You want to draw a line between offenses that are so serious that the states can't be trusted to define them and offenses that don't really matter so we can trust the states.
If you can't see a dangerous slippery slope there, you're blind. It only sounds good if you personally are the one who decides what's an important law and what isn't.
As for "the public as a whole" making the decisions, good luck with that. You can't get the whole public to agree on anything. Besides, we already have a Constitution that's supposed to represent something like the General Will, and it doesn't say the federal government can make laws about murder, theft, and rape. The Founders wisely thought that the states can be trusted to do what's right most of the time, as long as you force each of them to keep a republican form of government, and allow the Constitution to be amended if it turns out you were wrong.
The material isn't being "sold" anywhere. It's free on the Internet, in violation of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.
Which Bill Clinton stupidly signed over Al Gore's objections to avoid being labelled a fan a child pornography in the '96 election. His signing statement advising the Justice Dept. that the law shouldn't be enforced because it's almost certainly unconstitutional was a particularly good example of political weasiliness. Thanks, Bill! You gave us an unconstitutional law, and all we had to do was wait for a President who disagreed about that to come along and enforce it.
The again, Gore is probably still kicking himself for thinking it's better to be right than to be elected.
So why allow the federal government of the US to define them? Aren't this issues so serious that we need to appoint a Supreme Overlord of the Universe with the power to make our laws?
If so, who is to decide, beside that Benevolent Dictator himself, exactly which issues are so vitally important that only He can make the laws about them? After all, there's always a risk that some lower power might decide to give Him authority in making Murder and Rape laws, but not on Theft laws. As you say, this would be an abomination.
Don't come crying to me when He decrees that thou shalt buy DRMed software and paint your house green.
What the plaintiff was objecting to, as I read the article (I didn't hunt down the Circuit Court's decision and read that too; obviously the article could be wrong) was the federal government trying obscenity cases in conservative communities because they're more likely to win on the "community standards" guidelines.
This is absolutely unfair, and undoubtedly a violation of the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution. If a state wants to ban certain publications and bring charges against people who publish them and/or sell them within that state, that's fine. I'll probably disagree with their law, what with the First Amendment saying "no law" rather than "no law except those involving obscenity", but whatever. Let the locals enforce their local standards. When the feds start enforcing someone else's local standards in my community, that's when I have a problem.
Trusting empirical evidence and inductive reasoning requires plenty of faith. Science is predicated on the idea that if A is followed by B for every instance of A that's been observed, that A will continue to be followed by B forever. There is no logical reason to believe this; it's merely how we think the world works. (To be fair to scientists, no one would be able to function without this belief. But that doesn't make it True.)
Of course, it's quite a leap to go from "science requires faith" to "you might as well accept metaphysical mumbo-jumbo with no evidence because it's just as good as accepting evidence."
It's not difficult to believe that the universe has always existed. It's incredibly easy to believe that. You prove that yourself by believing it and dismissing any evidence to the contrary as "difficult".
Do you really think scientists decided that the universe is probably expanding from a single point, and then decided to manufacture evidence to prove that belief to themselves? The whole idea that the universe is expanding was a shocking idea that was only accepted by astrophysicists when they concluded that experimental data could have no other explanation.
You should make it clearer that when you say "based on what I do know" you mean "based on nothing".
A Contract is a license that applies to anything at all and allows the two parties to agree to anything at all, but requires legally-binding proof that both parties agree (such as a signature, witnesses, etc).
A contract requires no such thing. It may be orders of magnitude easier to sue someone for breaching a contract if you've got unassailable proof of what they agreed to, but an oral contract made between two people with no one else around is still a contract.
Why is it a victory for the "Establishment" if I don't care who reads some of my emails?
I'm answering his question. This question did not mention subpoenas. I was explaining the consequences of people not caring who's reading their email, not the consequences of allowing subpoenas in criminal cases.
If there's probable cause to think your email contains evidence of criminal activity, then yes, it's "reasonable" under just about any standard to search it. That doesn't mean people with nothing to hide should be happy to let the government read their email with no justifiable reason for doing so.
Erosion of the expectation of privacy actually diminishes your rights to privacy. The 4th Amendment's use the the word "unreasonable" to describe what sorts of searches and seizures are forbidden makes this a problem.
What someone in 1789 considered "reasonable" might be very different from what someone today considers "reasonable". Imagine what sort of things a person will consider to be "reasonable" when they grew up expecting that the government would read their personal email and that they shouldn't care because they've got nothing to hide.
You're assuming that whoever wrote the Australian law (if their system works like it does in the US, probably a record company lobbyist) didn't inadvertantly write the law such that it's actually illegal for the copyright holder to make copies of his own works. You may be overestimating their intelligence.
It may very well be technically illegal for the record label to even press new CDs. You never know.
