Interpreting the Constitution In the Digital Era 144
oik writes "NPR's Fresh Air this week had an interesting interview with Jeffrey Rosen, one of the authors of Constitution 3.0 , which addresses a number of issues to do with interpreting the US Constitution in the face of new technologies (both present and future). Many of the topics which he touches on come up on Slashdot a lot (including the GPS tracking cases). It's well worth listening to the program (link in the main page), of which the linked article is just a summary."
The real issue (Score:5, Interesting)
No tyrant in history was ever able to grab such power and the effect over the 20th century has been absolutely devastating to the United States. Even today, with the increasing disintermediation (and consequent slow recovery of freedom) of information, you still have public opinion being molded by the likes of Jeffrey Rosen and NPR. Indeed, no candidate seeking public office at the Federal level has had a hope of winning that office without the support of the broadcast networks, whose unconstitutionality is so ignored by Jeffrey Rosen and NPR (for obvious reasons).
Re:The real issue (Score:5, Informative)
The power of media is just part of a recurring theme of politicians just ignoring the constitution and putting Supreme Court judges in place to keep whatever backwards legislation they pass as law.
If all three branches of government are controlled by private media dollars, there are no checks and balances left, and there is no way to enforce the constitution if all the branches are taken out of the picture like they are right now.
I mean that is the main reason for OWS, getting corporate influence out of government. The real solution is to really understand what the constitution was for - it was just a document to unify the states under a common base law. That was the reason for the 10th amendment. The states should be handling almost everything the fed is right now, and through financial mobility anyone disenfranchised with a given state could move to one that better suits their political ideology. The problem is that states have become irrelevant as amendments like direct voting of senators came about removing the states from the federal level.
It really is just a side effect of the top down politics when they should be bottom up - new ideas of political discourse should come from local attempts at new ideas and good ideas should build up across districts into state laws, and eventually if everyone starts doing the same thing it might become national law. The way it is now is just backwards
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So you want the United States to turn into the American Union? Well, I guess it's working fairly well for Europe, but I though most Americans absolutely hated the EU.
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There was a dust up in the 1860s that kinda put that thought to rest...
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Yup. Lincoln ended slavery, but in so doing also ended all but the pretense that the US was a republican union.
Re:The real issue (Score:4, Insightful)
Please, look at the name of our nation again. United STATES of America. Like Pete Venkman already said, a bunch of free and independent states united together for mutual support. I don't recall where in my history books that the states abdicated their rights, in deference to the Corporate American Empire. I guess it was around the time that the federal government decided to expand interstate commerce laws. (not all of the fed's interstate commerce regulations are wrong, just as not all of them are right)
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Re:The real issue (Score:4, Informative)
One of those interesting bits of historical trivia - before the Civil War, "United States" was plural ("these United States"). Afterwards, it was singular ("the United States").
Which should give you a clue how the Founders intended things.
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If all three branches of government are controlled by private media dollars
They aren't. You ought to look into the ways that the federal government has been manipulating private media, for example, feeding prepared stories to the media or controlling content by controlling access to press conferences. I point this out because there is this insistence, despite copious evidence to the contrary, that business not a corrupt government is the greater threat to US freedom. I otherwise agree with your remarks.
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They aren't. You ought to look into the ways that the federal government has been manipulating private media, for example, feeding prepared stories to the media or controlling content by controlling access to press conferences.
It's a chicken-and-egg problem. You have politicians meddling in the affairs of private media, but said politicians were themselves elected largely through efforts of that same media. After the cycle has repeated a few times, there are no clear boundaries anymore - one is the other, they're not separate agents.
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Letting the locals make their own laws? Isn't that racist, or something?
Hear, hear!
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Add to this that every single technological advance in communications has been violated by the government despite the fact that the Constitution clearly indicates that it has no authority to do so whatsoever. Telegraphs, telephones, cellphones, the internet, gps... all tapped first, until the supreme court said "no".
While advances in communication seem to be stalling, sadly, advances in government bullshit continue apace. Why bother with all this warrant and constitutional limits on power when you can jus
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Obama did suggest he would veto this bill, but not because he cares about civil liberties. His threat was based on the notion that the President already has these powers and that the Congressional mandate would be an usurpation of and interference with those powers.
Here is a quote from the White House's position on the bill:
Re:The real issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's a real gem from Obama's position on the law:
In other words, Obama is saying "Bush, Cheney, and I have managed to get get around constitution for the last decade. If you pass this bill, you jeopardize all that hard work."
