Category: Justice

Judges Start to Question Sanity of Copyright Awards

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Two judges have now slashed awards for copyright violations by around 90%:

In fact, according to Gertner, they trampled the Constitution’s “Due Process” clause. In a ruling today, the judge slashed the $675,000 award by a factor of 10, to $67,500.
Two for two

If it sounds like a familiar result, it should. In Minnesota, Judge Michael Davis used a different legal approach called remittitur to lower Jammie Thomas-Rasset’s liability from $1.9 million to $2,250 per song. That amount is three times higher than the $750 minimum for statutory damages, and Judge Gertner has accepted both Judge Davis’ number and his reasoning when issuing her own opinion.

“Weighing all of these considerations, I conclude that the jury’s award of $675,000 in statutory damages for Tenenbaum’s infringement of thirty copyrighted works is unconstitutionally excessive,” she wrote. “This award is far greater than necessary to serve the government’s legitimate interests in compensating copyright owners and deterring infringement. In fact, it bears no meaningful relationship to these objectives. To borrow Chief Judge Michael J. Davis’ characterization of a smaller statutory damages award in an analogous file-sharing case, the award here is simply ‘unprecedented and oppressive.'”

This is a good thing. The previous award levels did nothing additional to deter people who violated the exclusive licenses that are a part of IP, but they did make it much easier for bottom feeding legal firms to prey on technically non-astute parents and people who were innocent.

There is a whole lot of what could only be described as shake downs being promulgated by agents of the RIAA and the MPAA, and hopefully, this will put a crimp in those ghouls’ business.

Polanski Extradition Denied

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Basically the Swiss government said that it would not extradite until and unless it got the details on the judicial and prosecutorial irregularities that occurred in the initial trial:

The justice ministry said that the US authorities had failed to provide confidential testimony about Polanski’s original sentencing procedure.

“The reason for the decision lies in the fact that it was not possible to exclude with the necessary certainty a fault in the US extraditionary request.”

So the prosecutors decided that covering their screw-ups, and their asses, was more important than a prosecution of someone who is a confessed child rapist.

I’ve always felt that the people, such as sociopath and Washington Post columnist* Richard Cohen, who tried to excuse the rape because he was one of them, or worse, to cast the child as some sort of predator were repugnant.

But this was the right decision. There have always been alarming irregularities in the original case, ex-parte communications and other misconduct that should have seen most of the prosecuting team, as well as the judge, disbarred, and the information being withheld included testimony which might have shown that Polanski had actually served his complete sentence. (All of 42 days)

*But I repeat myself.

Federal Judge Rules Parts of Doma Unconstitutional

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The areas of the lawsuit were rather specific, and pertained only to couples legally married in Massachusetts, but the the fact that the judge, Joseph Tauro, ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, the Mass AG and GLAD brought separate suits, is good news.

I’m an engineer, and not a lawyer, dammit, but I think that part of the decision, where the judge found a 10th amendment violation, because, “federal restrictions on funding for states that recognize same-sex marriage violates the 10th Amendment,which, “declares that rights not explicitly granted to the federal government, or denied to the states, belong to the states,” is likely to be overturned.

Basically the 10th amendment has not been a big part of jurisprudence since some time in the 1930s, and runs in the face of precedent.

The second decision, in GLAD’s case, is based on the 5th amendment equal protection claims, which I think will go a lot further.

Still, I think that it’s heading to the Supreme Court, and that the decision will be overturned by a 5-4 majority.

If I were an attorney for the plaintiffs, I would be starting to suggest that some of the justices who have already made statements that pre-judge the outcome, most notably Scalia, whose public endorsements of bigotry have been longstanding, recuse themselves.

If you don’t start making a stink about these now, then they will be sitting on the bench with their minds already made up later.

Unsurprising News of the Day

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4 out of 9 Supreme Court justices believe that there is a constitutional right to discrimination:

An ideologically split Supreme Court ruled Monday that a law school can legally deny recognition to a Christian student group that won’t let gays join, with one justice saying that the First Amendment does not require a public university to validate or support the group’s ”discriminatory practices.”

The court turned away an appeal from the Christian Legal Society, which sued to get funding and recognition from the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law. The CLS requires that voting members sign a statement of faith and regards ”unrepentant participation in or advocacy of a sexually immoral lifestyle” as being inconsistent with that faith.

