at worst be held in contempt of court by the judge. (Some judges, quite rightly, don't like a plaintiff who wastes their and the defendants time.)
Nor would this have been dragged out for years. Self evidently such clauses can be "legal". Even though they have no place in a free market economy.
It would still have been a year or more to resolve this
resolve what -- the Microsoft case or who got frist post??
- Yes, my decision in this case might conceivably affect my son
- Any of my decisions might have an impact on the lives of 300 million people
- That includes my son
When you look at it from "might you have a personal interest in this case", you say, Yeah, of course he does. But then you realize that this is probably the case for every case the court hears. That's just part of being one of the most powerful people in the world.Now I've seen it all!
Appended to the end of comments I post? 120 chars?!
Come on, guys. The Supreme Court vote was 8 to 1 to send it back to Appeals -- where it should be in the first place.
Stick around, M$ will win it...and they should. Contrary to belief around here, the proposed cure's worse than the disease -- and not warranted anyway, INMNHO.
Robert Pugsley, who teaches ethics at Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles, said there was an appearance of impropriety and Rehnquist should disqualify himself under the law.
I Have A Friend That Goes To This School That Knows Him. That's Really Neat. You Can Tell I've Been Doing Too Much Gimpy Web Design Tonight By The Amount Of First-Letter-Capitalization I'm Doing. I Hate Being A Web-Monkey But I Love The Hours.
When Slashdot becomes embroiled in a legal battle against Microsoft (that Kerberos thing cut it pretty close) and it becomes publicized so Microsoft and Microsoft's controlled press (ZDNet) begins spouting anti-Linux/OSS/Slashdot nonsense that convinces the general public that Linux/OSS are the "bad guys" and Microsoft are the "good guys" (because everyone loves a good dualistic system!) and then Slashdot will be preoccupied with defending themselves from Microsoft hype, and somebody will realize they are no longer receiving news of Star Wars Origami or Open Source Mindstorms untainted by anti-ms/pro-linux hype and say, "WHAT HAPPENED? WHERE DID MY NEWS FOR NERDS, STUFF THAT MATTERS GO? HOW DID SLASHDOT BECOME THIS WARTORN BATTLEGROUND OF ANTI-MS?". And then everyone will go read Kuroshin (no '5', because, admit it, that's just gay).
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I am the dot in slashdot.org
That's ridiculous. The justices all have life tenure and salary protection. The chief has no extraordinary power: he assigns the writing of opinions in some cases, and he essentially acts as MC at court.
STATEMENT OF CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST.
Microsoft Corporation has retained the law firm of Goodwin, Procter & Hoar in Boston as local counsel in private antitrust litigation. My son James C. Rehnquist is a partner in that firm, and is one of the attorneys working on those cases. I have therefore considered at length whether his representation requires me to dis-qualify myself on the Microsoft matters currently before this Court. I have reviewed the relevant legal authorities and consulted with my colleagues. I have decided that I ought not to disqualify myself from these cases. 28 U. S. C. 455 sets forth the legal criteria for dis-qualification of federal magistrates, judges, and Supreme Court Justices. This statute is divided into two subsec-tions, both of which are relevant to the present situation. Section 455(b) lists specific instances in which disqualifi-cation is required, including those instances where the child of a Justice "[i]s known . . . to have an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding."
28 U. S. C. 455(b)(5)(iii). As that provision has been interpreted in relevant case law, there is no reason-able basis to conclude that the interests of my son or his law firm will be substantially affected by the proceedings currently before the Supreme Court. It is my under-standing that Microsoft has retained Goodwin, Procter & Hoar on an hourly basis at the firm' s usual rates. Even assuming that my son' s non-pecuniary interests are rele-vant under the statute, it would be unreasonable and speculative to conclude that the outcome of any Microsoft proceeding in this Court would have an impact on those interests when neither he nor his firm would have done any work on the matters here. Thus, I believe my contin-ued participation is consistent with 455(b)(5)(iii).
Section 455(a) contains the more general declaration that a Justice "shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned." As this Court has stated, what matters under 455(a) "is not the reality of bias or prejudice but its appearance." Liteky v. United States, 510 U. S. 540, 548 (1994). This inquiry is an objective one, made from the perspective of a reasonable observer who is informed of all the sur-rounding facts and circumstances. See ibid.; In re Drexel Burnham Lambert, Inc., 861 F. 2d 1307, 1309 (CA2 1988). I have already explained that my son' s personal and fi-nancial concerns will not be affected by our disposition of the Supreme Court' s Microsoft matters. Therefore I do not believe that a well-informed individual would conclude that an appearance of impropriety exists simply because my son represents, in another case, a party that is also a party to litigation pending in this Court.
It is true that both my son' s representation and the matters before this Court relate to Microsoft' s potential antitrust liability. A decision by this Court as to Micro-soft' s antitrust liability could have a significant effect on Microsoft' s exposure to antitrust suits in other courts. But, by virtue of this Court' s position atop the federal judiciary, the impact of many of our decisions is often quite broad. The fact that our disposition of the pending Microsoft litigation could potentially affect Microsoft' s exposure to antitrust liability in other litigation does not, to my mind, significantly distinguish the present situation from other cases that this Court decides. Even our most unremarkable decision interpreting an obscure federal regulation might have a significant impact on the clients of our children who practice law. Giving such a broad sweep to 455(a) seems contrary to the "reasonable per-son" standard which it embraces. I think that an objective observer, informed of these facts, would not conclude that my participation in the pending Microsoft matters gives rise to an appearance of partiality.
Finally, it is important to note the negative impact that the unnecessary disqualification of even one Justice may have upon our Court. Here--unlike the situation in a District Court or a Court of Appeals--there is no way to replace a recused Justice. Not only is the Court deprived of the participation of one of its nine members, but the even number of those remaining creates a risk of affir-mance of a lower court decision by an equally divided court.
Mmmm.. Donuts
With an 8:1 landslide in favor of MS, it is scurrilious to impugn the impartiality of the Chief Justice.
Doubtless the Supremes had their reasons. First and foremost, there's a good reason for all the layers of appeal: you get different arguments and different thinking at each stage. Why not get that out on the table?
Even though I believe MS is guilty as sin, they do deserve all their days in Court. Can't have them claiming there was a rush to judgement.
If the Appeals overturns [as MS hopes], then the Supremes could reaffirm, and perhaps impose a different punishment! MS may yet rue the day it appealed.
So we must all agree first what constitutes damage to the consumer.
Actually, you must first agree as to what constitutes a consumer, then you can assess damages.
Is it the general public or is it the guy who has to deal with Microsoft directly (eg. OEM, VAR etc) ?
'sapientia potestas est'
Do you really think that, despite the fact that there are dozens of top lawyers working at this case, nobody would have thought to look at this law you cite? Are you really that stupid and arrogant?
After reading through all the posts I just wanted to point a few things out.
- Congress can overturn a supreme court decision by amending the Constitution. Basic checks-and-balances people. How much more ignorant of the legal process can you be?
- If the Supreme Court makes a decision that the public disagrees with AND the Constitution is not amended THEN nothing happens. The law is the law. No amount of public outcry changes anything. Just think how pissed the South was after the Supremem Court decided to integrate schooling in Brown vs. Board of Ed - there was a lot of outcry but the law stood. And with good reason.
- Just because his son may represent Microsoft does not mean that Rehnquist has to recuse himself. It could be, and is likely the case, that this does not belong before the Supreme Court quite yet. Higher courts often remand cases to lower courts. The Supremem Court is a last-resort NOT the first stop.
- Just because the appellate court may appear to favor Microsoft does not mean that it should not hear the case. That argument makes absolutely no sense. If it was a prima facia anti-MS court you would be all gung ho about remanding it to that court. This case, like every other case, has to follow the legal process in every step. Accept it and move on.