It's the pledge week question (Score:3)
It makes you wonder if NPR could survive without tax dollars.
One of the superb ironies during the "cut NPR funding" kerfuffle of a couple of years ago was hearing the head of Minnesota Public Radio, Bill Kling, on a talk radio station being asked about this.
The caller said "Every time there is a pledge week you tell us government funding is only a fraction of your revenue and you desperately need our donations. Why is it when you are about to lose government support you claim it will drive you into the gr
Re:It's the pledge week question (Score:5, Insightful)
The loss of government funding wouldn't dramatically affect NPR itself (about 7% comes from "grants and contributions"). The largest single source (34%) of their funding comes from station programming fees.
However, it would affect many of the local public radio stations that re-broadcast NPR (and which, in turn, pay NPR for programming fees). According to this site [npr.org], 16.4% of the average public radio station's funding comes from government funding and grants from the Corporation from Public Broadcasting. About 14.3% of a public radio station's funding comes from universities, which frequently get income from the feds.
Without funding from the government, many public radio stations would have insufficient funds to continue to operate and would need to close down. NPR would likely be able to continue without much trouble, but local radio stations that actually provide services to their local community would be shut down.
Many of the pledge weeks are for the local stations to raise funding, not for NPR itself (though the NPR radio staff often record "Give $local_station_name money!" ads for the stations).
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I don't know how that statement passes muster. The average two-income household is pretty reliant on both of those incomes, and losing either would be pretty devastating.
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What?
The quoted poster (who I lacked the will to scroll back far enough to respond to directly) wrote:
That people solely rely on mass media outlets to inform their opinions is not "unconstitutional" - it is irresponsible...
BTW, Rupert Murdoch is a US Citiz
Why would you want to interpret the constitution? (Score:4, Insightful)
When you can simply ignore it.
It's not as if there are any repercussions.
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If you merely ignore the constitution, your enemies may use that against you; not because they have love of the constitution, but merely because they can. Interpreting it out of existence is both more permanent and less likely to rebound on you. Example: Having the cops beat the shit out of Occupy Wall Street protesters on camera. Sure, you can get away with it, but it could cause political damage. Better: Re-interpret the constitution so "freedom of assembly" means "assembly only in designated protes
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Indeed they can use it against you, but that is only part of the theater event we call politics, i.e., huge rhetorical differences, zero policy differences. Witness the disparaging remarks democrats made against Bush for his civil liberties violations, such as due process free detention. Those same people, now that Obama is in office, are using Bush/Che
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Just because the two sides are the same from our viewpoint doesn't mean that t
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Supporters of the various hate speech laws and are quick to point out the freedom of speech has its limits.
That never made sense to me. The constitution states no such limitation. If you don't like that, then wouldn't the proper thing to do be to amend the constitution? Same for anything else. Rather than following the proper procedures, they seem to just create invisible exceptions and/or interpret it as they like.
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the proper thing would be to rap the hate speech to ground with another speech.
as is with nazis.
it's ridiculous that you can do an illegal thing with a pen and a piece of paper in a shut box.
now if you're actually planning and performing lynching, that's a whole different matter. but making an ass out of yourself shouldn't be illegal.
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The libertarian always looks at a law from an isolated egotistical position instead of a higher broader definition.
If you take something like hate speech if you only look at it from an extremely egotistical position "I can't say ___ therefore *my* right to free speech is being infringed."
That's a legitimate egotistical position. However that's not how a government can look at any given action. It has to take into account the *net* effect of speech on its citizens.
So while it's true that stopping someone
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If you take something like hate speech if you only look at it from an extremely egotistical position "I can't say ___ therefore *my* right to free speech is being infringed."
Because it is. One of my rights (to say that) is not present.
But I also care about other people's rights (just as I hope they care about mine). I might not agree with them, but I'm not willing to ban the speech just because some people find it offensive.
So while it's true that stopping someone from saying "We need to round up the Mexicans and gas them." would infringe on their speech... hate speech by its legal definition is speech which infringes on others' rights.
There is no right to not be offended. They should, in my opinion, take action when something has been/is about to be done.
If someone's advocating for violence against a group of law abiding citizens and threatening them if they freely assemble then their speech infringes on a large group of people's rights.
Threatening someone has no such effect. Actually stopping them from assembling would have such an effect.
