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NYTimes Sues US Gov't To Know How It Interprets the PATRIOT Act
hydrofix writes "Techdirt has been following the story of the DoJ's classified interpretation of the PATRIOT Act. Specifically, it's all about Section 215, the so-called 'business-records provision,' which empowers the FBI to get businesses to turn over any records it deems relevant to a security investigation. Senators Ron Ryden and Mark Udall have been pushing the government to reveal how it uses these provisions to deploy 'dragnets' for massive amounts of information on private citizens 'without any connection to terrorism or espionage,' a secret reinterpretation that is 'inconsistent with the public's understanding of these laws.' After NYTimes reporter Charlie Savage had his Freedom of Information request denied, the NYTimes has now sued the government (PDF) to reveal how it interprets the very law under which it's required to operate."
Hey, that's my senator's name you're mangling there! Ron Wyden of Oregon.
We'll take all your records then tell you if you've done something wrong*.
* After we've raided your offices and taken all your fun little computers out in boxes.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Doesn't the 5th amendment to the constitution require laws to be clear and fair?
Are you telling me US legislators don't have a clue of how the laws they passed are being interpreted?
I rarely respond to comments. Also, don't ask for clarifications: a brain and Google are faster, believe me!
I believe Ron Wyden deserves more credit than this fictional "Ryden" character.
"I know together we'll make the possible totally impossible" - Homme
That will never happen, but I think we can make it less open to, shall we say, loose interpretation.
Make the spirit of the law explicit. The first part of the law should state "This is the problem we are trying to resolve."
Then let judges determine whether or not the executive (or a plaintiff) is using that law for that particular purpose. If they're trying to use it for another purpose, let them go to Congress to get a new law passed.
An interpretation is applying a logical system to specific real-world scenarios. It does not necessarily against a law, it might be just nontrivial to deduce. You can think of laws as axioms and interpretations as theorems. Although the analogy is bad as legal systems are not logical systems.
Unfortunately, sometimes you need a real entity with some clout in order to bring this kind of information to light. It shouldn't be the case, but it is. And I just can't see a blog having the resources to do something like this, or discovering the wiretaps a few years back, or uncovering Watergate.
Most of the time, news is nothing special... stuff happens and it gets written about - but sometimes it takes significant resources, and I just don't see any news blogs being able to muster up that kind of force. Which is why you won't be finding me cheering the death of newspapers.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
whats even more crazy is some jurisdictions won't just send you a copy of the laws, but require payment "for the time and costs of producing them"... so how someone would knows the laws so they could avoid violating them if they didn't have the money to pay is beyond me.. and is wrong on so many levels
It's easy to say things like this without any thought for the implications of what you propose. The fact is, there will always be at least ONE interpretation, and it will be this interpretation that will be followed. Even if you call it "black letter with no room for interpretation," it's still just one interpretation.
The same thing applies to code. There is no such thing as something independent of interpretation.
The American legal system is so interesting to an outsider ... companies can sue you for patent infringement without telling you what patent was violated
Not entirely true. They can serve you notice of litigation without spelling out what patent you violated, but once it gets to trial they must say exactly what parts of which patent you violated.
The government can sue you based on a "secret" interpretation of the law..... if the law is secret how do I know if I have broken it? Doesn't ignorance of the law become a valid defense ?
The laws themselves are still public knowledge. It's the governments interpretation of them that's secret. Which I think is completely bogus, but hey, a constitutional scholar is currently sitting in the white house - he must think it's kosher, right?
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
is that we have to sue our own government in an attempt to force them to tell us about the laws they are enforcing against us. That alone indicates a huge problem with the system, regardless of the nature of the laws themselves.
If I could vote in one constitutional amendment right now, it would be "No Secret Laws". That alone would fix a great deal of evil by shining some light into the many dark corners of our government.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Yea, that will work.