In my state, the legislature passed a law allowing cities to charge a "right to work" tax of $52 a year, setting that specific amount so someone getting a weekly paycheck would only lose $1 at a time. However, the moron who actually drafted the law wrote it such that the entire $52 has to be taken out of the first paycheck issued in January. Or, as happened to some people who work very few hours at a low wage, out of the first 2 checks when the first one wasn't enough to cover the tax. Legislators are often very dumb.
The outrage against the deal was bipartisan. You're trying to paint it as a Democratic issue when the two leaders of the Republican party in Congress publically spoke out against it. You're either a troll or an idiot. Take your pick.
S3 was built to the same service level standards that Amazon requires for its own web sites, with a targeted 99.99% availability, and storage of each piece of data on multiple servers in multiple Amazon datacenters.
I'm guessing there aren't very many enterprises that will be using this who are bigger than Amazon or with more to lose if their data is wiped out.
The poster to whom I was replying contended that being forced to have a device installed in his car that limits its top speed would be a good thing, because it would eliminate the distracting need to watch the speedometer. Cruise control solves this "problem" nicely, without the other effects of a speed limiting system no one would want.
Of course, this whole thread ignores the real issue, of whether we should be forced to have speed-limiting devices installed in our cars to make it impossible to drive illegally fast. Whether such a device might be convenient to some people for another reason is kind of irrelevant, and certainly breaks down the metaphor between speeding and copyright violation.
In the US, the system is rigged to prevent a third party from gaining any power. You can't form a coalition government; you only need a plurality of the vote in enough states to get complete control of the executive branch of government. You could have 10 leftist parties in the country which each got 9% of the vote, and one rightist party that got 10% of the vote, and you'd have a rightist President under no obligation whatsoever to put people from the other parties in his Cabinet.
A less extreme example of this happened in the 2000 election, where the Green candidate and the Democratic candidate combined for a majority in enough states to win the election, the result of which was a Republican presidency. In the previous 2 elections, Bill Clinton won without a majority of the vote because the right's vote was split with a third party.
In virtually every other democratic country in the world, votes for minor parties tend to help the major parties which share their values most closely, and can actually influence their policies. In the US, a vote for a minor party directly hurts the major party that's relatively closer to the minor party's position.
The solution isn't more third parties, it's fixing the system. But you know who really doesn't want to fix the system? The two parties with all of the power. It's a vicious circle.
Nitpicking perhaps, but can this be interpreted to mean that women, and men aged 45 or greater, who are not currently in the National Guard, do *not* have the right to bear arms?
Not really. The 2nd amendment guarantees the right "of the people" to bear arms, not the right of the militia to bear arms.
Of course, the founders were smart enough to specifically say, in the 9th amendment, that the enumeration of rights in the previous 8 amendments didn't take away any other rights.
Unfortunately, they were not smart enough to add "no really, we mean it, moron" to the end of each amendment. Or to establish a system of ostracism for government officials who can't comprehend phrases like "no law" and "shall not be violated".
I think he probably took advantage of the fact that anyone who's dumb enough to give people accounts on his machine and dare them to get root is probably also dumb enough to use "password" as their admin account password. Let's see Apple fix that vulnerability.
How exactly do you think the Internet can further "emerge" such that some random person at home will have the writing, directing, and acting skills (not to mention the technical skills; the best camera technology in the world won't make someone a competant cinematographer) to produce a home movie that anyone's actually going to want to see?
Distribution is not the problem. A major studio could take your home movie and put it on 1000 screens, and it's still not going to succeed.
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If you can't see a dangerous slippery slope there, you're blind. It only sounds good if you personally are the one who decides what's an important law and what isn't.
As for "the public as a whole" making the decisions, good luck with that. You can't get the whole public to agree on anything. Besides, we already have a Constitution that's supposed to represent something like the General Will, and it doesn't say the federal government can make laws about murder, theft, and rape. The Founders wisely thought that the states can be trusted to do what's right most of the time, as long as you force each of them to keep a republican form of government, and allow the Constitution to be amended if it turns out you were wrong.
Which Bill Clinton stupidly signed over Al Gore's objections to avoid being labelled a fan a child pornography in the '96 election. His signing statement advising the Justice Dept. that the law shouldn't be enforced because it's almost certainly unconstitutional was a particularly good example of political weasiliness. Thanks, Bill! You gave us an unconstitutional law, and all we had to do was wait for a President who disagreed about that to come along and enforce it.
The again, Gore is probably still kicking himself for thinking it's better to be right than to be elected.
If so, who is to decide, beside that Benevolent Dictator himself, exactly which issues are so vitally important that only He can make the laws about them? After all, there's always a risk that some lower power might decide to give Him authority in making Murder and Rape laws, but not on Theft laws. As you say, this would be an abomination.
Don't come crying to me when He decrees that thou shalt buy DRMed software and paint your house green.
What the plaintiff was objecting to, as I read the article (I didn't hunt down the Circuit Court's decision and read that too; obviously the article could be wrong) was the federal government trying obscenity cases in conservative communities because they're more likely to win on the "community standards" guidelines.
