Law

The Pledge

This entry was posted in Capitalism Constitution Culture Government Law Libertarianism Politics on by

Kenneth Quinnell, in his essay Why I Don’t Say the Pledge of Allegiance states:

But the very concept of a Pledge of Allegiance is wrong in a free country.

He elaborates on this at some length and I could, and I’m sure some others might, debate some of his points.
I do, though, agree with his basic point that free individuals have no obligation to recite a pledge of allegiance.
On the other hand, there is a group who by dint of their position should recite a pledge…probably several times per day. That would be the set of government employees, elected, appointed or hired, throughout the world. Our servants: congress critters, kings and queens, premiers, secretaries of desks and states, governors, presidents, soldiers, firepersons, police, mayors, etc.
They, each and everyone, in every government job throughout the world should start their day with something like:

I pledge allegiance to the people of name your jurisdiction and swear to protect their lives, help them maintain their liberty and assist them in their pursuit of happiness.

…and repeat it frequently throughout the day and once again before going to sleep at night.

Microsoft Malware

This entry was posted in Business US Law Microsoft on by

Perhaps showing their true colors Microsoft makes it pretty clear that they are no better and perhaps worse than the proverbial fox guarding the hen house:

Microsoft should be ashamed of itself for trying to turn its own security flaw to its commercial gain. There’s no reason to believe that customers installing a mandatory security fix also want to change their browser home page to an MSN portal, and there’s even less excuse for trying to spring a change on the unwary.
Interestingly, the test version of Microsoft’s new AntiSpyware program does something similar.

Of course, if you are not using IE as your browser you did not notice this happening to you. Hint, hint.
And, why shouldn’t Microsoft owe, say, $5 compensation to everyone who had to spend time reconfiguring their systems as a result of this theft.

Choicepoint

This entry was posted in Capitalism Constitution Economics Federal Government Government Information Law Libertarianism on by

Most of you are, by now, aware of the Choicepoint fiasco:

Criminals posing as legitimate businesses have accessed critical personal data stored by ChoicePoint Inc., a firm that maintains databases of background information on virtually every U.S. citizen, MSNBC.com has learned.
The incident involves a wide swath of consumer data, including names, addresses, Social Security numbers, credit reports and other information. ChoicePoint aggregates and sells such personal information to government agencies and private companies.

Ed Foster notes:

What the ChoicePoint fiasco really shows we need, however, are baseline federal privacy standards that apply to all industries. Although it’s certainly ironic that the “nation’s leading provider of identification and credential verification services” couldn’t figure out it was selling our info to a ring of criminals, the real problem is that data brokers like ChoicePoint can legally sell our information to just about whomever they please.

Federal standards and regulations are invariably broken and generally never written with individual citizens in mind but Ed’s last point hits the nail on the head.
No institution, government or private, can be allowed to collect or distribute, for free or for fee, any information about an individual without that individuals specific consent on a per incident basis and if the distribution is for a fee then that individual must be compensated at a rate agreeable to the individual.
The Privacy Digest has more information on both what the Choicepoint breach means to individuals and what information they may have about you.

Good Law

This entry was posted in Law on by

If you are not getting this:

In short, it should be possible to explain everything in law in perfectly simple, everyday, common sense terms. That should be the law student’s, the lawyer’s, and the judge’s creed.
Then you are not getting good law.
Update: Posner doesn’t mention legislative folks in the creed statement. Perhaps because legislative types are incapable of writing good law….

Blawggies

This entry was posted in Law on by

Dennis Kennedy presents his winners and runners-up for best legal blogs of 2004:

The Blawggies are not based on any popular votes, surveys or scientific measures. They are highly-opinionated choices made by me, based on my experience, expertise and likes and dislikes.
In general, I like to see blogs (1) consistently useful content, (2) a generous and helpful approach, and (3) a combination of commitment and talent. In other words, I like blogs that compel me to read them on a regular basis. I read almost all blog posts in a newsreader these days, so the awards will reflect a bias toward blogs with full-text RSS feeds as well as all of my other biases and personal preferences.
Check’m out and add to your feeds and rolls as suits your tastes.
Via beSpacific (Kennedy’s choice as #1).