"The defense I suggested in response to yours is how the courts have decided to interpret the 'truth is an absolute defense'." No, the two defenses spring from very different lines of analysis. The defense you described was borne of the first amendment here in the U.S. It is a product of free speech jurisprudence, not truth as a defense to libel.
Since there's clearly no way to know whether any statement related to these documents is false, the commenters are clearly safe.
That assessment is overbroad. If someone publishes false facts about Heartland, and these falsehoods are found to be defamatory in nature, then courts are going to conduct the analysis you described. However, it is not at all clear whether someone who repeats false facts (assuming they're false - we don't know) from a document Heartland has repudiated as there own would benefit from the "knew or should have known" defense, especially when the source of the information that is being repeated is unknown to the defendant.
Of course, a lot of comments won't fall under defamation anyway. "I read the documents and they make me think Heartland is untrustworthy" isn't libel, even if the documents were all forgeries.
It's also worth noting that the defense you described is entirely unrelated to the defense described in the post I originally responded to. "Truth is an absolute defense" != "To be found liable, the person who makes an allegedly defamatory statement must have known or should have known the statements were false."
In short, I'm not saying commenters would definitely be found liable. I'm saying we know way to little to say truth will be a defense that will cause Heartland's lawyers to be spanked, and that the analysis of whether the commenters should have know the facts were false (if they were) is much more involved than your post would suggest.
"But it being in a bundle with genuine documents does put the balance of probabilities on it also being genuine." No, it doesn't. We know the person who obtained whatever genuine documents are there is dishonest and has an agenda.* How does the "balance of probabilities" say that this person didn't do something else dishonest to further his agenda? We have no knowledge on this point one way or the other.
*I know some people say the same thing about the institute itself. Which is why I have no idea whether that document is fake or not.
Generally "turnabout" suggests some overlap between the sets involved in the two separate transactions. Are you suggesting that the pharmacists who decline to dispense birth control, or personnel in churches deciding they don't want to cover birth control, make up more than an incidental portion of those who refuse to vaccinate?
Android already has at least a couple of "office suite" type apps that do not pretend to be Microsoft Office. People who want to travel light are already buying either iOS or Android devices.
*shrug* None of the ANdroid office suite apps work for me. I bought a Transformer so I could do light writing. Lack of drag and drop itself was enough of a productivity killer to make it a non-starter.
A tablet device with Microsoft Office merely recompiled, is already a loser.
I don't want office on a tablet device. I want office on a device that is a laptop when I'm using office, and is a tablet when I'm doing light web browsing around the house or on the run, or consuming video (mainly on a magazine rack on an exercise machine at the gym), music, text, or comics. Basically, I'd like to be able to pull the screen off my ultrabook and use it as a tablet.
For some things a tablet form factor, with a tablet UI, works better. Writing documents, making spreadsheets, and doing the other work I do in Office are not among those things.
Yes, but the proper measure when trying to predict whether something will be a success isn't "is this good enough?" but whether a particular group of people think it's good enough. And for some, that's going to include "look and feel like Microsoft Office." Plus, Apple is probably never going to introduce a Transformer-like iPad model. I've used tablets with prop-stands and bluetooth keyboard, and the ease of use from the transformable form factor is not to be underestimated. It's much easier to grab the tablet/keyboard in netbook form and open it up, start typing, then put it away when you have brief periods during the day to do some work - if the Android office software didn't suck so much, that is.
No to AutoCAD and Maya, probably no to full versions of ACS (but maybe a lighter suite). If this works for Microsoft, I think it will work like this: some people who want to travel light but want full Office productivity will buy WOA devices. This popularity will spur app development, including some enterprise integration. Developers will start releasing more apps for Win8 (which, remember, will also work on new Intel/AMD Win8 machines, so there will quickly be a large installed base).
Android and iOs have had years to get a decent office app out; they haven't done it yet. And a big part of this is good mouse/keyboard interface - drag and drop, mouse-click-popup menus, consistent highlighting/copy/paste, etc. So if MS gets a 12 month lead on real Office software, it might overcome the iOs/Android head start for a certain class of users.
Note the "If" at the start of my speculation. I don't know if this will happen, but it seems more than just possible.
A hybrid device, like an Asus Transformer, that allows me to run a full version of Office that works well with a mouse and keyboard on a portable device that has the media consumption abilities I use a tablet for (video, music, books, comics) and has battery sufficient for 8 to 12 hours use? Yes, please.
