Second declention latin nouns end in -us and pluralized as -i. alumnus, alumni, alumna, alumnae. Octopus isn't one of those, so octopi is either a mistaken backformation or a knowing injoke. source: volokh conspiracy 3/05. Octopuses is correct. Octopodes may be, it's greek to me. I may be wrong about the latin. Some octopus are active greek. Generic term, tentacle monster. source: ghastly's ghastly comic.
If there is no law, they aren't breaking it.
A statute is not a law - a distinction that may be lost on some slashdotters.
The oklohoma statute would not be a law if it conflicted with the oklahoma bill of rights free speech provision,
or if it is pre-empted by federal law, as alleged in the suit,
or if it is unconstitutional under the dormant commerce clause.
The general rule, ALA v. Pataki, is that states, villages, and condominium assocations can't outlaw the internet - only congress has jurisdiction.
According to the complaint, they stopped spamming him once he gave them his email.
Most people are undefeated in court.
By undefeated I'm guessing he means "nobody we sued bothered to show up" which often means "we couldn't find out who to serve."
Mumma is the bully here. He goes around threatening to sue people in oklahoma under an oklahoma statute that is probably unconstitutional and possibly preempted by federal law.
Getting sued is a lot of fun, but not enough for to motivate me to go to oklahoma.
I'm guessing the standard response is to not show up. This time somebody called him on it.
Sure, the people he threatens aren't angels.
It's easier for a playground bully to pick on the kid who nobody likes.
The suit is a fairly standard kind of shot across the bow - threaten to sue somebody, and don't be surprised if they move first, choosing the time and place for the battle.
The facts and the law are in dispute.
Nobody's clearly in the right here. So far we've heard spin from one side of an adversarial process. Let's check back in a year.
Spam, as much as we hate it, is public participation. The defendant threatened to sue the [probably spammers]. That was a threat of a SLAPP suit. They called him on it. We are now in the arena of dueling lawyers, which becomes a matter of who has deeper pockets, who can grind the other down over years. I think the odds favor the spammers, even given the ineptness of the current counsel. I could be wrong - the brief in support of the motion to dismiss wasn't posted on the site I looked at,and would be a good clue as to the quality of defendant's counsel. But a strong opening isn't the same as being able to keep it up for years.
I challenge your assumptions 1 and 3. 1) It looks like the guy ran a web page that solicited business from virginia and nationally. They at least could get discovery on how many virginia customers he has. 2) I don't know about so I withhold comment. 3) Isn't fair use a defense, which must be pled? Fair use is iffy, even for specialists, so there's almost never a clear and indusputable fair use situation. Is it fair use in this case, based on what little I know about the facts? Probably. Is it so clear as to justify sanctions? No, not at all. 4) To avoid sanctions and dismissal, they only need one arguably valid claim, and they have outlined several approaches.
If sanctions were awarded for misuse of apostrophe's and, commas, these guys would be hit hard. The complaint was unproofread hackwork.
If the guy wins his jurisdictional dismissal, the suit can be refiled where he lives.
The most interesting legal aspect I saw in the case was the claim that CAN-spam preempts state anti-spam laws. I wonder how that will shake out if this case goes further.
Re:Heh, hope it isn't a Slashdotter who wins...
on
Gaiman Naming Auction
·
· Score: 1
It's an essay. In which an oral question by a coworker is quoted verbatim. Coworker may not speak English as first language.
How company make money?
Well that's one method, open source currency. Other alternatives: Give away product, sell services. Give away product, sell vaporware. Give away product, IPO. Give away product, sell short competitor's stock. Give away product, enhance reputation capital. Reputation capital can be monetized in numerous ways.
Consult.
Marry happy customer's daughter.
Write book.
Sell autographs on ebay.
Endorsements.
The pope gives away his product. he's doing ok.
Three examples: Eric S Raymond The cathedral and the bazaar. Cory Doctorow Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom Wil Wheaton Just a Geek/www.wilwheaton.net.
Calling himself a journalist doesn't make it so. But keeping a journal does. http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Apple_v_Does/ Thought I'd repost the link to the docs in the case.
