Sorry if this is a double post.
I'm sure some HR departments care about the prestige of the school. However, probably in a cost-benefit analysis, the $40K a year school is not worth it. Plus, if you want to do something where prestige matters (such as become a professor or something), you can always got a prestigious grad school (that's what I'm doing, though non-C.S. related).
I think a lot of the decision comes down to gut; which school feels right for you.
Of course employers don't ask you that. Your probably right in that they don't matter in the long run. However, AP classes did allow me to graduate with a B.S. in Computer Science in 3 years. So in that sense, they do matter.
I hear a lot of people talk about how AP classes put too much pressure on high schoolers who are doing too much to try to get into college. I call bullshit. I took AP classes because I wanted to learn and I would definitely be against cutting them. I graduated high school with 30 college credits from AP classes which was fantastic because college is ridiculously expensive and so it allowed me to graduate in 3 years and save a ton of money (and then go into a ton of debt in grad school).
Oh and the CompSci AP tests were absurdly easy. My school offered the A level; the next year I studied for 3 weeks before the AB tests and got a 5 on it. So I definitely agree with the comments that it doesn't test enough theory.
If a company is really trying to not allow a state to verify that their voting machines work correctly, why would any state use such voting machines? This is ridiculous. Such a company should quickly go bankrupt. Must have some fantastic lobbying to get state legislatures to use machines which aren't going to count their votes correctly.
I think you might be referring to what other posts have eluded to in that I guess some journals charge authors to submit articles. Is this correct? Maybe it does for other journals, I don't know. My journal does not charge for submission. A subscription fee is only $25 per year (5 issues); plus we get some money because the articles are placed on Westlaw and LexisNexis which are the two biggest online legal research systems. Less and less people subscribe since they can just get everything from Westlaw or Lexis (and almost anyone that practices law subscribes to one of these, and professors get them through their law school).
So essentially most law journals work through a system of free labor and then the minimal amount they earn through subscriptions covers basic costs (but the cost of editing is really just free labor). Personally, I get 3 credits for my work this year, but have to do enough work that I should earn maybe 8 credits. But it is necessary to be on a journal to get the good jobs (which are quite high paying). I doubt that even Harvard Law Review profits very much.
And let me tell you, articles which have the potential to be great that you'd want to print are often written atrociously and aren't easy to get into working order. Authors often misquote, cite to the wrong sources, or just don't cite nearly as much as they should (which is a pain). Of course the authors put at lot into it too. I'd hate to have to write 30-100 articles like they do all the time in my field.
I'm fairly high up in a non-science journal (law). In the past it was quite common to ask for a complete transfer [author would no longer own the copyright and journal would]. Most authors have increasingly become less and less comfortable with this. I imagine this is true in non-law journals especially as copyright has become a bigger issue, making authors aware of it.
My journal recently switched from such an outright transfer to something along the lines of an exclusive license for 1 year and license after [with attribution to us afterwards]. So basically we want to be the first to publish it and we don't want it to be anywhere for a limited period of time. I think something along these lines is fair. Obviously, its the authors work, but the journals do a ton of work. Authors don't just submit and then journals publish. The articles are edited intensely and all the citations are checked to make sure the author is quoting correctly and drawing correct conclusions. This process I guess would be different with science journals, but they have to get the article peer-reviewed and I imagine there still would be intensive editing, since often scientists are not the best writers or are foreign, which my journal deals with quite often [though I doubt that the articles will have 300-800 footnotes like non-science articles do].
Anyway, some type of middle ground needs to be reached. Obviously, the journal doesn't want the same article to be published in a different journal 2 months later (at least not without its permission). If an author simply takes the paper after its gone through the extensive editing process and posts it on Wikipedia or wherever, that takes away the incentive for anyone to subscribe and the process isn't free (well law journals are done by students for free usually, but not all are and there are still many costs). But I definitely support the author being able to post his article after a certain amount of time (in fact most authors have their articles as a "working paper" online before we publish it and we don't care).
I think the license approach works pretty well. Also, remember that whether the journal likes it or not there is "fair use" and the science itself is not copyrightable just the expression (though I doubt the author is going to want to write the same thing twice). "Fair use" is often difficult because huge corporations will sue anyway and that is expensive, but I doubt this would be the case with academic journals, which don't have that type of budget.
So I'd just like to dispel any myth that journals do nothing. It's a give and take relationship. Journals need good authors to exist and become more prestigious and get more subscribers. But authors need journals so they can become well published, and thus become tenured, respected in the field, and reach an audience.