It remains to be seen if MS and the hardware providers can deliver that, but there are significant professional use cases for such a device, in addition to the obvious consumer ones. Especially if document folders sync transparently.
Sure, I'd prefer it if the device could have a real intel chip, so I could run all my software. But that seems at least one chip generation away.
Judging by the picture of the guy holding it in his hand (second link), 10 cm refers to the length, not the diameter, of the guided bullet. This is much smaller than a 105mm howitzer shell.
The basis of Oliver was that the open field was not a person, house, paper, or effect. Therefore, the trespass doctrine did not apply. The Oliver court also held that there was no reasonable expectation of privacy in an open field.
In today's opinion, the court ruled that the car is an effect. Therefore the trespass doctrine applies. The court explicitly distinguished Oliver:
Finally, the Government’s position gains little support from our conclusion in Oliver v. United States, 466 U. S. 170 (1984), that officers’ information-gathering intrusion on an “open field” did not constitute a Fourth Amendment search even though it was a trespass at common law, id., at 183. Quite simply, an open field, unlike the curtilage of a home, see United States v. Dunn, 480 U. S. 294, 300 (1987), is not one of those protected areas enumerated in the Fourth Amendment. Oliver, supra, at 176–177. See also Hester v. United States, 265 U. S. 57, 59 (1924). The Government’s physical intrusion on such an area—unlike its intrusion on the “effect” at issue here—is of no Fourth Amendment significance.8
[Footnote] 8 Thus, our theory is not that the Fourth Amendment is concerned with “any technical trespass that led to the gathering of evidence.” Post, at 3 (ALITO, J., concurring in judgment) (emphasis added). The Fourth Amendment protects against trespassory searches only with regard to those items (“persons, houses, papers, and effects”) that it enumerates. The trespass that occurred in Oliver may properly beunderstood as a “search,” but not one “in the constitutional sense.” 466 U. S., at 170, 183.
FRCP 41(b) specifically grants power to approve installing a tracking device to the court in the district in which the device will be installed, while allowing the tracking to be conducted outside the district. So it's clear the installation violated that Rule. But other types of searches can be authorized by courts outside the district. So there's no inherent constitutional problem with a federal magistrate in one district issuing a warrant for a search in another district as a general matter, if the rules so authorize. The question the Court would have to address is how severe the defect is given the rules. I've not researched whether such errors can fall under the good faith exception.
Yeah, it's not entirely clear to me yet. I'd like to read the warrant, but haven't found it online yet. I'd have been interested to see how the court would have decided had the government argued that the failure to follow the technical details of the warrant was de minimis. This way was much cleaner, though - we know that putting a device on the car is covered by the 4th amendment now. There's strong reason to believe that other forms of GPS tracking are, too. That's good news.
No, they applied for a warrant. The warrant specified 10 days to install the tracker, and that it be installed in DC. The tracker was installed on the 11th day, in MD. The decision says the tracker was on the car for 28 days; I don't know what the warrant said about how long they could track.
A brief read of Justice Sotomayer's concurring opinion seems to characterize the differences in the justice's reasoning as follows:
1.) Scalia, Sotomayer, Roberts, Thomas, and Kennedy formed the majority in the opinion of the court, which relied on the fact that a trespass occured when the physical device was planted on the car. The majority did not look at any issues other than the trespass one because the trespass issue was sufficient to decide the case. Sotomayer describes it his way: "By contrast, the trespassory test applied in the majority’s opinion reflects an irreducible constitutional minimum: When the Government physically invadespersonal property to gather information, a search occurs. The reaffirmation of that principle suffices to decide this case."
2.) Alito, joined by Breyer, Kagan, and Ginsburg, focused more on the impact of obtaining the knowledge - that is, whether GPS tracking data, regardless of whether it's obtained via physical trespass or some other way, falls within the expectation of privacy protected by the fourth amendment. Alito would hold that trespass is irrelevant to 4th amendment law, and that only the expectation of privacy issue is relevant.
3.) Sotomayer (who joined the opinion of the Court), thinks that Alito's dismissal of the trespassory test would do harm to the constitutional protections, but emphasizes that, in other cases where no trespass occurs, the Court should also analyze expectation of privacy.
