Why wouldn't political bloggers just move their servers overseas? I doubt some offshore data center would really care if you're running a political blog, as long as they get paid. Seems ridiculous and unenforceable. Then again, we ARE talking about the US Congress.
Let's not forget the cost of making those 'hip' 'trendy' 'moronic' commercials and the cost of the airtime to show them. I seem to see an iPod ad about once every commercial break mo matter what channel I happen to be watching, so I'm sure it's a significant cost.
Which would you rather do? Write a single application that would run on all Windows systems, or six different ones, each with its own unique quality assurance and support problems?
As a programmer, I'd rather write six versions. This is because writing six versions takes longer without really being that much harder. It's not as if you'd have to write six completely different programs, just six similar ones. That would take longer than just writing one program, and then you'd have more to do and thus higher job security. Plus, it sounds a lot better claiming overtime when you're writing six programs versus just one. Of course, if I'm a manager or supervisor or something, I only want one program written. Depends on who you are and what you are looking for, I suppose.
Thank you as well. It's rare that people can actually engage in debate on slashdot (or really, anywhere it seems) without it devolving into a strawman-laden name-calling fight. And while I enjoy a good donnybrook now and then, I enjoy thoughtful discussion much more. You also made some good points, and I will re-read and ponder them. I'm not averse to changing my mind, although I do admit that it rarely happens. Anyway, thanks again. I admire your style.
If you're talking about NDA's in terms of things which would normally be considered a trade secret, you, me, and the law, are already in agreement. What I'm discussing here is companies firing employees for discussing, in their off time, away from work, things which would not be considered a trade secret.
He is posting the inner workings of the company, things which competitors could use to their advantage. He is also slamming the company, which may be his right but for which the company is also right to fire him. No company should be required to continue paying an employee who discloses things that company does not want disclosed, excepting if that company is acting illegally. Is that your contention in this case?
Just because something is potentially embarrassing doesn't mean they should be able to keep it under wraps.
Erm, I rather think that's a terrific reason for wanting to keep something under wraps.
This would be more equivalent to your employer attempting to state that you may not own a gun, period. Would you have a problem with that?
That depends. On whose property is my home? Is it my property or the property of the company? In the latter case, assuming I signed a contract which specified that I may not own a gun while living in company housing, I wouldn't have a problem with it. I suppose the short answer is: it would depend. Just like with speech.
Again, the Federal Government was the only potentially powerful entity at the time.
Really? The state governments had no power? Oops, yes they did. In fact, the purpose of the Constitution was to make sure the FedGov never got more powerful than the states. It has utterly failed in that regard.
The idea of large corporations existing apart from a government was not a thought at the time.
Then how could a document written then possibly have been meant to apply to them?
This clause has been found to apply well beyond the federal government, and clearly establishes life, liberty, and property as fundamental rights, which can be denied to no one except under due process of law.
That is also written into the USC.
I encourage you to view the decision Marbury v. Madison, which seemed to imply otherwise, as well as the countless cases intervening in which laws of the United States Code were struck down because they violated the Constitution.
Yes, because the Federal Government, which that document is designed to limit, stepped over the line in making certain laws.
Your boss deciding he doesn't like something you said about him is no such due process, and his attempt to restrict you from saying it while not at work is a deprivation of your liberty.
If your boss cannot fire you for saying it, you are depriving him of his liberty.
I think it depends upon the type of power we are talking about. The government certainly wields greater firepower than any individual, for instance, but I am certainly not all for privatizing nukes or letting these idiots who can't even handle their SUV drive a tank around. Nor should individuals hold the power to imprison someone for a crime, that power is (correctly, in my opinion) left to the government only, but with significant due-process safeguards.
Well, I would submit that town elders have excercised the power to imprison people in accordance with the wishes of the community before. My problem isn't with government per se, it's with centralized, powerful government. I should have been more clear, and that is my fault. I don't think the FedGov should have the power to kill its citizens, nor the power to forcibly tax them, nor the power to overrule state laws. Yet currently it has and excercises all those powers. Also, I apologise for the typo in that section. I usually catch those.
On the other hand, certain powers should remain with individuals, and be considered inalienable-that is, cannot be given up or contracted away. Free speech i
In this case, the concern is freedom of speech, or more accurately, free flow of information about the operation of public companies and short of violating some trade secrets or seriously affecting the command and control structure of the company, one could argue that free speech in general is a public policy goal worth protecting. This gives another data point for investors and would-be investors, Microsoft customers, etc.