Like the way many federal laws start with "...interstate commerce..." (one of the few federal powers, so it's the justification for many federal laws), and then go on to legislate on things which aren't interstate commerce, and the courts play along. Wickard v. Filburn, as a single egregious example.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
a never ending trail of privacy and rights disasters yet people are played deftly by the parties so that a perpetual state of power is maintained.
To think that even Congressmen have to jump through hoops to find out how the system works speaks loudly that the system is horribly broke. When you have a system run by lawyers looking for every little hole instead of looking for the truth or the spirit of the law you end up with lawlessness incarnate.
The best solution is to vote out the current administration and if the next does it then to vote them out in hopes someone will get the message. Even better would be to get people out from under both parties but that will require work from the state side of politics. That means finding a way to make redistricting less prone to political power plays guaranteeing elected officials stay in power.
Its means voting against incumbents in your favorite party just to get the bums out when they support abuses like this. If you cannot stomach the other side just to prove a point you have no point. Politicians do what they do because they know that they can play on hatred to stay in. We must get out those who support the Patriot act regardless of party and regardless of terms in office.
Even the OWS is being actively co-opted so that unless it serves a purpose it will get buried in the press again. Just like the tea party before it, as long as it aligns with a party it will be OK but if it strives to maintain its Independence it will be vilified in the papers with various hit pieces and the like.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation
I highlighted the important part. The heart of the concept of "due process of law" is that no one will be punished until they have been declared guilty of breaking a law in a fair trial. If the meaning of a law is so vague that neither judge nor jury can reasonably ascertain who is guilty of the law and who is not, then the only fair ruling it to acquit everyone accused of it. If the Supreme Court decides that a law cannot be reasonably interpreted, then no other court in the land should attempt to do so. In this case the law is void due to being unconstitutionally vague.
Exactly.
We have so many "weasel words" in the language of law that interpretation is up to the judge and jury. Its not like engineering at all. Its more like the language of statistics.
Every time I try to read a business contract, its like reading some newbies code where its full of undefined variables.
Drives me nuts.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
I think it's even worse than that. A "secret interpretation" doesn't even give us the basis for general expectations based on having an objective, available reference of the -same- code. This is more like having an entirely new spec with no necessary correspondence to the code available as the only means to characterize or evaluate it. Yet, it suggests the veneer of being like the objective reference by mere association with it.
It is, and it is not, this or any particular other thing at the sole discretion of those with access to the "secret" information that actually defines it. It seems like the very definition of institutionalized deception, that doesn't even acknowledge itself as such.
Like it's said... Mystery, mother of the abominations of the Earth...
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Or YOU could start an alternative party (or take over an existing one), build it up to national level then take over and fix the problems. We like to make excuses for all the bad horrible things the government does but the truth is most people just don't care.
What a simpleton you are. You can't make it 'not open for interpretation' Not possible. You would need to know future event, and everyone would need to violate it under the exact same circumstance.
Think, think bigger.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
and if we use your method we can be out of this mess in just 12 or more years.
I don't even like to wait 1/2 an hour for my pizza. Should I call another store?
-- Sig under construction...
oh, you can't. sorry about that...
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
We don't have to tell you. The PATRIOT act is our shield.
The Constitution is MY "patriot" act, obey it!
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Most of the congress critters don't even read the bill that's being put up for a vote, assuming they bother to show up for the vote.
To be fair, most of the bills being put up for a vote are unnecessarily wordy and obscure, with six zillion unrelated amendments attached. All of which makes a very dry reading and makes layman's head spin (before exploding.)
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
That reminds me of these lines we put in our requirements.
1.3 Definitions
The following definitions are used throughout this document:
“Shall” defines a requirement that requires a waiver if not performed.
“Will” defines a function that is expected to be performed during the implementation of the Project’s Parts Program, however does not require a waiver when not performed.
“Should” defines a “best practice” and is strongly recommended but does not require a waiver when not performed.
