Nothing other than your own incompetence and or unwillingness to learn prevents you from making your arguments better so that you can not only present the arguments you are trying to present, but also do it in such a way as to actually be persuasive. You could, if you chose to do so, become familiar with the various legal terms of art within the context of privacy law and the First Amendment, so you would recognize that when a court talks about a "reasonable expectation of privacy," it does so in a historical context. Similarly, you could understand that, in the context of reasonable expectations of privacy with regard to third parties, the personal nature of the information conveyed doesn't generally matter; what matters is that the thing has been left in the possession of the third party.
You're clearly an intelligent guy, but it's frustrating as hell to continually see you make this ridiculous arguments because you refuse to learn about the systems you seek to discuss. For instance, consider your absurd idea of subjecting judicial opinions to a layer of technical review. People's objections did not, in fact, amount to "That's not how courts do things," so much as "There is a reason for how courts do things now, and if you want to change current operating practices, you should address those concerns."
Understanding the meaning of legally operative words is essential to understanding the logic or reasoning of a legal decision. That's one of those things you would understand if you bothered to listen to people in the field you keep trying to discuss.
When Judge Mosman writes that the e-mails are exposed to employees, it does not mean that employees are allowed to rummage through them as a matter of policy, or even that employees actually look at the e-mails. Consider California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35 (1988), in which the Supreme Court ruled that individuals did not have a legitimate expectation of privacy in their garbage because it was exposed to the public, despite the fact that California law explicitly protected the rights of individuals to their garbage placed out for collection. Also consider Google's privacy policies, which allow Google to examine the contents of users' emails for advertising, preventing spam, or enforcing the terms of use. Gmail Privacy Notice, http://mail.google.com/mail/help/intl/en/privacy.html; Google Terms of Service, http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS. The fact that a user conveys their information to Google, and that Google has the ability to read that information (absent steps such as encryption), could easily be sufficient to "expose" these e-mails to Google under existing law.
Were you someone with a degree of skill in legal writing, you might have seen fit to do a little more research. Had you done so, you would have found a Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals case, Warshak v. U.S., No. 06-4092 (6th Circ. 2007), available at http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/07a0225p-06.pdf (vacated en banc), which deals with this precise question. In its original panel discussion, the Sixth Circuit held that end users do have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their e-mails, highlighting prior decisions of the Fourth and Ninth Circuits coming out each way on the question dependent on their specific facts. Over a vigorous dissent, the Sixth Circuit overturned the decision in it's en banc review, Warshak v. U.S. No. 06-4092 (6th. Circ. 2008), available at http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/08a0252p-06.pdf, arguing that the case was not yet ripe for review.
As I said previously, your interpretation could very well be correct. It's certainly my preferred outcome. That doesn't change the fact that your analysis was the work of a rank amateur whose writing shouldn't be treated as if it had merit.
But you think they are flaws in the judge's logic because you don't know what you're talking about. For instance, you don't understand that the fact that ISPs do not routinely *look* at customer emails does not mean that the contents of those emails are not routinely *exposed* to those same ISPs.
But please, keep tilting at windmills and insisting that you're the only sane man. If nothing else, it gives some of us some worthwhile entertainment.
Yes, if put an unsettled question of law to a collection of different legal experts, they'll likely come to different conclusions. That doesn't, however, mean that any schlub can craft the same level of legal analysis as a Justice of the Supreme Court. The difference is not the answer, but the process by which the answer is reached.
Consider mathematics, which you would surely agree is an area in which there are experts. If you were to ask a group of mathematicians about a question of unsettled math, you would likely get a set of different answers (though that set of answers might be constrained to a boolean set, depending on how the question was phrased). If someone then used that as an excuse to say that a thoroughly inadequate proof which nonetheless arrives at a "correct" answer is just as valid as those of expert mathematicians, it would be entirely appropriate for that person to be called out for their naivety.
Your interpretation could be correct. The problem is that you have glossed over so many important aspects of the question as to make your analysis completely worthless.
Have you been paying attention? Lawyers are getting laid off left and right, and the legal profession as a whole is going through one of the worst recessions since the Depression.
How, exactly, is it clearly relevant if a complaining witness has had sex in the past? Doing something in the past does not prove that one did something in the present case, and that's what is at issue in a rape case with a consent defense: not whether or not the complaining witness consented previously, or even whether the complaining witness generally consents, but whether the complaining witness consented *in the present case*.
