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Hacking the Law
New submitter sethopia writes "Brooklyn Law School's Incubator and Policy Clinic (BLIP) hosted its first 'Legal Hackathon.' Instead of hacking computer code, attendees — mostly lawyers, law students, coders, and entrepreneurs — used the hacking ethos to devise technologically sophisticated solutions to legal problems. These included attempts to crowdsource mayoral candidacies in New York City and hacking model privacy policies for ISPs."
Want to hack law ? Then start by by putting the entire code of law in an SVN-like system. Including proposed laws. With traceability of authors, who voted for them, etc... And an associated wiki for comments. And a complete list of cases that used them. This would be invaluable.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
computer programmers try to play by the rules: they read the manual and then try to follow what they've learned. Lawyers, meanwhile, are hacking the laws by default. They're always trying to get around following the manual.
I've read legislation and proposed changes or even proposed that the legislation be dropped altogether. I mainly got interested in the first round of cybercrime laws that proposed making me a criminal for using netcat nessus and the like.
I set up simple word processing macros that addresses a well written and respectful letter to a list of target politicians (usually all of them). Most of the time I've received some sort of response. It makes it easier for the politician too because they can go straight to the parts of the legislation that are bothersome and move those amendments. If many politicians move the amendments they look insightful to the media, co-operative to their party and hard working to their supporters. Your correspondence, on paper, may make them consider things they hadn't. Also forget email - the retention rate is to low and not portable enough for them to talk to a colleague.
There are many politicians that don't read the legislation at all and just vote on it because they have been sold an opinion or they have to tow the party line. This is why many of the non-partisan issues never get solved and no party want to give the other party the credit for solving a structural issue. So it remains an issue, if enough people write then they can say "Well I tried to do something".
If more people do this it would really make a difference to the quality of the laws we get. I hope it catches on.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Isn't hacking the law what lawyers do all the time? They study the law, find holes in it and exploit them.
Yeah, the problem is not so much lack of hacking, but lack of proper code review.
The only way to make the legal system logical would be to throw it out and build another system from scratch.
Yes, because - as every software developer know firsthand - when you throw out an old crufty system and develop a brand, sparkling, new one in its place it is always a smooth process that provides tremendous benefits
</sarcasm>
Feels as though nobody cares if my case is won So I might as well begin to find a loophole on my own Hacking the law, Hacking the law...
assert(birth_date<time-86400)
And may I propose that in the new system, the *intent* of the rules should be documented alongside the rules, to prevent the system from being abused.
Example - instead of stating "Bicycles should be equipped with lights" a rule could state "Bicyclists are hard to see in the dark. To prevent bicyclists from getting hurt or killed due to being poorly visible, bicycles should be equipped with lights ".
Let's say someone is dressed up in bright, glow-in-the-dark clothing but is riding a bike without light. Or on a perfectly lit, quiet road, at 3am. By the intent of the rule, there's no issue; there is no risk of him getting killed due to being "poorly visible". But leave out the intent, and you go down the slippery slope of permitting corrupt cops to stop, fine, and detain a person - and if he resists arrest, tase him into oblivion and possibly kill him, ironically as a result of a rule that was created to PROTECT said person in the first place. The law should have enough power, but not too much.
Likewise, adding the intent of rules in the law would also prevent the rules from being abused by mega-corporations. No more "hidden agenda" saying one thing but doing another.
One day i can finally say "I fought the law, and the law lost"
artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
Here's the important part:
Actually it is. It just runs on a biological multi-core system.
Check out www.calguns.net for a description of a gun law hack in California.
Want to own an AR-15 series rifle in California? You can, thanks to the work of some online collaboration and combination of laws.
In a nutshell, the definition of 'detachable magazine' combined with the poorly written assault weapons law, some case law and testimony from the California Dept of Justice Firearms folks resulted in a movement for building AR series rifles legally in California with all the goodies like pistol grips, etc.
Same principles applied for importation of handguns not on the 'safe' list - import it as a single shot weapon, then repair it so it is back to a semi-auto configuration.
Self Defense - A Human Right www.a-human-right.com