OccupyFail: Corporations as people

The Citizens United Supreme Court decision affirming that corporations have free speech rights continues to rankle the left. At last Thursday night's Obama fundraiser protest in San Francisco, I saw this sign held by a man from Occupy San Jose:

"I'll believe Corp's are people when [San Jose] City Hall evicts one"

I explained to the protester that corporations are evicted if they don't pay their rent. That was news to him.

On the same theme, there is this sign from Occupy San Francisco (photo taken last October):

"I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one! -- I am the 99%"

Of course, corporations are executed, mercilessly, all the time: it is called Chapter 7 (liquidation).

At times, when dealing with people, logic is just irrelevant. In this case, in my opinion, the Occupy crowd is not expressing a legal theory about corporations; they are expressing emotional frustration with life. If conservatives/libertarians are going to respond effectively to their points, we need to address the emotion and not the logic.

PREVIOUSLY on the Occupy Wall Street movement:
•Occupy Wall Street analyzes the Greek debt problem
•"Occupy CPAC" protesters paid $60/day
•Occupy Portland mob smashes windows
•Occupy Portland blocks bridge, causes massive traffic jam
•Occupy Oakland: the devolution
•Occupy Portland explains its rape policy
•News media report on terrorists and patriots
•Occupy Portland protester loses it in front of KGW news
•Occupy Portland and Michael Moore's hypocrisy
•A Visit to Occupy San Francisco: photo essay
•Occupy Oakland and Marxism: a video

Sharia Law practiced in Australia

According to this TV report, women's rights are disappearing as Sharia Law is being practiced in cities across Austrialia:

Some clerics have defied government bans to establish their own courts to decide divorce cases, child custody issues, and financial disputes. Brian Seymore reports that's just the start as Muslim leaders call for traditional Islamic Law to be fully adopted in Australia.

Hat tip: Leonard

PREVIOUSLY on the subject of Islam
•The Islamic Bomb
•Why is Islam popular in prison?
•Obama and the stifling of dissent
•Hate crimes statistics, Jews, and Muslims, and more
•The philosophy that shall not be named
•Turkey wants to try Pope for insulting Islam

Obama and "Critical Legal Studies"

I hadn't heard of "Critical Legal Studies" but Professors Reynolds and Althouse had. For those of us who aren't law professors, Rush explains the concept:

Now, speaking of Obama's academic record, he attended Harvard Law School at the height of something that it was promoting, education technique or a theory. It was called critical legal studies. Critical legal studies was in its ascendancy at Harvard Law when Obama was there. You can look it up. Just Google critical legal studies. It is out and out Marxism.

In a nutshell, critical legal studies claims that law is just politics by other means. It is a way for the rich to keep the poor working man down and deny him opportunities for prosperity. That is what Obama was taught at Harvard and based on what he believes and is doing it looks to me like he probably did get good grades. Look it up if you want. Critical legal studies. Law is just politics by other means.

This neatly explains Pres. Obama's approach to law and government and certainly fits with his advocacy of gangster government.

PREVIOUSLY on the Obama and the rule of law:
• Justice Scalia explains the rule of law
•Obama administration overturns rule of law on immigration
•Obama and immigration law
•The end of the rule of law
•Obama and the rule of law
•The AP mis-understands the rule of law

Illegal immigration, Asian style

At Fox News, Phylis Chester writes:

They are crossing the border illegally and violently displacing the indigenous population whose homes and possessions they either destroy or occupy. They are attacking the young, the elderly, and especially the girls and women, whom they kidnap, forcibly convert, or traffic into brothels. The locals are terrified of them. The police rarely come to their aid, nor do the politically correct media or government. Both are terrified by the criminals and terrorists who are riding these immigrant waves.

I am not talking about illegal immigrants to Europe or North America. I am describing Muslims who are penetrating India’s West Bengal region. These Bangladeshi immigrants are becoming conduits for criminal activities (arms, drugs, and sexual slavery) which also fund global jihad.

There are good reasons why all nations regulate immigration.

Hat tip: Israpundit.

PREVIOUSLY on immigration:
•Feds cede border to smugglers. Warn citizens to stay away
•Arizona law working even before it was scheduled to be in effect
•Obama administration overturns rule of law on immigration
•Pro-illegal immigration protesters confront Minutemen in San Francisco
•Amazing: NY Times editors thought illegal immigration was legal
•California pays for schooling of Mexicans who live in Mexico and only cross the border to go to school
•Political bias on Spanish-language TV network Univision
•British pop star denied visa to US. Should she have tried to get in illegally instead?
•Sex slave ring arrested. Pro-illegal advocates object.