Too many people with thin skin,
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Saying something that someone doesn't like isn't legally "Hate Speech".
It's pretty privileged to say "Grow thicker skin" when you don't have someone actively trying to get people to murder you and living in constant threat.
I think people should have the freedom to live their life without constant harassment and intimidation just as I do. It's the old adage "your rights end where my nose begins". The categories of hate speech which are not protected by the first amendment are all cases where someone els
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Saying something that someone doesn't like isn't legally "Hate Speech".
It seems to me like that's what it essentially comes down to. Or, at least, that's what I think the name implies.
It's pretty privileged to say "Grow thicker skin" when you don't have someone actively trying to get people to murder you and living in constant threat.
The "if you were in situation X, you'd feel differently" argument? That doesn't mean that the way I feel now is 'wrong.' In fact, it's completely irrelevant. That argument could be used against anyone.
I value absolute freedom of speech.
It's the old adage "your rights end where my nose begins".
As long as it remains speech, none of your rights have been infringed upon. None of the rights that I care about, anyway.
which are not protected by the first amendment
No such thing exists. The first amendment
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I value absolute freedom of speech.
So if I called your phone every hour every day of the year you would value that?
If I called you and told you that I had kidnapped your loved one and that you should pay me $100k if you ever wanted to see them again you value that freedom of speech?
If I told you that in the next week I was going to sneak into your home and shoot you you would be ok with that.
If I walked up behind you and said I had a gun and you should drop your wallet and run away without looking back you're ok with that?
I call bulslhit.
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As long as you didn't really commit any of the crimes, yes. The speech doesn't hurt anyone unless they let themselves be hurt.
Slander, libel, etc. To me, all of these laws are idiotic excuses to censor things that one finds offensive/doesn't like. The real problem, in my opinion, is that people believe everything they hear and many humans seem oversensitive.
I call bulslhit.
Too bad for you, then.
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The libertarian always looks at a law from an isolated egotistical position instead of a higher broader definition.
That's just a bunch of tortured rhetoric for criticizing libertarians for believing in individual liberties, when you would prefer that all individuals to be subservient to collectivist ideals. The biggest problem with that viewpoint is that somewhere along the way, you have to resort to shutting up the non-conformists through violent force.
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That never made sense to me. The constitution states no such limitation.
The problem with this approach is that it would also invalidate all slander and libel laws on the books - the 1st, after all, doesn't make any exception for freedom of speech on the mere ground of it causing some material damages. And those laws date all the way back to when Constitution was actually written, and by the same people. So, either they didn't properly understand either or both, or else their very definition of "freedom of speech" was not so all-inclusive.
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The problem with this approach is that it would also invalidate all slander and libel laws on the books
Excellent. Then it would work as intended. If they want those laws, then they need to amend the constitution to clarify that freedom of speech has limitations. They can't just do whatever they want, and I don't think we should let them.
And those laws date all the way back to when Constitution was actually written
Sounds like they were violating their own rules, then. All I care about is what the constitution says.
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It's an attempt to draw a line between pure speech that must be protected (e.g. every president is a jackass), and acts that involve but are not limited to speech (I state on this signed sheet of paper that I promise to pay you money). (If the wirtten/verbal dichotomy annoys you, a verbal contract is binding, just quite hard to prove.)
All "restricted speech" is supposed to be that which crosses the line.
Obscenity is a weird condition, but it's defined by the lack
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The problem I have is that the constitution states no such limitations. It doesn't seem to draw any lines (unless the text is invisible). As I said, if they don't like that, then they should amend the constitution. If the issue is really so pressing, it shouldn't be as difficult as that usually is.
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Ummm... you think that freedom of speech applies to freedom from restrictions on false advertising, fraud, slander, espionage, perjury, plotting to commit a crime, etc?
I mean there's also copyright infringement, although that is specified in the Constitution.
But
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But I'm curious what you think "speech" means?
Speaking? Writing (perhaps expression)?
If you lie in an advertisement, that's still speech. Slander is speech. Plotting to commit a crime is likely some form of speech or expression.
As I said, if the issue is so pressing, then they should amend the constitution instead of outright ignoring it.
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It's not ignoring it. Because (apparently almost) everyone understands that "free speech" refers to the ability to not have censorship apply to the content of speech. That speech can be the signal of criminal activities seems retardly obvious. I mean, define a mugging if anything I can say or write does not constitute mugging. Walking around with a gun is legal. Accepting gifts is legal. According to you saying "Give me your wallet or I'll shoot you" is legal.