In sum, we have 5 justices who are willing to apply a trespassory analysis (which means physically attaching a device to a car is subject to the warrant and reasonableness requirements of the 4th amendment), 5 justices who think the expectation of privacy involved in one's movements should provide 4th amendment protection when long-term electronic tracking is used, regardless of whether trespass occurs, and at least 1 who thinks both apply.
It should be noted that, if I'm reading Sotomayer's concurring opinion correctly, the 4 in the majority other than Sotomayer should not be viewed as having rejected the application of the expectation of privacy test to electronic location tracking. Rather, they've emphasized that the expectation of privacy test is in addition to the trespassory test, and expressly declined to evaluate it because the trespassory test was conclusive.
A couple of other notes:
(1) The government did obtain a warrant in this case, but the placed the tracker on the car outside the time and physical location the warrant gave permission for. The Court did not consider the government's argument that the technical violation of the warrant's strictures rendered the search unreasonable, holding that the government waived those arguments. Therefore, we don't have any insight into how strictly the requirements of warrants will be applied.
(2) The Court did not address this, but it's not hard to imagine scenarios where the Court might allow tracking without a warrant. For example, if an officer witnesses a crime but cannot effect an arrest, the Court might allow an officer to plant a device without a warrant due to exigency, and thereafter apply for a warrant. Similarly, the Court might allow a device to be planted during the course of a high-speed chase without warrant, if the means to do so are invented. I want to emphasize this is total speculation on my part, but fourth amendment law goes far beyond "did a search occur?"
(3) Although there's no holding yet, there's very good reason to believe that obtaining GPS data from non-trespassory means, such as from OnStar or a cell phone, will also require a warrant.
Nonesense. International law absolutely contemplates detaining people without pressing charges. For example, that's what a prisoner of war is (and yes, I know the Guantanamo detainees are not classified as POWs by the U.S. government - that's not the only kind of detention contemplated by international law, just the one everyone knows about). Now, it may be that a particular instance of detention is contrary to international law, and I am not in this post speaking to questions of whether Guantanamo detention comports with international law. But much more is needed to answer the question "Is this particular instance of detention in compliance with international law?" than knowing whether criminal charges have been pressed.
Only a terrorist would spy on police with a toy UAV. And thanks to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, any such terrorist can be detained by the military indefinitely and without trial, even if a US citizen arrested on US soil. That should teach them, right?
The NDAA says nothing about whether its detention provisions apply to U.S. citizens. And by that, I mean it explicitly says nothing:
Section 1021(e). AUTHORITIES.—Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.
Note there may be some ambiguity about whether this provision applies to all U.S. citizens or only U.S. citizens captured or arrested in the U.S. Link. I tend to think it covers all U.S. citizens, all lawful resident aliens of the U.S., and all people captured or arrested in the U.S. Regardless, though, it's clear that any power the government has to detain U.S. citizens arrested on U.S. soil is NOT "thanks to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012." If such power exists, it existed before the NDAA.
The Supreme Court has not definitively settled the issue. In Hamdi it ruled that authorization to use military force grants power to detain citizens captured on a foreign battlefield. Padilla, which dealt with a U.S. citizen captured in the U.S., was resolved by his indictment and conviction before the Supreme Court can rule on the issue. Thus, whether the government can detain a U.S. citizen captured on U.S. soil is unsettled as a national question.
There are plenty of reasons to think the NDAA bad. When attacking the law, we should focus on what it does, not what it explicitly states it does not do. Expanding the detention power with respect to tcitizens captured on U.S. soil is one of the things it does not do.
There are 10 federal holidays:
New Year's Day
MLK Day
President's Day
Memorial Day
Independence Day
Labor Day
Columbus Day
Veterans Day
Thanksgiving
Christmas
I think there a lot of private employers who don't give Columbus Day and Veterans Day off, and some who only give Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years, and Independence Day off.
With 15 years experience, federal employees earn 1 day of annual leave per pay period, so 26 days total vacation. They also earn 13 days of sick leave a year, regardless of length of employment.
Slashdot Mirror
"The defense I suggested in response to yours is how the courts have decided to interpret the 'truth is an absolute defense'." No, the two defenses spring from very different lines of analysis. The defense you described was borne of the first amendment here in the U.S. It is a product of free speech jurisprudence, not truth as a defense to libel.