You're looking in the wrong place if you're concerned about "mak[ing] a joke out of the entire judicial process." There's a reason there are rules of evidence - among other reasons, there are lots of things that people think are relevant to determining whether someone is guilty or liable, but are actually completely irrelevant. Take, for instance, the complaining witness in a rape case and their sexual history. While your average juror will be convinced that a person's past sexual history is relevant for determining whether or not they consented to the particular sexual intercourse at issue in the trial, it's a simple fact that just because someone has consented to sexual intercourse in the past does not have any bearing on whether or not they consented to a particular act.
Why bother having a trial, at that point? You've completely eliminated the point (having a group of the defendant's peers evaluate the evidence and determine the likelihood of the claims or charges) by completely removing the rules of evidence.
Evidence for the purpose of showing conduct in conformity is generally inadmissible, because juries should not be convicting someone for a specific offense based on the fact that they've convicted the offense before.
This is an application of well-settled law on the question of when injunctions should be issued:
That test requires a plaintiff to demonstrate: (1) that it has suffered an irreparable injury; (2) that remedies available at law are inadequate to compensate for that injury; (3) that considering the balance of hardships between the plaintiff and defendant, a remedy in equity is warranted; and (4) that the public interest would not be disserved by a permanent injunction. The decision to grant or deny such relief is an act of equitable discretion by the district court, reviewable on appeal for abuse of discretion.
-- eBay v. MercExchange, 547 U.S. 388 (2006).
The factors do not lend themselves towards injunction even if Microsoft *wasn't* appealing to the Federal Circuit. While the appeal is winding its way through the courts (and the Supreme Court is preparing to hear a case which could invalidate software patents generally), it is by no means an abuse of discretion for the Federal Circuit to stay the injunction.
You understand that all that will be "broke" in 2042 will be the Trust Fund, which exists to deal with the Baby Boomers, and that 2042-receipts will be sufficient to pay at least 75% of 2042-expenses, assuming no increase in FICA taxes (such as eliminating the cap by which income after the first $100,000 is not taxed), right?
I ask this seriously, because many people think that somehow Social Security funds dry up entirely when the Trust Fund is gone.
You'd like to see a sadistic murderer sociopath who has no respect for the Constitution or our nation to be the Secretary of Homeland Security? Really?
Then again, you also seem to hate the Constitution pretty strongly, since you have ignored the Supremacy Clause (Article VI, Section 2), which states:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
We have learned that it has been reported, erroneously, that the court made a legal ruling in the Castaneda case regarding the authority of federal law enforcement officials to conduct operations in the County. There was no such ruling or decision. Instead, the court simply granted a motion, submitted jointly by all the parties, to dismiss the case because the parties had settled.
This Court has never issued an order which would serve to limit the lawful activities and duties of federal law enforcement officers and other federal employees in the District of Wyoming.
Furthermore, this Court has never made the comments attributed to it which purports to advise state officers they can prohibit federal law enforcement officers or agents from entering a Wyoming County. Those alleged quotations are utterly false.
Any person who interferes with federal officers in performance of their duties subjects themselves to the risk of criminal prosecution.
In short, your post is bad and you should feel bad.
The point is not only to stimulate the auto industry, but to remove less fuel efficient vehicles from the road. You defeat that purpose if you keep the traded-in vehicles in circulation.
The CARS program is essentially the government buying a host of fuel-inefficient vehicles for $3,500 to $4,500.
If you've read one "Appellant was denied a Certificate of Appealability for failure to make a substantial showing of an infringed constitutional right" appeal decision, you've read them all. That's why they're published (referring to them as "unpublished" is a bit of a misnomer), but "not recommended for full-text publication," which means that the reporting services like West don't bother to print it.
So long as it's a GSM phone not subject to a subsidy lock, I can't think of a good reason it wouldn't work with an AT&T or T-Mobile SIM card (or another GSM carrier outside the US)
If you look at many cell phone contracts, they do in fact decrease the early termination fee (recovering the value of the subsidy) by an incremental amount each month, such that an early termination results in a roughly pro-rata recoupment of the subsidy.
Since when can't you take your phone with you? I took a phone from T-Mobile to AT&T, then took my AT&T phone several years down the line and gave it to a friend for use on T-Mobile.
All you have to do is call your carrier after your contract is up and ask for the subsidy unlock code, or get it unlocked by someone who's figured out how to do it.
