He wasn't presenting a false dilemma, he's recognizing the current political reality.
The problem with divided government is that it slows the legislative process way down. This can be observed between 1994 and 2000 and again from 2006 to 2008. Granted, from 1950 to about 1982 it was possible for government to be divided and still productive, but in the current political climate with the GOP entrenched way out in crazyland, a divided government wouldn't be able to do anything substantial. That might be ok when everything is running along a-ok, but that is not the situation we're in at the moment. We need fundamental changes so we don't skid into the economic abyss, so we need either single party control, or we need the republicans to negotiate in good faith. The latter is much, much less feasible than the former.
Incidentally, things like sworn eye-witness testimony that a crime has occurred, while technically second hand information, is more appropriately treated as evidence when examining question d.
That brings me to another question, which would be better to interpret the situation, a strict constitutionalists court or a "living document" court.
We've raised a lot of different questions in this conversation, (a)Was a terry stop justified in this specific situation, (b)Was an arrest justified in this specific situation, (c)In general can a police officer effect a terry stop on second hand information, (d)In general, can a police officer effect an arrest based on a second hand complaint and refusal of the suspect to cooperate. Now you're adding two more (e)which would be better to interpret the situation, a strict constitutionalists court or a "living document" court, and, implicitly, (f)would a strict constructionist and a subscriber to the living document theory come to a different conclusion on any of these questions.
Starting with (e), the one you explicitly just asked, I think if you're a constructionist you always think strict constructionism should be followed, and if you think the constitution evolves with society, you always think social realities need to be taken into account. If you're asking me personally, I think the people on the court right now who call themselves constructionists/textualists/originalists have their heads up their collective asses. I think of the three philosophies, originalism is the only one with any merit, but all to often originalists ignore clearly articulated positions of the founders. This is especially obvious when we talk about things like school prayer and whether the US is a "christian nation." Many (most?) of the founders were clearly either atheists or deists, notably Jefferson, Madison, and Washington, and surely would have bristled at the notion of public institutions tacitly endorsing one religion over another. So-called-originalists, however, seem more interested in what the think the constitution should have originally been.
Now with that rant out of the way, as for the rest of the questions, I think constructionists and living-document-proponents should, in theory come to the same conclusion on questions a-d, in order Yes, No, Yes, No. In reality, I think questions b and d would result in split 5-4 decisions.
They criminalize your lack of participation with the cops during an investigation
Those are two different things. Not participating (especially if you're the suspect) is not illegal. Lying which is "what Obstruction laws specifically do" is actively foiling the investigation and is illegal. So if you want to legally compel a suspect to participate in the investigation against him, by giving his name, you do need a law saying so.
Can any complaint, regardless of if a law being broke in any way was involved or not, be enough reason to detain someone and then escalate it to an actual arrest? I don't think it is.
ANY complaint surely won't cut it. Any reasonable complaint that alleges a law has been, or is about to be broken (with specific articulable facts), provided the police don't have reason to believe the complaint is fabricated, probably is sufficient.
I don't think we're going to get the satisfaction of a definitive answer from SCOTUS anytime soon though.
I like the achievements in L4D, but then again I don't try to get them on purpose. When one of them pops up, I look at that as the game congratulating me for doing something interesting. Yeah, if you have achievement whoring 'tards on your team, that sucks, but odds are, they'd still be 'tards even if they weren't whoring achievements.
(the exception to not trying for achievements are things like only pistols - which I think can make the game more fun for you AND your team - IF you let them know.)
Well, this is the part in question I guess. You are most likely not allowed to lie by answering questions that don't stop you from using your right against self incrimination or of being secure in your person, papers, and effects with false statements. You are not required to answer questions that could violate your constitutional rights, but the courts already said that in a terry stop, giving you name doesn't violate any constitutional rights. So it would appear that your not protected from not giving your name in the least regardless of whether there is a stop and identify law or not.
I think all that depends on how the state law is drafted. SCOTUS has held that giving your name does not violate your fifth amendment rights, but unless a state has a law criminalizing your refusal, they cannot punish you. Same goes for lying to the police. To be fair though I think the obstruction laws in most states probably do make it illegal to lie to an officer performing an official investigation. It looks to me, that the safest legal ground would be to give your name, then refuse to say anything further.
