Constitution

Transparency

This entry was posted in bush Constitution Democracy Election 2004 Federal Government Patriot Act War on Terrorism on by

The bush administration could go a long ways in blunting its opposition by at minimum maintaining even the woefully poor previous levels of transparency. They, as the champions of freedom, would do even better if they broadened public access to government records and activities.
According to the Washington Post this does not appear to be the direction they have chosen:

…the Bush administration seems to be going in the other direction. The administration has been unusually successful keeping its policy deliberations out of public view, and millions of government documents — including many historical records previously available — have been removed from the public domain.

That the bush administration appears to feel an increasing need to hide the details of its activities from the public, even after the fact, seems to confirm that there is indeed something to hide.
Via Secrecy News.

RIAA v Verizon

This entry was posted in Capitalism Constitution Economics Intellectual Property Internet Libertarianism Technology on by

I don’t condone stealing other folks property even if it is overpriced shoddy music.
However, I applaud the US Court of Appeals of DC’s decision in RIAA v Verizon:

The recording industry’s effort to curtail online piracy was dealt a significant blow today when a federal appeals court ruled that Internet service providers cannot be compelled to disclose the identities of customers suspected of illegally sharing copyrighted songs.

Well, they really can be compelled but it must now be with full due process:

Using the DMCA subpoenas, the RIAA was able to obtain the names of suspected file sharers from ISPs without filing lawsuit and without getting a judge’s approval. Without that subpoena power, the RIAA would have to file suit against unnamed file-swappers in order to obtain their identities.

The complete opinion is here (PDF) and provides some entertaining reading as the court hammers the RIAA. On the other hand, the court did not address constitutional issues raised by Verizon thus leaving the door open for congress to mess things up again.

Kudos to the 9th Circuit Court

This entry was posted in Capitalism Constitution Domestic Terrorism Drug Laws Economics Law Enforcement Libertarianism on by

For doing this good deed:

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that prosecuting these medical marijuana users under a 1970 federal law is unconstitutional if the marijuana isn’t sold, transported across state lines or used for non-medicinal purposes.

Volokh blogger Randy Barnett argued and won this case and he provides technical details and more links here.
We need more like this:

The decision was a blow to the Justice Department, which argued that medical marijuana laws in nine states were trumped by the Controlled Substances Act, which outlawed marijuana, heroin and a host of other drugs nationwide.

No, what we really need is for the myriad local, state and federal drug laws to be eliminated.
Via Talkleft.