Since there's clearly no way to know whether any statement related to these documents is false, the commenters are clearly safe.
That assessment is overbroad. If someone publishes false facts about Heartland, and these falsehoods are found to be defamatory in nature, then courts are going to conduct the analysis you described. However, it is not at all clear whether someone who repeats false facts (assuming they're false - we don't know) from a document Heartland has repudiated as there own would benefit from the "knew or should have known" defense, especially when the source of the information that is being repeated is unknown to the defendant.
Of course, a lot of comments won't fall under defamation anyway. "I read the documents and they make me think Heartland is untrustworthy" isn't libel, even if the documents were all forgeries.
It's also worth noting that the defense you described is entirely unrelated to the defense described in the post I originally responded to. "Truth is an absolute defense" != "To be found liable, the person who makes an allegedly defamatory statement must have known or should have known the statements were false."
In short, I'm not saying commenters would definitely be found liable. I'm saying we know way to little to say truth will be a defense that will cause Heartland's lawyers to be spanked, and that the analysis of whether the commenters should have know the facts were false (if they were) is much more involved than your post would suggest.
And anyone who says they're not an alcoholic is just in denial, right?
"Truth is a complete defence against defamation." And you know the disputed document is authentic how, exactly?
"But it being in a bundle with genuine documents does put the balance of probabilities on it also being genuine." No, it doesn't. We know the person who obtained whatever genuine documents are there is dishonest and has an agenda.* How does the "balance of probabilities" say that this person didn't do something else dishonest to further his agenda? We have no knowledge on this point one way or the other.
*I know some people say the same thing about the institute itself. Which is why I have no idea whether that document is fake or not.
Generally "turnabout" suggests some overlap between the sets involved in the two separate transactions. Are you suggesting that the pharmacists who decline to dispense birth control, or personnel in churches deciding they don't want to cover birth control, make up more than an incidental portion of those who refuse to vaccinate?
Android already has at least a couple of "office suite" type apps that do not pretend to be Microsoft Office. People who want to travel light are already buying either iOS or Android devices.
*shrug* None of the ANdroid office suite apps work for me. I bought a Transformer so I could do light writing. Lack of drag and drop itself was enough of a productivity killer to make it a non-starter.
A tablet device with Microsoft Office merely recompiled, is already a loser.
I don't want office on a tablet device. I want office on a device that is a laptop when I'm using office, and is a tablet when I'm doing light web browsing around the house or on the run, or consuming video (mainly on a magazine rack on an exercise machine at the gym), music, text, or comics. Basically, I'd like to be able to pull the screen off my ultrabook and use it as a tablet.
For some things a tablet form factor, with a tablet UI, works better. Writing documents, making spreadsheets, and doing the other work I do in Office are not among those things.
Yes, but the proper measure when trying to predict whether something will be a success isn't "is this good enough?" but whether a particular group of people think it's good enough. And for some, that's going to include "look and feel like Microsoft Office." Plus, Apple is probably never going to introduce a Transformer-like iPad model. I've used tablets with prop-stands and bluetooth keyboard, and the ease of use from the transformable form factor is not to be underestimated. It's much easier to grab the tablet/keyboard in netbook form and open it up, start typing, then put it away when you have brief periods during the day to do some work - if the Android office software didn't suck so much, that is.
No to AutoCAD and Maya, probably no to full versions of ACS (but maybe a lighter suite). If this works for Microsoft, I think it will work like this: some people who want to travel light but want full Office productivity will buy WOA devices. This popularity will spur app development, including some enterprise integration. Developers will start releasing more apps for Win8 (which, remember, will also work on new Intel/AMD Win8 machines, so there will quickly be a large installed base).
Android and iOs have had years to get a decent office app out; they haven't done it yet. And a big part of this is good mouse/keyboard interface - drag and drop, mouse-click-popup menus, consistent highlighting/copy/paste, etc. So if MS gets a 12 month lead on real Office software, it might overcome the iOs/Android head start for a certain class of users.
Note the "If" at the start of my speculation. I don't know if this will happen, but it seems more than just possible.
A hybrid device, like an Asus Transformer, that allows me to run a full version of Office that works well with a mouse and keyboard on a portable device that has the media consumption abilities I use a tablet for (video, music, books, comics) and has battery sufficient for 8 to 12 hours use? Yes, please.