I wrote a contract for a Company to build a test sled that would accelerate a 100 kg mass at 30m/s^2 in the horizontal and vertical orientation. They undersized the system so it could only do it in the horizontal orientation. They tried to claim that in the vertical it is already accelerating at 1g due to gravity.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
[T]he courts play along. Wickard v. Filburn, as a single egregious example.
I know you just worked all that in there to get the Ron Paul Google Ad to show up on the page.
Many laws do have this kind of prelude and even those that don't have legislative history that may be helpful in ascertaining the purpose of the legislature in making the law.
That said, the law should be like open source code, freely available for anyone to read and analyze. Yes, it might be complicated and confusing to a non-lawyer, but computer code is complicated and confusing to a non-programmer. Even with that complicated nature, either can be analyzed with some study and effort, at least to some extent.
The real problem we have been having, starting with Bush's secret legal memos regarding due process free detention, and Obama's legal memo regarding due process free execution, is that the executive branch is essentially creating laws and keeping them secret making it impossible to know if what you are doing is something that will get you jailed or killed. That's a big deal, a dagger in the heart of what any free society is based upon, a shredding of the separation of powers, and ethically indefensible. There is no circumstance in which the rules of society ought to be secret.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
It is so very wrong that such a broad-ranging law could be open to any sort of interpretation at all. Might as well make the first part explicitly state "This is a huge power grab. If we decide we don't like you, kiss your ass goodbye."
Note, many laws are now privately written. Electrical and building codes are closely held by private organizations, but laws are passed saying "must be up to current NECA standards" without directly citing the standards. You must pay a private company profit to be able to read the laws that apply to you. IRS laws are passed faster than they could be reasonably read by a regular person. As such, knowing the law is impossible. Additionally, not knowing the law is not a defense. The system is broken.
Learn to love Alaska
It depends on you point of view. As a citizen I would actually like to know what what the law actually means no matter how inconvenient it is to our rulers.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
You don't have to be a Paulite to realize that Wickard v. Filburn was as badly decided as Dred Scott.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
My prediction. It will be thrown out for lack of standing.
Hear, hear! The truth of what you say should be obvious to everyone because as we all know, coded systems never have unintended consequences and can always account for every situation that comes up "in the field".
Additionally, your comparison is quite apt because as everyone knows code is not ever subject to interpretation when it is executed. That is why we use one code to express everything.
I am reminded of the invention of the first formal symbolic logics. Philosophers were rightly excited to have settled all human argument because finally each side could simply write down their arguments as symbolic logic and then whoever was correct would become self-evident.
Bravo, sir. I hope your insights shake the foundations of our legal system and I wish to subscribe to your webinar and such.
That said, the law should be like open source code, freely available for anyone to read and analyze.
How far to go? E.g. may I make a fork on a certain law and adjust it to my needs?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
It's a little sad that the only way to find out what the law is is to sue the government.
Don't worry. They'll only go after the big, bad terrorists...
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Our representatives are "pushing the government"?
WTF!!
How about we demand to know?
Ah well, too late to work within the system and too late to shoot the bastards.
A "secret interpretation" does indeed give us a basis for general expectations. Expect tyranny.
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
Yikes, what's the difference between "will" and "should" under those definitions? Yeah, yeah, "expected" versus "strongly recommended", but unless they have another section defining those terms, all I see is "does not require a waiver". It's like corporate Simon Says... you gotta listen real close for the shalls versus the wills.
No, no, what we need is a new voting system.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xeblp8_steven-brams-on-approval-voting_people
Get rid of the single vote and get rid of the two dominating parties. Simple as that.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
If you maintain another country, absolutely. You are not allowed run a virtual machine.
VM is a bad analogy for this case (as bad as the Open Source is. Open Standards would have been more appropriate). ;)
Anyway, why don't you try a car analogy, I find easier to understand them
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Here is how I see it. You shouldn't be convicted of a crime unless the law is specific. If someone slips through an exception in the law then it should be up to the legislators to close the exception not for the executive and judge to interpret.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
That's easily solved - just require all laws to be written in Lojban.