Feds cede border to smugglers. Warn citizens to stay away

The Washington Times reports (hat tip: Michelle Malkin) that, rather than enforce immigration laws, the federal government, via the Bureau of Land Management, is placing signs to warn US citizens to stay away from the dangerous US-Mexican border:
Hope n' Change explores the logic:
We tried to reach the President for comment but he was busy:
Michelle Malkin has more. Also see Uncoverage's review of how President Eisenhower succeeded in deporting illegal aliens.

RELATED: Feds Sue Sheriff Arpaio.

PREVIOUSLY on immigration:
•Arizona law working even before it was scheduled to be in effect
•Obama administration overturns rule of law on immigration
•Pro-illegal immigration protesters confront Minutemen in San Francisco
•Amazing: NY Times editors thought illegal immigration was legal
•California pays for schooling of Mexicans who live in Mexico and only cross the border to go to school
•Political bias on Spanish-language TV network Univision
•British pop star denied visa to US. Should she have tried to get in illegally instead?
•Sex slave ring arrested. Pro-illegal advocates object.

Newsmedia malpractice

Brent Bozell remembers some of the dishonest reporting accompanying Sonia Sotomayor's nominations to the Supreme Court:

Last year, when Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, CBS anchor Katie Couric said labeling her "won't be easy." CBS reporter Wyatt Andrews found "no clear ideology" in her public record. This week, the Washington Post embarrassed themselves with a front-page story claiming "Obama has not chosen outspoken liberals in either of his first two opportunities to influence the makeup of the court."

Of course, over the last year, she has, as the LA Times reports, "prov[ed] herself to be a reliable liberal vote on the Supreme Court."

For more examples of newsmedia misrepresenting Sotomayor, consider NPR from July, 2009:

Analysts see Judge Sonia Sotomayor as a moderate whose decisions in criminal cases rarely differ from those of her colleagues on the federal bench. Some say her experience as a prosecutor and her record on the bench might make her more conservative than Justice David Souter on criminal justice issues. [Emph. added]

E. J. Dionne Jr. also adopted the Sotomayor-is-a-moderate spin in his opinion column:

And even though they should support her confirmation, liberals would be foolish to embrace Sotomayor as one of their own because her record is clearly that of a moderate.

PREVIOUSLY on the Obama and the rule of law:
•Making voter intimidation legal
•Obama administration overturns rule of law on immigration
•Justice Scalia explains the rule of law
•Sotomayor: Obama nominates a racist
•The end of the rule of law
•Obama and the rule of law
•The AP mis-understands the rule of law

China sentences American for industrial spying

China has tortured and sentenced to 8 years in prison a naturalized American citizen because he gather information on China's oil industry even though, according to the defense, most countries consider the same information to be public. The AP reports:

An American geologist held by Chinese state security agents who stubbed lit cigarettes on his arms was sentenced to eight years in prison Monday for gathering data on China's oil industry — a case that highlights the government's use of vague secrets laws to restrict business information. . . . .

Xue's sentence punctuates a case that has dragged on for more than two-and-a-half years and is likely to alarm foreign businesses unsure when normal business activities elsewhere might conflict with China's vague state security laws.

Chinese officials have wide authority to classify information as state secrets. Draft regulations released by the government in April said business secrets of major state companies qualify as state secrets. . . . .

Like IHS, many multinationals have come to rely on people like Xue to run their China operations. Another China-born foreign national, Australian Stern Hu who worked for the global mining firm Rio Tinto, was sentenced in March to 10 years for bribery and infringing trade secrets that dealt with iron ore sales to Chinese companies. . . . .

During Xue's closed-door trial, which ran over three dates last July and in December, the court document said he defended himself, arguing that the information he gathered "is data that the oil sector in countries around the world make public."

David Rowley, Xue's thesis adviser at University of Chicago and a geologist, said that the location and seismic and other data of oil wells is commonly available and could not compromise Chinese security since the government controls access.

In the communist tradition, courts do not exist to protect the rights of individuals. They exist to enforce the whims of the communist political leaders. The American left, with its talk of a "living constitution" that bends to their will, wants America's courts to more like Chinese ones.