It remains to be seen if MS and the hardware providers can deliver that, but there are significant professional use cases for such a device, in addition to the obvious consumer ones. Especially if document folders sync transparently.
Sure, I'd prefer it if the device could have a real intel chip, so I could run all my software. But that seems at least one chip generation away.
That was Moore's choice - he refuses to have his name attached to film versions of his works.
Instead it is more like gene Simmons gun in Runaway.
That's the name of the movie I was trying to remember! Thanks!
Judging by the picture of the guy holding it in his hand (second link), 10 cm refers to the length, not the diameter, of the guided bullet. This is much smaller than a 105mm howitzer shell.
The basis of Oliver was that the open field was not a person, house, paper, or effect. Therefore, the trespass doctrine did not apply. The Oliver court also held that there was no reasonable expectation of privacy in an open field.
In today's opinion, the court ruled that the car is an effect. Therefore the trespass doctrine applies. The court explicitly distinguished Oliver:
Finally, the Government’s position gains little support from our conclusion in Oliver v. United States, 466 U. S. 170 (1984), that officers’ information-gathering intrusion on an “open field” did not constitute a Fourth Amendment search even though it was a trespass at common law, id., at 183. Quite simply, an open field, unlike the curtilage of a home, see United States v. Dunn, 480 U. S. 294, 300 (1987), is not one of those protected areas enumerated in the Fourth Amendment. Oliver, supra, at 176–177. See also Hester v. United States, 265 U. S. 57, 59 (1924). The Government’s physical intrusion on such an area—unlike its intrusion on the “effect” at issue here—is of no Fourth Amendment significance.8
[Footnote] 8 Thus, our theory is not that the Fourth Amendment is concerned with “any technical trespass that led to the gathering of evidence.” Post, at 3 (ALITO, J., concurring in judgment) (emphasis added). The Fourth Amendment protects against trespassory searches only with regard to those items (“persons, houses, papers, and effects”) that it enumerates. The trespass that occurred in Oliver may properly beunderstood as a “search,” but not one “in the constitutional sense.” 466 U. S., at 170, 183.
FRCP 41(b) specifically grants power to approve installing a tracking device to the court in the district in which the device will be installed, while allowing the tracking to be conducted outside the district. So it's clear the installation violated that Rule. But other types of searches can be authorized by courts outside the district. So there's no inherent constitutional problem with a federal magistrate in one district issuing a warrant for a search in another district as a general matter, if the rules so authorize. The question the Court would have to address is how severe the defect is given the rules. I've not researched whether such errors can fall under the good faith exception.
Yeah, it's not entirely clear to me yet. I'd like to read the warrant, but haven't found it online yet. I'd have been interested to see how the court would have decided had the government argued that the failure to follow the technical details of the warrant was de minimis. This way was much cleaner, though - we know that putting a device on the car is covered by the 4th amendment now. There's strong reason to believe that other forms of GPS tracking are, too. That's good news.
No, they applied for a warrant. The warrant specified 10 days to install the tracker, and that it be installed in DC. The tracker was installed on the 11th day, in MD. The decision says the tracker was on the car for 28 days; I don't know what the warrant said about how long they could track.
Thanks for linking that. I hadn't heard of it; I shouldn't be surprised someone thought of it already.
A brief read of Justice Sotomayer's concurring opinion seems to characterize the differences in the justice's reasoning as follows:
1.) Scalia, Sotomayer, Roberts, Thomas, and Kennedy formed the majority in the opinion of the court, which relied on the fact that a trespass occured when the physical device was planted on the car. The majority did not look at any issues other than the trespass one because the trespass issue was sufficient to decide the case. Sotomayer describes it his way: "By contrast, the trespassory test applied in the majority’s opinion reflects an irreducible constitutional minimum: When the Government physically invadespersonal property to gather information, a search occurs. The reaffirmation of that principle suffices to decide this case."
2.) Alito, joined by Breyer, Kagan, and Ginsburg, focused more on the impact of obtaining the knowledge - that is, whether GPS tracking data, regardless of whether it's obtained via physical trespass or some other way, falls within the expectation of privacy protected by the fourth amendment. Alito would hold that trespass is irrelevant to 4th amendment law, and that only the expectation of privacy issue is relevant.
3.) Sotomayer (who joined the opinion of the Court), thinks that Alito's dismissal of the trespassory test would do harm to the constitutional protections, but emphasizes that, in other cases where no trespass occurs, the Court should also analyze expectation of privacy.