I don't know about dads, but but moms actually physically lose the ability to hear "mom, mom, mom,...." To get their attention you have to say their first name which often annoys them. I somewhat remember being this age. Parents will often refuse to allow their child to speak for minutes on end because they are already talking and all the child wants to do is say something real quick like "I'm going to play over there" and then run off.
Do people mix up Costa Rica and Puerto Rico often or something? If you aren't a citizen until you are 18, what are you before then? The man without a country?
Huh? I've never registered myself at my local city office. But I agree with your overall point. Don't really register with the tax office, you just file taxes in the U.S. (so I guess once you have filed once you are registered).
I agree, I go to a Panera. Actually, in the city I live in, the two closest Starbucks to me are both right next to a Panera. People sit in Starbucks and use Panera's WiFi. The one Starbucks is by a University. From within the Starbucks you can pick up multiple free WiFi signals. I do not understand how Starbucks can justify charging. Who actually pays for this? I will simply go somewhere where it is free (and there are multiple other coffee shops that have free WiFi in my city). I always thought this was because they were locked into a contract from before places started offering WiFi and they would eventually offer it for free. Turns out not; they're just idiots (at least in places where there are free signals available).
Uh, no. Under Catholicism, salvation is found through faith and good works. So not the end! Protestantism faith alone matters (at least many of its denominations).
I was always under the impression that use and utilize were synonymous. Maybe you are right that utilize is unnecessary; maybe the Orwell article explains, but I'm not going to read it. For one, that's the great thing about English (and I guess languages in general), you have choice. I'll use whichever one I damn please. Also, language evolves so deal with it.
Finally, you want us to dumb down our speech for non-native speakers? That's absurd. I understand acquiring and maintaining multiple languages is difficult. I'm pretty much a failure in that respect, but this isn't a language learning site. People should be free to write however they want. I wouldn't care if people write in non-English (not sure if that is allowed by the rules or not, but it should be).
The most well-known treatise on Copyright Law in the United States is Nimmer on Copyright. However, in the law field there are two major electronic research sites that compete vigorously with each other, Westlaw and LexisNexis. Recently Westlaw lost the ability to post Nimmer on its service. It therefore commissioned Patry, a wellknown Copyright attorney, to write his treatise, Patry on Copyright.
So I just didn't want everyone to go over board on the "seminal" treatise on copyright, though I believe he is very well-respected. Also, these are obviously not books for the average slashdot reader to use, but used as starting point for lawyers when conducting legal research on copyright.
Legal practitioners would not usually cite a treatise (because they are not a primary source of law); however judges can and do (they can do whatever they want essentially). Just to illustrate a point, a search of all federal cases in Westlaw (which publishes Patry) shows Patry only being cited in 18 cases. Nimmer comes up 2,144 times. Obviously Patry is brand new, so 18 times is actually impressive, but only time will tell if its popularity and importance will match Nimmer. I am guessing that it will soon be considered just as authorative, since West is very huge and now many people will only have access to it (since many smaller firms only buy one package and not both).
Actually, it is possible for the party and not only the attorney to be sanctioned. From reading the language of the rule below, I'd agree that sanctioning the attorney would probably be more common (though I haven't done an exhaustive study on this). Altgother, sanctions in general are pretty rare.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11
(c) Sanctions.
(1) In General.
If, after notice and a reasonable opportunity to respond, the court determines that Rule 11(b) has been violated, the court may impose an appropriate sanction on any attorney, law firm, or party that violated the rule or is responsible for the violation. Absent exceptional circumstances, a law firm must be held jointly responsible for a violation committed by its partner, associate, or employee.
These cases delineate what has been described as the outer boundaries of the commerce clause. Obviously the drafters of the Constitution didn't envision the internet. The Constitution is written fairly vaguely; intentionally so I believe to get it passed. I'm hoping they realized things would change with time though.
Regulating internet gambling seems to be a trivial use of the Commerce Clause, which actually literally fits within the language (as opposed to the expansion of the Clause during the New Deal and after to thing "affecting interstate commerce," etc).