Bottom line, no one is ignoring some secre
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Because (apparently almost) everyone understands that "free speech" refers to the ability to not have censorship apply to the content of speech.
Right. And with false advertising, they're punishing you because they didn't like the contents of your speech. Same with most of the other crimes.
According to you saying "Give me your wallet or I'll shoot you" is legal.
It should be, in my opinion. Until you pull out a gun and point it at someone or actually commit the crime, I see no problem.
But, as I said, if people don't like that, then amend the constitution.
Most people recognize that freedom of speech depends on dictionary definition 1: ability to express one's thoughts and emotions by speech sounds and gestures.
Then I guess that just means that more actions that are illegal should not be illegal (in my opinion). Until they amend the constitution, that is.
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No, with false advertising they are punishing you for violating an oral contract. Don't you think contracts ought be enforcable?
What makes it a crime? I'm allowed to carry a gun. Or a knife. If I'm not aiming the gun at you I'm not comitting a crime? And why is it a crime to point my gun at everyo
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Anyone making the argument that "freedom of speech has limits" in order to justify a particular limit is intending on greasing the rhetorical slope and pushing you down it.
Only in that both groups include a lot of leftists. Personally, I find it hard to agree or disagree with OWS, in that their mes
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Only in that both groups include a lot of leftists. Personally, I find it hard to agree or disagree with OWS, in that their message is incoherent; some groups have put out messages claiming to speak for the protesters, but aside from the general idea "Rich people suck", I'm not sure the statements really are representative. Personally I prefer to consider myself part of the 52% (that's the 53% who pay taxes, minus the top 1% of rich bastards. OK, may be approximate due to non-taxpaying rich bastards)
Pretty rational position on the whole movement, I think. But my biggest problem with the movement (and the whole "beat up on the 1%" class warfare meme as a whole), is that it doesn't seem to distinguish between those members of the class that are honest and work hard for the money, and those members that have robbed and defrauded and colluded with government bureaucrats and politicians to basically steal to gain and retain their wealth. There are both kinds of wealthy people among the 3.6 million people
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doesn't seem to distinguish between those members of the class that are honest and work hard for the money, and those members that have robbed and defrauded
When I think of the 99% wealthiest, I think about it not by income but by holdings. Among the 1% sitting on the most wealth are lots of heirs who did nothing to earn their wealth. And the rest of them didn't come by their wealth without some dishonesty along the way. You just don't get that rich by behaving like a saint.
my biggest problem with the ... "beat up on the 1%" class warfare meme
You've got the meme backwards - the problem, as OWS sees it, is the 1% fleecing the rest of us. If you think about it, 1% owning 40% is an unlikely outcome of a free and fair marketplace
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Among the 1% sitting on the most wealth are lots of heirs who did nothing to earn their wealth. And the rest of them didn't come by their wealth without some dishonesty along the way. You just don't get that rich by behaving like a saint.
Jealous much? You can make these kinds of claims because it makes it easy to justify your envy. Claiming all the rich are dishonest is no more valid than claiming all the poor are lazy.
fleecing the rest of us
Well, if you're a sheep ...
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Also what is a real pain (and this has been happening for a long time). It is almost the same problem as 'patents and copyright'. That for some reason now that there are computers that the whole thing doesnt make sense anymore.
The rules are almost dead simple to follow yet people keep trying to reinterpert them to mean something else.
The first 7 articles say how our gov works. Day to day and in exception cases.
The first 10 amendments were to limit the first 7 articles and what they do. They were writte
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Re:KSR's Mars trilogy make me think about the now (Score:5, Informative)
... I've felt sad that not only is American democracy co-opted by special interests and the inevitability of a stagnant two-party system, but even at best it would be limited to a late 18th-century worldview.
It'll make you even more sad to find out that Thomas Jefferson believed the Constitution should be scrapped and rewritten every 19 years, a new set of rules that each generation decides for itself to follow. All the modern politicians that talk about the founding fathers tend to skip over that point.
You're welcome. :-\
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They'd have outlawed the phrase "get off my lawn"?
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Please. Utopian crack dreams are hardly new. KSR is just the latest crackhead proposing stupid non-solutions.
Spider Robinson wrote good scifi, because he wrote about things he understood. Hippies in communes with a hidden alien in their midst, I can suspend that much disbelief.