You're only guaranteed to have speech free from Federal Government restriction by law. However, that doesn't mean that no matter where you are, you may say whatever you wish. For example, if you come into my home, and start making sexual suggestions to my wife, I can and will ask you (or force you) to leave. You don't have free speech on private property. Last time I checked, even publicly held corporations were allowed to consider their campuses private property. Thus there is no guarantee of free speech there.
As for that info being helpful to investors, I don't doubt it nor claim that it wouldn't be. I simply note that Microsoft is not legally bound to provide it.
Also, Microsoft seems to be encouraging its employees to write blogs these days anyway. Given that, they may have a hard time firing this guy when they (and they will) figure out who he is (assuming he actually does work there and has an employment contract... unlikely, but who knows he could be the janitor or a well-connected outsider)
I doubt Microsoft is encouraging employees to bad-mouth them in blogs. Also, if he is not a contracted employee, then Microsoft should have no control over his speech (but could exert control over the speech of his informants, if they signed NDAs).
True, they have to pay extra for "on-call" status, but I've never seen extra offered for an NDA. That doesn't mean it's never happened, of course, but to my knowledge it's not standard practice.
People who sign NDAs generally make a higher base salary than those who are not required to sign them. I know that I was told it was part of the 'base package' of compensation when I asked. This was at two different employers. The crux of the matter, however, is that if you don't wish to bear the burdens of the job, why on Earth should you get the job?
I'm glad it worked out for you, and yes, quite often, they will be willing to negotiate on certain things. Again, that doesn't change my premise that they shouldn't be -allowed- to put certain restrictions in a contract, at all.
I didn't challenge that premise either. For example, they shouldn't be allowed to put a clause in a contract stating that you'll murder your own child if you're late to work. I just don't believe that an NDA falls under your premise. Why should people be not only allowed but compensated for divulging company secrets?
The "right to bear arms" bit is offtopic and hasn't been part of this at all, so I am going to decline to respond to that.
Um. It's the second ammendment. You argued that the first ammendment should apply to private organizations, while I countered with another ammendment in the same document (the next one, even) which blows your argument. No wonder you declined to respond. Perhaps if you delineated precisely which parts of the Constitution you consider important I could keep my arguments to them.
You're reading the Constitution pretty narrowly. I would be more inclined to say that it establishes a fundamental right to free speech (as do several human rights treaties that the United States is a signatory to), the only threat to which, at the TIME, was the federal government. It is my guess that if they had foreseen, in 1776, widespread contractual obligations to curtail speech, this would have been prohibited expressly as well, but if such existed at all at the time, they were certainly not in wide use.
Oh, I see. They thought indentured servitude was A-OK but not an NDA? Come on, that's ridiculous. Besides, the document is MEANT to be read narrowly, it ONLY applies to the Federal Government. The fact that it has been applied otherwise does not mean that it was intended to do so.
I do not believe that the intent of the First Amendment was "Congress may not restrict free speech, but whoever else would like to, feel free."
No, it means that I may censor anyone I wish within my own private property. You have no right to free speech inside my house. You have no right to free speech inside my business. If I don't like what you say, I can legally kick you out. That pretty much denies your argument, unless you don't believe that a person has a right to control their own property.
For example, the Thirteenth Amendment outlaws slavery. Period. You cannot enter into a contract, for money, making you a slave-because it is forbidden by the Constitution.
Um. If you're getting paid and you voluntarily entered into the agreement, it isn't slavery. However, if you decided that you were going to voluntarily do whatever someone asked for the rest of your life, you think the government would step in and prevent you from doing so? Why?
Why shouldn't Constitutional law apply to the appropriate conduct of corporations?
Because it is only meant to enumerate the powers of the Federal Government, obviously.
It's (at least supposed to be) the supreme law of the land.
No, you're thinking of the United States Code. That isn't the Constitution.
If a power is dangerous in government hands, we should be twice as reluctant to place it in private hands.
I totally disagree. I believe that government should never weild more power than individuals. We'll probably never agree on that one. I trust myself and those I know far more than I will ever trust a centralized government.
The things that I won't do include not working for a competitor, for instance.
But you'll legally claim that you're perfectly willing not to work for anyone else....of course, you have no intention of honoring your claim, which is the dishonest part. The honest thing would be to tell the company, "I won't sign until you remove this clause."
I'll work for who I like - UK law takes a dim view of companies attempting to dictate who you can work for once you've left them.
So then why'd you sign the agreement? Agreement means...you agree. It doesn't mean you secretly don't agree. That isn't its definition. If you don't agree, legally claiming that you do is....dishonest.