I mean if I have a bad feeling and say you were going to assault me, what have I accused you of other then me having a bad feeling? If I'm a puss and think your going to bash me in the parking lot simply because you look similar to someone who has done it in the past, what have I accused you of?
If you can articulate reasonable facts that a crime has occurred or is about to occur to the police officer, in my mind, that meets the requirements in Terry, since the police officer can turn around and articulate "Sumdumass said:..." So I guess it falls to the police officer's judgment to determine whether your statement meets the terry requirements.
That is a very low bar. If you tell the cop that I threatened to hit you, that qualifies. If you tell the cop that I'm hovering, pacing near you, making you uncomfortable, and your afraid I might try something, that qualifies as well - in fact the actual case in Terry was quite similar to that.
I guess the limit is, if in the course of accusing me you say something that calls into question the reasonableness of a crime occurring. Something like, or "Venus is in line with pluto so now I'm threatened."
We don't really know what the security guard in this particular case said to the police officer, "he threatened me by taking my picture in public" probably wouldn't cut it, but "he was hovering, leering, taking pictures, and acting aggressively" probably would. I have no problem believing that the security guard inflated the incident, or, for that matter, that the guy who got arrested was acting a lot more irately than he lets on.
My position is that if you call the police and tell them that I'm threatening you, the minimum burden for a terry stop has been met. That means they can detain me and perform a cursory search of my person. They can't come into my house or search it - that would require a warrant. They can ask my identity, whether I'm obligated to answer depends entirely on state law.
If I refuse to identify myself and the state has a stop-and-identify law, I can be arrested because the police would have probable cause to believe I've violated the stop-and-identify statute. If the state doesn't have a stop-and-identify law I can be arrested if the obstruction law is drafted to cover the situation. If the state obstruction law can't be construed to compel me to identify myself, I can sit there with my mouth shut.
Even without a specific law, if the officer has the ability to investigate and through that investigation ability, the officer can ask questions, and the interaction with the subject is a terry stop or better, then your pretty much required to answer anything that doesn't tread on your constitutional rights which Hiible already said giving you name wasn't.
The officer does have the right to ask me any question he wants. I'm not obligated to answer any of them, with the possible exception for biographical information. I have the right to remain silent.
It would be interesting to find out if I can call the cops and claim I feel threatened, if they can run all over you without specific evidence of you doing anything wrong. There are literally hundreds of murders every year where people breaking up or getting a divorce complain about their other half threatening them and the cops act like there isn't anything they can do about it
Well, they can perform a terry stop, but beyond that, unless the person they stop has a weapon or drugs, confesses they intend to hurt the person, or otherwise gives the cop probable cause to believe a crime is about to be committed, the police are powerless to do anything (especially if the accused gives his name.)
I fully expect the cops to respond every single time someone calls them. They can then question and frisk the accused. I don't view the fact that the police can frisk anyone they've received a complaint about as an abuse of police powers. If someone is calling in false complaints, they're the ones abusing the process, and should be prosecuted. (One side note: if the police are found to be manufacturing complaints so they can meet the "specific and articulable facts" burden, that would be an egregious abuse of power.)
First, Terry requires, "specific and articulable facts" to carry out a Terry stop. I think this burden is probably met, since the security guard "felt threatened" (which is BS, but besides the point).
Second, neither Hiible nor Terry rule on whether the police can compel you to give your name if the state doesn't have a stop-and-identify law, as is the case in Washington. Since the police took him to the station, handcuffed him, and provided him with his Miranda rights, it would seem, for all intents and purposes, that the PD elevated this from a terry-stop to a full fledged arrest, which requires the higher burden of probable cause. The Seattle PD is going to have a hard time making the case that they had probable cause to believe a crime took place based on the picture taking incident, so they'll probably fall back on obstruction. It doesn't seem that Hiible provides any guidance on whether failing to identify yourself constitutes obstruction.
It seems to me that the photographer in this case, if he so desires, (possibly pro-bono support from the ACLU) could file suit against the Seattle PD in an attempt win a settlement, err I mean flesh out a legal gray zone.
Alright. For whatever reason, this stuff fascinates me, and I've been following up on a couple of links.