There are categorical exemptions for things such as "like-kind exchanges", where property held for business or investment purposes is exchanged for similar but distinct property (such as homes held as investment being traded between property management corporations).
However, the sort of barter clubs being described both by the above poster and the IRS are not the equivalent of "trading four $5s for a $20". The poster specifically said "all payment [would] be through barter." Simply accepting goods in lieu of money used to purchase those goods is not enough to escape the income generated from those transactions.
The fair market value of the gold coins is more than the $20 printed on the face, as demonstrated by Kahre's willingness to purchase the coins for more than that value.
The fair market value of a $100 bill, on the other hand, is exactly $100.
A libertarian ethos combined with a belief that knowledge about technology implies the ability to outsmart the law leads to an unhealthy level of tax idiocy.
Bartering occurs when you exchange goods or services without exchanging money. An example of bartering is a plumber doing repair work for a dentist in exchange for dental services. The fair market value of goods and services received in exchange for goods or services you provide must be included in income in the year received.
Categorically, yes. Income, for the purposes of the tax code, is defined as any economic benefit or clearly realized accession to wealth. That specifically includes barter in exchange for services.
Thus, if a furniture mover and a chef exchange services, each has received the fair market value of the other's services as income. That does not mean that the IRS is likely to tax you on those services in ordinary cases, merely that such a transaction can be treated as income. Not every bartering arrangement constitutes income - your informal arrangement between friends would be unlikely to be treated as an exchange of services for services by the IRS, because it's not an arm's-length transaction, and they're not going to find out about it anyway.
Where this becomes relevant is when idiots decide that they're smarter than the tax code, and do things like try to set up "barter clubs": members exchange services for their own scrip, which can then be used to acquire goods or services from the other members of the club. Here, the receipt of the barter scrip would be a clearly realized accession to wealth, and would be properly taxable.
As for your second point, that's simpler, because it's simply an exchange of property. If the property is held for personal purposes (ie, playing the game), then a trade triggers a realization of gain or loss. For instance, if you purchased the Pikachu card for 5 cents, and it increased in value to $50 since that time, trading the card would trigger a realization of that $49.95 gain, which would be properly reported. Similarly, if you manage to convince someone to trade a Black Lotus for an Island, that windfall would be immediately taxable, and you would be obliged to report the value of the card as income, just as the lucky fan who catches a valuable home-run ball is liable for the fair market value of the ball at the time he receives it.
Determining what is and is not income isn't hard: is it an economic benefit or clearly realized accession to wealth? If you have to ask, the answer is almost certainly yes.
Slashdot Mirror
Nothing other than your own incompetence and or unwillingness to learn prevents you from making your arguments better so that you can not only present the arguments you are trying to present, but also do it in such a way as to actually be persuasive. You could, if you chose to do so, become familiar with the various legal terms of art within the context of privacy law and the First Amendment, so you would recognize that when a court talks about a "reasonable expectation of privacy," it does so in a historical context. Similarly, you could understand that, in the context of reasonable expectations of privacy with regard to third parties, the personal nature of the information conveyed doesn't generally matter; what matters is that the thing has been left in the possession of the third party.
You're clearly an intelligent guy, but it's frustrating as hell to continually see you make this ridiculous arguments because you refuse to learn about the systems you seek to discuss. For instance, consider your absurd idea of subjecting judicial opinions to a layer of technical review. People's objections did not, in fact, amount to "That's not how courts do things," so much as "There is a reason for how courts do things now, and if you want to change current operating practices, you should address those concerns."
Understanding the meaning of legally operative words is essential to understanding the logic or reasoning of a legal decision. That's one of those things you would understand if you bothered to listen to people in the field you keep trying to discuss.
When Judge Mosman writes that the e-mails are exposed to employees, it does not mean that employees are allowed to rummage through them as a matter of policy, or even that employees actually look at the e-mails. Consider California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35 (1988), in which the Supreme Court ruled that individuals did not have a legitimate expectation of privacy in their garbage because it was exposed to the public, despite the fact that California law explicitly protected the rights of individuals to their garbage placed out for collection. Also consider Google's privacy policies, which allow Google to examine the contents of users' emails for advertising, preventing spam, or enforcing the terms of use. Gmail Privacy Notice, http://mail.google.com/mail/help/intl/en/privacy.html; Google Terms of Service, http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS. The fact that a user conveys their information to Google, and that Google has the ability to read that information (absent steps such as encryption), could easily be sufficient to "expose" these e-mails to Google under existing law.