I'm doing nothing dishonest by not telling them their contract contains unenforcable clauses. I'm not their lawyer, and I don't provide free legal advice.
You're legally accepting a clause which you have no intention of honoring. That. Is. Dishonest.
Earning a living to support myself and my family is not being selfish, is it?
Certainly not. However, the way you decided to go about it sure was. Or was there only one job in the entire country?
Unless and until the clause is tested in court it's irrelevant what I knew about it beforehand.
So, for example, if the company signed the contract and had no intention of paying you, that would be perfectly honest in your opinion, until tested in court? See, it's statements like the ones you've made recently that demonstrate how moronic you are.
You're still no closer to demonstrating how my actions are consistant with those of a moron - you've simply repeated yourself.
First of all, I demostrated that your assumption, that you are a moron because of one statement, was not what I was implying. Secondly, I don't need to demonstrate how you're a moron. You're doing a stellar job of it yourself.
What are you, 15 years old?
No, I'm 7. It's sad that you can't hold your own intellectually with a seven year old.
Good point. If you can't afford a lawyer, read the contract yourself and look up whatever you don't understand on the internet. Of course, that requires the intelligence to know which sites to trust, but checking several sources is not an onerous task on the internet. The point is, blindly signing contracts is a very good way to end up in a bad situation, and it will be one of your own making, no one else's.
I wanted it, AND I am right when I say that parts of the contract I signed (a contract which the other party created, not myself) were not enforcable in court. How does that make me dishonest? I wasn't the only person to sign it, although I might have been in the minority in knowing that it was unenforcable in places.
How is signing a contract promising to do certain things which you know you will never do in order to get a benefit honest? Care to explain that one? The HONEST thing to do is to say, "This is an illegal contract which I will not sign. Modify it to be legal or I will not sign." That's what an honest person would do, not grab whatever their selfish heart desires in whatever manner possible.
Why does signing a contract with the knowledge that certain parts were unenforcable in my favour make me a moron? Care to explain that one?
Sure. It doesn't. You're a moron AND you dishonestly entered into an illegal agreement.
You give the impression of not being very intelligent. Did you know that?
I don't care what internet strangers (especially idiots like you) think about me. Did you know that? Your opinion of my intelligence doesn't change it in the slightest. Did you know that? Besides, you're the one who thinks entering into an agreement you have no intention of honoring is honest. Legal, maybe, but certainly not honest.
Are you trolling? After all, you're the one who posted "Bollocks to 'free speech rights'"! I'm not sure you're in step with the rest of the world on that one.
In this situation, free speech rights do not apply. Bollocks to morons who think the Constitution is a magic blanket.
I've signed documents which contain unenforcable terms because I wanted something from the other party.
Well, how honest of you. I'm sure the rest of the world is in step with your dishonesty. I mean, you wanted something, so that made it okay, right? BUT YOU WANTED IT! That's way more important than right or wrong!
I didn't want to sign it, on one level, because it wasn't entirely legal,
But you still signed it. You're a moron.
but as there would be no problem having the terms annulled by a court, then why not sign it? There are many, many contracts signed around the world which don't stand up in court.
Well, for one thing, if you already knew it wasn't a valid contract, why did you subject the already overloaded court system to more frivolous bullshit? Oh, right, cause you WANTED something. Therefore you must get it no matter the circumstances. Whatever.
Your points, while true, have absolutely nothing to do with this particular case. He is not a whistleblower, he's a disgruntled employee (but one who seems strangely gruntled much of the time).
On a related note, if a corporation expects you to obey its rules 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, it owes you compensation for one hundred and sixty-eight hours, per week, plus overtime of course.
Tell that to the people who carry pagers. You DO get a bonus in comp for doing things like carrying pagers and not divulging company secrets. It's all covered in that contract you're too busy to read before you sign.
Why should your employer have control over what you blog in your off time?
Why should you be able to divulge company business and suffer no consequences for it? Note that this only applies if you have signed an NDA...because you've agreed NOT TO DISCLOSE things. If you could only not disclose them AT WORK, where EVERYONE knows them, it wouldn't make too much fucking sense, now would it? The company isn't saying 'you can't blog on your off time', they are saying 'you can't divulge company secrets in your off time'. Those are totally different statements.
Actually, I think what is at issue here, is that the contract at issue really isn't a choice.
Actually, it is! You're not FORCED to sign any contract. There is more than one job in the world.