The case on point isn't Terry, it appears to be Hiibel. But it looks to me that Hiibel only establishes that a stop-and-identify law isn't unconstitutional - and it appears that Washington doesn't have a stop-and-identify law. So, depending on how Washington's obstruction law is drafted, or if there's some case law in Washington to provide guidance, it would seem that the applicability of an obstruction charge to a failure to identify case is untested.
If the police are called to the scene, they're supposed to investigate the incident, right? In the course of investigating they have a right to ask who's involved, right? If you're involved, and you don't cooperate you're obstructing official police business, right?
If the party who called the police is making frivolous claims, the appropriate response is to deal with them, not to fault the cops before they gathered the most preliminary of data.
If someone calls the police on you (which the security guards apparently did - even if it was bullshit) doesn't that give the cop a reason to ask your identity.
Before tasers and pepper spray there were batons and night-sticks.
It's possible that the physical act of hitting someone provides more of a deterrent for the police to use "less than lethal" force, but let's not pretend that police didn't abuse "uncooperative" citizens before the taser.
They have as much right to call the police as he has to take a picture. It might seem unreasonable, but maybe they didn't feel safe. (It's a load of crap, I know, but that doesn't diminish their right.)
The real question is what happened when the cops arrived? It's not outside the realm of possibility that the security guards filed a complaint, and he was uncooperative when questioned (read: obstructing). If he refused to identify himself (meaning wouldn't give his name - which is distinct from producing ID) that in itself might be sufficient for an legitimate obstruction charge. I think that gives the police a right to detain him. It's not clear why he was detained, or if he was arrested, so that's why we want the other side of the story.
Obviously the hedge is that your current cash will be worth less and your revenue will increase, allowing you to pay off your debt at a fraction of the current value.
can you explain to me how debt is a hedge against inflation?
It seems to me that it goes the other way, you take on debt for cash now. The value of the cash decreases, then you have to pay back your bond holders, plus interest.
Don't take investing advise from anonymous posters on the internet.
That said, here's my advise: you don't want this bond. The return on bonds right now is pitiful, you might as well buy T-bills.
I'm not well versed in corporate finance regulations, but I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft isn't floating this bond because given the interest, they think it's essentially free money.
I agree, it makes sense, but you quickly run into line-drawing problems.
Theoretically, a technical question has a "correct" answer, but in reality technical experts disagree all the time. Looking at the intersection seems like a no brainer, but if you're letting the judge investigate, he might also want to know who was in the intersection first, and he might be able to determine that by consulting some kind of auto-forensic expert. The judge might never know if that expert has conflicts of interest. Ideally, in an adversarial open court, lawyers can devise questions to get at the expert's motives.
The reason the material a judge gets to see is so tightly controlled is because the legal system has spent ~1000 years figuring out how to make sure that information is credible. If you're going to let a judge go off and conduct his own investigation the big problem you're going to run into is astroturfing.
Let's talk about that car accident - the judge goes online and finds your flickr account and sees some photos that clearly indicate the accident wasn't your fault. Now, were those photos genuine, staged, or photoshopped? In a court room you are sworn to tell the truth, and your adversary can bring in expert witnesses to question the validity of your evidence. On Flickr, you can put up whatever the hell you want - and the judge isn't qualified to determine the appropriateness of that information.
The reason we have an adversarial legal system is so that each side can put their evidence on the table and argue about what it means.
The argument is that if blogs are available to the judge, they shouldn't be treated differently from amicus briefs - who's timing, rigor, and content are very tightly controlled, and an opportunity to respond is presented - unlike blog posts.
the judicial rule and its comments broadly instruct judges and their clerks not to gather a variety of types of information, some of which might well be published. The model rule states that a judge âoeshall not investigate facts in a matter independently...
...if a judge wishes to avail himself or herself of the advice of a disinterested legal expert regarding âoethe law applicable to a proceeding,â the Judicial Code declares that the parties in the case must receive notice and an opportunity to respond. Judges are clearly not supposed to seek legal analysis tailored to the case from outside chambers without providing procedural protections to the parties.â
If this is a problem, and I grant that it could be, it seems to me the only reasonable requirement would be to restrict the material the judge is ethically allowed to gather.
One argument that struck me from the law review article was that blogging would unfairly advantage the well equipped (those who routinely argue before the supreme court and business interests). In fact, that might be the only argument laid out who's antithesis isn't examined.