That's my point. The question was asking for a legal opinion (probably asking for a definitive answer actually, but those don't often exist in the law). You aren't qualified to give a legal opinion unless you are an attorney. Saying a contract is unenforceable when it is enforceable, isn't really an opinion either. You made a factual statement that was incorrect. That's like saying it's my opinion that pi is a rational number. The law isn't about guessing what you think is right; you have to do legal research, or else you are going to be bankrupt from malpractice suits. Giving a legal opinion that is wrong could cause someone financial harm. Now I doubt anyone actually takes legal statements on Slashdot with more than a grain of salt, so it probably doesn't matter. Also for the extreme cases, practicing law without a license is a crime.
I don't mean to be rude, but it just gets frustrating to constantly read statements about the law on Slashdot that are completely incorrect. Sometimes I try to correct them, but probably 90% of the time I just close my browser and say screw it, because I don't have enough time to deal with it.
Not really. That's not intent to have sex with a minor. That is having sexing with a minor. You should be able to tell whether someone is a minor. In fact that the age of consent in most states is so low that you have to be a pretty big pervert to have sex with someone that young anyway, let alone someone younger. I can see there being some exceptions where she really looks much older, and in those cases you are screwed, since typically that isn't a defense (though in some states it can be). However, considering that the age of consent is typically anywhere from 16-18 in the United States, this shouldn't be a problem.
Maybe people on Slashdot are just so excited to have sex they aren't going to inquire as to age. Anyway, I'm not sure why people on Slashdot are attempting to defend such people on Dateline. This guys aren't even having sex with girls that are 17 but look older, they are trying to have sex with 14 year old girls. Stick to your own age range; not that difficult. As for guys that are 18-20, states often make an exception for you allowing you to have sex with a younger girl. If not the state would be idiotic, as it would be stupid to make it illegal for an 18 year old to have sex with a 17 year old girl. However, I'm sure that is illegal in some states, but probably not prosecuted very often.
You're wrong.
These often are enforceable. Employment is typically at-will (in most states) and so the consideration they are giving is continued employment. But like everyone else has said, talk to a lawyer (which I believe the poster actually did).
I wish these legal issues weren't presented of Slashdot, or if people could at least not comment on stuff they aren't qualified to. People talking about how you can negotiate with your employer, that is great, but people saying this is an unconscionable contract, etc need to stop giving legal advice unless they are a lawyer. Talk about if a law is good or not (policy) is good, but whether something is a violation of the law is not good (since such answers on slashdot are typically flat out wrong or the legal answer is unknown and would require a trial or the answer is just not nuanced enough).
Actually, I don't believe the cases go that way. Intending to have sex with a minor is a crime. If you think someone is a minor and you intend to have sex with them that is a crime. I don't believe mistake of fact (person isn't actually a minor) here is going to be a defense.
The stranger thing about Fosters beer is, in my experience, everytime somebody in America is drinking it, they talk about how bad it is. Then someone else chimes in that he's been to Australia and Australians don't drink it. Yet, people keep drinking it and the cycle repeats itself.
Americans have an affinity for drinking nasty beer (e.g., Natural Light, Miller High Life, most everything made by Budweiser, Miller and Coors, etc).
If Google were to ignore the robots.txt file it is possible to bring suit against Google in the United States. There have been some successful such suits based upon the old english common law cause of action "trespass to chattels" which was a relic of common law history until the internet came along. I believe one such successful action was by eBay against a auction crawler (eBay v. Bidder's Edge or something like that). Some courts I believe are unwilling to hear such a claim unless there is actual monetary damage caused by the indexing, so not sure how this would turn out (or if I am remembering the caselaw very well). I am not a lawyer.
As someone else pointed out, this is indeed not acceptable and is a breach of the attorneys' ethical responsibilities. This is in fact a violation of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, which most states have adopted in one form or another. A judge would be in his right to sanction such action and the Bar should (well maybe depending upon all the facts) bring disciplinary charges against the attorneys. But, then again, the Bar almost never brings discplinary charges against attorneys. I don't believe any charges have been brought against the attorneys involved in Enron and the other corporate scandals. As a future attorney, I find this unacceptable.
Rule 3.3 Candor Toward The Tribunal
(a) A lawyer shall not knowingly:
(1) make a false statement of fact or law to a tribunal or fail to correct a false statement of material fact or law previously made to the tribunal by the lawyer;
(2) fail to disclose to the tribunal legal authority in the controlling jurisdiction known to the lawyer to be directly adverse to the position of the client and not disclosed by opposing counsel; or
(3) offer evidence that the lawyer knows to be false. If a lawyer, the lawyer's client, or a witness called by the lawyer, has offered material evidence and the lawyer comes to know of its falsity, the lawyer shall take reasonable remedial measures, including, if necessary, disclosure to the tribunal. A lawyer may refuse to offer evidence, other than the testimony of a defendant in a criminal matter, that the lawyer reasonably believes is false. ...