It's very disingenuous for you to say "uh...don't sign it..." if you don't agree with it.
Why? I've done it. I didn't like the provision that said when I carried a pager, I couldn't drink alcohol. So I told my prospective employer that I wouldn't sign unless they modified that paragraph. I know it may be hard to believe, but they did it! Imagine! All I did was...wait for it....ask!
Protection is requested, then, for free speech, which is clearly enshrined in the Constitution as a fundamental right.
The Constitution delineates the limits of power of the Federal Government. That means that the Federal Government can't pass a law restricting free speech (although they CAN create an agency to do it with directives instead of laws, see the FCC). The Constitution doesn't say that people can't choose to limit their speech voluntarily for money. Similarly, the right to bear arms does not give you the right to go about armed wherever you want. Sorry. You're just way off base on this one.
I didn't say you should be able to 'sign your life away' but signing an NDA is HARDLY signing your life away. People want to ignore any section of a contract that they don't like, but how about if the company ignored the section about paying you? Would you continue to show up to work if you weren't getting paid? Or would you bust out your contract?
As it stands, a person gets a 30 page packet and thinks, "Ah, this is some cr*p I have to sign if I want this job.. How bad can it be? They're not going to rip me off. I trust them and I want this job. I will sign it." It's obvious to me where the abuse is happening.
Me too. In public schools. That's why lawyers can get away with making things sound so complicated, because many people don't know what many words mean. Also, as lawyers discovered that people were willing to sign things they hadn't read, they felt more able to abuse people in that way. Thing is, any time you trust a corporation or another person to have your best interest in mind, you're risking getting taken. YOU are supposed to have your best interest in mind. If you don't, why should you be immune from the consequences of your own disinterest?
Would you let your family starve just so you didn't have to keep a company's secrects...uh....secret? If so, you're an idiot. Yes, there are onerous contracts. However, I don't see how an NDA or a confidentiality agreement even somewhat meets that standard. Get real.
All they really understand is that if you don't sign, you don't have a job so enjoy living under a bridge when you lose your house!
It would appear from your example that there's only one job to be had, and it requires signing an onerous contract. Sadly for you, that certainly isn't the case in the real world.
That is not far from holding a gun to your head, and saying, "sign this".
Really? You always associate contracts with guns pointed at you? How odd. I don't want to live in your neighborhood, and you should move out of it as well.
An agreement under duress is no agreement at all.
Be sure to tell conquered nations that. I'm sure they'll be happy to hear it. Or did you mean in contract law? Because I don't see the duress, there. Now, in the unlikely event that someone did hold a gun to your head and tell you to sign a contact, you are correct that it would be invalid.
Yes, he and others like him need to stay anonymous, or they are toast, but it shouldn't be that way. It is high time laws were passed to protect such bloggers' free speech rights no matter what the legal mumbo jumbo they had to sign off on to have a job says. No employment contract should be able to take away free speech.
The workings of any publicly traded company ought to be public knowledge. We should have the right to know about companies, and not just their PR spin, before investing or when contemplating whether to sell stock. It is not good for the economy to let publicly traded firms operate in secrecy, and snooker investors
Even if a company is not publicly traded, prospective customers deserve to know what is going on.
Are you trolling? First, if you don't want to sign an employment contract, uh....don't sign it. People want the government to protect them from having to do hard work like reading legal documents before signing them. I mean, sure, it'd be messed up for a company to put 'must work 12 hour days 5 days a week or be fired' into a contract, and you're stupid enough to sign it, you should either work those 12s or get fired. Bollocks to 'free speech rights'. That applies to the federal government, not to private employers. If you sign a confidentiality agreement, you...agree...to...keep...things...confidential. No right to free speech is being restricted by the government here. If you don't like the agreement's terms...don't sign it. It's really not that difficult. What's next? No employment contract should take away someone's right to carry a gun to work? Seriously, people. The Bill of Rights limits what the FedGov can do, not what you can voluntarily agree to.
Kinda like how I couldn't make a character named 'Gloria Gaynor' in Guild Wars. You know, because it contains offensive content which is not allowed on their servers. I didn't realize the people who run Guild Wars were such discophobes.
Slashdot Mirror
Since campaign finance has been regulated and re-regulated, we've seen a few chilling unintended
consequences:
1. Third parties are stifled.
2. Incumbents wield huge powers.
3. Loopholes are created hiding the real flow of money.
Check your premise. I seriously doubt these effects were unintended.