The bill, as i understand it, does not ban citizens working together. You are to be commended for doing your bit. Let's try to seperate out two issues. Town-wide wireless access - good. Having the government run it - bad. Having people like you offer it, good. Open source co-ops, fine, non-profit philanthropy, fine, commercial sponsorship, fine.
I would welcome more info about the costs. What are the barriers to entry? Can the costs by recovered by encoding the signal and selling wireless modems with a decoder? The internet is a way to do many of the things that at one time it was inefficient for anyone but the government to do. Governments will be withering away when their functions are replaced by open source community-based projects. Governments don't like to just wither away - they like to hold onto their power and expand. Can a local government providing wifi monitor the usuage of the users? Would we want to encourage that?
dictionary.com 2 entries found for journalist. journalist Audio pronunciation of "journalist" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (jûrn-lst) n.
1.
2. One who keeps a journal. -- I am puzzled by the use of the 'insightful' tag to give 5's to posts that are factually wrong. It's happened repeatedly in this thread. But then, I'm new here.
The first amendment (rtfa) protects anonymous journalism. Talley v California McIntyre v Ohio Watchtower v Stratton Tornillo v Miami Herald
However I don't know if this has been applied, or disapplied, to journalists' protection of sources, by a supreme court case.
The california constitution, article 1 section 1, contains a right to privacy, a constitutional shield law, a statutory shield law, and a judicial doctrine protecting sources not covered by the shield law. http://www.thefirstamendment.org/shieldlaw.html
That is basicly correct. The FEC is a federal agency which regulates federal candidates. It gets weirder when you have a group like a party that is doing something that promotes both state and federal - they argue about the accounting. It is more difficult for state election authorities to regulate internet speech, since that causes commerce and preemption problems, but some try anyway.
I received this open letter from Trevor Potter, a former FEC commissioner, who disagrees with the Declan/Brad Smith article.
It provides a different perspective on the issue. Potter has his own axes to grind, and is not neutral, but it's one indication the article may have been overblown. I hear that happens on/. sometimes.
RE: Declan/Brad Smith article on Internet regulation by FEC hasen
Trevor Potter
to me, election-law_gl
More options 5:45 pm (7 minutes ago)
Commissioner Smith's interview does a good job at providing misinformation on the subject of the Internet and the FEC, as it was obviously intended to. Under the FEC regulations supported by Smith last year, PAID Internet advertising was not considered a 'public communication' and therefore could be paid for by soft money without limit or disclosure. The same applied to Internet Advertising by State political parties. NEITHER OF THESE HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH BLOGGERS OR AVERAGE CITIZEN USE OF THE INTERNET!
After a Federal judge threw out these Smith-supported exclusions for paid advertising on the Internet, the FEC was ordered to open a rulemaking on the question of advertising on the Internet. The Commission has NOT yet even put out any options for consideration--when they do so there will be opportunity for lots of public comment. The Commission will have plenty of opportunity in the course of the rulemaking to distinguish between political candidate or party Internet expenditures (which should be subject to federal campaign finance law like any other expenditure they make, or which is coordinated with them), and completely unregulated activity by bloggers, Internet news services, and citizens acting on their own.
There is NO REASON AT ALL that this FEC rulemaking should attempt to regulate bloggers, Internet -based news entities, or average citizens sitting at their PCs, and I have great faith it will not. I personally have represented several Internet-based groups in the past several years in obtaining Advisory Opinions from the FEC making it clear that their activities are NOT covered by federal election law.
What Brad Smith is trying to do (along with other opponents of campaign finance reform on issues like 527 legislation) is scare people into thinking the sky is falling, and stampede everyone into objecting before the FEC rulemaking has even begins. Particularly telling is his urging Congress to over-rule the federal district court opinion on paid Internet advertising. Having had his (and the FEC's) unsupportable exemption for paid advertising repudiated by a federal court, he now wants to do an end run around that Court decision.