I believe these cases are in New York, which has not adopted the Model Rules. However, the New York Lawyer's Code of Professional Responsibility has similar provisions.
DR 7-102 [1200.33] Representing a Client Within the Bounds of the Law.
A. In the representation of a client, a lawyer shall not:3. Conceal or knowingly fail to disclose that which the lawyer is required by law to reveal. ...
4. Knowingly use perjured testimony or false evidence. ...
DR 7-106 [1200.37] Trial Conduct. ...
B. In presenting a matter to a tribunal, a lawyer shall disclose:
1. Controlling legal authority known to the lawyer to be directly adverse to the position of the client and which is not disclosed by opposing counsel. ...
You might actually be able to get a library card in the next county where there is better funding through some type of exchange program. This might be something to look into. Personally I have a St. Louis County library card and a St. Louis City library card (all for free).
Also, if anyone is in school still, there is typically remote access to newspaper archives through the university library.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry if this is a double post. I'm sure some HR departments care about the prestige of the school. However, probably in a cost-benefit analysis, the $40K a year school is not worth it. Plus, if you want to do something where prestige matters (such as become a professor or something), you can always got a prestigious grad school (that's what I'm doing, though non-C.S. related). I think a lot of the decision comes down to gut; which school feels right for you.
Of course employers don't ask you that. Your probably right in that they don't matter in the long run. However, AP classes did allow me to graduate with a B.S. in Computer Science in 3 years. So in that sense, they do matter.
Your point is valid, but that is an overstatement on the amount of Iraqi civilian deaths.
I hear a lot of people talk about how AP classes put too much pressure on high schoolers who are doing too much to try to get into college. I call bullshit. I took AP classes because I wanted to learn and I would definitely be against cutting them. I graduated high school with 30 college credits from AP classes which was fantastic because college is ridiculously expensive and so it allowed me to graduate in 3 years and save a ton of money (and then go into a ton of debt in grad school). Oh and the CompSci AP tests were absurdly easy. My school offered the A level; the next year I studied for 3 weeks before the AB tests and got a 5 on it. So I definitely agree with the comments that it doesn't test enough theory.
If a company is really trying to not allow a state to verify that their voting machines work correctly, why would any state use such voting machines? This is ridiculous. Such a company should quickly go bankrupt. Must have some fantastic lobbying to get state legislatures to use machines which aren't going to count their votes correctly.
I think you might be referring to what other posts have eluded to in that I guess some journals charge authors to submit articles. Is this correct? Maybe it does for other journals, I don't know. My journal does not charge for submission. A subscription fee is only $25 per year (5 issues); plus we get some money because the articles are placed on Westlaw and LexisNexis which are the two biggest online legal research systems. Less and less people subscribe since they can just get everything from Westlaw or Lexis (and almost anyone that practices law subscribes to one of these, and professors get them through their law school). So essentially most law journals work through a system of free labor and then the minimal amount they earn through subscriptions covers basic costs (but the cost of editing is really just free labor). Personally, I get 3 credits for my work this year, but have to do enough work that I should earn maybe 8 credits. But it is necessary to be on a journal to get the good jobs (which are quite high paying). I doubt that even Harvard Law Review profits very much. And let me tell you, articles which have the potential to be great that you'd want to print are often written atrociously and aren't easy to get into working order. Authors often misquote, cite to the wrong sources, or just don't cite nearly as much as they should (which is a pain). Of course the authors put at lot into it too. I'd hate to have to write 30-100 articles like they do all the time in my field.
I'm fairly high up in a non-science journal (law). In the past it was quite common to ask for a complete transfer [author would no longer own the copyright and journal would]. Most authors have increasingly become less and less comfortable with this. I imagine this is true in non-law journals especially as copyright has become a bigger issue, making authors aware of it.
My journal recently switched from such an outright transfer to something along the lines of an exclusive license for 1 year and license after [with attribution to us afterwards]. So basically we want to be the first to publish it and we don't want it to be anywhere for a limited period of time. I think something along these lines is fair. Obviously, its the authors work, but the journals do a ton of work. Authors don't just submit and then journals publish. The articles are edited intensely and all the citations are checked to make sure the author is quoting correctly and drawing correct conclusions. This process I guess would be different with science journals, but they have to get the article peer-reviewed and I imagine there still would be intensive editing, since often scientists are not the best writers or are foreign, which my journal deals with quite often [though I doubt that the articles will have 300-800 footnotes like non-science articles do].