Why wouldn't political bloggers just move their servers overseas? I doubt some offshore data center would really care if you're running a political blog, as long as they get paid. Seems ridiculous and unenforceable. Then again, we ARE talking about the US Congress.
Let's not forget the cost of making those 'hip' 'trendy' 'moronic' commercials and the cost of the airtime to show them. I seem to see an iPod ad about once every commercial break mo matter what channel I happen to be watching, so I'm sure it's a significant cost.
Which would you rather do? Write a single application that would run on all Windows systems, or six different ones, each with its own unique quality assurance and support problems?
As a programmer, I'd rather write six versions. This is because writing six versions takes longer without really being that much harder. It's not as if you'd have to write six completely different programs, just six similar ones. That would take longer than just writing one program, and then you'd have more to do and thus higher job security. Plus, it sounds a lot better claiming overtime when you're writing six programs versus just one. Of course, if I'm a manager or supervisor or something, I only want one program written. Depends on who you are and what you are looking for, I suppose.
Hmm...seems like I've read this comment before.
The question is, did I really make an error or am I just demonstrating #2 above?
I'm going to go with "yes".
Thank you as well. It's rare that people can actually engage in debate on slashdot (or really, anywhere it seems) without it devolving into a strawman-laden name-calling fight. And while I enjoy a good donnybrook now and then, I enjoy thoughtful discussion much more. You also made some good points, and I will re-read and ponder them. I'm not averse to changing my mind, although I do admit that it rarely happens.
Anyway, thanks again. I admire your style.
If you're talking about NDA's in terms of things which would normally be considered a trade secret, you, me, and the law, are already in agreement. What I'm discussing here is companies firing employees for discussing, in their off time, away from work, things which would not be considered a trade secret.
He is posting the inner workings of the company, things which competitors could use to their advantage. He is also slamming the company, which may be his right but for which the company is also right to fire him. No company should be required to continue paying an employee who discloses things that company does not want disclosed, excepting if that company is acting illegally. Is that your contention in this case?
Just because something is potentially embarrassing doesn't mean they should be able to keep it under wraps.
Erm, I rather think that's a terrific reason for wanting to keep something under wraps.
This would be more equivalent to your employer attempting to state that you may not own a gun, period. Would you have a problem with that?
That depends. On whose property is my home? Is it my property or the property of the company? In the latter case, assuming I signed a contract which specified that I may not own a gun while living in company housing, I wouldn't have a problem with it. I suppose the short answer is: it would depend. Just like with speech.
Again, the Federal Government was the only potentially powerful entity at the time.
Really? The state governments had no power? Oops, yes they did. In fact, the purpose of the Constitution was to make sure the FedGov never got more powerful than the states. It has utterly failed in that regard.
The idea of large corporations existing apart from a government was not a thought at the time.
Then how could a document written then possibly have been meant to apply to them?
This clause has been found to apply well beyond the federal government, and clearly establishes life, liberty, and property as fundamental rights, which can be denied to no one except under due process of law.
That is also written into the USC.
I encourage you to view the decision Marbury v. Madison, which seemed to imply otherwise, as well as the countless cases intervening in which laws of the United States Code were struck down because they violated the Constitution.
Yes, because the Federal Government, which that document is designed to limit, stepped over the line in making certain laws.
Your boss deciding he doesn't like something you said about him is no such due process, and his attempt to restrict you from saying it while not at work is a deprivation of your liberty.
If your boss cannot fire you for saying it, you are depriving him of his liberty.
I think it depends upon the type of power we are talking about. The government certainly wields greater firepower than any individual, for instance, but I am certainly not all for privatizing nukes or letting these idiots who can't even handle their SUV drive a tank around. Nor should individuals hold the power to imprison someone for a crime, that power is (correctly, in my opinion) left to the government only, but with significant due-process safeguards.
Well, I would submit that town elders have excercised the power to imprison people in accordance with the wishes of the community before. My problem isn't with government per se, it's with centralized, powerful government. I should have been more clear, and that is my fault.
I don't think the FedGov should have the power to kill its citizens, nor the power to forcibly tax them, nor the power to overrule state laws. Yet currently it has and excercises all those powers.
Also, I apologise for the typo in that section. I usually catch those.
On the other hand, certain powers should remain with individuals, and be considered inalienable-that is, cannot be given up or contracted away. Free speech i
In this case, the concern is freedom of speech, or more accurately, free flow of information about the operation of public companies and short of violating some trade secrets or seriously affecting the command and control structure of the company, one could argue that free speech in general is a public policy goal worth protecting. This gives another data point for investors and would-be investors, Microsoft customers, etc.