My suggestion is that those of us who care about keeping Internet political activity free from intrusive regulation but ALSO believe in the campaign finance reform effort to keep soft money and corruption out of politics PARTICIPATE in the FEC rulemaking, and ensure the FEC gets it right this time.
For more information on the history of FEC regulation and deregulation of the Internet, see my Chapter in the Brookings Institution's New Campaign Finance Sourcebook at http://www.brookings.edu/dybdocroot/gs/cf/sour cebk 01/InternetChap9.pdf
Trevor Potter
-----Original Message----- From: owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu [mailto:o wner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu] On Behalf Of arbitrary aardvark Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2005 4:16 PM To: election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu Subject: Declan/Brad Smith article.
This morning Rick linked to this article at news.com. The article raises civil liberties concerns about FEC regulation of bloggers, who may not qualify for the media exception, and about treating linking as a contribut
This article is getting a lot of play in the blogosphere. Instapundit, Hasen, Bainbridge, Michelle Malkin, Josh Claypool, at least a dozen others. http://michellemalkin.com/archives/001654.htm Either that'll die out in a day or two, or build into a firestorm that makes the major media. Last time this happened in 99, it led to a round of FEC inquiry and public comment. This time it may give some legs to the first amendment restoration act, or other congressional action, or more litigation. I said above that Shays was on appeal but that seems to be wrong, at least for this part of the suit. Any one of us could have intervened in the suit and filed an appeal once the FEC deadlocked and did not appeal. But we didn't. I'd welcome hearing from anybody who wants to work constructively on the issue of protecting anonymous internet political speech.
Somebody told the engineers think "outside of the box."
Are there some quick hacks that would give it some kind of functionality? garage door opener? lighter? roomba companion? weed stash?
Is there a motherboard that fits this, so that slashdot joe with a screwdriver could assemble a working computer, load it with linux, firefox, and a suite of other open source apps, and come in around $400? Or does it have to wait for parts that aren't available yet?
This is not directed at spam. It is directed at webpages. Not so much those of candidates, but of independent organizations like moveon.org. In a recent enforcement decision, wisconsin right to life was reprimanded for posting a link. W RtL is a corporation, and the FEC decided this was a prohibited corporate contribution. www.fec.gov. I'm concerned about that. In 2000, I and 1200 other people wrote the FEC to ask them to keep hands off the internet, and they were doin somewhat ok with that, until this decision last fall in the Shays v FEC case. They received another 1200 comments and are in the process of adopting regulations. Shays is on appeal. Amicus briefs supporting an unregulated internet would be welcome. In 1992, when I saw John Gilmore hand Glenn Tenny a several hundred dollar contribution to his internet-based run for congress, I thought the internet would someday have a big impact on campaigns. In 1994, with the de-foley-8 america PAC, it did, but it was this last election cycle where the net became maybe more important than TV. Dean's fundraising and moveon.org and blogs were real players, and the usual suspects are calling for regulation and censorship.
Votelaw.org, electionlawblog.org and electionline are some good places to follow these issues. In contrast, ballots.blogspot.com, my election law blog, is not as good.
The fight against internet censorship has usually focused on smut and indecency. I've been trying, without success, to use political speech cases to make the same points.
problem 1: The drug company will argue, with a good chance of success, that such action is preempted by federal patent law. For this to work, it would most likely need a bill in congress to allow it. The cost of getting a bill thru congress which is opposed by the drug companies is non-trivial. 1.5: the 11th amendment is not a bar to seeking an injunction, or suing government officials in their individual capacity, or suing in state court. 2. The amount of just compensation due would be approximately the value of the lost sales, so there's no net savings to the consumer, plus there's the costs of the lawsuits. 3. Might require amending the state constitution. 4. The drug company can spend billions in negative, truthful, advertizing against the idiots who sponsor the bill, with the result of a friendlier legislature next session. 5. The drug company could (probably?) suspend sales of all its products in that state until they get their patent rights back, so the legislators would be dealing with crowds of sick kids whining. Politically and legally, there are obstacles.
State legislators are more responsive to feedback than congresscritters, but the process is the same.
Mail is divided into two stacks, for and against.