It also have a beneficial side effect of significantly raising the IQ of an average member of Congress (since Lojban proficiency would necessarily be mandated).
Most of the congress critters don't even read the bill that's being put up for a vote, assuming they bother to show up for the vote.
To be fair, most of the bills being put up for a vote are unnecessarily wordy and obscure, with six zillion unrelated amendments attached. All of which makes a very dry reading and makes layman's head spin (before exploding.)
So, all we need to do to fix this situation is force the congress critters to actually read these bills!!! Then, when their heads explode, we can replace them!
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
We don't have to tell you that.
(Oh wait, that was too much information already; now we must kill you.)
Or they care, but not enough to do anything about it.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Good luck with that, we can't even get /.ers to read TFAs most of the time.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Impeach Obama for the Extrajudicial Murder of US Citizens in Flagrant Violation of the 5th Amendment to the US Constitut
They got to you too, huh?
Except that it will mean something else tomorrow, if they need for it to.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Back in the days when "Word Processors" were dedicated machines I worked for a company that worked in a submarine - related industry.
There was a story - possibly apocryphal - that the company came within in inch of sending a tender to a government agency full of references to "willow water"
Any lawyer can tell you how to follow the spirit of the law. It takes a true scholar to use the letter of the law to subvert the spirit of the law.
I think you're wrongly assuming that members of Congress read laws
Oh wait that would be if we actually lived in a republic. Never mind.
Yes, because rigidly codified law systems have no disadvantages whatsoever compared with a common law system.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
IRS laws are passed faster than they could be reasonably read by a regular person. As such, knowing the law is impossible.
If rich corporations and individuals didn't spend so much time and money on tax avoidance measures, the tax laws could be dramatically reduced in complexity.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
If the mass can be accelerated at 30 m/s^2 downwards, then it fulfills the "vertical direction" requirement. ;-)
My father works for a company that builds factories all over the world. When they sell to the U.S. they double the quote compared to when they sell to Europe or Asia, because they know they will need an army of lawyers to battle both their customer and their subcontractors.
In other parts of the world, you don't screw your customer over, because you want to maintain your image and get repeat business. Everybody wins (except the lawyers).
I got all excited, finally someone attempting to challenge the Anti Constitution Act (err Patriot Act, whatever). And then I saw that they are only questioning Section 215. Apparently the first 214 sections are ok. Just how many freaking sections does it have?
Even the Patriot Act is prefaced with
So although it was sold to the public as an anti-terrorism bill, it's right up front that they plan to use it for regular law enforcement too. A lot of other bills have a list of "whereas" in the beginning, listing the reasons and intent of the bill.
Of course none of this matters at all. The intent and history of the Second Amendment is brain-dead clear, but that doesn't stop people from trying to reinterpret it to rid themselves of a right they don't personally like. The 4th is pretty clear too, but it gets reinterpreted so that the contents of your cell phone aren't somehow equivalent to "papers and effects." And there's drug war property seizures in the face of the 5th's "nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." You see, the legal action is against the property, not the person, so his rights don't come into play. I am not kidding, the cases read like "U.S. Government v. $10,000."
If the law or amendment is inconvenient to those currently in power, regardless of even the explicitly stated intent and clear history, they will simply reinterpret it so that it no longer is a problem for them.
For your next project/requirements, you might be able to just refer to RFC 2119 to define these terms.
Laws will always be open to interpretation and that's a good thing. If the law was automatic like code we wouldn't need courts, because the executive could just apply the appropriate law and be done with it. This would open the doors to blatant abuse and achieve an effect opposite from your intent, namely, that the laws are arbitrarily interpreted by the executive.
Free Manning, jail Obama.
