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Liberating the Laws You Must Pay To Read
Writing for Boing Boing, Carl Malamud describes the campaign he's been waging to let U.S. citizens read the public safety standards that have become part of federal law — without needing to pay for the privilege. "These public safety standards govern and protect a wide range of activity, from how bicycle helmets are constructed to how to test for lead in water to the safety characteristics of hearing aids and protective footwear." Despite a U.S. Appeals Court ruling which said 'the law' should be in the public domain, many safety codes are still privately produced and then distributed for a fee, to recoup development costs. "Public.Resource.Org has a mission of making the law available to all citizens, and these technical standards are a big black hole in the legal universe. We've taken a gamble and spent $7,414.26 to buy 73 of these technical public safety standards that are incorporated into the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations." Malamud and his Public.Resource.Org foundation are trying — very cautiously — to make these laws more broadly available. "...even though we strongly believe that the documents are not entitled to copyright protection, and moreover that our limited print run is in any case definitely fair use, if a judge were to decide that what we did was breaking the law, 25 copies of 73 standards works out to $273,750,000 in potential liability. While whales may make bigger bets, we draw the line at $273 million."
So why doesn't anybody ask about "inability to afford a copy of the law" as an excuse.
Ignorance of the law becomes quite common when you have a ridiculous amount of inane laws.
Considering that the federal government willingly admits they have secret, non-publicized interpretations for laws, I would say that ignorance of the law (or rather, how it is being enforced) is now the perfect excuse.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Incorporation by reference is one of the tools that private corporations use to get their will imposed through government regulation. It is a shady practice at best, and leads to all kinds of problems with unfunded mandates being exercised on the people, among other things.
Many standards must be licensed, generate quite a bit of revenue for the private companies that develop them.
It is true that many standards are costly to develop, but therein lies the problem - if we need them, we should be paying for them once and making them available to everyone.
This practice should be immediately outlawed, and all regulatory standards should be made open and free to citizens at no cost.
Here is a listing of all the standards incorporated by reference into the Federal Register:
http://standards.gov/sibr/query/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.main
See:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_by_reference
- http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/cfr/ibr-locations.html
spent $7,414.26 to buy 73 [...] 25 copies of 73 standards works out to $273,750,000
Am I the only one who doesn't get the math? Or does the judge exponentially impose penalties under copyright protection?
That's exactly what the copyright cartels try to do . 73 standards works x 25 copies each = 1,825 instances of infringement, working out to $150,000 per instance. Considering the MAFIAA likes to say they can claim up to $250,000 per infringement, that's (sadly) on the middle range of what they claim they can demand.
"So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
What was the literacy rate in his kingdom?
This is probably done on purpose.
A large corporation can afford to follow Congressional laws and go buy all these private, expensive standards. Small businesses cannot. It's yet another way that regulations are used by megacorps to protect themselves from new, upstart competition.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
They don't have to be inane. Simply a ridiculous amount of laws leads to forced ignorance.
Agreed. They should have kept the purchase quiet and leaked it. Worst case scenario, imagine the hilarity of the US government scrambling to keep it's own laws secret.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The exact equation for copyright damages is value * num_copies * 3 * ha_ha_ur_a_criminal = more_money_than_you'll_ever_see_in_your_life
I'd point you to the statute, but you couldn't afford it.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Then we paid for it through our taxes. There is no sane argument to make citizens pay for it again. If the government contracted out the regulation to a private body, then the government should have paid for it and made it free to access for its citizens. If a private body offered to do it for free so that it could influence the nature of that body or regulations, then you best believe that they have already paid themselves and there is no sane grounds for them to avoid making those regulation available for the public at no cost. You can't charge people twice for the same thing (though I know that every corporation in the country is desperately looking at ways to do precisely that.)
VA hospitals are unconstitutional?
I would love to see local building codes released for free to the public. At least in my city, the only way to get them is to pay around $200 for the book, which expires annually.
"(walks away)"
A serious response to a non serious complaint.
Shouldn't you be repairing your buggy whip?