You're only guaranteed to have speech free from Federal Government restriction by law. However, that doesn't mean that no matter where you are, you may say whatever you wish. For example, if you come into my home, and start making sexual suggestions to my wife, I can and will ask you (or force you) to leave. You don't have free speech on private property. Last time I checked, even publicly held corporations were allowed to consider their campuses private property. Thus there is no guarantee of free speech there.
As for that info being helpful to investors, I don't doubt it nor claim that it wouldn't be. I simply note that Microsoft is not legally bound to provide it.
Also, Microsoft seems to be encouraging its employees to write blogs these days anyway. Given that, they may have a hard time firing this guy when they (and they will) figure out who he is (assuming he actually does work there and has an employment contract... unlikely, but who knows he could be the janitor or a well-connected outsider)
I doubt Microsoft is encouraging employees to bad-mouth them in blogs. Also, if he is not a contracted employee, then Microsoft should have no control over his speech (but could exert control over the speech of his informants, if they signed NDAs).
True, they have to pay extra for "on-call" status, but I've never seen extra offered for an NDA. That doesn't mean it's never happened, of course, but to my knowledge it's not standard practice.
People who sign NDAs generally make a higher base salary than those who are not required to sign them. I know that I was told it was part of the 'base package' of compensation when I asked. This was at two different employers. The crux of the matter, however, is that if you don't wish to bear the burdens of the job, why on Earth should you get the job?
I'm glad it worked out for you, and yes, quite often, they will be willing to negotiate on certain things. Again, that doesn't change my premise that they shouldn't be -allowed- to put certain restrictions in a contract, at all.
I didn't challenge that premise either. For example, they shouldn't be allowed to put a clause in a contract stating that you'll murder your own child if you're late to work. I just don't believe that an NDA falls under your premise. Why should people be not only allowed but compensated for divulging company secrets?
The "right to bear arms" bit is offtopic and hasn't been part of this at all, so I am going to decline to respond to that.
Um. It's the second ammendment. You argued that the first ammendment should apply to private organizations, while I countered with another ammendment in the same document (the next one, even) which blows your argument. No wonder you declined to respond. Perhaps if you delineated precisely which parts of the Constitution you consider important I could keep my arguments to them.
You're reading the Constitution pretty narrowly. I would be more inclined to say that it establishes a fundamental right to free speech (as do several human rights treaties that the United States is a signatory to), the only threat to which, at the TIME, was the federal government. It is my guess that if they had foreseen, in 1776, widespread contractual obligations to curtail speech, this would have been prohibited expressly as well, but if such existed at all at the time, they were certainly not in wide use.
Oh, I see. They thought indentured servitude was A-OK but not an NDA? Come on, that's ridiculous. Besides, the document is MEANT to be read narrowly, it ONLY applies to the Federal Government. The fact that it has been applied otherwise does not mean that it was intended to do so.
I do not believe that the intent of the First Amendment was "Congress may not restrict free speech, but whoever else would like to, feel free."
No, it means that I may censor anyone I wish within my own private property. You have no right to free speech inside my house. You have no right to free speech inside my business. If I don't like what you say, I can legally kick you out. That pretty much denies your argument, unless you don't believe that a person has a right to control their own property.
For example, the Thirteenth Amendment outlaws slavery. Period. You cannot enter into a contract, for money, making you a slave-because it is forbidden by the Constitution.
Um. If you're getting paid and you voluntarily entered into the agreement, it isn't slavery. However, if you decided that you were going to voluntarily do whatever someone asked for the rest of your life, you think the government would step in and prevent you from doing so? Why?
Why shouldn't Constitutional law apply to the appropriate conduct of corporations?
Because it is only meant to enumerate the powers of the Federal Government, obviously.
It's (at least supposed to be) the supreme law of the land.
No, you're thinking of the United States Code. That isn't the Constitution.
If a power is dangerous in government hands, we should be twice as reluctant to place it in private hands.
I totally disagree. I believe that government should never weild more power than individuals. We'll probably never agree on that one. I trust myself and those I know far more than I will ever trust a centralized government.
The benefit is getting paid.
No, really?
The things that I won't do include not working for a competitor, for instance.
But you'll legally claim that you're perfectly willing not to work for anyone else....of course, you have no intention of honoring your claim, which is the dishonest part. The honest thing would be to tell the company, "I won't sign until you remove this clause."
I'll work for who I like - UK law takes a dim view of companies attempting to dictate who you can work for once you've left them.