KSR proposes that the hippie commune is the crew of a space mission. They would have _all_ died while arguing about the ecology of dead mars. They would have all died again when the earth rightfully cut off their supplies. Not a
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The whole series was really fascinating, and the society that grew out of their ideals pretty fascinating (even if just as fantastic as the technologies from Blue Mars. But they had similar advantages that the American colonists did: The population was selected as people who were either the best educated, most capable, most adventurous, non-conformist in their native populations, etc., and they had a lot of virgin resources and the best technology available for taking advantage of them.
Crap, I forgot the
constitutional interpretation (Score:5, Interesting)
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I've always felt that the "Living Constitution" depends on the context of the current period. Even those who strongly support gun rights (e.g., Scalia) has said that it may not be unconstitutional to bar felons from possessing certains, for example. But the constitution has never said anything regarding that.
The fact that technology has changed so much over the past 200+ years shows that originalism makes little if any sense now. Like the GPS tracking and the Fourth Amendment -- I think it's an unreasonable
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The Constitution itself is necessarily somewhat underdetermined. It simply isn't exhaustive enough to unambiguously define the correct outcomes for all potential questions that might arise when it was written, never mind those raised by technological and social changes unknown to the writers.
Effectively, "Originalism" boils down to operating on the assumption that the Constitution 'incorporates by reference
Re:constitutional interpretation (Score:4, Insightful)
For the most part though, I believe that the "problems" you see in the Constitution result from the attempts to twist it to allow the federal government to do things the Framers thought they had explicitly denied it the power to do.
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The primary reason that the Constitution is "underdetermined" is because it was a document designed to limit the power of government.
Actually, I think it's rather the opposite: the Constitution was a document designed to grant the government certain powers, on the understanding that, by default, the government has no powers whatsoever.
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The Constitution itself is necessarily somewhat underdetermined. It simply isn't exhaustive enough to unambiguously define the correct outcomes for all potential questions that might arise when it was written, never mind those raised by technological and social changes unknown to the writers.
Bah! What a bunch of crap. It doesn't need to be unambiguous, because the entire thing flows from the basic principal that the Federal government is only needed for resolving major conflicts. It states even explicitly that "Anything that is not spelled out in here is totally up to the states, or it's a right of the people" (so to speak).
The problem at this point isn't so much "Originalism", it's the stare decisis that even the originalists adhere to. It tends to override any common sense originalist i
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The government placing something on your car to record/transmit your location is an "unreasonable search" - the gov't has no right to put anything on your car, be it a bumper sticker or GPS tracker... The fourth ammendment covers unreasonable searches, how does it not apply? Would any person think it reasonable for the gov't to place a tracking (or really ANY) device on your personal property?
What about the GPS tracker example is so exceptional that it is outside the scope of the Constitution?
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How about that for a constitution hack? Just use the power to eminent domain to temporarily make the property "public" for the duration of whatever it is they want to do with it. The "just compensation" would be a scrip that the government would claim to be of exact same value as the property - and, indeed, when presented with that scrip, they would give the property back to you.
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Felony doesn't necessarily include violent crime. Google "felony" "littering", for instance.
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Yes, that was my envelope that I put at the bottom of that trash pile...
You got 27 8x10 full color pictures with notes on the back to prove it?
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Dang, littering and causing a disturbance!
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It is widely accepted that convicted criminals give up some of their rights as a form of punishment (incarceration, for example, or the ever popular "sexual predator" registries that are becoming so popular, and the restrictions being "registered" imposes on the offender), losing the right to bear arms is just another example, as is losing the right to vote in elections.
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You don't think prohibiting people convicted of violent crime from possessing arms passes strict scrutiny?
No, I don't. If they are dangerous, they should be in jail. Otherwise, they should have full rights and duties of every other citizen - including the right to vote, to carry guns for self-defense etc.
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The police can legally follow you around in a car without a warrant. They argue that GPS tracking is the same thing. I don't agree with the argument, but it's not easy to argue that they're completely different situations.
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well.. it's much simpler to say that it would be legal for them to just observe where you go through roadside cameras, a satellite camera and so forth.
but come on, attaching a bomb looking device to your car while you're not looking is different, it's taking massive shortcut. at least you should kiss that gps device goodbye if you decide to do that and not insist on it being federal property.. getting a warrant can't be _that_ hard but it puts a sort of a safe guard on it - the work to decide that you need
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They also had cannons back then, does the 2nd ammendment cover cannons too?