That's what you get when you allow private industry and corporatist groups like ALEC to write the laws.
The reason we have laws that are "fucking convoluted and obtuse and hidden away" is because there's somebody who is profiting from those laws being that way. There is no other reason.
You are welcome on my lawn.
And corruption. Let a system grow complex enough, and the little guys won't be able to accomplish anything, because they won't have the money, the cronies, or the will to compromise, to make the rusty wheels of the broken system turn. It happened in IT with the introduction of *silly* patents (I have nothing against patenting things that a couple random programmers can't replicate in a weekend).
Like, say, the byzantine empire, such systems usually imploded, people stop giving a damn about defending it. But now we have technology and such a broken system can go on for eternity because computers and robots don't get demotivated. We may fear computers that get too intelligent, but the problem is with the not-smart-enough ones.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
I support the congresswoman's response. That question deserved no response for a couple of reasons:
1) In the very pramble the national government is esablished to "promote the general Welfare". While that particular phase is very open to interpretaion, it is hard to see that a publically avalible hospital is not in the direction of "the general Welfare".
2) Section 8 of the Constitution once again allows specifically for taxation "to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States". One could agure that this only means the general welfare of the Unites States as a body and not the individual of it. But that seems contrary to the general spirit of the document, and would have to be decided by the US Supreme Court. Since they have specifically not said so, the overwhelming presumption must be that it is in keeping with the law.
3) Presumably the question was grounded out of something like "why should the government be allowed to complete (unfairly) with private business". But this is a common misconception about corporations and the Constitution. At the founding of the US Constitution corprations were only founded by express will of the goverment, and they were founded to a specific purpose (not profits). The profits were only a sweetener that was allowed to get the job done. Coporartions charters were often specific about the lifetime of the corporation and there were a list of clauses that would end the Coporation if it was found to not be living up to its charter. The modern idea of the corporation as a profit-driven mostly-imortal quasi-person did not start to take hold untill the mid-1800s. For reference I will direct people to the Mercantilism section of the Corporation article in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation#Mercantilism
So if you are a "fundamentalist" about the US Constitution you should expect that the govenement should be the one behind large institutions such as hospitals. It is just that many "Conservatives" have the dream of a golden age in their heads and have proven very willing to not let the truth get in their way.
I for one would like to see a move more in that direction, at least in the requring of Public Coporations to have a charter (I don't see the need for expiry), and to the practice exercise the death penalty on them when they violate it.
Last I checked the Constitution is still the Law, and if Congress members (or presidents) are ignoring the law then that IS a serious problem. In fact it's probably why over the last 11 years we have slowly-but-surely lost our various rights (SOPA, ACTA, NDAA jail without trial, and Patriot Act searches without warrants). Because the Constitutional Law is no longer being obeyed by the congress.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
can you tell me where in the Constitution it gives Congress power to provide government hospitals?
Does the "power to lay and collect taxes" and apply them to "provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States" (Article I, section 8) count? Hospitals (are supposed to) defend the public from disease and increase health, which is an aspect of welfare.
Am I free to make copies of the law of the land at the library?
In that case, why not just draft everyone into the Army for Universal Healthcare?
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
While funding for standing armies was supposed to be temporary, the Navy and government support of the militia was not. I think the VA would be easily justified under those grounds.
Getting more into grey areas, the constitution also grants the federal government power to collect taxes for the general welfare of the United States, and you could argue that most social programs, including civil government hospitals are just that.
These two sentences come from the first paragraph of the court ruling:
Our short answer is that as law, the model codes enter the public domain and are not subject to the copyright holder's exclusive prerogatives. As model codes, however, the organization's works retain their protected status.
That obviously contradicts itself. The same text cannot be both public domain and protected at the same time. Why do we have judges who think it is acceptable to issue blatantly contradictory rulings?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
So in the US, ignorance of the law is not a legal defence, however you need to spend money to find out what the law says?
wow.
But one needs the spec to know what equipment is necessary. It costs money just to learn that something is too expensive.