The argument goes like this: there are only a handful of people who have the experience to influence the court at such a high level, so if a new avenue of communication is opened they will exploit it at the expense of the uneducated masses, in this case lawyers who only occasionally argue before the supreme court, the general public AND any experts (e.g. law professors) who might take an interest in the case, because all these groups lack the sophistication to craft a persuasive argument.
The problem with this conclusion, as I see it, is that the internet is a very populist medium that tends not to support entrenched interests. While traditional legal proceeding seem to many to favor the well-to-do, the internet is not part of a traditional legal proceeding. One example the law review author provided was that of the criminal defendant. It is my opinion that discussion in an open forum of a criminal case is likely to favor the defendant, since groups like the ACLU and the defense lawyer community have much greater resources than the district attorney.
Slashdot Mirror
He wasn't presenting a false dilemma, he's recognizing the current political reality.
The problem with divided government is that it slows the legislative process way down. This can be observed between 1994 and 2000 and again from 2006 to 2008. Granted, from 1950 to about 1982 it was possible for government to be divided and still productive, but in the current political climate with the GOP entrenched way out in crazyland, a divided government wouldn't be able to do anything substantial. That might be ok when everything is running along a-ok, but that is not the situation we're in at the moment. We need fundamental changes so we don't skid into the economic abyss, so we need either single party control, or we need the republicans to negotiate in good faith. The latter is much, much less feasible than the former.
Incidentally, things like sworn eye-witness testimony that a crime has occurred, while technically second hand information, is more appropriately treated as evidence when examining question d.
We've raised a lot of different questions in this conversation, (a)Was a terry stop justified in this specific situation, (b)Was an arrest justified in this specific situation, (c)In general can a police officer effect a terry stop on second hand information, (d)In general, can a police officer effect an arrest based on a second hand complaint and refusal of the suspect to cooperate. Now you're adding two more (e)which would be better to interpret the situation, a strict constitutionalists court or a "living document" court, and, implicitly, (f)would a strict constructionist and a subscriber to the living document theory come to a different conclusion on any of these questions.
Starting with (e), the one you explicitly just asked, I think if you're a constructionist you always think strict constructionism should be followed, and if you think the constitution evolves with society, you always think social realities need to be taken into account. If you're asking me personally, I think the people on the court right now who call themselves constructionists/textualists/originalists have their heads up their collective asses. I think of the three philosophies, originalism is the only one with any merit, but all to often originalists ignore clearly articulated positions of the founders. This is especially obvious when we talk about things like school prayer and whether the US is a "christian nation." Many (most?) of the founders were clearly either atheists or deists, notably Jefferson, Madison, and Washington, and surely would have bristled at the notion of public institutions tacitly endorsing one religion over another. So-called-originalists, however, seem more interested in what the think the constitution should have originally been.
Now with that rant out of the way, as for the rest of the questions, I think constructionists and living-document-proponents should, in theory come to the same conclusion on questions a-d, in order Yes, No, Yes, No. In reality, I think questions b and d would result in split 5-4 decisions.
Those are two different things. Not participating (especially if you're the suspect) is not illegal. Lying which is "what Obstruction laws specifically do" is actively foiling the investigation and is illegal. So if you want to legally compel a suspect to participate in the investigation against him, by giving his name, you do need a law saying so.
ANY complaint surely won't cut it. Any reasonable complaint that alleges a law has been, or is about to be broken (with specific articulable facts), provided the police don't have reason to believe the complaint is fabricated, probably is sufficient.
I don't think we're going to get the satisfaction of a definitive answer from SCOTUS anytime soon though.
wow - as if nethack wasn't masochistic enough with "normal" game play.
I like the achievements in L4D, but then again I don't try to get them on purpose. When one of them pops up, I look at that as the game congratulating me for doing something interesting. Yeah, if you have achievement whoring 'tards on your team, that sucks, but odds are, they'd still be 'tards even if they weren't whoring achievements.
(the exception to not trying for achievements are things like only pistols - which I think can make the game more fun for you AND your team - IF you let them know.)
I think all that depends on how the state law is drafted. SCOTUS has held that giving your name does not violate your fifth amendment rights, but unless a state has a law criminalizing your refusal, they cannot punish you. Same goes for lying to the police. To be fair though I think the obstruction laws in most states probably do make it illegal to lie to an officer performing an official investigation. It looks to me, that the safest legal ground would be to give your name, then refuse to say anything further.