But Hastings, which is in San Francisco, said no recognized campus groups may exclude people due to religious belief or sexual orientation.

The court on a 5-4 judgment upheld the lower court rulings saying the Christian group’s First Amendment rights of association, free speech and free exercise were not violated by the college’s nondiscrimination policy.

I guess we can call them the hate caucus.

Viacom Case Against Google Thrown Out

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The judge said that the safe harbor provision of the DMCA indemnifies Google, and granted Google’s motion for summary judgement, and dismissed Viacom’s lawsuit against Google/Youtube.

My guess is the fact that Viacom was itself posting illegal material to Youtube as a pretext for the lawsuit had a lot to do with this.

I will note that the author, Greg Sandoval quoted an “expert” from the libertarian group the PFF saying that it would be overturned without noting that both litigants funded the organization.

That’s just sloppy.

An Outbreak of Journalism

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When U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman, a Reagan appointee, struck down the Obama administration 6-month moratorium on deep water drilling, I kind of figured that I would hear stories about appeals.

It turns out that the story about his decision is all about the judges investments in a number of energy companies, including Transocean, operator of the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon rig:

U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman, a 1983 appointee of President Ronald Reagan, reported owning less than $15,000 in stock in 2008 in Transocean, the company that owned the sunken Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.

………

Feldman’s 2008 financial disclosure report — the most recent available — also showed investments in Ocean Energy, a Houston-based company, as well as Quicksilver Resources, Prospect Energy, Peabody Energy, Halliburton, Pengrowth Energy Trust, Atlas Energy Resources, Parker Drilling and others. Halliburton was also involved in the doomed Deepwater Horizon project.

I am stunned.

Not by a judge ruling in a case where the appearance of a conflict of interest is clear, after all, the moratorium might expose both Halliburton and Transocean but rather that someone in the mainstream media actually checked out his disclosure forms, and that it actually is now all over the place.

Props to the MSM.

I Just Hope That We Aren’t a Sinking Ship…

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But you should know that the president of Xe, the company formerly known as Blackwater, mercenary rat Eric Prince is planning to leave the country and settle in the United Arab Emirates, and the UAE has no extradition treaty with the United States:

Sources close to Blackwater and its secretive owner Erik Prince claim that the embattled head of the world’s most infamous mercenary firm is planning to move to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Middle Eastern nation, a major hub for the US war industry, has no extradition treaty with the United States. In April, five of Prince’s top deputies were hit with a fifteen-count indictment by a federal grand jury on conspiracy, weapons and obstruction of justice charges. Among those indicted were Prince’s longtime number-two man, former Blackwater president Gary Jackson, former vice presidents William Matthews and Ana Bundy and Prince’s former legal counsel Andrew Howell.

The Blackwater/Erik Prince saga took yet another dramatic turn last week, when Prince abruptly announced that he was putting his company up for sale.

While Prince has not personally been charged with any crimes, federal investigators and several Congressional committees clearly have his company and inner circle in their sights. The Nation learned of Prince’s alleged plans to move to the UAE from three separate sources. One Blackwater source told The Nation that Prince intends to sell his company quickly, saying the “sale is going to be a fast move within a couple of months.”

Rest assured, if Prince is has charges filed, we can be sure that Obama and His Evil Minions™ will turn over no stones at all in an attempt to bring him to justice.

After all, Prince might roll on senior Bush White House officials, and the uproar might force Obama to investigate them, which appears to terrify him.

Moron

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Notwithstanding the nobility, and moral necessity of his actions, the person who leaked the helecopter “collateral murder” video, the leaker is a f%$#ing moron.

You see, he revealed that he was the leaker to some random guy online, and now has been arrested:

Federal officials have arrested an Army intelligence analyst who boasted of giving classified U.S. combat video and hundreds of thousands of classified State Department records to whistleblower site Wikileaks, Wired.com has learned.

SPC Bradley Manning, 22, of Potomac, Maryland, was stationed at Forward Operating Base Hammer, 40 miles east of Baghdad, where he was arrested nearly two weeks ago by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. A family member says he’s being held in custody in Kuwait, and has not been formally charged.

