Constitution

Limbaugh Special?

This entry was posted in Constitution Drug Laws on by

Rush and his attorney seem to think that Rush is special:

Earlier, Limbaugh’s lawyer accused Palm Beach County prosecutor Barry Krischer of having political motives for investigating whether Limbaugh bought painkillers illegally.
“They are looking to publicly embarrass him and affect his radio program,” Roy Black said on NBC’s “Today Show.” “Why is Rush Limbaugh the only person treated like this in America?”

Apparently they live in a different America then the rest of us. I encourage them to visit the courts and jails that process and imprison the millions of Americans who have been victimized by the so called war on drugs.

Reason’s List

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Yea, I know this is the 3rd list in a row. It’s just the way the day has been going.
Reason Magazine pays tribute:

…to some of the people who have made the world a freer, better, and more libertarian place by example, invention, or action. The one criterion: Honorees needed to have been alive at some point during reason�s run, which began in May 1968. The list is by design eclectic, irreverent, and woefully incomplete, but it limns the many ways in which the world has only gotten groovier and groovier during the last 35 years.

I found this one most entertaining:

John Ashcroft. If Donny and Marie Osmond were a little bit country and a little bit rock �n� roll, the current attorney general is little bit J. Edgar Hoover and a little bit Janet Reno. Whether it�s prosecuting medical marijuana users, devoting scarce resources to arresting adult porn distributors, or using tax dollars to create USA PATRIOT Act propaganda Web sites, Ashcroft has managed to create an unprecedented coalition of conservatives, liberals, and libertarians around a single noble cause: the protection of civil liberties.

Via AnarCapLib.

Late Night Reading

This entry was posted in Constitution Culture Domestic Terrorism Late Night Reads Law Enforcement Seattle on by

Mark Kleiman has finished Quicksilver and writes about it. Worth reading no matter where you are in the Quicksilver Process. Me, I’m in hiatus at 180 pages…back to it soon.
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, much maligned on certain talk radio spews, has stood up for the citizens of the US in ruling unconstitutional portions of the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. See How Appealing and Talkleft for details.
Good Night!

Two faces of Michael Powell

This entry was posted in Capitalism Constitution Domestic Terrorism Economics Federal Government Internet Regulation Technology on by

Yesterday Michael Powell said the following (PDF) in remarks opening a forum on Voice over IP:

As one who believes unflinchingly in maintaining an Internet free from government regulation, I believe that IP-based services such as VOIP should evolve in a regulation-free zone.
No regulator, either federal or state, should tread into this area without an absolutely compelling justification for doing so.

This is the same guy that recently supported the implementation of the broadcast flag and willingly accepts it as his duty to use regulation to push the implementation of HDTV which may be nifty high quality but, nevertheless, should be left to find its own way in the market. We will either embrace it or ignore it.
Something that could bring the development of VoIP to a grinding halt is this push (requires free registration) by the FBI and the Justice Department to have the FCC assure that they will be able to eavesdrop on our VoIP calls:

The FBI and Justice Department want the FCC to classify Internet-based telephony as a traditional telecommunications service, which would subject it to federal laws requiring carriers or software companies “to develop intercept solutions for lawful electronic surveillance.”

It is time to just say no to these folks.
Via beSpacific here and here.
Update (12/3): For more on the FCC’s VoIP forum see The Knowledge Problem.

Judicial and Congressional Qualifications

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Randy Barnett on the senate judicial filibuster and the qualification of judges:

Mr. Schumer is right to raise the issue of judicial philosophy. Republicans have yet to move away from appeals to �qualifications� and �judicial restraint� and take up his challenge. That no judge should ignore the Constitution when doing so suits their ideological agenda is a philosophy all nominees must accept. So must all senators. For they too have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution, the whole Constitution, and not just the parts that, for the moment at least, lead to results they happen to like.

Stikes me that following this practice could lead to drastically reducing the size of law libraries which would be a good thing. And with modest tweaking of the constitution we could get rid of a lot more of the sludge that clogs the flow of human interaction.
Via The Volokh Conspiriacy.