- There are 9 Supreme Court Justices. They often disagree with each other. None is more powerful or important than any other. It would be very difficult for Rehnquist to make the other 8 agree with him "just because it is my Son." Don't believe me - wait until the dissent comes out.
I like food.
1. (5) He or his spouse, or a person within the third degree of relationship to either of them, or the spouse of such a person: blah blah blah
That applies to if his son were going to be in the courtroom defending or prosecuting MS in front of the Supreme Court.
2. The situation you describe his son being in, he wins either way no matter how the Supremem court rules. In fact he will probably make MORE money if They are declared an (illegal) monopoly and have to battle private antitrust suits. All you slashdotters should hope that their IS a conflict of interests, as it is a conflict that reflects YOUR best interests.
>Think of all the Supreme Court nominees who were rejected because they didn't understand the tax witholding laws for their nannies.
:-)
Thought that was the first two Attorney Generals that Clinton tried to appoint.
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
They have the odds stacked against them, because the proof is overwhelming.
Yeah. Right. Just like O.J. Simpson did.
--------
"I already have all the latest software."
The concern here for Compaq isn't getting sued by Microsoft. The concern is Microsoft refusing to license Windows to them.
Look, the fact is that if things go the way they've been going, MS will be off of the OS within two years, making a seperation of OS and Apps divisions pointless, and now that it's going back to the appeals court, MS has atleast two years of un-hindered time to do exactly as the please.
What should have happened was that MS should have been broken into three parts. OS, Apps, and network technologies, and then the Supreme court hears the case and lets it stand. MS would be dead in the water. Period.
Once they get the X-Box out and start shovelling it into homes as a set-top box, just wait to see how long it is before we have a "fixed Windows platform" which bootstraps off of their servers for content, etc...
Chief scofflaw Rehnquist began his career on the high bench with an almost certain lie: He told the senate under oath that he hasn't discussed Roe vs. Wade, a supreme court ruling that took place while he was a law student at Yale.
Since then he has consistenty done as much as he could to gut the legal protections afforded to the less well padded among us. His tenure was marked with an assault on habeas corpus, miranda, the right to sue, civil rights gained by minorities, gender equality, immigrants rights, native american religion, etc.
In addition, He also presided with gusto over lowering the bar for contorted and incoherent legal arguments. And he proved to be a master of disdainful ethical insensitivity. As he said in this case, he has the power to affect his son's career, but hey, what's our beef, isn't this the job of the chief justice?
Taking him to task is ridiculous. He is not biased--he can't be. Like the pope, he is Truth incarnate.
-- look, cheese ahoy!
Did you completely fail learning to read while you were in school? As i SAID, Judge Jackson didn't declare Microsoft a monopoly based on a particular market segment (desktops, etc.). He declared it a monopoly based on the kind of microcomputer (x86).
Mmmm.. Donuts
Right . I have a problem trusting any one in the(any) Government . Isn't that a problem which should be tackled in the new millenium ?
Anil Bhattacharji , anilbhx@sancharnet.in, Meerut Cantt. INDIA 91-121-642166
In light of this revelation, I am actually happier that the Court decided not to hear the Microsoft case yet. The appellate judges are not likely to return a decision for at least a year, and probably two years. During this time, Rehnquist will probably step down from the Court (after all, he is a very old man). By delaying the case, he is avoiding a major conflict of interest.
Yes, the appellate court may side in Microsoft's favor, but I would rather see that than have the Supreme Court return an all-too-typical 5-4 decision in Microsoft's favor, with Rehnquist as the deciding vote.
"Even genius needs a competent technique."--Robert Fripp
How about this: Lack of choice for the consumer. Not being able to chose best of breed web browsers, through bundling and other practices. Netscape, specifically, and not being able to sell PCs with Netscape, as dictated by MS.
Not really a lack of choice when you can go to netscape.com and download it. Perhaps McDonalds should get broken up because I'm forced to drink Coke and they don't offer me the choice of Pepsi.
Or how about not being able to chose the best of breed graphics and 3d for PCs. We get direct3d at the expense of openGL, when openGL was mature and well defined, and direct3d was just a poorly design upgrade to Windows. Stuck with poor performance, poor implementation, poor design and poor product for 6 iterations now.
Again you are free to use OpenGL, no company should be forced to inculding something in their product that they don't want to. Just because you want OpenGL doesn't mean they have to put it in.
What else? How about their pricing policies, essentially the M$ tax? Every PC comes with M$ Windows, and you pay for it, even if you don't need it? It's similar to bundling child car seats with every car, and charging for it. It's not even a selling feature, it's mandatory with every PC that Compaq or Dell had to sell.
If you buy a car with a stereo you don't get a discount if you promise not to use it, why should you when you buy a PC ? Would you rather have it that when Joe Consumer buys a PC he gets a blank box and has to go about installing an OS himself ? That would be a great way of killing demand for PC's overnight. Most consumers can't do this and just want a PC that they take out the box, plug in and use.
rjh's post is an excellent example of the conventional point of view. I would like to dissect it a little bit.
As I see it there are two types of people who staunchly support the legal status quo - there is a small core of truly evil psychopaths who benefit from the deliberate actions of the psychopaths who proceeded them in the legal system. These people are not in any sort of formal conspiracy and never have been - but they recognize each other when they see another of like mind. In the past these people have been very influential in shaping the course of the legal system. They understand that the correct course is a very narrow path; that it takes only a single step off of that path to steer things into the quicksand on either side of the path. It takes only small, deliberately introduced errors, in the structure of the legal system to pervert it from something intended to be good to something which results in evil.
The second type of status quo supporters in the legal system are those who are utterly unable to see the evil core of what they are doing and come up with reasonable explanations for their actions.
Let us give rjh the benefit of the doubt, and assume that he is not a psychopath. That is a reasonable assumption to make as most psychopaths are unwilling to try fighting out in the day light where they might be exposed for what they are.
The first point rjh raises is about this case being legal crack. He is correct in that point; it is the tacit understanding of that point that causes most people to have an expectation that Microsoft will get a de-facto automatic appeal. I have no argument with the fact that the law is very addicting to those who practice it. I would like to point out that addictions are generally considered to be very bad things.
People who are addicted to anything are often very dangerous, and legal addicts are no exception; people who are in positions where their actions affect the lives and fortunes of others need to be particularly resistive to the temptations of addiction; less they do great harm in feeding that addiction. Sadly the people who are in positions of great power and thus are potentially far more dangerous to society than any single criminal could ever be - rarely resist the temptations that the law gives to them.
Temptation is the main tool of evil, it is how people are seduced into doing evil's bidding. Here is an example of the direct temptations that a few evil people have suggested into the basic structure of the law: the royal treatment that is given to judges. Judges dress in royal robes and are addressed by a royal title; "Your honor".
Doubtless an apologist for the legal system will be quick to point out that the honor is for the legal system - not for the individual judge - but that is only a plausible lie. The brutal truth - which the judges are not honest enough to admit to themselves - is that their subconscious minds except the 'stroking' they are getting as their personal due - and most judges act as though they personally are due the respect that is being 'afforded to the legal system'.
For example most contempt citations come when somebody shows a judge that the judge is wrong about something - it would be a very rare situation when you would get a contempt citation for showing a judge he was right. The judge realizes he was wrong - but isn't about to admit it - so he threatens a contempt ruling if the lawyer doesn't stop causing the judge turmoil. When would you get more angry, when you think you are right about something and somebody disagrees with you - or when you realize you were wrong but you don't want to admit it because it would make you look bad?
Now let us look at the second point rjh raises - about automatic appeal. I believe he has misinterpreted what I was saying. I meant that someone would have an automatic right to have an appeal heard if one was offered. I did not mean that all cases would be automatically appealed to a higher court.