I once heard a tax lawyer admit (in person) that he had lobbied for more complicated tax laws to increase the number of people hiring tax lawyers.
While I agree it would be a safer and easier way to distribute the documents it wouldn't have the same political statement. Being up on wikileaks makes them look like they shouldn't have been released, while this methods clearly makes the statement, " These documents should be public. We paid for them, they are out laws, they should be free (for citizens) to read."
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
The regular laws are bad enough. I have arguments all the time over traffic laws. Is it or isn't it illegal to "tailgate"? Depends on where you are and the situation. The law doesn't help. And then, there are the laws enumerating "regulations" to have force of law when the regulations are public by definition (tax code, FAA, FCC, etc.). They aren't "law" but are "public regulations with the force of law". But the killer, what they are combating here are the private, copyrighted regulations coded as law. There are piles of laws saying "NEC is law" when the NEC is a privately held item that is not public. The equivelent is if the IRS suddenly said "we aren't going to tell you the changes in tax rules unless you pay us $1,000,000,000 (pinky in mouth)." They lobby for the NEC to be adopted as law in whole, without exception or detail as to the effect of such a rule, then refuse to provide the NEC to the public for whom it is law. Many other building regulations are the same. It helps their bottom line when nobody knows the code and must hire trained professionals to move a light switch (else lose the house with no insurance if a problem happens, or, more likely, an inspector blocks a sale later).
Learn to love Alaska
The hidden "laws" (which is a bad description, what is really privately-copyrighted are standards which are referenced in regulations authorized under law) don't benefit) don't benefit lawyers particularly, who they benefit are the industry groups that make the standards and the firms that are members.
No, it wasn't. Delegating the regulation of an industry to established players in that industry has a long history independent of the "lawyer class".
Outlawing lawyers will make the law better in the same way that outlawing computer programmers will make computer programs better.
Don't forget about the judges who apply foreign law.
Aside from extradition and such (or local definitions of obscene, done now on a state level of 'foreign" where extraditions among the states have happened to prosecute someone in Florida for actions taken in California), when does this happen?
Learn to love Alaska
I have plenty. Keep it in a bucket along with other stuff I don't use.
Pull my finger for my public key.
You* elect the poiliticians that enact such complicated laws and the bureaucracy that uses your ignorance of the laws to do things pretty much how they want to do them.
Although I deal with 'regulators' on a daily basis, I have only applied the law as written rather than lobbying for new codes, rules, or procedures. Like most lawyers, I'm essentially a guide concerning a subject that people have no interest in learning about until they have a very specific need, and even then are not interested in doing the leg work of learning it themselves. You may as well outlaw tourist guides, reference librarians, and historians. The only thing they do is filter information that is convoluted, obtuse, and hidden away as well.
*Not you specifically, but the collective you that responds to political pandering and is loathe to acutally think through issues or accept a difficult compromise. [snark]You specifically have failed to think through the lawyer issue, and the second thing a sane society would do is outlaw your ability to vote.[/snark]
I think you can pretty much extend that to "a ____ lawyer has lobbied for more complicated ____ laws to increase the number of people hiring ____ lawyers" and still have a factual statement.
and the millions of people who buy helmets that might want to check that the helmet being bought meets standards/law.. because they don't exactly take the manufacturer at their word..
yea that makes sense.. spend 100$ for a piece of paper that is the law the government would require you to follow for evaluating a 20$ item.
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
> can you tell me where in the Constitution it gives Congress power to provide government hospitals?
Interstate commerce clause.
1. In America, getting sick without health insurance is financial suicide.
2. If your company doesn't provide health insurance coverage, you have to purchase an individual policy.
3. Individual policies aren't portable across state lines. If you move to a new state, you have to purchase a new policy.
4. An individual purchasing a new individual policy under point 3 will end up paying premiums comparable to those charged to somebody without previous coverage, and face exclusion of any condition believed to be pre-existing at the time the new policy is purchased. At best, the hapless state-moving American will find himself paying exponentially-higher premiums for the same coverage he had in his previous state.
