After over a decade of this stuff I'm now willing to concede to our conspiracy nut friends that all our anti-terror efforts appear to have accomplished is conditioning people in this country to the kind of "papers please" routine that we were told during the Cold War was what would come if the Soviets "won". Of course the phrase actually comes from a meme spawned in a somewhat earlier time (go watch the film "Casablanca"). Seems to me that the IG's office has been doing an outstanding job, but two Presidents and several Congresses have dropped the ball in answer. Just like on 9/11, the fault will lie with our elected representatives, not with the undertrained, undermotivated and underachieving minions manning TSA's front lines. Politicians talk a good game, but over my lifetime have consistently failed to deliver when we most needed them to. I of course include upper echelon political appointees like the TSA director in the political class, as he is clearly indistinguishable from them.
The school, its officials and the police were clearly out of line here. Since the officials involved in effect had ultimate policy-making authority over the matter here, their departments should be held liable as well. Further, those officials need to be held responsible in their individual capacities (as pleaded in the complaint), and suffer the loss of their own personal property in satisfaction of whatever money judgement is rendered. Lack of accountability is the source of too much evil in today's world. In particular, those in charge of government operations have for too long been permitted to act with impunity on their own flawed personal prejudices, essentially acting like lawless thugs.
Unfortunately I doubt that any of the individual defendants have the intellectual capacity to understand the court's reasoning in its opinion denying their motion to dismiss. But then their ignorance was already established by their actions, wasn't it? Unless a settlement is reached this case will probably go to trial in 4 or 5 years, at which point the kid will hopefully get a substantial sum awarded to get his life back on track. What would be best for the kid, and society as a whole, is if all those involved in depriving him of his rights were dismissed from public service and their agencies stepped up to make things right before even more damage is done.
Good explanation! Actually the assignment of copyright to the state sounds like a step forward from my recollection (I practice law over 20 years ago before "retiring" into a second career in IT), most annotated statute collections are still under private copyright (owned by either Thompson Reuters as owner of West and Lawyer's Coop, or Reed Elsevier as parent of LexisNexis). Of course as others have explained above the annotations should have no force of law, although we've seen them in fact have that effect (the famous principle that "corporations are people too" originates from a Supreme Court clerk's summary that had nothing to do with the holding of the case). The big issue here is that no state or other government entity should expect its pronouncements to have any force at all if they're not made public. Publishing to 1% of your population (the lawyers) at a price beyond the means of most citizens does not, in my mind, meet that requirement. It's bad enough that the only source of many municipal laws are brief notices printed in the back of local newspapers, or that even things as essential as building codes can only be accessed for exorbitant fees. If there's any one thing that shouldn't be subject to user fees it is a city, state or nation's laws (and the court cases that interpret them). Failing to provide free and easy access to them, especially given the technology available here in the 21st century, should really call into question their legitimacy.
Sovereign immunity is the legal principal that the state is not liable for damages caused by the negligence of its agents. Most states and the federal government in the US have modified it to allow claims to be made under very stringent conditions, but it is still extraordinarily hard to get compensation from government to the stupid and reckless things their employees do. In many cases those employees themselves benefit from a kind of qualified immunity for what would be called malpractice in other professions like medicine or law.
The answer is, of course, to abolish sovereign immunity and all qualified immunities, including judicial immunity. If someone's recklessness or carelessness injures another they should be made to pay for it. In real money. Period*. Maybe then they'll exercise the required care to get their jobs done right without killing infants and children.
*There would be a special places for those whose profligacy or ability to hide their wealth led to there being no assets available to satisfy a judgment: debtor's prison.
But for sovereign immunity those banks would have overwhelmed the US government with lawsuits over the damage that bit of industrial self-espionage has done over the years.
Talk about friendly fire.
Anyone know what grade Comey got in first year Calculus, assuming he qualified to even take it?
Suggestion: ALL public officials whose jobs involve making decisions on computer security issues be required to get at least a 2 year degree in computer science. If they can't cut it then they're disqualified from participating in those decisions. Not really that much to ask, given how many of them have gone out an earned an MBA on the public's dime to prepare for a future career in the private sector.
If/when the Comcast-Time Warner merger goes through evidence like this will provide the justification to assume their success was due to government corruption.
At that point it might be useful to turn the spotlight from Comcast and onto those government officials who approved the merger.
So go ahead DoJ, FTC and all you other alphabet agency leaders, give Comcast the green light and make yourselves the new target of legal scrutiny.
All this shows is what I think everyone already knew: there are in fact real public servants working in government. The problem has always been that those sorts of people rarely get into positions of management or leadership. That's why I can still show respect to individual FBI agents but deride the organization itself. The same is true of local law enforcement. Individual cops on the beat can demonstrate incredible levels of professionalism, compassion and bravery -- but those running the show are often as sociopathic as the miscreants they're supposed to be protecting us against.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by plembo.