Manning was turned in late last month by a former computer hacker with whom he spoke online. In the course of their chats, Manning took credit for leaking a headline-making video of a helicopter attack that Wikileaks posted online in April. The video showed a deadly 2007 U.S. helicopter air strike in Baghdad that claimed the lives of several innocent civilians.

Admitting to the leak to some random guy online, particularly given Obama’s, and his Department of Justice’s, jihad on leakers, is Palin-level stupid and arrogant.

It’s even stupider when you realize that he outed himself to Adrian Lamo.

I think that he did the right thing, because the coverups that the military engages in on such matters are simply not acceptable in a democracy, but in blithely telling someone that he did, and then doing something this mind-bogglingly stupid, and getting caught as a result, he dissuades future whistle-blowers, which is a blow to keeping our military, and our government honest.

He’s also completely screwed, because while he might be able to prevail on a civilian jury to see that the whistle-blowing served the public good, there is no way that a group of officers is going to show any mercy to an SPC (Specialiats) who does not even qualify as an NCO.

If there has been anything consistent about the progress of military justice since 911, whether it be torture at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, the death, and subsequent cover-up of the details of Pat Tillman, etc. it is that the military will go to extremes to cover-up the truth, and if forced to prosecute, it will go after enlisted men, as a first step.

I Can Haz Prosecushuns?

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So, now George W. Bush has explicitly stated that he authorized torture:

George W. Bush’s casual acknowledgment Wednesday that he had Khalid Sheikh Mohammed waterboarded — and would do it again — has horrified some former military and intelligence officials who argue that the former president doesn’t seem to understand the gravity of what he is admitting.

Waterboarding, a form of controlled drowning, is “unequivocably torture”, said retired Brigadier General David R. Irvine, a former strategic intelligence officer who taught prisoner of war interrogation and military law for 18 years.

“As a nation, we have historically prosecuted it as such, going back to the time of the Spanish-American War,” Irvine said. “Moreover, it cannot be demonstrated that any use of waterboarding by U.S. personnel in recent years has saved a single American life.”

Irvine told the Huffington Post that Bush doesn’t appreciate how much harm his countenancing of torture has done to his country.

Here’s a baseball metaphor to President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder: You are the umpires, Bush and Cheney are calling you a c*cks*ck*r.

You have no credibility when the worst of the criminals proclaim their crimes, and you do nothing.

This isn’t, “looking forward, not backward,” it’s moral cowardice, it’s being a criminal yourself, because by being an accessory to the cover-up you are an accessory to the crime.

What’s more, much like Ford’s pardon of Nixon, your insistence on denying the rule of law will encourage further law-breaking in the future.

People Who Piss Me Off

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Got a telemarketer calling on a pre-recorded message, with no caller ID, saying “Press 1” for an operator to refinance my house.

I talked to this guy, who refused to tell me the name of the company and contact information, but said that the loan officer could once I gave him information.

Eventually, I threw out bogus numbers, got to the loan officer, asked him questions, explaining that giving him financial information to someone required that.

While I was doing this, I was filling out the FTC’s complaint form, and when I got his phone and url, I had all I needed.

I confirmed that we had no prior business relationship, and he said that my number might have expired from the FTC’s Do Not Call List, which, was a lie, since the number never expire.

Here’s hoping that the rat bastard gets cited and fined.

About F%$#ing Time!!!!

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The Department of Justice has opened up a criminal investigation of BP’s oil spill.

I don’t know if laws were broken, but we have an environmental disaster, and eleven people died, so there should have been an investigation as soon as the fires were put out.

Of course, prosecuting wrong-doers is looking back and not forward, so I understand why Eric Holder was so loathe to look at BP’s actions.

In the Obama administration, prosecution for things that occurred in the past is generally reserved for whistle-blowers who reveal lawbreaking by Bush and His Evil Minions™.

On the Legality of Executing a Blockade in International Waters

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It’s come up in the comments, and Galrahn at Information Dissemination, who is arguably one of the most knowledgeable about things Naval out there, nails the issues of maritime law when he says that, “Israeli Actions Are Stupid, But Legal.