PREVIOUSLY on the rule of law:
•Kagan: politics trumps law
•Justice Scalia explains the rule of law
•Obama administration overturns rule of law on immigration
•The end of the rule of law
•Obama and the rule of law
•The AP mis-understands the rule of law

Kagan and the benefits of incompetence

Roger Kimball writes of Pres. Obama's incompetence (Hat tip: Instapundit):

The man can pose. He can preen. He cannot, judging by his performance these last eighteen months, govern. His handling, which is to say his ostentatious mishandling of the BP oil spill, is only the latest evidence that he is wildly out of his depth.

It is not surprising then to find evidence accumulating that Obama's pick for the Supreme Court is incompetent as a lawyer. Power Line reports that, in her efforts at Harvard to discriminate against the military, Elena Kagan signed on to a brief that not even one member of the Supreme Court could agree with:

Kagan signed in the Solomon Amendment case argued that law schools didn't violate the Solomon Amendment because they treated the military the same as they did other employers. It was an argument confined to the statutory language of the amendment. The Supreme Court blew it off in the first few pages of its analysis.

At Volockh Conspiracy, Stewart Baker reviews the incompetence of another brief filed by her office (Hat tip: Instapundit).

What does all this say about Elena Kagan, woman of mystery and Solicitor General until two weeks ago? Nothing good, I fear. The brief is at best a hacked-together, please-no-one compromise. At worst it borders on the unprofessional.

What does it mean to have such a person on the Supreme Court? While undoubtedly a reliable vote for the left, she appears unable to form a coherent argument. Consequently, decisions that she writes are unlikely to have lasting influence. Since Pres. Obama is sure to nominate leftists to the Supreme Court, the best we can hope for is an incompetent and, therefore, ineffective leftist. Elena Kagan seems to fit the bill.


PREVIOUSLY on the rule of law:
• Justice Scalia explains the rule of law
•Obama administration overturns rule of law on immigration
•The end of the rule of law
•Obama and the rule of law
•The AP mis-understands the rule of law

Justice Scalia explains the rule of law

The LA Times reports on the Supreme Court's latest affirmative action case:

Justice Antonin Scalia, speaking at the court Monday, said he and his colleagues were applying the civil-rights laws as written by Congress, not necessarily as he and others thought it should be written.    . . . .

In Monday's opinion, Scalia acknowledged this law created "practical problems for employers" and could "produce puzzling results." He concluded, however, "it is a problem for Congress, not one that federal courts can fix."

If you are making decisions about what to do, you should be able to trust that the laws, as written, can guide your choices and, if you follow the law, then the law will protect you. The left, by contrast, thinks that courts should be able to re-write laws on a whim.

PREVIOUSLY on the Obama and the rule of law:
•Obama administration overturns rule of law on immigration
•The end of the rule of law
•Obama and the rule of law
•The AP mis-understands the rule of law

Obama and the law

Hope n'Change comments on the Obama administration's view of enforcing the laws of the land (click on the graphic to enlarge):PREVIOUSLY on the Obama and the rule of law:
• The end of the rule of law
•Obama and the rule of law
•The AP mis-understands the rule of law

Congress and Spam

Network World reports on the successes of the  2003 CAN-SPAM act:

"Lawyers were having to work overtime to stretch existing laws to cover what was going on with spam. Issues like falsified headers were not clear-cut legal offenses," Church explains. "A lot of folks were saying: 'What can we do to give some teeth to legal efforts to try to stop spam?' There were a number of different proposals over many years, and the one that carried the day was the CAN-SPAM Act."

CAN-SPAM allows the Federal Trade Commission, the Justice Department and state agencies to prosecute spammers, and it allows ISPs to sue those who violate the law.

The FTC has brought around 30 law enforcement actions under the CAN-SPAM Act, according to a staff report issued in November 2007. Meanwhile, AOL, Yahoo, EarthLink and Microsoft have sued hundreds of alleged spammers under CAN-SPAM. 

"One of the other good things about CAN-SPAM is that it provided the ability for end users and ISPs who are victims of spam to seek justice on their own behalf, and a number of them have taken advantage of that fact," says Dmitri Alperovitch, director of intelligence analysis at Secure Computing. [emph. added]

So, what good has all this prosecuting and suing accomplished?  Not much.  As Network World points out, back when Congress heroically passed CAN-SPAM, spam made up only 45% of e-mail.  Now, five years later, it constitutes an amazing 97% of all e-mail.  But fret not because the upside is that the lawyers doing all the prosecuting, suing, and defending are profiting.