So then why'd you sign the agreement? Agreement means...you agree. It doesn't mean you secretly don't agree. That isn't its definition. If you don't agree, legally claiming that you do is....dishonest.
I'm doing nothing dishonest by not telling them their contract contains unenforcable clauses. I'm not their lawyer, and I don't provide free legal advice.
You're legally accepting a clause which you have no intention of honoring. That. Is. Dishonest.
Earning a living to support myself and my family is not being selfish, is it?
Certainly not. However, the way you decided to go about it sure was. Or was there only one job in the entire country?
Unless and until the clause is tested in court it's irrelevant what I knew about it beforehand.
So, for example, if the company signed the contract and had no intention of paying you, that would be perfectly honest in your opinion, until tested in court? See, it's statements like the ones you've made recently that demonstrate how moronic you are.
You're still no closer to demonstrating how my actions are consistant with those of a moron - you've simply repeated yourself.
First of all, I demostrated that your assumption, that you are a moron because of one statement, was not what I was implying. Secondly, I don't need to demonstrate how you're a moron. You're doing a stellar job of it yourself.
What are you, 15 years old?
No, I'm 7. It's sad that you can't hold your own intellectually with a seven year old.
Good point. If you can't afford a lawyer, read the contract yourself and look up whatever you don't understand on the internet. Of course, that requires the intelligence to know which sites to trust, but checking several sources is not an onerous task on the internet. The point is, blindly signing contracts is a very good way to end up in a bad situation, and it will be one of your own making, no one else's.
I wanted it, AND I am right when I say that parts of the contract I signed (a contract which the other party created, not myself) were not enforcable in court. How does that make me dishonest? I wasn't the only person to sign it, although I might have been in the minority in knowing that it was unenforcable in places.
How is signing a contract promising to do certain things which you know you will never do in order to get a benefit honest? Care to explain that one? The HONEST thing to do is to say, "This is an illegal contract which I will not sign. Modify it to be legal or I will not sign." That's what an honest person would do, not grab whatever their selfish heart desires in whatever manner possible.
Why does signing a contract with the knowledge that certain parts were unenforcable in my favour make me a moron? Care to explain that one?
Sure. It doesn't. You're a moron AND you dishonestly entered into an illegal agreement.
You give the impression of not being very intelligent. Did you know that?
I don't care what internet strangers (especially idiots like you) think about me. Did you know that? Your opinion of my intelligence doesn't change it in the slightest. Did you know that? Besides, you're the one who thinks entering into an agreement you have no intention of honoring is honest. Legal, maybe, but certainly not honest.
Are you trolling? After all, you're the one who posted "Bollocks to 'free speech rights'"! I'm not sure you're in step with the rest of the world on that one.
In this situation, free speech rights do not apply. Bollocks to morons who think the Constitution is a magic blanket.
I've signed documents which contain unenforcable terms because I wanted something from the other party.
Well, how honest of you. I'm sure the rest of the world is in step with your dishonesty. I mean, you wanted something, so that made it okay, right? BUT YOU WANTED IT! That's way more important than right or wrong!
I didn't want to sign it, on one level, because it wasn't entirely legal,
But you still signed it. You're a moron.
but as there would be no problem having the terms annulled by a court, then why not sign it? There are many, many contracts signed around the world which don't stand up in court.
Well, for one thing, if you already knew it wasn't a valid contract, why did you subject the already overloaded court system to more frivolous bullshit? Oh, right, cause you WANTED something. Therefore you must get it no matter the circumstances. Whatever.
Your points, while true, have absolutely nothing to do with this particular case. He is not a whistleblower, he's a disgruntled employee (but one who seems strangely gruntled much of the time).
On a related note, if a corporation expects you to obey its rules 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, it owes you compensation for one hundred and sixty-eight hours, per week, plus overtime of course.
Tell that to the people who carry pagers. You DO get a bonus in comp for doing things like carrying pagers and not divulging company secrets. It's all covered in that contract you're too busy to read before you sign.
Why should your employer have control over what you blog in your off time?
Why should you be able to divulge company business and suffer no consequences for it? Note that this only applies if you have signed an NDA...because you've agreed NOT TO DISCLOSE things. If you could only not disclose them AT WORK, where EVERYONE knows them, it wouldn't make too much fucking sense, now would it? The company isn't saying 'you can't blog on your off time', they are saying 'you can't divulge company secrets in your off time'. Those are totally different statements.
Actually, I think what is at issue here, is that the contract at issue really isn't a choice.