Just conditioning
After over a decade of this stuff I'm now willing to concede to our conspiracy nut friends that all our anti-terror efforts appear to have accomplished is conditioning people in this country to the kind of "papers please" routine that we were told during the Cold War was what would come if the Soviets "won". Of course the phrase actually comes from a meme spawned in a somewhat earlier time (go watch the film "Casablanca"). Seems to me that the IG's office has been doing an outstanding job, but two Presidents and several Congresses have dropped the ball in answer. Just like on 9/11, the fault will lie with our elected representatives, not with the undertrained, undermotivated and underachieving minions manning TSA's front lines. Politicians talk a good game, but over my lifetime have consistently failed to deliver when we most needed them to. I of course include upper echelon political appointees like the TSA director in the political class, as he is clearly indistinguishable from them.
The school, its officials and the police were clearly out of line here. Since the officials involved in effect had ultimate policy-making authority over the matter here, their departments should be held liable as well. Further, those officials need to be held responsible in their individual capacities (as pleaded in the complaint), and suffer the loss of their own personal property in satisfaction of whatever money judgement is rendered. Lack of accountability is the source of too much evil in today's world. In particular, those in charge of government operations have for too long been permitted to act with impunity on their own flawed personal prejudices, essentially acting like lawless thugs.
Unfortunately I doubt that any of the individual defendants have the intellectual capacity to understand the court's reasoning in its opinion denying their motion to dismiss. But then their ignorance was already established by their actions, wasn't it? Unless a settlement is reached this case will probably go to trial in 4 or 5 years, at which point the kid will hopefully get a substantial sum awarded to get his life back on track. What would be best for the kid, and society as a whole, is if all those involved in depriving him of his rights were dismissed from public service and their agencies stepped up to make things right before even more damage is done.
Re: Re: Re:
Good explanation! Actually the assignment of copyright to the state sounds like a step forward from my recollection (I practice law over 20 years ago before "retiring" into a second career in IT), most annotated statute collections are still under private copyright (owned by either Thompson Reuters as owner of West and Lawyer's Coop, or Reed Elsevier as parent of LexisNexis). Of course as others have explained above the annotations should have no force of law, although we've seen them in fact have that effect (the famous principle that "corporations are people too" originates from a Supreme Court clerk's summary that had nothing to do with the holding of the case). The big issue here is that no state or other government entity should expect its pronouncements to have any force at all if they're not made public. Publishing to 1% of your population (the lawyers) at a price beyond the means of most citizens does not, in my mind, meet that requirement. It's bad enough that the only source of many municipal laws are brief notices printed in the back of local newspapers, or that even things as essential as building codes can only be accessed for exorbitant fees. If there's any one thing that shouldn't be subject to user fees it is a city, state or nation's laws (and the court cases that interpret them). Failing to provide free and easy access to them, especially given the technology available here in the 21st century, should really call into question their legitimacy.
Abolish sovereign immunity
Sovereign immunity is the legal principal that the state is not liable for damages caused by the negligence of its agents. Most states and the federal government in the US have modified it to allow claims to be made under very stringent conditions, but it is still extraordinarily hard to get compensation from government to the stupid and reckless things their employees do. In many cases those employees themselves benefit from a kind of qualified immunity for what would be called malpractice in other professions like medicine or law.
The answer is, of course, to abolish sovereign immunity and all qualified immunities, including judicial immunity. If someone's recklessness or carelessness injures another they should be made to pay for it. In real money. Period*. Maybe then they'll exercise the required care to get their jobs done right without killing infants and children.
*There would be a special places for those whose profligacy or ability to hide their wealth led to there being no assets available to satisfy a judgment: debtor's prison.
Re: RSA?
But for sovereign immunity those banks would have overwhelmed the US government with lawsuits over the damage that bit of industrial self-espionage has done over the years.
Talk about friendly fire.
Anyone know what grade Comey got in first year Calculus, assuming he qualified to even take it?
Suggestion: ALL public officials whose jobs involve making decisions on computer security issues be required to get at least a 2 year degree in computer science. If they can't cut it then they're disqualified from participating in those decisions. Not really that much to ask, given how many of them have gone out an earned an MBA on the public's dime to prepare for a future career in the private sector.
Just turn the spotlight
If/when the Comcast-Time Warner merger goes through evidence like this will provide the justification to assume their success was due to government corruption.
At that point it might be useful to turn the spotlight from Comcast and onto those government officials who approved the merger.
So go ahead DoJ, FTC and all you other alphabet agency leaders, give Comcast the green light and make yourselves the new target of legal scrutiny.
Public service
All this shows is what I think everyone already knew: there are in fact real public servants working in government. The problem has always been that those sorts of people rarely get into positions of management or leadership. That's why I can still show respect to individual FBI agents but deride the organization itself. The same is true of local law enforcement. Individual cops on the beat can demonstrate incredible levels of professionalism, compassion and bravery -- but those running the show are often as sociopathic as the miscreants they're supposed to be protecting us against.