Each stack is then weighed.
How much does your email weigh?
Summary:
Email: completely ineffective.
Snailmail: somewhat effective.
Package containing letter and brick: more effective.
If it isn't worth at least 37 cents for a stamp, at least send it through a fax board.
You only need a five year lifespan for the stuff, because in 5 years you are going to want to replace it with the upgrade, which has twice the efficency at half the price and comes in designer colors.
Deceptive under the bill, section 603, is any intentionally false statement about the time place or manner of a federal election.
Say you were trying to register blacks in florida 40 years ago, or petition to get Nader on the ballot. You might make some innocent mistake about the manner of voting, that has nothing to do with depriving anyone of their voting rights. Now be prepared to defend yourself in court and raise a reasonable doubt that it was unintentional. Good luck with that. It's already hard to recruit volunteers for these kinds of activities. I've had clients who made some innocent mistake about which campaign forms to fill out when be threatened with jail. Bills like this chill free speech, and are selectively enforced in ways that impact racial and political minority groups. It might hold up in court - McCain Feingold did, mostly - but it is badly written and won't accomplish what they want it to. Also the price tag for this bill is $3 billion for the first year.
I want to put out a call for action by slashdotters that might be able to help john in his case. A letter to your senator of congresscritter something like this:
"Can you please send me a copy of the regulation or law which requires airlines to obtain from passengers a valid driver's license? Is there such a law?" (you don't need to copy my bad grammar, just a letter to that general effect.) If you get an answer, please send it to John via EFF or via his lawyers, or send it to me. Thanks. This would be useful to the case, but also puts pressure on the agency. If the law is so secret they won't tell a senator, that escalates the issue a bit. If they do tell the senator, and the senator send it to us, we can file that in court, and post it on slashdot.
Slashdot Mirror
Second declention latin nouns end in -us and pluralized as -i. alumnus, alumni, alumna, alumnae.
Octopus isn't one of those, so octopi is either a mistaken backformation or a knowing injoke.
source: volokh conspiracy 3/05.
Octopuses is correct.
Octopodes may be, it's greek to me.
I may be wrong about the latin.
Some octopus are active greek.
Generic term, tentacle monster.
source: ghastly's ghastly comic.
If there is no law, they aren't breaking it. A statute is not a law - a distinction that may be lost on some slashdotters. The oklohoma statute would not be a law if it conflicted with the oklahoma bill of rights free speech provision, or if it is pre-empted by federal law, as alleged in the suit, or if it is unconstitutional under the dormant commerce clause. The general rule, ALA v. Pataki, is that states, villages, and condominium assocations can't outlaw the internet - only congress has jurisdiction. According to the complaint, they stopped spamming him once he gave them his email.
Most people are undefeated in court. By undefeated I'm guessing he means "nobody we sued bothered to show up" which often means "we couldn't find out who to serve." Mumma is the bully here. He goes around threatening to sue people in oklahoma under an oklahoma statute that is probably unconstitutional and possibly preempted by federal law. Getting sued is a lot of fun, but not enough for to motivate me to go to oklahoma. I'm guessing the standard response is to not show up. This time somebody called him on it. Sure, the people he threatens aren't angels. It's easier for a playground bully to pick on the kid who nobody likes. The suit is a fairly standard kind of shot across the bow - threaten to sue somebody, and don't be surprised if they move first, choosing the time and place for the battle. The facts and the law are in dispute. Nobody's clearly in the right here. So far we've heard spin from one side of an adversarial process. Let's check back in a year.
Spam, as much as we hate it, is public participation. The defendant threatened to sue the [probably spammers]. That was a threat of a SLAPP suit. They called him on it.
We are now in the arena of dueling lawyers, which becomes a matter of who has deeper pockets, who can grind the other down over years. I think the odds favor the spammers, even given the ineptness of the current counsel. I could be wrong - the brief in support of the motion to dismiss wasn't posted on the site I looked at,and would be a good clue as to the quality of defendant's counsel.
But a strong opening isn't the same as being able to keep it up for years.