Now to the crux of the discussion; the contention that the law is fair. Rjh states that the law is exquisitely fair - that it applies equally to both sides. I have no objection to statement that the law applies equally to both sides - that is absolutely true; Bill Gates is just as forbidden to steal a loaf of bread to feed his family as is someone living under a bridge. In that sense the law is equally applied - the question is: "Does that automatically mean that the law is fair in practice?" The answer to that question is - as the loaf of bread example demonstrates - "Not necessarily; correctly applied law can be very unfair."
We now get to my real argument with the legal system: rjh's legal definition of the word fair :
" Fair, in a legal context, doesn't mean everybody's happy. Fair means everybody gets screwed over equally."
My main objection to the legal system is the belief by those in the profession that they get to screw everybody . That Sir is a carnivorous view of the world; the belief that everyone else is raw meat for your consumption.
Here is an alternative structure for the legal system: that the law be constructed so as to afford the maximum chance of arriving at a decision which is "Free of favoritism or bias - impartial, just to all parties, equitable, consistent with rules, logic, or ethics." That is the definition of fair which most people mean when they say "fair" in a legal sense - and that is what most people want to get from the legal system. But by your own admission that is not what people get as the legal definition of fair. The legal definition of fair comes from a different definition of the word fair: " Lawful to hunt or attack as in fair game ".
None of the rest of us have got any interest in having a legal system which allows those in the system to screw everybody equally. I am sure that those of you in the system have fun with the illusion of power that screwing all the rest of us gives to you - but the simple fact is that we all hate you for it. You have outlined something which is absolutely evil in its nature - and there is no arguing with that fact - you really stepped on your dick with that admission.
I stand by my statements about the 'blind lady'. I am sure that the people who created that symbol (at least the addition of the blindfold) meant exactly what I said they meant by it - they came up with the plausible lie about 'impartiality' to mask what they were doing. It is an idiotic symbol.
The problem with having any sort of hidden agenda is that is the intellectual equivalent of trying to walk in one direction while looking like you are walking in another direction. This is a ridiculous method of walking - no one tries it in the physical world because it is so obvious. The mental "hidden agenda walk" is just as obvious to anyone who is basically honest and has some world experience - people with hidden agendas look strange. The only hope of getting away with a hidden agenda is to convince everyone that "This is how we walk in this field". A key to spotting institutionalized hidden agendas is to look for systematic formalism: any time people are dressed in 'traditional' garbs and do things in a formalized stilted fashion - that can be used to hide a "hidden agenda walk" - by getting everyone in the field to have that peculiar "walk". The formalism's of the legal system are there to hide the presence of evil in the system - anything else is a plausible lie used to sell that formalism to the people in the system.
For instance here is an example of an argument that could be used against what I have to say: "Ballet is done in traditional garb and in a 'stilted' formal fashion - do I think there is a hidden agenda in Ballet?" No, Ballet does not have the power to damage the population as a whole - a hidden agenda there would be meaningless. The legal system does have the power to cause great damage so anything which could hide a hidden agenda in the law is something which it is proper to suspect.
Now as to rjh's advice that I quit complaining and run for office etc. As a matter of fact I have run for office, and I have been involved in politics. What I learned from that experience is that before people can change things that they have to understand :
1. That a problem exists.
2. What the problem is.
That is an education problem: how do you show people a problem they don't even dream exists? What I am doing on slashdot is trying to learn how to educate people about the existence of a problem which they don't know is there. The main problem which I face is that circumstances are such that anyone who does see the fundamental problems in the world looks like a crackpot - things are so complex that I need a great deal of bandwidth to transfer the information I have obtained in my life. The internet is the highest bandwidth information transfer agent I have available - so I use it.
I have discussed the "we are the government" argument is previous posts - while that may have flown in 1800 - not many people buy that particular argument 200 years later.
There are evil people in the law - just as there are evil people in most fields - the difference is that the law is the only field which is structured deliberately to favor those who are evil. While there are psychopaths who enter surgical fields in medicine because they enjoy cutting people and causing them pain I do not believe that the surgery was created for the amusement of those people.
I do believe that the law differs in that respect and that the fundamental structure of the legal system needs to be completely revamped.
The victims of microsoft's monopoly practices are not the average joe. No, the victims are the Dells, Compaqs, Gateways and official distributors. This is true in almost every jurisdiction. If you purchase something from Best buy or Fry's Electronics, the transaction is between you and best Buy or Fry's Electronics, not you and Microsoft.
Some states have laws written in such a way that this does not apply. In those states, the victims my well include individuals that purchased boxed products from distribution.
--Joe
Apple is not a monopoly in PC space though. It shares the field with M$.
If confined to PPC space, it can be charged with being a monopoly, but it actually created that space, and owns that space. It's a tough call if any sort of regulation can be thrown at them, since there really isn't any competition.
The nick is a joke! Really!
GPL Deconstructed
I just don't think that your rights should be determined solely by how much money you have to protect them, whether that's through funding campaigns, lobbying Congress or throwing obscene amounts at the legal process. And that's not aimed specifically at MS, since every major corporation does it.
Congress has the potential to get involved, if we do assume that the Supreme Court does something incredibly unethical. Article III of the Constitution places much of the disposition of the Judicial system under the control of Congress. It's hard to say what direct action they could legitimately take, since the thing's pretty vague. The courts have, by tradition, been the interpreters of the constitution, and would doubtless say that whatever Congress tried to do was illegitimate. The Judicial system's constitutional custodianship is, however, self-appointed, so who knows.
But practically, Congress could probably bully them into doing what they wanted. FDR, who could bully Congress, got the Court to do a 180 on the Commerce Clause by threatening to pack the courts with extra justices (even though the plan flopped).
The Senate could impeach any or all of the justices as well.
And, of course, Microsoft has recourse to the president, who can pardon them. Now that would be interesting... Bush gets elected, and pardons Clinton's quarry. It'd probably get him impeached... but then Ford got away with pardoning Nixon, so again, who knows.
Oh... you meant what recourse they'd realistically have? None. :-) Nobody wants a constitutional crisis, and Microsoft'd just be screwed.
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton
Part of breaking up the current "lesser of two nearly identical" evils is to look at _all_ the candidates, and vote for the one you most support (even if they have no chance of winning), and encourage others to do same. If none of the candidates _really_ has anything to offer, cast an invalid vote (I've done that once).
Of course, if you really want to work towards improving things, you need to become a activist, possibly for a political party or an organisation advocating electoral reform. Voting is a start though.
It saddens me that your country is so corrupt that who is president could make such a difference in the Microsoft case.
Roy Ward.
It sounds to me like the judge only acknowledged the obvious fact that if the Supreme Court decides the government antitrust suit against Microsoft it could have a direct effect on his son's private lawsuit. Of course it would. Any decision in a lawsuit will usually affect any litigation associated with it.
I think the media wants us to believe that the judge admitted he would have personal conflict in deciding the case, and possibly in this first decision. The more likely case is that the media dug up three statements from the always-infallible law-professor-bin to drum up some sensationalism about this high profile case.
Unless their is reason to believe Renqhuist has let his personal life interfere with his professional, the media should keep their dirty mouths shut.
Think about this for a moment. Which outcome will likely provide more income for Rehnquist's son? A Microsoft victory in the DoJ Antitrust case? Or a loss leading to massive litigation?
I think it's possible that Rehnquist is setting Microsoft up for a big fall (and, by the way, ensuring his son's very profitable and lifetime employment defending Microsoft against waves of private antitrust suits - for several decades).
Note his final comment, where he expresses valid concern that an equally divided Supreme Court could _affirm_ a lower court decision (presumably in Microsoft's favor, given bias already shown) by default. Rehnquist is actually leaving the door open for himself to cast the deciding vote _against_ Microsoft! He should be applauded for this, rather than subjected to foolish criticism.
Sometimes I think Slashdot should be renamed to "Kneejerk."