In sum, we have 5 justices who are willing to apply a trespassory analysis (which means physically attaching a device to a car is subject to the warrant and reasonableness requirements of the 4th amendment), 5 justices who think the expectation of privacy involved in one's movements should provide 4th amendment protection when long-term electronic tracking is used, regardless of whether trespass occurs, and at least 1 who thinks both apply.
It should be noted that, if I'm reading Sotomayer's concurring opinion correctly, the 4 in the majority other than Sotomayer should not be viewed as having rejected the application of the expectation of privacy test to electronic location tracking. Rather, they've emphasized that the expectation of privacy test is in addition to the trespassory test, and expressly declined to evaluate it because the trespassory test was conclusive.
A couple of other notes:
(1) The government did obtain a warrant in this case, but the placed the tracker on the car outside the time and physical location the warrant gave permission for. The Court did not consider the government's argument that the technical violation of the warrant's strictures rendered the search unreasonable, holding that the government waived those arguments. Therefore, we don't have any insight into how strictly the requirements of warrants will be applied.
(2) The Court did not address this, but it's not hard to imagine scenarios where the Court might allow tracking without a warrant. For example, if an officer witnesses a crime but cannot effect an arrest, the Court might allow an officer to plant a device without a warrant due to exigency, and thereafter apply for a warrant. Similarly, the Court might allow a device to be planted during the course of a high-speed chase without warrant, if the means to do so are invented. I want to emphasize this is total speculation on my part, but fourth amendment law goes far beyond "did a search occur?"
(3) Although there's no holding yet, there's very good reason to believe that obtaining GPS data from non-trespassory means, such as from OnStar or a cell phone, will also require a warrant.
it's interesting how among all the different types of intellectual property, only copyright is settled in criminal courts.
There are criminal offenses defined under trademark law, too.
Really? Modding my explanation about the NDAA offtopic, but not the inaccurate post I responded to?
Nonesense. International law absolutely contemplates detaining people without pressing charges. For example, that's what a prisoner of war is (and yes, I know the Guantanamo detainees are not classified as POWs by the U.S. government - that's not the only kind of detention contemplated by international law, just the one everyone knows about). Now, it may be that a particular instance of detention is contrary to international law, and I am not in this post speaking to questions of whether Guantanamo detention comports with international law. But much more is needed to answer the question "Is this particular instance of detention in compliance with international law?" than knowing whether criminal charges have been pressed.
Only a terrorist would spy on police with a toy UAV. And thanks to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, any such terrorist can be detained by the military indefinitely and without trial, even if a US citizen arrested on US soil. That should teach them, right?
The NDAA says nothing about whether its detention provisions apply to U.S. citizens. And by that, I mean it explicitly says nothing:
Section 1021(e). AUTHORITIES.—Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.
Note there may be some ambiguity about whether this provision applies to all U.S. citizens or only U.S. citizens captured or arrested in the U.S. Link. I tend to think it covers all U.S. citizens, all lawful resident aliens of the U.S., and all people captured or arrested in the U.S. Regardless, though, it's clear that any power the government has to detain U.S. citizens arrested on U.S. soil is NOT "thanks to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012." If such power exists, it existed before the NDAA.
The Supreme Court has not definitively settled the issue. In Hamdi it ruled that authorization to use military force grants power to detain citizens captured on a foreign battlefield. Padilla, which dealt with a U.S. citizen captured in the U.S., was resolved by his indictment and conviction before the Supreme Court can rule on the issue. Thus, whether the government can detain a U.S. citizen captured on U.S. soil is unsettled as a national question.
There are plenty of reasons to think the NDAA bad. When attacking the law, we should focus on what it does, not what it explicitly states it does not do. Expanding the detention power with respect to tcitizens captured on U.S. soil is one of the things it does not do.
There are 10 federal holidays: New Year's Day MLK Day President's Day Memorial Day Independence Day Labor Day Columbus Day Veterans Day Thanksgiving Christmas I think there a lot of private employers who don't give Columbus Day and Veterans Day off, and some who only give Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years, and Independence Day off.
With 15 years experience, federal employees earn 1 day of annual leave per pay period, so 26 days total vacation. They also earn 13 days of sick leave a year, regardless of length of employment.