I challenge your assumptions 1 and 3.
1) It looks like the guy ran a web page that solicited business from virginia and nationally.
They at least could get discovery on how many virginia customers he has.
2) I don't know about so I withhold comment.
3) Isn't fair use a defense, which must be pled?
Fair use is iffy, even for specialists, so there's almost never a clear and indusputable fair use situation. Is it fair use in this case, based on what little I know about the facts? Probably. Is it so clear as to justify sanctions? No, not at all.
4) To avoid sanctions and dismissal, they only need one arguably valid claim, and they have outlined several approaches.
If sanctions were awarded for misuse of apostrophe's and, commas, these guys would be hit hard. The complaint was unproofread hackwork.
If the guy wins his jurisdictional dismissal, the suit can be refiled where he lives.
The most interesting legal aspect I saw in the case was the claim that CAN-spam preempts state anti-spam laws. I wonder how that will shake out if this case goes further.
how about the
Andre Maru?
It's an essay.
In which an oral question by a coworker is quoted verbatim.
Coworker may not speak English as first language.
How company make money?
Well that's one method, open source currency.
Other alternatives:
Give away product, sell services.
Give away product, sell vaporware.
Give away product, IPO.
Give away product, sell short competitor's stock.
Give away product, enhance reputation capital.
Reputation capital can be monetized in numerous ways.
Consult.
Marry happy customer's daughter.
Write book.
Sell autographs on ebay.
Endorsements.
The pope gives away his product. he's doing ok.
Three examples:
Eric S Raymond The cathedral and the bazaar.
Cory Doctorow Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Wil Wheaton Just a Geek/www.wilwheaton.net.
Thanks, i found that useful.
Calling himself a journalist doesn't make it so.
But keeping a journal does.
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Apple_v_Does/
Thought I'd repost the link to the docs in the case.
The bill, as i understand it, does not ban citizens working together.
You are to be commended for doing your bit.
Let's try to seperate out two issues.
Town-wide wireless access - good.
Having the government run it - bad.
Having people like you offer it, good.
Open source co-ops, fine, non-profit philanthropy, fine, commercial sponsorship, fine.
I would welcome more info about the costs.
What are the barriers to entry?
Can the costs by recovered by encoding the signal and selling wireless modems with a decoder?
The internet is a way to do many of the things that at one time it was inefficient for anyone but the government to do. Governments will be withering away when their functions are replaced by open source community-based projects. Governments don't like to just wither away -
they like to hold onto their power and expand.
Can a local government providing wifi monitor the usuage of the users? Would we want to encourage that?
"Yet oddly enough my first amendment right to yell "Fire" in a crowded theater has been taken away."
*waves magic wand*
I have restored your first amendment right to yell Fire in a crowded theatre.
Use it wisely. Go in peace.
dictionary.com
2 entries found for journalist.
journalist Audio pronunciation of "journalist" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (jûrn-lst)
n.
1.
2. One who keeps a journal.
--
I am puzzled by the use of the 'insightful' tag to give 5's to posts that are factually wrong. It's happened repeatedly in this thread.
But then, I'm new here.
Good link in parent post.
The first amendment (rtfa) protects anonymous journalism.
Talley v California
McIntyre v Ohio
Watchtower v Stratton
Tornillo v Miami Herald
However I don't know if this has been applied, or disapplied, to journalists' protection of sources, by a supreme court case.
The california constitution, article 1 section 1, contains a right to privacy, a constitutional shield law, a statutory shield law, and a judicial doctrine protecting sources not covered by the shield law.
http://www.thefirstamendment.org/shieldlaw.html
No.
That is basicly correct.
The FEC is a federal agency which regulates federal candidates.
It gets weirder when you have a group like a party that is doing something that promotes both state and federal - they argue about the accounting.
It is more difficult for state election authorities to regulate internet speech, since that causes commerce and preemption problems, but some try anyway.
I received this open letter from Trevor Potter, a former FEC commissioner, who disagrees with the Declan/Brad Smith article. /. sometimes.
It provides a different perspective on the issue.