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Sadly no. Anything above 0.50" is considered a "destructive device" and BATFE would like to have a word with you over :-/
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Miller vs US re: the NFA of '34 said that his sawed off shotgun and full auto stuff wasn't protected because they weren't common military arms of the times.... of course, they are now.
Which means I guess that grandpa's duck gun isn't protected, but the part of the '84 FOPA that cuts off new additions of full auto stuff to the NFA registry is unconstitutional...
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Muskets are outrageous, but to think that the 2nd amendment protects FABs or nukes or germ warefare would also be outrageous.
Why? (Score:2)
Why should you interpret the constitution? Being that it's a founding document, what should be done is it should be the guiding principal. It should remain as it is. Laws should be tested, and the laws be tested against the constitution. You get into no type of serious fuckups when you interpret a founding document, because you go from "this document says, in the intention of the framers" to "this document says, in the intention of the state."
This is generally how was test law in Canada. It works well,
Usurping power by subverting the Constitution (Score:3, Interesting)
This is the real problem - 'interpreting' the Constitution.
There should be no such thing, no 'interpreting', because this is used to justify anything, any power grab, any expansion of gov't power, any kind of thing that gov't wants.
You know it's true, they interpret Bibles the way they want to fit in any new technological advancement and same becomes a problem with the Constitution. It's not supposed to be interpreted, it's supposed to be followed. It's the law.
It's not the Constitution that needs interpretation (and I am not saying the document is perfect, far from it, it is not making it explicit that it shouldn't be interpreted for example).
The law that applies to the private citizens is not interpreted - you kill somebody - there is no 'interpretation' of the law. The question is only of your guilt.
It should be same with the Constitution - gov't takes over some power, the question is only the amount of guilt that should be allocated, not whether it was permitted by the Constitution that this power was supposed to be taken over.
There is a larger question here as well - should gov't even be allowed to pass NEW laws at all? I don't think so.
If the physics laws were changing all the time (F=MA today, some time from today it's F=2MA, some time later it's F=A; E=MC2, E=MC, E=C, E=4C; Today Hydrogen has this mass, tomorrow it's half that.) There would be no stars, no planets, no life in that unstable system.
Same with society and economy and gov't. Gov't sets the basic laws and then society and economy work around those laws. Change the laws and economy/society now must change how it works to accommodate the change of laws. Do too much of this and enough times and you destroy the economy and society.
That's what you have now - destruction of economy and society by gov't.
This was caused by various loose 'interpretations' of the Constitution (at first), and now it's just blatant disregard to the Constitution, which is LAW that gov't is supposed to abide by.
This is your fundamental problem.
Re:Usurping power by subverting the Constitution (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a larger question here as well - should gov't even be allowed to pass NEW laws at all? I don't think so.
The problem isn't new laws, it's that they exceed their authorization to pass laws covering certain things. The Interstate Commerce Clause basically turned into the legal equivalent of a rootkit when it can cover activities that are fully intrastate, merely because they can "affect" interstate actions. That little bit of legal wrangling pretty much guts the 9th and 10th, from a practical standpoint. If a person is too "self-sufficient", that means they are affecting the interstate market for various things and must be stopped (see Wickard v Filburn [wikipedia.org]).
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You run against two problems if you don't interpret:
So we pay all these lawyers and judges because they know the spirit of the law (what it's trying to accomplish), and they have the tools to make informed decisions on unforeseen cases. Just imagine a binding document from a few centuries ago. It's impossible that it could have foreseen virtual realities, GPS, pervasive drug traffic, or near-zero cost of duplicating information.
Anyway,
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Do you really think there shouldn't be any new laws after this whole financial fiasco? They gamed the system because they were allowed to, and the constitution couldn't possibly have expected this kind of things.
Constitution is not a replacement for laws - it is, indeed, a framework for them. But if a law that you need for the circumstances of the moment does not fit into the framework, the proper approach is to adjust the framework - we call it "amending the constitution" - not to try to pretend that it fits the law when it does not in reality.
Note that the present sorry shape of the constitution with respect to modern realities is precisely because it was, for so long, being creatively "interpreted" to suit whate
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The law that applies to the private citizens is not interpreted - you kill somebody - there is no 'interpretation' of the law. The question is only of your guilt.
Actually there is. The law that applies to the private citizens is MOST DEFINITELY interpreted. This is what the courts do. Laws are not black and white, and it is up to the judges to interpret the laws. Whether this is a law ratified by congress, or the consititution.