5. As a practical matter, this means that any American dependent upon individual health insurance coverage with even the most trivial pre-existing health condition can basically forget about ever moving to another state, because the consequence of doing so would be financial devastation, exponentially higher premiums, and exclusion of pre-existing conditions. If he's "lucky", his premiums will double. Usually, the conditions will be excluded from the new policy. And if he's SOL, the conditions will be excluded AND he'll be charged exponentially higher premiums.
6. The de-facto inability of Americans to move to another state due to health insurance non-portability negatively affects America's labor mobility, and by extension harms the interstate labor market.
Please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Welfare_clause. It's not very clear. It looks like "General Welfare", within the 1900s gradually grew to include more and more things. Fits in very nicely with the expansion of federal power in other areas over our history.
These quotes are also interesting
The two primary authors of the The Federalist essays set forth two separate, conflicting interpretations:
James Madison advocated for the ratification of the Constitution in The Federalist and at the Virginia ratifying convention upon a narrow construction of the clause,asserting that spending must be at least tangentially tied to one of the other specifically enumerated powers, such as regulating interstate or foreign commerce, or providing for the military, as the General Welfare Clause is not a specific grant of power, but a statement of purpose qualifying the power to tax.[9][10]
Alexander Hamilton, only after the Constitution had been ratified,[11] argued for a broad interpretation which viewed spending as an enumerated power Congress could exercise independently to benefit the general welfare, such as to assist national needs in agriculture or education, provided that the spending is general in nature and does not favor any specific section of the country over any other.[12]
Personally, I think only Madison's interpretation fits in with the rest of the document. Otherwise congress can arbitrarily grant themselves new powers without an amendment. What's the point of the amendment process if you can just say "General Welfare". For example, "for the general welfare we enact an income tax". No, they passed an amendment.
Not to be rude, but you do know what a preamble is, right? While it might seem otherwise blatantly obvious, the purpose of the US Constitution wasn't to enrich a king or grow tobacco for export. It was created to, as one of its main purposes, "promote the general Welfare". That doesn't mean Congress has carte-blanche power to do anything or everything it wants in the name of "the general Welfare". That's as absurd as those who would argue action needs to be done "for the children".
Well, the general spirit of the document is to frequently speak in terms of the Federal government's actions in relationship to states, although that's admittedly not a hard rule (the Bill of Rights comes to mind as well as various "people" references). In any case, I can only really see your argument holding up in the context of "the health of the American people is tantamount to the health of the United States" and hence use that as justification. But, that's honestly a bit of a stretch. I think the line gives more justification for the CDC and FEMA than anything. And while yes, the current system puts the US at an economic disadvantage compared to other countries, I don't really think having the economic edge as a road to prosperity was really in the mindset of the framers of the Constitution. After all, the line in question speaks of duties, imposts, etc, which if anything are more about limiting trade.
Or perhaps it was a legitimate concern about the validity of the legislation? You see, I'm actually quite for things like social security, welfare, socialized healthcare, etc. But I also recognize that the language of the Constitution was never really written in consideration of the US as it is today. And as much as people don't like to think of it, it's not an unreasonable point to raise that instead of poking at various vague wordings throughout the document based in a language and a culture foreign to us--as you in continuing on note, businesses and corporations of then are quite different from now--that it might be appropriate to amend the Constitution to better establish the Will of the People who do seek a much more active Federal government in their lives. After all, for all the rantings about the new health care laws, the same people who tended to gripe about the expansion of medical care for all through the government, even if through a mandate, were just as likely to gripe about the shrinking of medical care for some (the elderly) through the government; the speaks to me more of a selfishness that I don't think is actually commonly shared.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Forget bike helmets. Try the National Electric Code or NFP 101 (fire life safety code). Both are a part of pretty much every building code in America, and both cost a fair chunk of change to get a copy of. Officially, it's a copyright violation to reproduce either one on the web.