Potter has his own axes to grind, and is not neutral, but it's one indication the article may have been overblown. I hear that happens on
RE: Declan/Brad Smith article on Internet regulation by FEC hasen
Trevor Potter
to me, election-law_gl
More options 5:45 pm (7 minutes ago)
Commissioner Smith's interview does a good job at providing
misinformation on the subject of the Internet and the FEC, as it was
obviously intended to. Under the FEC regulations supported by Smith last
year, PAID Internet advertising was not considered a 'public
communication' and therefore could be paid for by soft money without
limit or disclosure. The same applied to Internet Advertising by State
political parties. NEITHER OF THESE HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH BLOGGERS OR
AVERAGE CITIZEN USE OF THE INTERNET!
After a Federal judge threw out these Smith-supported exclusions for
paid advertising on the Internet, the FEC was ordered to open a
rulemaking on the question of advertising on the Internet. The
Commission has NOT yet even put out any options for consideration--when
they do so there will be opportunity for lots of public comment. The
Commission will have plenty of opportunity in the course of the
rulemaking to distinguish between political candidate or party Internet
expenditures (which should be subject to federal campaign finance law
like any other expenditure they make, or which is coordinated with
them), and completely unregulated activity by bloggers, Internet news
services, and citizens acting on their own.
There is NO REASON AT ALL that this FEC rulemaking should attempt to
regulate bloggers, Internet -based news entities, or average citizens
sitting at their PCs, and I have great faith it will not. I personally
have represented several Internet-based groups in the past several years
in obtaining Advisory Opinions from the FEC making it clear that their
activities are NOT covered by federal election law.
What Brad Smith is trying to do (along with other opponents of campaign
finance reform on issues like 527 legislation) is scare people into
thinking the sky is falling, and stampede everyone into objecting before
the FEC rulemaking has even begins. Particularly telling is his urging
Congress to over-rule the federal district court opinion on paid
Internet advertising. Having had his (and the FEC's) unsupportable
exemption for paid advertising repudiated by a federal court, he now
wants to do an end run around that Court decision.
My suggestion is that those of us who care about keeping Internet
political activity free from intrusive regulation but ALSO believe in
the campaign finance reform effort to keep soft money and corruption out
of politics PARTICIPATE in the FEC rulemaking, and ensure the FEC gets
it right this time.
For more information on the history of FEC regulation and deregulation
of the Internet, see my Chapter in the Brookings Institution's New
Campaign Finance Sourcebook at
http://www.brookings.edu/dybdocroot/gs/cf/sour cebk 01/InternetChap9.pdf
Trevor Potter
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu
[mailto:o wner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu] On Behalf Of arbitrary
aardvark
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2005 4:16 PM
To: election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu
Subject: Declan/Brad Smith article.
This morning Rick linked to
this
article at news.com.
The article raises civil liberties concerns about FEC regulation of
bloggers, who may not qualify for the media exception, and about
treating linking as a contribut
This article is getting a lot of play in the blogosphere.
Instapundit, Hasen, Bainbridge, Michelle Malkin, Josh Claypool, at least a dozen others.
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/001654.htm
Either that'll die out in a day or two, or build into a firestorm that makes the major media.
Last time this happened in 99, it led to a round of FEC inquiry and public comment. This time it may give some legs to the first amendment restoration act, or other congressional action, or more litigation. I said above that Shays was on appeal but that seems to be wrong, at least for this part of the suit. Any one of us could have intervened in the suit and filed an appeal once the FEC deadlocked and did not appeal. But we didn't. I'd welcome hearing from anybody who wants to work constructively on the issue of protecting anonymous internet political speech.
The sister (singular) may have multiple convictions (plural) overturned. http://www.plural conviction
How much does it cost?
I could use a lunchbox.
Somebody told the engineers think "outside of the box."
Are there some quick hacks that would give it some kind of functionality? garage door opener? lighter? roomba companion? weed stash?
Is there a motherboard that fits this, so that slashdot joe with a screwdriver could assemble a working computer, load it with linux, firefox, and a suite of other open source apps, and come in around $400? Or does it have to wait for parts that aren't available yet?