Ha. That assumes you can actually get a trial by a jury, and not a secret handpicked judged that has clearance to deal with "secret" trials.
At least more people are starting to realize what's actually going on here.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
You'd think - what possibly can go wrong with 'civil rights' act yes? Hah! Everything has gone wrong with it. It created more unemployment among minorities, not less, because employers just lost a bunch of rights and got themselves a bunch of obligations and certain employees got a bunch of entitlements that these employers are supposed to provide. Should the employers fail in any way (even in an imaginary way) to provide those entitlements, they will be dragged to court.
This raised price of employing certain groups of individuals, and their unemployment has tripled since that time the act was passed.
Know how I know you're white?
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Seriously, this is it: Kafka's The Trial.
The protagonist was arrested, tried, and sentenced to die under charges and laws he was never allowed to examine. First published in 1925 so maybe that's why it's not in much memory.
Shh.
Certainly the sockpuppet wormtrolls should mod my above comment BELOW zero. I mean, there isn't a shred of validity to anything I said, and after all, the Patriot Act isn't all that bad - the constitution is for q-tips and Ron Paul extremists. And the drone idea was stupid, I admit; between Mcafee and Norton, they'd never let that happen. But don't stop there - - mod it 6 ft under. Rex-84 https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Rex_84 is good. Executive Directive 51 is gooder. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/National_Security_and_Homeland_Security_Presidential_Directive And of course, transparency regarding such things is the goodliest of all. Nothing to worry about here folks; although the Obama administration has been the worst yet for prosecuting whistleblowers, we still have HOPE and the memory of freedom. And you can get redacted FOIAs faster than ever! ~~ Mr. Baggins
Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made. - Otto von Bismarck
If the tax laws were dramatically reduced in complexity, rich corporations and individuals would be UNABLE to spend time and money on tax avoidance.
Face it, no loopholes means no avoidance. "You earned $50 million this year - send us $10 million" is pretty hard to argue with.
On the other hand, seven million pages of laws including 14 million exceptions to "you earned" and/or "send us" leaves a lot of room for paying tax lawyers lots to save lots.
While a flat tax is an impossible ideal, simplifying the tax codes to the point where the average American could read the entire tax code of the USA in a weekend would eliminate virtually the entire "tax avoidance" issue, as well we put a lot of creative tax lawyers/accountants out of business.
And end up saving everyone money, while giving the government more to play with - after all, they'd not need so many IRS people to handle a 50-page tax code as they do to investigate the people who snake around in the seven million page tax code....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Yes, regulation free heaven, where there's melamine in milk and where your drinking water can catch fire. Where Lake are greenish yellow and where forest turn to desert. But corporation make a lot of money. Bitch all you want about regulation but they help a lot keeping our general environement relatively pollution free. It mean we get to eat fish and drink milk without the fear of poisoning with heavy metals. It also mean our drugs are efficient and proven. And if you think that you still get all that without regulation. Check china.
Which is apparently anyone downloading media from ThePirateBay.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
Im telling.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
As soon as I read this bizarre plot I looked for the word "informant" and there it was:
The case began in May, when a Drug Enforcement Administration informant with ties to high-level leaders of Los Zetas told agents of a bizarre conversation
This looks like another entrapment case so the anti-terrorism squad can justify their existence. I find it really hard to imagine Iran getting involved with a used-car salesman to assassinate a diplomat.
Salary: $174,000
Average cost of campaign for House: $1,000,000
Average cost of campaign for Senate: $4,300,000
so what do you mean by "paid for"?
But that's what these critters are paid for, isn't it?
In theory yes, in practice no.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Telling whom? It's not like their customers don't know they're paying twice what it would cost to build the same factory in Europe or Asia. (In fact they're paying even more, because they also have to pay their own lawyers throughout the process.)
In the end, they usually don't buy anything, because they realize they cant compete with the factories in Asia.