Were you someone with a degree of skill in legal writing, you might have seen fit to do a little more research. Had you done so, you would have found a Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals case, Warshak v. U.S., No. 06-4092 (6th Circ. 2007), available at http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/07a0225p-06.pdf (vacated en banc), which deals with this precise question. In its original panel discussion, the Sixth Circuit held that end users do have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their e-mails, highlighting prior decisions of the Fourth and Ninth Circuits coming out each way on the question dependent on their specific facts. Over a vigorous dissent, the Sixth Circuit overturned the decision in it's en banc review, Warshak v. U.S. No. 06-4092 (6th. Circ. 2008), available at http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/08a0252p-06.pdf, arguing that the case was not yet ripe for review.
As I said previously, your interpretation could very well be correct. It's certainly my preferred outcome. That doesn't change the fact that your analysis was the work of a rank amateur whose writing shouldn't be treated as if it had merit.
But you think they are flaws in the judge's logic because you don't know what you're talking about. For instance, you don't understand that the fact that ISPs do not routinely *look* at customer emails does not mean that the contents of those emails are not routinely *exposed* to those same ISPs.
But please, keep tilting at windmills and insisting that you're the only sane man. If nothing else, it gives some of us some worthwhile entertainment.
Yes, if put an unsettled question of law to a collection of different legal experts, they'll likely come to different conclusions. That doesn't, however, mean that any schlub can craft the same level of legal analysis as a Justice of the Supreme Court. The difference is not the answer, but the process by which the answer is reached.
Consider mathematics, which you would surely agree is an area in which there are experts. If you were to ask a group of mathematicians about a question of unsettled math, you would likely get a set of different answers (though that set of answers might be constrained to a boolean set, depending on how the question was phrased). If someone then used that as an excuse to say that a thoroughly inadequate proof which nonetheless arrives at a "correct" answer is just as valid as those of expert mathematicians, it would be entirely appropriate for that person to be called out for their naivety.
Your interpretation could be correct. The problem is that you have glossed over so many important aspects of the question as to make your analysis completely worthless.
Have you been paying attention? Lawyers are getting laid off left and right, and the legal profession as a whole is going through one of the worst recessions since the Depression.
How, exactly, is it clearly relevant if a complaining witness has had sex in the past? Doing something in the past does not prove that one did something in the present case, and that's what is at issue in a rape case with a consent defense: not whether or not the complaining witness consented previously, or even whether the complaining witness generally consents, but whether the complaining witness consented *in the present case*.
You're looking in the wrong place if you're concerned about "mak[ing] a joke out of the entire judicial process." There's a reason there are rules of evidence - among other reasons, there are lots of things that people think are relevant to determining whether someone is guilty or liable, but are actually completely irrelevant. Take, for instance, the complaining witness in a rape case and their sexual history. While your average juror will be convinced that a person's past sexual history is relevant for determining whether or not they consented to the particular sexual intercourse at issue in the trial, it's a simple fact that just because someone has consented to sexual intercourse in the past does not have any bearing on whether or not they consented to a particular act.
Why bother having a trial, at that point? You've completely eliminated the point (having a group of the defendant's peers evaluate the evidence and determine the likelihood of the claims or charges) by completely removing the rules of evidence.
Evidence for the purpose of showing conduct in conformity is generally inadmissible, because juries should not be convicting someone for a specific offense based on the fact that they've convicted the offense before.
A stay is not a win. It means the injunction won't go into force until the appeal is concluded.
Nothing about that is abnormal.
This is an application of well-settled law on the question of when injunctions should be issued:
-- eBay v. MercExchange, 547 U.S. 388 (2006).
The factors do not lend themselves towards injunction even if Microsoft *wasn't* appealing to the Federal Circuit. While the appeal is winding its way through the courts (and the Supreme Court is preparing to hear a case which could invalidate software patents generally), it is by no means an abuse of discretion for the Federal Circuit to stay the injunction.
You understand that all that will be "broke" in 2042 will be the Trust Fund, which exists to deal with the Baby Boomers, and that 2042-receipts will be sufficient to pay at least 75% of 2042-expenses, assuming no increase in FICA taxes (such as eliminating the cap by which income after the first $100,000 is not taxed), right?
I ask this seriously, because many people think that somehow Social Security funds dry up entirely when the Trust Fund is gone.
You can't square it with the Supremacy Clause, he's just an idiot.