Well, if you check his bio, he's a litigation partner in one of Boston's largest law firms who served for five years as a federal prosecutor. It is hardly unbelievable that clients come to him without regard to who his father is.
Arguing the merits of Bush and Gore is like arguing the merits of fleas and lice. They are both in corporate pockets, though Gore not quite so much as Bush. But then again Bush is not so rabidly anti-gun as Gore. I'll just vote for Ralph Nader, someone who is in no uncertain terms not in anyones pocket.
Uff da. You really have a thing with evil, don't you?
The simple fact is that the legal system is not evil. It can't be evil. Evil, if you believe in it (note that it's fairly unique to the Judeo-Christian-Islamic mindset), is a trait of living, conscious beings. The legal system is not alive; therefore, it cannot be evil.
Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong were evil, but their governments were not--they simply were.
Therefore, I've got to discount your entire argument about the legal system being evil. While I will readily agree that there are people in positions of power who become corrupted by their power, that does not translate to the system being evil.
There are a lot of very good people who work in the legal system, in case this has escaped your notice. And unlike evil people, the good people tend to work together. By completely discounting the selfless and devoted service given to us by legions of underpaid, underrecognized public servants, you do the entire field of public service a dishonor.
The "royal treatment that is given to judges" is a historical accident. Remember that our courts are direct descendants of English Courts, and that some of our oldest law is English Common Law. (I know one judge whose hobby is finding the oldest precedent possible for a case--his record is finding an English Common Law decision from 1672 which applied to a case. Common Law is older than our country is; and our court system, as an inheritor of the Common Law, dates back to medieval times.) In the English system of court, the judge is a representative of the monarchy and is thus referred to with an honorific to show respect to the Crown.
In American courts, the judge is a representative of the people, and is thus referred to with an honorific to show respect to the people. It's that simple. Outside of the courtroom, I refer to judges as "Mr." or "Ms.", the same as I do anyone else. The vast majority of them seem to be quite content with the simple honorific of "Mr.", and by and large they return the favor in kind.
Most contempt citations come when somebody shows a judge that the judge is wrong about something
Show me your reference for this fact, please. Most contempt citations I've heard of come as the result of a litigant trying to usurp judicial power from the judge. The proper way to show a judge that he's wrong is to approach the bench, quietly point out the judge's error and a reference to where the judge can find correct information, and then proceed from there. This happens a lot in courts.
Judges make mistakes. They make a lot of mistakes. Most of them understand this, and are amenable to courteous reproach. What they are not amenable to is a litigant saying "Judge, you're wrong, as this reference points out" in open court. That undermines the judge's authority, and that is something which is not allowed to occur.
While your message is worded quite reasonably and eloquently, I don't think you understand the judicial system very well. It is composed of human beings, and as such, it has human failings. It strives eternally towards perfection, as most well-adjusted human beings do, and occasionally has enormous blunders and errors of judgment, as all human beings do. But it is neither good nor evil, because it is neither conscious nor alive.
It is my resolute belief that people are essentially good at heart. You apparently believe otherwise. Due to this difference, we are never going to agree, not in the slightest, on the judicial system. If you believe that people are essentially good, then the democratic systems which essentially good people bring up will also be essentially serving the good (with the occasional spectacular blunder, due to human nature).
If you believe that people are evil, then the democratic systems which evil people bring up will also be essentially serving evil (with the occasional spectacular moment of good, which you will discount as "well, they just haven't gotten around to corrupting that yet").
I have no need of your fatalist and pessimist philosophy. I feel it's wholly invalid, and possesses absolutely nothing of worth to me.
Ahhh, I see we have our first dumbass :-) It's called an analogy. The whole thing is a game ya moron. I was extending the metaphor.
--
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
25: ten.knilrevlis@wkcuhc
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
One might point out, however, that Direct3D is not available on any non-Microsoft OSes. So if I used Direct3D in writing a game, it would make subsequent (or simultaneous) ports to MacOS, Linux, BSD, etc, much more difficult. Microsoft is in a position to control the quality of the OpenGL implementation available on its machines.
Of course it could also be claimed that I am 'tilting at windmills' well meaning but mistaken. I have been wrong many times in the past, and I am sure I will be wrong many times in the future so that is possible - however, I have the honesty to admit that possibility. Do you have the honesty to admit that you might be wrong? I have a very different perpective on the legal system than lawyers have: I am looking at the forrest, lawyers look at the trees - I see very different things than legal schollars see.
You claim that the royal treatment of judges is an 'accident'. Bullshit, If it was an accident then the modern judiciary will realize that the royal title of 'Your honor' is unconstitutional - and that the royal treatment they are being given is wrong in an egalitarian country and they will stop demanding it. ROFLOL. Yeah, that is going to happen.
Do I believe people are mostly evil? No, I think that about 5% of people are evil. I think most people tend toward the 'good' end of the spectrum. It is not a bell shaped curve, it is a distribution which is skewed toward good.
I think that evil presents arguments which are attractively packaged and which if not examined closely are persuasive.
Arguments similar to mine could be made about many systems: for example "surgery causes pain, and therefore surgery is the product of evil." That is a specious argument. What differentiates my arguments from those kind of arguments is one key fact: The legal system is the only societal construct which is directly involved with the regulation of evil; as such it is the one system in society which evil people have an overriding desire to control. In effect the legal system acts like the societal equivalent of the human immune system.
What I am trying to point out is that there is a class of evil people who behave like the AIDS virus - they pervert that societal immune system to their own evil ends - to reproduce and further their goals rather than the goals which most people want. The actions of those people pervert those ideals which were democratically arrived at.
I have stated my views simply and in a way which anyone with an IQ exceeding that of a box turtle can understand. If you insist on 'arguing like a lawyer' to defend a system which has been corrupted by evil people, then I can have only one response to you: FUCK YOU, YOU EVIL PIECE OF SHIT
The US Supreme Court does not answer to the public. They do not answer to the President. They do not answer to either house of Congress. The only thing that can force a justice out of the supreme court is death.*1
If the Supreme Court rules against something, the only thing that can be done is for Congress to pass a law. If the law is ruled unconstitutional, then they have to pass a constitutional amendment. This is exceedingly difficult (as it should be, IMHO.) The other way to change the "unconstitutionality" of a law is to post a sympathetic judge to the court once a vacancy has occured. This is also not very easy with today's 2 party duopoly.
So, the checks and balences against the Supreme Court are very difficult to enact, verses the checkes and balances for the other 2 branches of the USA government.
The court moves slowly, but when it moves, it moves mountains.
--Joe Goldmeer
*1 This is not in any way, shape or form advocating that anyone attempt to harm or kill anyone, including members of the Supreme Court. If you do so, you will be caught and punished to the fullest extent of the law, and I won't care. so there, neah!
Name ONE appointee to any position whose appointment was NOT "politically motivated."
but perhaps the Chief Justice would have attempted to influence them to advance the case in other circumstances, and you have no idea how close they were to the fence. Situations like this need to be evaluated on principle, not outcome.
Anyway, don't you think it would have been worse ... if he
had gotten the case to the Supreme Court and tried to influence the decsion on that level?
what?! Better that a judge is corrupt in dropping a case rather than hearing it and really being corrupt? This is just nuts!
And I'm going to start a game requiring two shots every time an astroturfer posts an apologetic for MS's (or MS trial judges') misbehavior. (MSbehavior?)
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
3-4 supreme court justices and a entirely new DoJ will be appointed by the next president. Clearly the court wouldn't want to get caught in such a political case right before elections.
So you guys have a choice. One candidate will probably prosecute, the other will throw it out. Decide which one you want, and vote.
If you don't vote and it doesn't go your way, quit your bitching.
I personally think that if you have made it to the position that Judge Rehnquist holds, you'd pretty much know what you are doing.
