Slashdot Mirror
Judges Challenge IP Wiretap Rules
WebHostingGuy writes to mention an MSNBC article on an appeals panel harshly challenging the Bush administration's wiretap policies. New rules from the FCC would make it easier for police and FBI agents to wiretap IP-based phone conversations. From the article: "At [one] point in the hearing, Edwards told the FCC's lawyer that his arguments were 'gobbledygook' and 'nonsense.' The court's decision was expected within several months. In an unrelated case last year affecting digital television, two of the same three judges determined the FCC had significantly exceeded its authority and threw out new government rules requiring anti-piracy devices in new video devices. Lewis was also the losing lawyer in that case, and Edwards also was impassioned then in his criticisms of the FCC."
This is a truly maverick word, not only because it is surprisingly modern and also one whose genesis we can pin down to the day, but also because a maverick coined it --Maury Maverick, a Texan lawyer who was at various times a Democratic Congressman and mayor of San Antonio.
He used the word in the New York Times Magazine on 21 May 1944, while he was chairman of the US Smaller War Plants Committee in Congress, as part of a complaint against the obscure language used by his colleagues. His inspiration, he said, was the turkey, "always gobbledy gobbling and strutting with ludicrous pomposity". The word met a clear need and quickly became part of the language. It is sometimes abbreviated slightly to gobbledygoo.