Actually, it is! You're not FORCED to sign any contract. There is more than one job in the world.
It's very disingenuous for you to say "uh...don't sign it..." if you don't agree with it.
Why? I've done it. I didn't like the provision that said when I carried a pager, I couldn't drink alcohol. So I told my prospective employer that I wouldn't sign unless they modified that paragraph. I know it may be hard to believe, but they did it! Imagine! All I did was...wait for it....ask!
Protection is requested, then, for free speech, which is clearly enshrined in the Constitution as a fundamental right.
The Constitution delineates the limits of power of the Federal Government. That means that the Federal Government can't pass a law restricting free speech (although they CAN create an agency to do it with directives instead of laws, see the FCC). The Constitution doesn't say that people can't choose to limit their speech voluntarily for money. Similarly, the right to bear arms does not give you the right to go about armed wherever you want. Sorry. You're just way off base on this one.
I didn't say you should be able to 'sign your life away' but signing an NDA is HARDLY signing your life away. People want to ignore any section of a contract that they don't like, but how about if the company ignored the section about paying you? Would you continue to show up to work if you weren't getting paid? Or would you bust out your contract?
I was being sarcastic, you moron.
As it stands, a person gets a 30 page packet and thinks, "Ah, this is some cr*p I have to sign if I want this job.. How bad can it be? They're not going to rip me off. I trust them and I want this job. I will sign it." It's obvious to me where the abuse is happening.
Me too. In public schools. That's why lawyers can get away with making things sound so complicated, because many people don't know what many words mean. Also, as lawyers discovered that people were willing to sign things they hadn't read, they felt more able to abuse people in that way. Thing is, any time you trust a corporation or another person to have your best interest in mind, you're risking getting taken. YOU are supposed to have your best interest in mind. If you don't, why should you be immune from the consequences of your own disinterest?
Would you let your family starve just so you didn't have to keep a company's secrects...uh....secret? If so, you're an idiot. Yes, there are onerous contracts. However, I don't see how an NDA or a confidentiality agreement even somewhat meets that standard. Get real.
All they really understand is that if you don't sign, you don't have a job so enjoy living under a bridge when you lose your house!
It would appear from your example that there's only one job to be had, and it requires signing an onerous contract. Sadly for you, that certainly isn't the case in the real world.
That is not far from holding a gun to your head, and saying, "sign this".
Really? You always associate contracts with guns pointed at you? How odd. I don't want to live in your neighborhood, and you should move out of it as well.
An agreement under duress is no agreement at all.
Be sure to tell conquered nations that. I'm sure they'll be happy to hear it. Or did you mean in contract law? Because I don't see the duress, there. Now, in the unlikely event that someone did hold a gun to your head and tell you to sign a contact, you are correct that it would be invalid.
Yes, he and others like him need to stay anonymous, or they are toast, but it shouldn't be that way. It is high time laws were passed to protect such bloggers' free speech rights no matter what the legal mumbo jumbo they had to sign off on to have a job says. No employment contract should be able to take away free speech.
The workings of any publicly traded company ought to be public knowledge. We should have the right to know about companies, and not just their PR spin, before investing or when contemplating whether to sell stock. It is not good for the economy to let publicly traded firms operate in secrecy, and snooker investors
Even if a company is not publicly traded, prospective customers deserve to know what is going on.
Are you trolling? First, if you don't want to sign an employment contract, uh....don't sign it. People want the government to protect them from having to do hard work like reading legal documents before signing them. I mean, sure, it'd be messed up for a company to put 'must work 12 hour days 5 days a week or be fired' into a contract, and you're stupid enough to sign it, you should either work those 12s or get fired. Bollocks to 'free speech rights'. That applies to the federal government, not to private employers. If you sign a confidentiality agreement, you...agree...to...keep...things...confidential. No right to free speech is being restricted by the government here. If you don't like the agreement's terms...don't sign it. It's really not that difficult. What's next? No employment contract should take away someone's right to carry a gun to work? Seriously, people. The Bill of Rights limits what the FedGov can do, not what you can voluntarily agree to.
Kinda like how I couldn't make a character named 'Gloria Gaynor' in Guild Wars. You know, because it contains offensive content which is not allowed on their servers. I didn't realize the people who run Guild Wars were such discophobes.
Nice troll.
Also, I'm offended by the word 'gratuitous'. I'd appreciate no one ever using it again, please. Thanks.
Fuck off and go back to misetings, bitch.
40% of music downloaders are 'pirates'. 35% are 'legal'. What are the other 25%?