Anyway, some type of middle ground needs to be reached. Obviously, the journal doesn't want the same article to be published in a different journal 2 months later (at least not without its permission). If an author simply takes the paper after its gone through the extensive editing process and posts it on Wikipedia or wherever, that takes away the incentive for anyone to subscribe and the process isn't free (well law journals are done by students for free usually, but not all are and there are still many costs). But I definitely support the author being able to post his article after a certain amount of time (in fact most authors have their articles as a "working paper" online before we publish it and we don't care).
I think the license approach works pretty well. Also, remember that whether the journal likes it or not there is "fair use" and the science itself is not copyrightable just the expression (though I doubt the author is going to want to write the same thing twice). "Fair use" is often difficult because huge corporations will sue anyway and that is expensive, but I doubt this would be the case with academic journals, which don't have that type of budget.
So I'd just like to dispel any myth that journals do nothing. It's a give and take relationship. Journals need good authors to exist and become more prestigious and get more subscribers. But authors need journals so they can become well published, and thus become tenured, respected in the field, and reach an audience.
I don't know about dads, but but moms actually physically lose the ability to hear "mom, mom, mom, ...." To get their attention you have to say their first name which often annoys them. I somewhat remember being this age. Parents will often refuse to allow their child to speak for minutes on end because they are already talking and all the child wants to do is say something real quick like "I'm going to play over there" and then run off.
Do people mix up Costa Rica and Puerto Rico often or something? If you aren't a citizen until you are 18, what are you before then? The man without a country?
Huh? I've never registered myself at my local city office. But I agree with your overall point. Don't really register with the tax office, you just file taxes in the U.S. (so I guess once you have filed once you are registered).
I agree, I go to a Panera. Actually, in the city I live in, the two closest Starbucks to me are both right next to a Panera. People sit in Starbucks and use Panera's WiFi. The one Starbucks is by a University. From within the Starbucks you can pick up multiple free WiFi signals. I do not understand how Starbucks can justify charging. Who actually pays for this? I will simply go somewhere where it is free (and there are multiple other coffee shops that have free WiFi in my city). I always thought this was because they were locked into a contract from before places started offering WiFi and they would eventually offer it for free. Turns out not; they're just idiots (at least in places where there are free signals available).
Uh, no. Under Catholicism, salvation is found through faith and good works. So not the end! Protestantism faith alone matters (at least many of its denominations).
I was always under the impression that use and utilize were synonymous. Maybe you are right that utilize is unnecessary; maybe the Orwell article explains, but I'm not going to read it. For one, that's the great thing about English (and I guess languages in general), you have choice. I'll use whichever one I damn please. Also, language evolves so deal with it. Finally, you want us to dumb down our speech for non-native speakers? That's absurd. I understand acquiring and maintaining multiple languages is difficult. I'm pretty much a failure in that respect, but this isn't a language learning site. People should be free to write however they want. I wouldn't care if people write in non-English (not sure if that is allowed by the rules or not, but it should be).
So I just didn't want everyone to go over board on the "seminal" treatise on copyright, though I believe he is very well-respected. Also, these are obviously not books for the average slashdot reader to use, but used as starting point for lawyers when conducting legal research on copyright.
Legal practitioners would not usually cite a treatise (because they are not a primary source of law); however judges can and do (they can do whatever they want essentially). Just to illustrate a point, a search of all federal cases in Westlaw (which publishes Patry) shows Patry only being cited in 18 cases. Nimmer comes up 2,144 times. Obviously Patry is brand new, so 18 times is actually impressive, but only time will tell if its popularity and importance will match Nimmer. I am guessing that it will soon be considered just as authorative, since West is very huge and now many people will only have access to it (since many smaller firms only buy one package and not both).
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11
(c) Sanctions.
(1) In General.
If, after notice and a reasonable opportunity to respond, the court determines that Rule 11(b) has been violated, the court may impose an appropriate sanction on any attorney, law firm, or party that violated the rule or is responsible for the violation. Absent exceptional circumstances, a law firm must be held jointly responsible for a violation committed by its partner, associate, or employee.