This is absolutely unfair, and undoubtedly a violation of the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution. If a state wants to ban certain publications and bring charges against people who publish them and/or sell them within that state, that's fine. I'll probably disagree with their law, what with the First Amendment saying "no law" rather than "no law except those involving obscenity", but whatever. Let the locals enforce their local standards. When the feds start enforcing someone else's local standards in my community, that's when I have a problem.
What if drawing your next breath destabilizes the thermodynamic structure of the universe and kills everyone?
You too can make up all the paranoid hypotheticals you want! It's fun!
Of course, it's quite a leap to go from "science requires faith" to "you might as well accept metaphysical mumbo-jumbo with no evidence because it's just as good as accepting evidence."
Do you really think scientists decided that the universe is probably expanding from a single point, and then decided to manufacture evidence to prove that belief to themselves? The whole idea that the universe is expanding was a shocking idea that was only accepted by astrophysicists when they concluded that experimental data could have no other explanation.
You should make it clearer that when you say "based on what I do know" you mean "based on nothing".
A contract requires no such thing. It may be orders of magnitude easier to sue someone for breaching a contract if you've got unassailable proof of what they agreed to, but an oral contract made between two people with no one else around is still a contract.
Why is it a victory for the "Establishment" if I don't care who reads some of my emails?
I'm answering his question. This question did not mention subpoenas. I was explaining the consequences of people not caring who's reading their email, not the consequences of allowing subpoenas in criminal cases.
If there's probable cause to think your email contains evidence of criminal activity, then yes, it's "reasonable" under just about any standard to search it. That doesn't mean people with nothing to hide should be happy to let the government read their email with no justifiable reason for doing so.
What someone in 1789 considered "reasonable" might be very different from what someone today considers "reasonable". Imagine what sort of things a person will consider to be "reasonable" when they grew up expecting that the government would read their personal email and that they shouldn't care because they've got nothing to hide.
While we're at it, how about a law forcing Sony to make the PS3 play HD-DVD discs? And VHS tapes, too.
It may very well be technically illegal for the record label to even press new CDs. You never know.
In my state, the legislature passed a law allowing cities to charge a "right to work" tax of $52 a year, setting that specific amount so someone getting a weekly paycheck would only lose $1 at a time. However, the moron who actually drafted the law wrote it such that the entire $52 has to be taken out of the first paycheck issued in January. Or, as happened to some people who work very few hours at a low wage, out of the first 2 checks when the first one wasn't enough to cover the tax. Legislators are often very dumb.
The outrage against the deal was bipartisan. You're trying to paint it as a Democratic issue when the two leaders of the Republican party in Congress publically spoke out against it. You're either a troll or an idiot. Take your pick.
robot. noun. A machine or device that operates automatically or by remote control.
Yes. It was those damn leftist Republican congressmen. The lot of them are a bunch of left-wing radicals, if you ask me.
A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator Not last time I checked.
Hey, Sandra Day O'Connor said it, not me.
Are you under the impression that 0 is the smallest signed integer? Or did you just not bother to read the sentence you quoted?
S3 was built to the same service level standards that Amazon requires for its own web sites, with a targeted 99.99% availability, and storage of each piece of data on multiple servers in multiple Amazon datacenters.
I'm guessing there aren't very many enterprises that will be using this who are bigger than Amazon or with more to lose if their data is wiped out.
Of course, this whole thread ignores the real issue, of whether we should be forced to have speed-limiting devices installed in our cars to make it impossible to drive illegally fast. Whether such a device might be convenient to some people for another reason is kind of irrelevant, and certainly breaks down the metaphor between speeding and copyright violation.
You might be interested in this brand new invention called "cruise control." I think it's going to be widely available in cars soon.
A less extreme example of this happened in the 2000 election, where the Green candidate and the Democratic candidate combined for a majority in enough states to win the election, the result of which was a Republican presidency. In the previous 2 elections, Bill Clinton won without a majority of the vote because the right's vote was split with a third party.
In virtually every other democratic country in the world, votes for minor parties tend to help the major parties which share their values most closely, and can actually influence their policies. In the US, a vote for a minor party directly hurts the major party that's relatively closer to the minor party's position.
The solution isn't more third parties, it's fixing the system. But you know who really doesn't want to fix the system? The two parties with all of the power. It's a vicious circle.
Yes. And those times are when you have no convincing argument against your opponent's point, so you M-U-S-T must must must construct a straw man.
Not really. The 2nd amendment guarantees the right "of the people" to bear arms, not the right of the militia to bear arms.
Unfortunately, they were not smart enough to add "no really, we mean it, moron" to the end of each amendment. Or to establish a system of ostracism for government officials who can't comprehend phrases like "no law" and "shall not be violated".
I think he probably took advantage of the fact that anyone who's dumb enough to give people accounts on his machine and dare them to get root is probably also dumb enough to use "password" as their admin account password. Let's see Apple fix that vulnerability.
Distribution is not the problem. A major studio could take your home movie and put it on 1000 screens, and it's still not going to succeed.