The Chief Judge of the United States District Court, District of Wyoming, discusses the case here: http://www.wyd.uscourts.gov/pdfforms/96cv99.pdf
You'd like to see a sadistic murderer sociopath who has no respect for the Constitution or our nation to be the Secretary of Homeland Security? Really?
Then again, you also seem to hate the Constitution pretty strongly, since you have ignored the Supremacy Clause (Article VI, Section 2), which states:
Sure, the WordPress site you link says differently. It's nonetheless wrong - perhaps you should learn not to take your legal advice from blogs created by people who hate law? As the judge in the case you are referring to, Castaneda v. U.S., states:
In short, your post is bad and you should feel bad.
The point is not only to stimulate the auto industry, but to remove less fuel efficient vehicles from the road. You defeat that purpose if you keep the traded-in vehicles in circulation.
The CARS program is essentially the government buying a host of fuel-inefficient vehicles for $3,500 to $4,500.
That's neither accurate nor secret nor shameful.
If you've read one "Appellant was denied a Certificate of Appealability for failure to make a substantial showing of an infringed constitutional right" appeal decision, you've read them all. That's why they're published (referring to them as "unpublished" is a bit of a misnomer), but "not recommended for full-text publication," which means that the reporting services like West don't bother to print it.
So long as it's a GSM phone not subject to a subsidy lock, I can't think of a good reason it wouldn't work with an AT&T or T-Mobile SIM card (or another GSM carrier outside the US)
If you look at many cell phone contracts, they do in fact decrease the early termination fee (recovering the value of the subsidy) by an incremental amount each month, such that an early termination results in a roughly pro-rata recoupment of the subsidy.
Since when can't you take your phone with you? I took a phone from T-Mobile to AT&T, then took my AT&T phone several years down the line and gave it to a friend for use on T-Mobile.
All you have to do is call your carrier after your contract is up and ask for the subsidy unlock code, or get it unlocked by someone who's figured out how to do it.
There are categorical exemptions for things such as "like-kind exchanges", where property held for business or investment purposes is exchanged for similar but distinct property (such as homes held as investment being traded between property management corporations).
However, the sort of barter clubs being described both by the above poster and the IRS are not the equivalent of "trading four $5s for a $20". The poster specifically said "all payment [would] be through barter." Simply accepting goods in lieu of money used to purchase those goods is not enough to escape the income generated from those transactions.
Shocking that an income tax would reach income.
The fair market value of the gold coins is more than the $20 printed on the face, as demonstrated by Kahre's willingness to purchase the coins for more than that value.
The fair market value of a $100 bill, on the other hand, is exactly $100.
A libertarian ethos combined with a belief that knowledge about technology implies the ability to outsmart the law leads to an unhealthy level of tax idiocy.
Your inclinations would be incorrect.
See, for instance, "Bartering income" - http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc420.html.
Categorically, yes. Income, for the purposes of the tax code, is defined as any economic benefit or clearly realized accession to wealth. That specifically includes barter in exchange for services.
Thus, if a furniture mover and a chef exchange services, each has received the fair market value of the other's services as income. That does not mean that the IRS is likely to tax you on those services in ordinary cases, merely that such a transaction can be treated as income. Not every bartering arrangement constitutes income - your informal arrangement between friends would be unlikely to be treated as an exchange of services for services by the IRS, because it's not an arm's-length transaction, and they're not going to find out about it anyway.
Where this becomes relevant is when idiots decide that they're smarter than the tax code, and do things like try to set up "barter clubs": members exchange services for their own scrip, which can then be used to acquire goods or services from the other members of the club. Here, the receipt of the barter scrip would be a clearly realized accession to wealth, and would be properly taxable.
As for your second point, that's simpler, because it's simply an exchange of property. If the property is held for personal purposes (ie, playing the game), then a trade triggers a realization of gain or loss. For instance, if you purchased the Pikachu card for 5 cents, and it increased in value to $50 since that time, trading the card would trigger a realization of that $49.95 gain, which would be properly reported. Similarly, if you manage to convince someone to trade a Black Lotus for an Island, that windfall would be immediately taxable, and you would be obliged to report the value of the card as income, just as the lucky fan who catches a valuable home-run ball is liable for the fair market value of the ball at the time he receives it.
Determining what is and is not income isn't hard: is it an economic benefit or clearly realized accession to wealth? If you have to ask, the answer is almost certainly yes.