If you can articulate reasonable facts that a crime has occurred or is about to occur to the police officer, in my mind, that meets the requirements in Terry, since the police officer can turn around and articulate "Sumdumass said:..." So I guess it falls to the police officer's judgment to determine whether your statement meets the terry requirements.
That is a very low bar. If you tell the cop that I threatened to hit you, that qualifies. If you tell the cop that I'm hovering, pacing near you, making you uncomfortable, and your afraid I might try something, that qualifies as well - in fact the actual case in Terry was quite similar to that.
I guess the limit is, if in the course of accusing me you say something that calls into question the reasonableness of a crime occurring. Something like, or "Venus is in line with pluto so now I'm threatened."
We don't really know what the security guard in this particular case said to the police officer, "he threatened me by taking my picture in public" probably wouldn't cut it, but "he was hovering, leering, taking pictures, and acting aggressively" probably would. I have no problem believing that the security guard inflated the incident, or, for that matter, that the guy who got arrested was acting a lot more irately than he lets on.
My position is that if you call the police and tell them that I'm threatening you, the minimum burden for a terry stop has been met. That means they can detain me and perform a cursory search of my person. They can't come into my house or search it - that would require a warrant. They can ask my identity, whether I'm obligated to answer depends entirely on state law.
If I refuse to identify myself and the state has a stop-and-identify law, I can be arrested because the police would have probable cause to believe I've violated the stop-and-identify statute. If the state doesn't have a stop-and-identify law I can be arrested if the obstruction law is drafted to cover the situation. If the state obstruction law can't be construed to compel me to identify myself, I can sit there with my mouth shut.
The officer does have the right to ask me any question he wants. I'm not obligated to answer any of them, with the possible exception for biographical information. I have the right to remain silent.
Well, they can perform a terry stop, but beyond that, unless the person they stop has a weapon or drugs, confesses they intend to hurt the person, or otherwise gives the cop probable cause to believe a crime is about to be committed, the police are powerless to do anything (especially if the accused gives his name.)
I fully expect the cops to respond every single time someone calls them. They can then question and frisk the accused. I don't view the fact that the police can frisk anyone they've received a complaint about as an abuse of police powers. If someone is calling in false complaints, they're the ones abusing the process, and should be prosecuted. (One side note: if the police are found to be manufacturing complaints so they can meet the "specific and articulable facts" burden, that would be an egregious abuse of power.)
2 points:
First, Terry requires, "specific and articulable facts" to carry out a Terry stop. I think this burden is probably met, since the security guard "felt threatened" (which is BS, but besides the point).
Second, neither Hiible nor Terry rule on whether the police can compel you to give your name if the state doesn't have a stop-and-identify law, as is the case in Washington. Since the police took him to the station, handcuffed him, and provided him with his Miranda rights, it would seem, for all intents and purposes, that the PD elevated this from a terry-stop to a full fledged arrest, which requires the higher burden of probable cause. The Seattle PD is going to have a hard time making the case that they had probable cause to believe a crime took place based on the picture taking incident, so they'll probably fall back on obstruction. It doesn't seem that Hiible provides any guidance on whether failing to identify yourself constitutes obstruction.
It seems to me that the photographer in this case, if he so desires, (possibly pro-bono support from the ACLU) could file suit against the Seattle PD in an attempt win a settlement, err I mean flesh out a legal gray zone.
Alright. For whatever reason, this stuff fascinates me, and I've been following up on a couple of links.
The case on point isn't Terry, it appears to be Hiibel. But it looks to me that Hiibel only establishes that a stop-and-identify law isn't unconstitutional - and it appears that Washington doesn't have a stop-and-identify law. So, depending on how Washington's obstruction law is drafted, or if there's some case law in Washington to provide guidance, it would seem that the applicability of an obstruction charge to a failure to identify case is untested.
you're going to have to expand a bit.
If the police are called to the scene, they're supposed to investigate the incident, right? In the course of investigating they have a right to ask who's involved, right? If you're involved, and you don't cooperate you're obstructing official police business, right?
If the party who called the police is making frivolous claims, the appropriate response is to deal with them, not to fault the cops before they gathered the most preliminary of data.