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What law did Jeffery Skillings break when running Enron?
Easiest and safest interpretation (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll make it easy. Stick with the traditional interpretation and follow it like plain language. If you treat the Constitution as a list of government permissions and not a set of restrictions, and ditch the attempts to interpret the enumerated rights as somehow limiting anything not mentioned...
The Constitution is VERY easy to interpret when you are trying to argue on the behalf of freedom. The only time you need a crack lawyer to argue an interpretation is when you are trying to present an interpretation that seeks to limit freedom.
Some argue that such a simple approach is flawed as it would prevent the government from performing functions that we want them to do such as the EPA, Dept of Ed., etc. That is not true because for anything so important and universal that it requires the federal government, then we need to go through the effort to amend the constitution to grant the government the authority to do that. If it really is that important then passing the amendment will happen. If it doesnt pass that means you either were proposing something that more people than you didn't want, or you need to spend more time convincing people that they want the government to do what you say they should do.
Imagine you hire someone to repair a wall in your house. While he is working he sees you have a broken window and decides that you would be better off and fixes the window of his own volition. What he didn't know is that you were going to build an addition and the window was being removed anyway.
The repairman exceeded his authority and even though he was doing something 'good', but the right way to do it would be to ask you to amend his contract to grant him the authority to fix the window in addition to the wall.
Sure, its harder, but hat process ensures that you have to 'opt in' to increased government rather than the easier method that requires us to actively 'opt out' by continually passing new 'protections' each time the government figures a way around the old protections.
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+1
I'm afraid of what we'd lose. (Score:5, Insightful)
Papers and effects (Score:5, Interesting)
What part of "papers and effects" don't they understand?
Your computer (and phone) is as much your "papers" as the media is a "press".
What right did they get to GPS-track you? Isn't your car an "effect"? Even if not, it still is your property. So where did the government get the right to use your property without due process of law (5th amendment)?
Where'd the government get the right to confiscate servers? Domain names? Where's the due process of law?
The constitutional view is that the government only has such powers as have specifically been given to it. The state's view is that they have plenary (unlimited) power until stopped by a greater power.
A Constitution 3.0 would not be needed if there were a proper perspective on the existing constitution.
Read the link for the Federalist Papers, the Antifederalist Papers, and more.
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Searching or seizing your computer actually does require a warrant. Same with your phone, except for some odd cases that occur much too easily and are still being debated (like when you're pulled over for a traffic violation).
Seizing servers requires a warrant as well.
The one that's difficult is acquiring your data from a third party, such as a service provider. Protection against search and seizure is generally considered to only apply to those things in your possession and not to items held on your behalf
Interpret (Score:2)
The fact that it's subject to interpretation is in itself showing how ridiculous the whole argument is. It's a piece of paper...it will mean whatever the government employees, judges and cops want it to mean.
The ass-backwards interpetations.. (Score:2)
I see coming out of people is disturbing. They don't want corporate control but they want state's to decide things where corporate money is easier to influence. In fact they've proven in more rural states buying the legislature or a federal seat is cheap compared to the populous states. The constitution was designed that the state's had rights to decide basic customs and rules that make sense for their populous at their time. The Federal government though was just like the government of England, it was
Reintepreting the Constitution (Score:2, Insightful)
You do not have to worry about that.
The constitution no longer exists, practically.
Most people don't even know what it stands for or even know what it is due to the immigration policies.
People don't come here any more for freedom or liberty, since that too, is almost gone as well.
They come for a job. Those too, are on the way out.
What will be left is a fascist dictatorship. They will come for you in the night.
They will come for your wife, if she misses a payment on her student loan.
They will come for your
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Most people don't even know what it stands for or even know what it is due to the immigration policies.
Pretty sure that U.S. naturalization procedure includes a test on Constitution.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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All texts require interpretation. No human utterance is unambiguous.
Depends. Is it written in Lojban?
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"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Tenth amendment to the constitutions of the United States Of America. (see also the tenth amendment)
The good news is we shouldn't need a new law to stop warrentless gps tracking.
"The right of the people to be secure in their perso
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The should be (see also the NINTH).
sry
Mycroft
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There needs to be a waiting period on Freedom of the Press. A cooling-off time when they can check facts.
And a speech license. Don't forget the speech license. And a "criminal speech background check", too. Can't have convicted liars going around with a loaded fountain pen.