Read "The Brethren". If Nixon hadn't beleived that "Renchquist" (as he called him) would be his right-wing conservative yes-man on the court he would never have gotten anywhere near the court. His appointment was purely politically motivated, and if I recall, he was Nixons third choice or so, after Congress outright rejected several other Nixon cronies. Things are not always as they appear 30 years later...
"I will gladly pay you today, sir, and eat up
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
actually, you are both wrong. Splitting the company is *not* slapping them hard, completely separate from whether they deserve to be slapped hard or not. Consider a simpler case like Standard Oil. If you split the company in two and give shares in each to the former shareholders of the old, those shareholders still own all of the assets that they owned before, all of the oil wells, all of the gas pumps, all of the trucks, etc. The assets are simply organized as two companies instead of one. The only loss of value occurs in erasing the monopoly benefit, and that's a benefit that is considered by the law to be illegitimate.
That's why the breakup is called a "remedy", not a punishment, because it fixes the problem for the future. The punishing slap comes from other fines.
Aargh!
It's *effect*, not *affect*.
'Is there anything stopping the average user from installing Netscape...?'
Yes. The average user doesn't KNOW HOW to install Netscape. I know it's just a matter of hopping over to www.netscape.com, finding the package, downloading, and double-clicking on the icon (almost forgot the obligatory reboot). However, that's 5 (or more, if you want to split hairs) steps to get a piece of software that has an almost identical look, feel, and feature set as software they were *so kindly given* by M$ (tongue FIRMLY in cheek).
And to your argument concerning OpenGL and Direct3d, the sad thing is that the consumer doesn't even know what he's missing out on. The programmers are so closely wedded to M$, they basically HAVE to work with the D3D API. You say it yourself... there wasn't much in the way of OpenGL implementation on Windows PC. Have you thought about why? OpenGL isn't M$ and they can't control it.
This isn't even a matter of a comsumer being computer savvy enough to check out the alternatives. There ARE no alternatives.
Using your logic, all users should be able to code up their own web browsers and 3d graphics engines if they are unhappy with the alternatives. Not likely!
Eric
PhDepot.com/spin
Some of you may remember Spin from 1995 when it made it's way around colleges. Well, now it's back just in time for the election. Time to show people what the media really does to package the news for us.
Others have pointed out that judicial ethics require the avoidance of an appearance of impropriety. They claim that because Rehnquist's son is working for a law firm representing Microsoft in an entirely unrelated matter, Rehnquist himself is somehow tainted.
However, neither Rehnquist nor his son are financially interested in the case. If Rehnquist owned stock in Microsoft, then he should recuse himself, because his fortunes may be riding on the decision the Supreme Court would have to make. But this is not the case here. The most either of them stand to gain by a biased decision towards Microsoft is the continued employment of Rehnquist the Younger - and this is already probably going to be happening already. Rehnquist the Younger does not need Microsoft to stay afloat to maintain his position in the law firm where he works.
The reasoning behind the alleged appearance of impropriety is thus tenuous at best. It is equivalent to recusing yourself from a business decision to buy Apple G4's for the office because your brother just happens to work for Apple as an accountant.
Of course, if Rehnquist's son were on the board of directors of Microsoft, or perhaps even just a staff attorney directly on the Microsoft payroll, it would be another matter.
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
More than one supreme court justice made the choice not to advance the case.
What the other justices decided is irrelevant to whether he should have excused himself. Suppose that instead of a conflict-of-interest question, it was an out-and-out case of bribery; suppose he took a $1 million bribe from Microsoft. If he knew it was going to be an 8-1 decision, would that make it okay for him to throw his vote away for money, since it wouldn't affect the outcome? No, of course not. Because it affects other things, like the public's trust in the judiciary. Likewise, to scale it back down to reality, even if he knew 7 other justices would vote the same way, if it would cause an appearance of a conflict of interest for him to participate, it would be wrong, and he should not do it. BTW, read Justice Rehnquist's rationalization in the longer article; it's quite illogical.
Things like this usually happen because the context is sufficient to determine the meaning. Witness the slow death of the word "whom" in the English language.
Tolerance for split infinitives has gone up recently too.
In 1986, I had a room-mate thrash me for using the phrase "a whole nother", because I had split an article. In his English major mind, that was far worse than splitting an infinitive.
Just a few years later, I actually heard one of my professors say "a whole nother", and she had no idea why I was smiling at her.
I could go off on adverbs too, but that's a whole nother post.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
So why does this matter in the next election? George W. Bush has stated that his Supreme Court appointees would all be like Justice Scalia- the most outspoken conservative on the Court. While their fundamental ideology may be about reducing the role of the federal government, you would likely see his appointees siding with the conservative side of the Court on other issues as well-- including the Microsoft case.
Oh yes, and though it's true that the conservative ideology involves reducing the role of government, in practice this seems to apply more to issues of federal legislation and business regulation than protection of individual freedoms. Just look at the rhetoric coming out of the Congressional Republicans- that we have to reduce taxes in X, Y, and Z, and that states should have more freedom to decide A, B, and C. But they're more than happy to pass bills limiting, for example, abortion rights, free speech rights, and other individual liberties. Whatever they stand for in "theory", if you want someone who will truly stand up for individual rights, you should vote Libertarian.
Still, for me, the most important issue this election is the Supreme Court, and how it will affect future laws affecting individual liberties, especially online. Thus, my biggest concern is that George W. Bush not get the opportunity to appoint people who would not be inclined to advance those goals. That's why I'm voting for Al Gore this November.
but when you type "MS v DOJ trial to be fast tracked" into word, it autocorrects it to say "Request for MS v DOJ trial to be fast tracked has been denied"
I wonder what his reasoning is. Is he implying..
Put me down as questioning Rehnquist's reasoning. He argues that no outcome of the case could effect his son's income. It is as if he believes there is an infinite supply of litigants willing to engage expensive lawyers. I will continune to
hope that this is not true.
True. With Microsofts behaviour in court it's not like an even longer trial will make it better for MS. My guess is we'll see new forged evidence (this video has been rendered on NT! your honor!), sexual favours, massive bribing and blackmail attempts before this is over.
The law says nothing about the person having to be on trial. It merely says that if there's a potential conflict of interest, the judge should recuse himself, and conflicts of interest include up to third degree involvement of interest. Certainly, if his son were on trial, that would be conflict of interest, but his son defending the same entity in another case also clearly falls within the language of the law.
Second thought: so, I, and all the other people who doubt his objectivity are simply being unreasonable?
A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both and deserve neither. - Thomas Jefferson
I don't see how this matters, or how the legal system is doing anything to stop Microsoft. The legal process is just too slow to be of any real use, and when all is said and done, it's remedies are not going to be very good anyway. The government would be better off buying from others until Microsoft behave. It would have a very immediate effect, as the US govt is an important customer.
It's just been revealed that the CHIEF JUSTICE of the fscking SUPREME COURT can be bought and sold by gates like so much fruit at the flea market!!!
To MY mind, that should be front page, New York Times news!
Or perhaps I was foolish not to have realised that the supreme justices have been for sale to the highest bidder all along. If so, that's one bit of foolishness I'm rathar sad to lose.
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Imagine all the people...
No, split them over the dozens of other similar situations with numerous OEM and software customers they bullied for the past 10 years. Split 'em and make it clear to any ermerging player that you will play fair or you will suffer. A fine would have to be of such immense numbers to make any impact of MS that it seems like a silly suggestion. How much do you fine a company for stifling healthy competiton? And how does the government taking in cash benefit end users; the dollars they have taken from business and consumers through illegal means, or repair the myriad small companies they have stifled? How can anyone still defend these jerks?
To fail is human, to blue screen MS!
Rehnquist probably should have abstained. He can't be utterly impartial (as judges must be) if his son is representing Microsoft. It could be argued, however, that by delaying the Supreme Court's hearing of the case, he increases the chances that by the time it hits the Supreme Court either his son won't be representing Microsoft anymore or he will have retired.