If someone calls the police on you (which the security guards apparently did - even if it was bullshit) doesn't that give the cop a reason to ask your identity.
Before tasers and pepper spray there were batons and night-sticks.
It's possible that the physical act of hitting someone provides more of a deterrent for the police to use "less than lethal" force, but let's not pretend that police didn't abuse "uncooperative" citizens before the taser.
They have as much right to call the police as he has to take a picture. It might seem unreasonable, but maybe they didn't feel safe. (It's a load of crap, I know, but that doesn't diminish their right.)
The real question is what happened when the cops arrived? It's not outside the realm of possibility that the security guards filed a complaint, and he was uncooperative when questioned (read: obstructing). If he refused to identify himself (meaning wouldn't give his name - which is distinct from producing ID) that in itself might be sufficient for an legitimate obstruction charge. I think that gives the police a right to detain him. It's not clear why he was detained, or if he was arrested, so that's why we want the other side of the story.
nevermind. Answering my own question:
Obviously the hedge is that your current cash will be worth less and your revenue will increase, allowing you to pay off your debt at a fraction of the current value.
can you explain to me how debt is a hedge against inflation?
It seems to me that it goes the other way, you take on debt for cash now. The value of the cash decreases, then you have to pay back your bond holders, plus interest.
Am I missing something?
That sounds like the best guess I've seen yet.
Don't take investing advise from anonymous posters on the internet.
That said, here's my advise: you don't want this bond. The return on bonds right now is pitiful, you might as well buy T-bills.
I'm not well versed in corporate finance regulations, but I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft isn't floating this bond because given the interest, they think it's essentially free money.
I'm trying to imagine what would happen if you threw a 35000 lb soda can of UDD into the campfire.
I agree, it makes sense, but you quickly run into line-drawing problems.
Theoretically, a technical question has a "correct" answer, but in reality technical experts disagree all the time. Looking at the intersection seems like a no brainer, but if you're letting the judge investigate, he might also want to know who was in the intersection first, and he might be able to determine that by consulting some kind of auto-forensic expert. The judge might never know if that expert has conflicts of interest. Ideally, in an adversarial open court, lawyers can devise questions to get at the expert's motives.
no way.
The reason the material a judge gets to see is so tightly controlled is because the legal system has spent ~1000 years figuring out how to make sure that information is credible. If you're going to let a judge go off and conduct his own investigation the big problem you're going to run into is astroturfing.
Let's talk about that car accident - the judge goes online and finds your flickr account and sees some photos that clearly indicate the accident wasn't your fault. Now, were those photos genuine, staged, or photoshopped? In a court room you are sworn to tell the truth, and your adversary can bring in expert witnesses to question the validity of your evidence. On Flickr, you can put up whatever the hell you want - and the judge isn't qualified to determine the appropriateness of that information.
The reason we have an adversarial legal system is so that each side can put their evidence on the table and argue about what it means.
The argument is that if blogs are available to the judge, they shouldn't be treated differently from amicus briefs - who's timing, rigor, and content are very tightly controlled, and an opportunity to respond is presented - unlike blog posts.
Actually, according to the article, we do:
If this is a problem, and I grant that it could be, it seems to me the only reasonable requirement would be to restrict the material the judge is ethically allowed to gather.
about prideful lawers:
One argument that struck me from the law review article was that blogging would unfairly advantage the well equipped (those who routinely argue before the supreme court and business interests). In fact, that might be the only argument laid out who's antithesis isn't examined.
The argument goes like this: there are only a handful of people who have the experience to influence the court at such a high level, so if a new avenue of communication is opened they will exploit it at the expense of the uneducated masses, in this case lawyers who only occasionally argue before the supreme court, the general public AND any experts (e.g. law professors) who might take an interest in the case, because all these groups lack the sophistication to craft a persuasive argument.
The problem with this conclusion, as I see it, is that the internet is a very populist medium that tends not to support entrenched interests. While traditional legal proceeding seem to many to favor the well-to-do, the internet is not part of a traditional legal proceeding. One example the law review author provided was that of the criminal defendant. It is my opinion that discussion in an open forum of a criminal case is likely to favor the defendant, since groups like the ACLU and the defense lawyer community have much greater resources than the district attorney.
you need to keep your electronics powered and not-frozen. you also have to transmit your data.