This is not directed at spam. It is directed at webpages. Not so much those of candidates, but of independent organizations like moveon.org.
In a recent enforcement decision, wisconsin right to life was reprimanded for posting a link.
W RtL is a corporation, and the FEC decided this was a prohibited corporate contribution. www.fec.gov.
I'm concerned about that.
In 2000, I and 1200 other people wrote the FEC to ask them to keep hands off the internet, and they were doin somewhat ok with that, until this decision last fall in the Shays v FEC case.
They received another 1200 comments and are in the process of adopting regulations.
Shays is on appeal.
Amicus briefs supporting an unregulated internet would be welcome.
In 1992, when I saw John Gilmore hand Glenn Tenny a several hundred dollar contribution to his internet-based run for congress, I thought the internet would someday have a big impact on campaigns. In 1994, with the de-foley-8 america PAC, it did, but it was this last election cycle where the net became maybe more important than TV. Dean's fundraising and moveon.org and blogs were real players, and the usual suspects are calling for regulation and censorship.
Votelaw.org, electionlawblog.org and electionline are some good places to follow these issues. In contrast, ballots.blogspot.com, my election law blog, is not as good.
The fight against internet censorship has usually focused on smut and indecency. I've been trying, without success, to use political speech cases to make the same points.
problem 1:
The drug company will argue, with a good chance of success, that such action is preempted by federal patent law. For this to work, it would most likely need a bill in congress to allow it. The cost of getting a bill thru congress which is opposed by the drug companies is non-trivial.
1.5: the 11th amendment is not a bar to seeking an injunction, or suing government officials in their individual capacity, or suing in state court.
2. The amount of just compensation due would be approximately the value of the lost sales, so there's no net savings to the consumer, plus there's the costs of the lawsuits.
3. Might require amending the state constitution.
4. The drug company can spend billions in negative, truthful, advertizing against the idiots who sponsor the bill, with the result of a friendlier legislature next session.
5. The drug company could (probably?) suspend sales of all its products in that state until they get their patent rights back, so the legislators would be dealing with crowds of sick kids whining.
Politically and legally, there are obstacles.
State legislators are more responsive to feedback than congresscritters, but the process is the same. Mail is divided into two stacks, for and against. Each stack is then weighed. How much does your email weigh? Summary: Email: completely ineffective. Snailmail: somewhat effective. Package containing letter and brick: more effective. If it isn't worth at least 37 cents for a stamp, at least send it through a fax board.
You only need a five year lifespan for the stuff, because in 5 years you are going to want to replace it with the upgrade, which has twice the efficency at half the price and comes in designer colors.
Deceptive under the bill, section 603, is any intentionally false statement about the time place or manner of a federal election.
Say you were trying to register blacks in florida 40 years ago, or petition to get Nader on the ballot. You might make some innocent mistake about the manner of voting, that has nothing to do with depriving anyone of their voting rights. Now be prepared to defend yourself in court and raise a reasonable doubt that it was unintentional. Good luck with that. It's already hard to recruit volunteers for these kinds of activities. I've had clients who made some innocent mistake about which campaign forms to fill out when be threatened with jail. Bills like this chill free speech, and are selectively enforced in ways that impact racial and political minority groups. It might hold up in court - McCain Feingold did, mostly - but it is badly written and won't accomplish what they want it to.
Also the price tag for this bill is $3 billion for the first year.
I want to put out a call for action by slashdotters that might be able to help john in his case.
A letter to your senator of congresscritter something like this:
"Can you please send me a copy of the regulation or law which requires airlines to obtain from passengers a valid driver's license? Is there such a law?" (you don't need to copy my bad grammar, just a letter to that general effect.)
If you get an answer, please send it to John via EFF or via his lawyers, or send it to me. Thanks.
This would be useful to the case, but also puts pressure on the agency. If the law is so secret they won't tell a senator, that escalates the issue a bit. If they do tell the senator, and the senator send it to us, we can file that in court, and post it on slashdot.