Just a joke dude.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
I think he's also wrongly assuming that members of Congress write laws, rather than their aides and staff.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
QA: The art of telling someone that their baby is ugly without getting punched.
Regulation is the only way I know of to keep business from pushing its externalities off on the public, generating monopolies, and otherwise using its concentrated power to the detriment of the public. If you have an alternative method that has not already been proven to be breakable (starting up a competing company, for example, is very difficult if the incumbent has enough reserves to undersell you for a while, or to buy out the supply chain, or enough power to just get the local politicians to harass you), I'd love to hear it.
How did they figure they were getting the other 20.2m/s^2 of vertical acceleration?
No, it's the exact opposite.
Strict protection of individual liberties and private property and contract law is the only way to prevent pushing the external costs out, from socializing any of the risk while privatizing the profits.
Once gov't has the power to regulate, it is bought. There is no way around it. Any politician who enters the gov't machine, that has the power to regulate business immediately becomes the proxy for any money interests that can buy him and that's going to be that way forever until all of your politicians are actual robots.
Competition was flourishing in USA before gov't introduced all sorts of regulations. Realize that it was gov't that killed 4000 phone start ups when they gave monopoly power to AT&T early last century.
It is only possible to have real competition when gov't does not prevent that from happening.
You can't handle the truth.
This seems somewhere relevant here: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/10/1024591/-99:-A-Warning-to-OWS-and-the-Rest-of-Us
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
QA: The art of telling someone that their baby is ugly without getting punched.
Point to you! ;-)
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
And lobbyists
Who's doing this protecting the liberties of the individual (me, for example) from the whims of the company (GE, for example)? I don't have enough clout (more precisely, enough money to buy enough shares to have power over GE) to tell GE to stop pouring chemicals in the creek. Me and everyone else living on that creek put together don't have that much money. People not living on the creek are unlikely to care enough to boycott them. So who's making GE not dump stuff in the creek?
Yeah. I'll go tell my CEO I want to do it that way. Here's how to contact him.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
I think I did have a diagram showing the coordinate system. What is even crazier is once they got the sled to work we came in for the acceptance test. They didn't get all the bugs worked out and the sled went to the end of the tack and instead of stopping just continued off the end throwing the carriage out of the shop into the parking lot.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
that's what property rights are about. With gov't out of business, there is no public property, everything is privately owned, and gov't is for protecting personal liberties and freedoms, property rights and border security. That's an expense item that does make sense.
So when a company owns part of the lake, other people own parts of it and properties adjacent to it. If they pollute it, that's what the court system is supposed to be for - protecting the right of individuals to their property, and gov't power can be used in a class action suit.
Given that disasters, like BP, happen because gov't gives limited liability protection, caps their liability for drilling at 70million, while it is clear that actual damages will be thousands if not millions of times that, a company would have to acquire proper insurance if it doesn't want to be destroyed, and limited personal liability for top management wouldn't exist with gov't out of business either. So this would give a pretty good incentive to think about such actions before doing them, because this wouldn't be an offense happening in a fit of passion or rage, this would be a calculated move by an entity, trying to make money on their product. So it's always premeditated.
Gov't giving limited personal liability protection, capping monetary liability and having this 'public ownership', so denying actual property rights, all of this actually provides fertile soil to all of these environmental abuses.
You can't handle the truth.
So I can get the government to tell GE to stop dumping stuff in the creek (and thereby regulating them) but only if I can afford to sue or can find a lawyer to do it on contingency. And GE doesn't know whether it can dump in the creek until it tries it and gets burned, or doesn't. I'm not seeing how that's better for them or for me than just having a rule that you can't dump stuff in the creek.
What do you mean "GE doesn't know"? If it doesn't know, it better have good insurance, because that's what property and liberty rights are for and that's what gov't is for.
Where did I say you have to have money to sue? I said that it's gov't responsibility to protect liberties, property rights, enforce criminal and contract law and border protection.
You can't handle the truth.