However, consider that even if Rehnquist had abstained, the outcome would not have changed. As it was, the vote to delay the case was 8-1 in favor of Microsoft; a 7-1-1 vote would not change that at all.
----------
Antitrust laws are harmful to consumers. They raise prices, reduce competition, stifle innovation, and foster corruption of government officials. The laws are used not to 'manage competition', but as strategic weapons by less-successful competitors seeking an advantage over market leaders.
Thank you Mr. Freedom to Innovate.
But consider the case of preinstalling browsers. Microsoft was forbidding companies like Compaq from preinstalling Netscape and forcing them to install only IE, under threat of losing their Windows license. If that type of behavior goes unchecked, the web becomes little more that the Microsoft version of AOL. It doesn't matter how fantastic of a browser Netscape makes at this point, Compaq has the choice of being Microsoft's bitch, or going out of business.
Tell me how this does not harm consumers. Microsoft has way, way too much power.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Anti-trust must show harm to CONSUMER. That hasn't been done, IMO.
Fine. So split the company over this?!
NO. Slap them hard and prevent anti-competitive practices. Finis.
I cannot affect the Microsoft court case, but I can have an effect on the lawmakers...
Clear???
Ever since I figured this out it drives me bonkers when people use the wrong one
Don't like my sig? I don't either.
Actually there is, the american public. We hold ultimate authority in this country. The government exists and derives its power from us. If the supreme court were to do something that the majority of americans were strongly opposed to, you can bet your bottom dollar something would be done about it directly or indirectly.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
I got the same thing. Again...
This is really PISSING ME OFF. I got spam from these guys on August 24 as well and requested to be removed from their list then. The online unsubscribe option DOESN'T WORK!
The one response I got from Microsoft requested me to register in their system and explicitely unsubscribe the newletter. ITS NOT THERE TO UNSUBSCRIBE!
I fucking hate Microsoft.
The "liberal" Democrats are just as likely to screw you based on nutty socialistic ideology as the Republicans are for money or on behalf of the superstitious right. The Republicans generally act to make a fast buck, while the Democrats just seem to be a bunch of misled morons who think we need them to be our parents. Sheesh!
So while Gore might maybe be less likely to side with Microsoft, it doesn't mean he isn't going to screw us all in other ways that are far worse.
Not that Bush is any better, God only knows what would happen if the favored party of the supertitious right controlled congress and the white house. It would put an end to the "gridlock" that's been the only think keeping both parties from tearing the country apart at the seams.
Ultimately Dennis Miller had it right when he said that who we vote for is based on who we think will screw us the least. I just wish I could vote for "none of the above" because I don't see either candidate as being good for the future of this country.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Actually, I don't think any state bar has an effect, because I'm pretty sure that you don't need to be a lawyer to be a Supreme Court Justice.
If you've got a corrupt SCOTUS member, the recourse is pretty much the same as with presidents: Impeachment by the House of Representatives, followed by a trial in the Senate. If two-thirds (I think) of the Senate votes to convict, the Justice is history.
Cheers,
Kind of like the way the Jewish community does itself harm when it publishes articles and materials decrying the holocaust of their people by the Nazi's?
Is that the kind of harm you're talking about?
If Microsoft doesn't piss you off it either means you aren't paying attention or you own some of their stock.
Which is it?
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Consider the following:
1. It only takes 4 justices to grant cert. to the Supreme Court.
2. The prevailing thinking (better left to those who claim to read palms) is that the appeals court below will rule in Microsoft's favor.
3. If that indeed turns out to be the case, at WORST Rehnquist's vote doesn't count at all in a 4:4 tie. At best he could be the tie breaker in favor of the government.
To recap, here are the issues that one has to consider in evaluating the CJ's actions:
First, he *did* disclose, and that's good because it means we can investigate whether or not he actually had a conflict of interest.
Second, if we are unable to determine whether or not he has a conflict, then he should recuse himself under the "appearance" clause.
Third, there are only 9 justices and as he wrote there is no one to fill is seat for this case. It is a justice's responsibility to participate in as many decisions as he ethically can, and on his ethics he is due more than just the benefit of the doubt, having served the country on the Court for nearly 30 years.
So I think there needs to be a bit more airing of the facts, but I'm inclined to be pleased by his decision in the end.
If someone like Judge Rehnquist can't be expected to be impartial then who can?
So what if it is his son. It's not like his son is Bill Gates. His son is representing Microsoft, nothing more. And while he can be expected to do his best to fight for Microsoft's side, he has no personal involvement in the company. Win or lose Rehnquist's son will still be an attorney and will go on to other cases and other clients.
So Judge Rehnquist should have no feelings of familial obligation towards the company his son is representing that would cause him to be less than impartial.
I don't like Microsoft, but I'm hardly going to pretend this is some kind of an issue just to have an excuse to complain about the company.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
One candidate will probably prosecute, the other will throw it out. Decide which one you want, and vote.
./ers that we vote based on our pocketbooks is really rich. Perhaps if you were talking about privacy, I might find the argument convincing, but the choice of president is not going to affect this case, regardless of what certain candidates have been implicitly promising.
Far be it from me to actually dissuade people from voting (please do), but this is a false choice. It really doesn't matter which of the four presidential choices you make in the US this year - the end result is likely to be pretty much the same.
And suggesting to
Your choice of Congressional or Senatorial representatives is much more likely to have a direct impact.
Will in Seattle
More than one supreme court justice made the choice not to advance the case.
I do not think that Judge Rehnquist influenced all of them. He may have violated ethics by particpating in the decision, but since it is a Judge's job to be informed of the case, chances are one of the other Judges may have known about his son also.
Anyway, don't you think it would have been worse (and he could have done more damage) if he had gotten the case to the Supreme Court and tried to influence the decsion on that level? Even if the Government loses - they can appeal, so technically, the case may still reach a court where he has a fair amount of influence.
My favorite point, for those that skip over the longer posts:
"Oh yes, and though it's true that the conservative ideology involves reducing the role of government, in practice this seems to apply more to issues of federal legislation and business regulation than protection of individual freedoms. Just look at the rhetoric coming out of the Congressional Republicans- that we have to reduce taxes in X, Y, and Z, and that states should have more freedom to decide A, B, and C. But they're more than happy to pass bills limiting, for example, abortion rights, free speech rights, and other individual liberties. "
So you shouldn't think that in a case where my son might be involved, it'd be any less hard, so the law doesn't apply.
Anyone else notice he reasoned parallel to the law? He didn't deal with the law on a point for point basis, he said he had a good reason for not obeying the law (even number of judges, tie potential), he really didn't think his kid would cloud his judgement, and besides, he makes hard decisions all the time. So, he shouldn't have to follow the law.
Hmm. I'm hungry, I think I'll go steal some food.
The law is the law, folks, and if a *supreme court* justice can't follow it, I think we have a real problem. It doesn't allow him to consider whether he should or shouldn't recuse himself, nor does it allow him to consider the magnitude of the impact on his son's interest. It also doesn't matter that the court voted 8-1. He should have recused himself, period.
A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both and deserve neither. - Thomas Jefferson
I seriously doubt this will matter in the long run for the Microsoft trial. They have the odds stacked against them, because the proof is overwhelming. In addition, if Rehnquist were to preside, he will most likely be harder on MS in order to prove his impartiality to the world.
This violation of ethics is so severe that the man should step down. Judges should never rule in a case that even has the _appearance_ of a conflict of interest.
This goes well beyond appearance.
It doesn't matter how the other judges voted or whether they chose to vote or not. Although, many judges do have a lot of Microsoft stock. All that matters is that _this_ one judge voted in _this_ one case when he shouldn't have and that calls the entire legal system into question.