These cases delineate what has been described as the outer boundaries of the commerce clause. Obviously the drafters of the Constitution didn't envision the internet. The Constitution is written fairly vaguely; intentionally so I believe to get it passed. I'm hoping they realized things would change with time though.
Regulating internet gambling seems to be a trivial use of the Commerce Clause, which actually literally fits within the language (as opposed to the expansion of the Clause during the New Deal and after to thing "affecting interstate commerce," etc).
That's my point. The question was asking for a legal opinion (probably asking for a definitive answer actually, but those don't often exist in the law). You aren't qualified to give a legal opinion unless you are an attorney. Saying a contract is unenforceable when it is enforceable, isn't really an opinion either. You made a factual statement that was incorrect. That's like saying it's my opinion that pi is a rational number. The law isn't about guessing what you think is right; you have to do legal research, or else you are going to be bankrupt from malpractice suits. Giving a legal opinion that is wrong could cause someone financial harm. Now I doubt anyone actually takes legal statements on Slashdot with more than a grain of salt, so it probably doesn't matter. Also for the extreme cases, practicing law without a license is a crime. I don't mean to be rude, but it just gets frustrating to constantly read statements about the law on Slashdot that are completely incorrect. Sometimes I try to correct them, but probably 90% of the time I just close my browser and say screw it, because I don't have enough time to deal with it.
Not really. That's not intent to have sex with a minor. That is having sexing with a minor. You should be able to tell whether someone is a minor. In fact that the age of consent in most states is so low that you have to be a pretty big pervert to have sex with someone that young anyway, let alone someone younger. I can see there being some exceptions where she really looks much older, and in those cases you are screwed, since typically that isn't a defense (though in some states it can be). However, considering that the age of consent is typically anywhere from 16-18 in the United States, this shouldn't be a problem. Maybe people on Slashdot are just so excited to have sex they aren't going to inquire as to age. Anyway, I'm not sure why people on Slashdot are attempting to defend such people on Dateline. This guys aren't even having sex with girls that are 17 but look older, they are trying to have sex with 14 year old girls. Stick to your own age range; not that difficult. As for guys that are 18-20, states often make an exception for you allowing you to have sex with a younger girl. If not the state would be idiotic, as it would be stupid to make it illegal for an 18 year old to have sex with a 17 year old girl. However, I'm sure that is illegal in some states, but probably not prosecuted very often.
You're wrong. These often are enforceable. Employment is typically at-will (in most states) and so the consideration they are giving is continued employment. But like everyone else has said, talk to a lawyer (which I believe the poster actually did). I wish these legal issues weren't presented of Slashdot, or if people could at least not comment on stuff they aren't qualified to. People talking about how you can negotiate with your employer, that is great, but people saying this is an unconscionable contract, etc need to stop giving legal advice unless they are a lawyer. Talk about if a law is good or not (policy) is good, but whether something is a violation of the law is not good (since such answers on slashdot are typically flat out wrong or the legal answer is unknown and would require a trial or the answer is just not nuanced enough).
Actually, I don't believe the cases go that way. Intending to have sex with a minor is a crime. If you think someone is a minor and you intend to have sex with them that is a crime. I don't believe mistake of fact (person isn't actually a minor) here is going to be a defense.
The stranger thing about Fosters beer is, in my experience, everytime somebody in America is drinking it, they talk about how bad it is. Then someone else chimes in that he's been to Australia and Australians don't drink it. Yet, people keep drinking it and the cycle repeats itself. Americans have an affinity for drinking nasty beer (e.g., Natural Light, Miller High Life, most everything made by Budweiser, Miller and Coors, etc).
If Google were to ignore the robots.txt file it is possible to bring suit against Google in the United States. There have been some successful such suits based upon the old english common law cause of action "trespass to chattels" which was a relic of common law history until the internet came along. I believe one such successful action was by eBay against a auction crawler (eBay v. Bidder's Edge or something like that). Some courts I believe are unwilling to hear such a claim unless there is actual monetary damage caused by the indexing, so not sure how this would turn out (or if I am remembering the caselaw very well). I am not a lawyer.
A lot of us Americans (perhaps most) don't care what you you Brits think.
I believe these cases are in New York, which has not adopted the Model Rules. However, the New York Lawyer's Code of Professional Responsibility has similar provisions.
You might actually be able to get a library card in the next county where there is better funding through some type of exchange program. This might be something to look into. Personally I have a St. Louis County library card and a St. Louis City library card (all for free). Also, if anyone is in school still, there is typically remote access to newspaper archives through the university library.