A few years ago, some city or county somewhere got into a fight for this very reason. They posted the relevant code to their website, and got hit by a DMCA takedown notice. They fought back by arguing that the state constitution required public dissemination of all laws, and noted that the code's inclusion by reference was in fact mandated by the state legislature. I believe they ended up with a license to make it available on their website, behind a ghetto-fabulous paywall (of sorts) intended to restrict access to only citizens of the town, contractors licensed to do business there, and people with a bona-fide building permit in the municipality.
start using their lobbying power to make that cost even larger so no one else can enter the market and provide competition.
FTFY
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
Obligatory
Write failed: Broken pipe
What the fuck?
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/affort
And then you quoted the dictionary entry for "afford" with all the d changed to t.
Is this new age spelling to go with the new age math?
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Congresswoman Pelosi, can you tell me where in the Constitution it gives Congress power to provide government hospitals?
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States."
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
Over 50% of the US House of Representatives are lawyers. Likewise for the Senate.
You* are full of shit.
*Your profession and collective members, as such.
> The regular laws are bad enough.
Agreed. The problem is people are unable to discern between:
- the spirit of the law, and
- the letter of the law.
partially due to crap laws that no one wants to "fix" because there is too much money in the system (as one of your examples points out), it is in a lawyer's best interest to have as many convoluted laws as possible, and people generally don't give a dam about bad laws -- they would rather bitch about sports / music / movies.
i.e. The letter of the law says that even 1 mph over the speed limit is "illegal" yet we all know that speed limits in many cases are artificially lowered to increase the revenue base.
Legalism is a moral crutch attempting to promote greed and "moralism" (which usually means, my morals not yours, of course.)
When you have bullshit laws where a house owner can get charged for murder for _defending_ their property from some idiot trying burglarize the place, one has to ask "Where the fuck is some common sense?" Wow, here's a fucking concept. If you don't want the face the consequences for an illegal act (getting shot from the homeowner), how about not breaking into his place!
I dare you to Google "potato law".
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&output=search&q=potato+law&oq=potato+law
I don't take well to dares
If my comment didn't sound as good in your head as it did in mine, then I guess we all know who's to blame
I think you can pretty much extend that to "a ____ lawyer has lobbied for more complicated ____ laws to increase the number of people hiring ____ lawyers" and still have a factual statement.
a GODDAMN lawyer has lobbied for more complicated GODDAMN laws to increase the number of people hiring GODDAMN lawyers
it works
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
You can view the National Electric Code for free by going to http://www.nfpa.org/aboutthecodes/AboutTheCodes.asp?DocNum=70# and then going down to"view the document online" and clicking the link, then sign in. If you don't have a username/passwd then you can register for free.
You think it's "the State" that has the stranglehold of power over your life?
Don't be ridiculous.
Try this: Go through your day tomorrow and count the number of times where you are doing something you would rather not be doing, or not doing something you would rather be doing, because of "the State". Start when your alarm clock rings. I'm betting that if you are honest, you will learn that it's not the heavy yoke of "the State" that is weighing you down, friend.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Having started a company to invent and engineer something, I took it upon myself to figure that maybe there might be safety laws for me to follow. With a lot of research, I discovered that in Canada, my device needed to meet radiation and electrical and electrical safety standards.
I read the public laws only to find that the law said "it must meet the specifications found in CSA document 165a" or some equivalently worded reference. And, of course, that CSA document wasn't free. I said hell no, I'm not paying anything to see my laws. They told me to go to a library. Turns out the libraries only have the old obsolete versions. I said hell no again.
In the end, we bot hgot what we wanted. CSA let me into their local offices, and to their "library" where they had the document waiting for me, with a paper and pen to take notes. Sixty pages of document and three pages of notes later, I was done and happy.
So anyone stuck in this scenario, that's the easy way through that I found.
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that's what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20."
Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, "but he got $10!"
"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!"
"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!"
"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.
And then there's the large array of people who don't fit the false dichotomy, and who have a better grasp of taxation and economics than you care to give them credit for. I for one can't understand how the logic of the "savings" discussion could come to pass, but I'm quite capable of getting that the explanation why it's incomprehensible is that it's complete crap that doesn't fit real life in any way. See how easy that was?
Virg