-- Never make a general statement.
More proof that eventually all conversations twist enough that Hitler and his Nazis are the subject.
They are a threat to free speech and must be silenced! - Andrea Chen
Fish! LipHo
I know I'm gonna get flamed for this, but here goes...
/. readers still be "outraged" about these supposed ethics violations?
If Judge Rehnquist would have ruled in favor of speeding the trial to the Supreme Court, would
The majority would not. I know this sounds like a flame, but it is the truth.
It seems, from reading many of the comments, that whether he should have excused himself or not is related to whether he ruled in favor of Microsoft or not. When in fact it should be related strictly to the ethical question(s) presented in the article.
If you can honestly say that you think he should have removed himself regardless of the decision, then you are truly impartial.
-- bearclaw
The title says it all. Maybe M$ will save us alot of tax dollars when they go belly up before they get back in court. At the very least M$ will be downgraded to a "normal" company after the .NET fiasco. Then the whole monopoly issue will finally be at rest.
.NET will succeed, but considering both it's harebrain idea and the lukewarm reception to Me/2000, M$ is on the downslide (no, it won't die... but it'll be weakened greatly).
Of course there is a very slim chance that
about MS appealing ... they will be appealing for the next 20 years ... bet me :-)
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
that now legitimate companies with solid, robust, quality products are going to have to tough out 2 long years with either 1) risk of assassination (Novell - just point the gun and pull the trigger) or 2) having their air supply cut off (Netscape). Of course this is going to have a stifling effect on any technology innovation (other than anti-piracy techniques) as anyone with any really new, innovative idea will have to face the wealth, power and lawyers of the big kahuna. Now people are naturaly innovative and creative so there should be a steady supply of startups for Msft to feed on, but Msft is definitely going to be 'in control' of the PC market and will allow some so called 'competition' for appearances sake - kinda like a prize fighter letting a rank amateur get a few punches in for fun, knowing full well he can pound his ass into the canvas if it ever gets 'seriously' competitive.
Crime pays, if your in the legal profession.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Let's assume for a sec that this is incredible unethical. Given that, what recourse does Microsoft even have? I kinda think the Supreme Court can do whatever the hell they want in matters of law, cause there ain't nobody higher than them to appeal to.
Surely you have heard of 'flying fish'. You can stretch a point, and call the structures that they use to fly 'wings'. Almost all fish, even the real bottom feeders, have similar structures.
There is such a thing as an honest lawyer, and you could stretch a point and call the way he treats people 'ethical'. Almost all lawyers, even the real bottom feeders, are bound by the same rules which bind an honest lawyer.
So, in the same stinking, slippery, slimy, fashion that fish have wings, lawyers have ethics; the analogy is really quite exact.
You seem to misunderstand what has happened. This case is simply going through the NORMAL judicial path rather than a speeded up one.
Don't forget, there was OS/2, Windows, Linux, etc.
M$ has a per PC tax that applies to *all* PC shipped by the big companies, and many small companies, regardless of whether it's a clean machine, a Linux machine, etc.
IBM isn't the only manufacturer of PCs, where Apple is.
The nick is a joke! Really!
GPL Deconstructed
At least have the balls not to post anonymously.
If you can't make the connection between what the antitrust case will mean to Linux, or the NTFS suit, the Kerberos stuff that happened a while ago, or even what the fact that Linux doesn't have a browser that can view pages designed for MSIE, and the 90% of web users running it, then you can happily kiss my ass.
________
I got that too, at least this time they give you unsubscribe instructions, the last spam they sent me didn't have such things. Where did they get my email anyway? I am POSITIVE it wasn't double opt-in... and I KNOW it wasn't single opt-in, because I never check those things to be put on the email list. I think they sent the message to everyone that has ever had an account with LinkExchange, which is now 0wned by MS, or anyone who had ever signed up to get into the damn knowledge base, etc. I submitted the first spam to slashdot, it was rejected, as always. With all the spam news, I think that blatent spam by MS would rate news.
-
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
I was wondering the same thing, since I never signed up for this either.
And looking at how their e-mail comes out from elm, well, if that's innovation, then I don't want any.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
none of it matters. even if M$ completely wins the antitrust case on appeal, it doesn't matter. they can be beaten in the marketplace, monopoly or no. that is what's important, and that is what we should be concentrating on.
reporting every little slight against them just smacks of desperation, and it's a false desperation at that - we have nothing to fear.
keep coding,
--
blue
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
So you think it would be more ethical if he had his son pitch the case to him? Come on, this is pathetic. Hopefully this case is closed quickly and efficiently. I'm quite sick of it all...
"a powerful and unexpected ally..."
28 USC 455. Disqualification of justice, judge, or magistrate [judge]
(a) Any justice, judge, or magistrate [judge] of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.
(b) He shall also disqualify himself in the following circumstances:
blah blah blah
(5) He or his spouse, or a person within the third degree of relationship to either of them, or the spouse of such a person:
blah blah blah
(iii) Is known by the judge to have an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding;
Rehnquist's son is representing Microsoft in private Antitrust suits. A son is related to the father in the first degree of legal consanguinity.
His private suits are all won if the Supreme Court declares Microsoft has no monopoly and maybe even if they are simply ruled to not have abused their monopoly. High profile lawsuits involving the richest private client on earth certainly constitute "an interest" where I live. Certainly, if Rehnquist Senior can make Rehnquist Junior a winner against all comers by the disposition of the DoJ's Antitrust suit then that means he can substantially affect the interest of someone closely related to him. If OTOH, he does not exonerate Microsoft, then Junior's billable hours are going to be much, much greater than if he did. He really can't help but affect his son's interest whatever he does. He should disqualify himself -the law demands it.
If he will not recuse himself he has to ignore black letter law to do so. Doesn't he care that behaving with disregard for US Laws concerning his office casts a shadow on whatever decision the Court eventually produces? I wonder what he'd say to a young lawyer who reminded him that according to the language of the law, even if the relative wasn't his son but was a niece or nephew, he's obliged to recuse himself. Even if it were not his niece or nephew but their spouse he should also recuse himself...
If the law is so insistent about this as to demand self disqulification in cases affecting the interests as remote as those of nephews' and neices' spouses then how in the world can Rehnquist blithely ignore the fact that it's his son ? Doesn't this by itself fail the first sweeping clause--that a judge should disqualify himself "in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned"? He already looks biased to me by his stubborn denial of his family's involvement. According to Rehnquist a reasonable person would not believe that he has an appearance of conflicting interests, but then he's never been a dispassonate judge of what's reasonable and rational...Nor has he ever been particularly susceptible to the sense of shame. William Rehnquist simply does not believe the laws regarding recusal for conflicts of interest has ever applied to him.
One of the most famous cases or controversies over this matter involves Rehnquist himself. In the late sixties it became known that the Department of the Army was conducting surveillance --widespread domestic surveillance-- of lawful civilian political activities. This resulted in the class action complaint, Tatum v. Laird . Assistant Attorney General William Rehnquist represented the Nixon Administration ( Laird being Melvin Laird, the Secretary of Defense), before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee in hearings on a key point of Constutional law. The issue was whether pervasive, Constitutionally questionable surveillance (w/ no national state of emergency declared, no Federal property endangered, and ONLY the vague request of a state law enforcement agency to lend aid under the Civil Disturbances Statutes) of peaceable, lawful activities was or wasn't an infringement of 1st Amendment free speech rights of the people being monitored.) You can guess which side Rehnquist was arguing. Anyway, while the case flipflopped through the appeals process, Nixon put Rehnquist on the Supreme Court. Tatum v. Laird inevitably arrived in the Supreme Court docket. The newly minted Justice refused to step aside and recuse himself despite having been a counsel for the respondent in a legal proceeding regarding the self same case. In the words of the lead plaintiff attorney, himself a target of Army surveillance: It was as if Billy Martin had resigned as manager of the New York Yankees after the sixth game of the World Series and taken the job of umpire for the seventh game. That's right--this man faced Rehnquist first as an witness and adversary in the Senate hearings and later as a Justice in the Supreme Court on the same case. And Rehnquist refused to heed suggestions that he might be a wee bit biased. Rehnquist eventually voted with the majority in 1972 to allow the US military to monitor and collect information on your lawful political activities without a declared state of emergency in effect, on an ongoing basis-- 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Amendments to the Constitution be damned. The result of this sterling defence of individual rights by the Judiciary was Congressional passage of the Federal Privacy Act of 1974.