Privacy: a thing of the past?

Hospital employees often need to access patients' medical records. At other times, the access them for fun:

Last month, 13 UCLA Medical Center employees were fired and several others were disciplined for accessing Britney Spears’ medical records. Just last week, the Los Angeles Times reported that another employee had been let go for viewing the confidential file of ’70s “Charlie’s Angels” icon Farrah Fawcett, who had been receiving cancer treatment.....

Though the Spears and Fawcett cases are the ones that received media attention, employees in offices campus-wide can easily find themselves snooping in the files of normal people going about their daily lives at UCLA.

Employees at Wisconsin's WE Energy utility also enjoyed access to private private customer records as a perk of their jobs:

A landlord snooped on tenants to find out information about their finances. A woman repeatedly accessed her ex-boyfriend's account after a difficult breakup. Another obtained her child's father's address so she could serve him court papers.

All worked for Wisconsin's largest utility, where employees routinely accessed confidential information about acquaintances, local celebrities and others from its massive customer database. ....

"People were looking at an incredible number of accounts," Joan Shafer, WE Energies' vice president of customer service, said during a sworn deposition last year. "Politicians, community leaders, board members, officers, family, friends. All over the place."

Sometimes people use their access to databases not for fun but for profit as in the case of at least 90 UC Irvine students whose tax refunds were stolen:

At least 90 University of California, Irvine graduate students have reported to campus police that they were the victims of identity theft, by people who fraudulently filed tax returns using their names and social security numbers to collect refunds, campus officials confirmed today.

Most students discovered the thefts when they tried to file their tax returns electronically, and were informed by the IRS that their returns had already been filed, officials said.

While you should shred private information before putting it in the trash, there is little one can do to protect oneself from these threats unless one wants to drop out of school, turn the utilities off, and refuse medical care.

PREVIOUSLY, on the subject of privacy, courts have ruled that you have no right to privacy if you send your hard disk in for repair. Also, courts were disputing whether e-mail should be considered private or not.

Legal battle: tree hugger v. global warmist

The law in California says that homeowners are not allowed to let their trees grow if the trees block more than 10% of their neighbor's solar cells. In Sunnyvale, CA, Richard Treanor and Carolynn Bissett, an environmentally conscious couple who drive a prius, planted redwood trees in their backyard. After the trees were planted, neighbor Mark Vargas put solar cells on his roof which charge his electric car. Everything was fine until the trees did what redwood trees do: they grew. Vargas complained and the San Jose Mercury News reports that the county DA is now demanding that the trees be cut. Treanor and Bissett say they have incurred $25,000 in legal fees defending the right of redwoods to grow.

Kurt Newick, a solar cell salesman who also happens to be chairman of the local Sierra Club global warming committee, sides with solar cells which he says reduce global warming more than trees. On the other hand, supposing someone started cutting down, say, national forests, in order to use the land for solar cells, don't you think that the Sierra Club would change its mind.

The law in question was written by Assemblyman Chuck Imbrecht, a Ventura Republican, and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in 1978, the height of Pres. Carter's energy crisis.

Hat tip: Instapundit.

Your right to privacy does not include your hard disk

If you have your computer repaired, you have no privacy. The hard drive of your home computer likely has tax returns, bank account numbers, correspondence, and other data that you regard as private. However, a recent court decision says that computer store repair techs may rummage through your files.

This issue got to court because Circuit City technicians did a search on Kenneth Sodomsky's PC for video files and allegedly found child porn. He was charged but the trial court said that Circuit City shouldn't have done that. A Pennsylvania Superior Court disagreed and said that Mr. Sodomsky had no reasonable expectation of privacy after he gave his computer to the store for a hardware upgrade. Prosecuting pederasts is a good thing. For the rest of us, though, this may not be a helpful precedent.

An identity thief may merely need your name, your date of birth, and your social security number. If he has access to your hard drive, he probably has this and a lot more.

e-mail is not private (yet)

The US Appeals court is expected to rule soon on whether e-mail should be considered private. Unlike USPS mail or telephone conversations, there are no laws protecting the privacy of e-mails. Federal prosecutors assert the right to read to any e-mail that is a public server. This includes, for example, any mail in a google, hotmail or AOL account. Prosecutors used this to gain evidence to charge Steven Warshak, an Ohio spam-merchant, with mail fraud and money laundering. A US district judge sided with Warshak that e-mail should be private but the US appealing.