He may be planning to retire after the election (I've heard he's been holding out for a republican president)
Or, maybe he read judge Kaplan's recusal motion and realized that it doesn't matter if you've got connections to one side, because nobody really pays attention to judicial ethics.
When microsoft is involved even small news items gets blown up to be 1 of the 10 headlines of the day.
Is this really news?
Please answer that question after reading for example the hard legal stuff from a computer scientist who was an expert whitness in the trial.
Just my 2 eurocents,
Johan
Ironic that Netscape was BOUGHT by AOL, and probably could have been saved by using AOL's tactics: Mass-mailing Netscape CD's to anyone who recently bought a computer.
Yes, 99% of them would have been shitcanned, but I bet it would have saved Netscape in the long run.
Soylent Green is people!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
The next President has the potential to be incredibly influential in terms of the makeup of the court if several justices retire as expected. Personally the prospect of an even more conservative court (it's pretty split down the middle now) is enough to get me to vote for Gore. The more the court favors individual rights versus the rights of corporations, the sounder I'll sleep at night...
Would a judge appointed by Nixon and promoted by Reagan be corrupt?
Wow, a voice of skeptical reason among all the 10 year-olds (mental age) posting on /. What was that pink blob that just whizzed by my window...?
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
The court could have simply decided not to hear the case at all, in effect upholding the first level court's decision.
Most appeals are denied before they are heard. Unless you have an exceptional basis for your appeal, it will never be taken; only if you are a huge rich company are you assured of an appeal in a civil case.
The only way a person ever gets an automatic appeal in a legal case is if they are convicted of a capital crime.
This is another example of how the law is designed to look fair upon cursory examination, but on closer study is revealed to be a sham. The idea is to get people who could question what is going on in the entire legal system to only glance at the law and say to themselves "Oh I see how this works. There are a lot of technical things in the law that I'm not interested in, so there is no need to look any farther."
Meanwhile there is a core of truly evil people in the law saying: "That's right, nothing to see here, move along. This is the only justice we are going to let you get."
Think for a second about the symbol of justice that they give to us. Now ask yourself this question: "If I were going to swing the sword of justice based upon the results of a weighing, would I wear a blindfold?"
That symbol is a little joke that the evil people couldn't resist: it means: "We have justice hoodwinked", and it is a source of wry humor for the evil people who get the joke.
God, computer people are so helplessly innocent.
--
The law, 100's of millions of lines of code, not one line of which has ever been tested to see if it works
As a former lawyer (albeit Canadian), I find Chief Justice Rehnquist's reasoning interesting. One of the first things that we were taught in law school, where we were required to take an ethics course, was, "Justice must not only be done, it must be *seen* to be done." By not excusing himself, it appears that Rehnquist may have forgotten this.
It doesn't matter that it might not be an actual conflict of interest - all that matters is that it might appear to be a conflict of interest. At least in Canada. But I will admit to be a stickler in these matters.
And people in my former profession wonder why the public has such a low opinion of lawyers.
Another thing - I understand from comments made on ZDNet that the dissenting justice, Breyer, is the antitrust expert on the US Supreme Court. Does this mean that the other justices may not listen to what he has to say when the case makes it to the US Supreme Court?
That's not what the law is talking about. It says that judges should disqualify themselves from a case if they are related (i.e. have it assigned to another court). I don't think any reasonable person would question the objectivity of Rehnquist in this case. Having a son who works for Microsoft (even in the case function of a anti-trust lawyer) is hardly the same as having a son who is on trial.
If the power of the government doesn't come from us then where does it come from?
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
In 1998, I was hired by MCI (later MCI-WorldCom) as a mainframe QA engineer. This caused no end of consternation for my father; while he was happy that I'd found employment after college, it caused him a fair amount of legal trouble.
:)
My father is Judge David R. Hansen, sitting on the United States Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, and at the time MCI (and other long distance carriers) were challenging the Telecommunications Reform Act.
For a couple of weeks he was considering recusing himself from the trial just to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. While my financial future wasn't tied to the trial, nor my continued employment, there could have been the perception that there was, and as such, Dad would have been obligated to recuse himself. I volunteered to pass on MCI's employment offer and accept a (slightly inferior) position elsewhere, but Dad wouldn't hear of it.
He didn't want to recuse himself, because he felt it to be a fascinating trial and he wanted the opportunity to write the opinion on it. Nor did he want me to pass on a good job after college. Nor did he want even the appearance of impropriety to touch the Judiciary.
Dad decided that full disclosure was the best option. He fully informed all parties that I had accepted employment with MCI and volunteered to recuse himself if any parties involved objected to his presence.
In the end, none of them did, and Dad wound up writing an opinion which he was quite proud of--and then the Supreme Court overturned the Eighth Circuit, and there was much gnashing of teeth and wearing of sackcloth and ashes in Mom and Dad's house.
So, as you can see, these sorts of events have happened before. The procedures for dealing with them are well-known. While I'm not accusing Rehnquist of being biased (I feel he's far too professional for that), I do have to wonder exactly why he didn't make full disclosure to all parties long before.
Random ugly microsoft spam:
From MSFin@microsoft.com Wed Sep 27 00:09:02 2000
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 21:04:03 -0700
Subject: A FINFLASH FROM THE FREEDOM TO INNOVATE NETWORK
Reply-To: MSFin@microsoft.com
X-Mailer: MT Mail ver. 1.22.2
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="PART.BOUNDARY.970028117"
X-UIDL: 1ea40d45cac410d3b081b3f1bc623b00
Status: ORU
> This is a message in 'MIME' format.
> If your mail reader does not support MIME
> you may not be able to read some parts of this message.
--PART.BOUNDARY.970028117
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
=20
A FINFLASH FROM THE FREEDOM TO INNOVATE NETWORK!
September 26, 2000
To cancel your subscription to this newsletter or stop all=20
newsletters from microsoft.com, read the directions at the=20
bottom of this message.
SUPREME COURT REJECTS DOJ REQUEST TO BYPASS DC APPEALS COURT =20
On Tuesday, September 26, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the=20
government's request to hear Microsoft=92s appeal in the Department=20
of Justice antitrust case against the company, and announced=20
its decision to send it instead directly to the U.S. Court of=20
Appeals.=20
The DC Court of Appeals previously announced that if the Supreme=20
Court sent the case to them, Microsoft=92s appeal would be heard =20
"en banc" -- which means by the entire panel of Appeals Court=20
judges (other than those who have recused themselves).
Microsoft is confident of its case on appeal, which will outline=20
a significant number of legal, factual and procedural errors=20
committed in the district court. Microsoft believes the district=20
court=92s ruling will be reversed, and that it is in the best=20
interests of the company, its customers and the entire industry=20
to put the issue behind us.
=20
The next step is for Microsoft to file its recommended briefing=20
schedule on Monday, October 2. The government will respond on=20
October 5, with Microsoft=92s reply due October 10.
If you would like to let your elected officials know what you think=20
about today=92s decision, or if you just want to stay up to date on=20
developments in the antitrust trial, visit the Freedom to Innovate=20
Network at http://www.microsoft.com/freedomtoinnovate .
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
When will Slashdot realize that they're doing themselves and the Linux community great harm?