He notes that armed stop and seize operations in international waters have always been legal, they are routine operations in US anti-drug operations, for example, and Israel had declared a blockade, and a blockade area:

Under international law, the consensus of the maritime attorney’s I have spoken to is that the boarding operation by Israel was legal. The coast of Gaza has been under maritime blockade by Israel, a blockade that was well known – indeed running the maritime blockade for political purposes was the specific intent of the protesters. It is why the press had been reporting all week that the situation was likely leading towards a confrontation. Is anyone surprised that Israel had an established maritime blockade and enforced that maritime blockade? I’m certainly not, Israel made clear all week that the flotilla would not be allowed to pass.

The maritime blockade is a result of the war between Israel and Hamas. Ones political position on that ongoing war is completely irrelevant to the reality that the maritime blockade was established. Knowledge of the maritime blockade by the protesters is also not in debate, and neither is knowledge the flotilla intended to violate the blockade – they made this clear themselves in the press. Once the flotilla made it clear in the press they intended to run the maritime blockade, according to international law, and even US law, the flotilla was considered to be in breach by attempting to violate the blockade.

………

The truly scary part is that under international laws governing maritime blockades, Israel could have outright sank the ship instead of board it as an alternative enforcement of the maritime blockade, and Israel still been within their rights under international law. Such an action could have led to war with Turkey, but even if the ship would have been sunk, Turkey would still be on the wrong end of international law in this situation. Turkey will likely find plenty of populist political support in NATO countries over these events, but if they attempt to escalate they may find that support is fleeting among their NATO allies.

(emphasis mine)

It is that last paragraph that makes it clear just how f%$#ed up everything is.

You can argue over whether the blockade is an illegal mass punishment of the population (illegal), or an attempt to deny war materiel to Hamas (legal), but the execution of a stop/search/seize order in a declared blockade zone even if that zone includes international waters, is clearly legal.

What an Unbelievable Clusterf%$#

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The Israeli Defense Forces have intercepted a convoy of ships intending to run the Israeli blockade on Gaza, and at least 9 deaths have been reported.

Considering that at least one of the passengers in the convoy was a Nobel Peace Prize winner, it looks like this an absolute disaster for Israel, and a victory for the “Free Gaza Movement”.

My first thought is that, on the part of Israel, “It is worse than a crime: it is a mistake,”* because there will be significant negative repercussions for years on Israel’s foreign policy and public diplomacy.

It’s particularly problematic because the ship was Turkish flagged, and many of the passengers and crew were Turkish, which will serve to further worsen relations with the only majority-Islamic nation which has warm diplomatic relations with Israel.

If there is something that people on both sides of the Israel/Palestinian issue can agree on, it is that Benyamin Netanyahu’s fascination with “looking tough” for his personal political advantage has always resulted in serious damage to the interests of Israel.

The “Free Gaza Movement” is not friend of Israel, nor would I expect them to be, and I think that a significant portion of their leadership has little interest in any potential de-escalation. If this were a significant interest of theirs, they would not have refused to bring letters and a package to Giliad Shalit, but realistically, work toward de-escalation is not really a big consideration for any of the 3rd party non-state actors who choose to involve themselves in the politics of this matter. (AIPAC can go Cheney themselves)

Still, I wonder how much the old saying, “luck is a residue of design,”† might figure in the events of this morning in terms of the planning of this convoy.

Certainly, if the report that the boarding party was sent in carrying just pistols and paint ball guns‡ is true, there are any number of people involved in this operation who should be fired by the IDF forthwith.

On a related note, I have had a back and forth on by invitation only Stellar Parthenon BBS, regarding whether the interception itself was illegal, since it took place in international water, and I have concluded that with a formally announced blockade, it probably was.

The interdiction of shipping with armed boarding parties in international waters is routine for both drug smuggling and human trafficking.

Still, it’s a stupid thing, and the deaths are senseless.

*Joseph Fouché
†Branch Rickey
‡And the source (Debka) is a thoroughly unreliable one.

About Fracking Time

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Australia is suing Japan in the International Court of Justice over their whaling:

CANBERRA, Australia — Australia said Friday it will challenge Japan’s whale hunting in the Antarctic at the International Court of Justice, a major legal escalation in its campaign to ban the practice despite Tokyo’s insistence on the right to so-called scientific whaling.

My guess is that they will argue that Japan’s “research” is a fig leaf for a commercial activity.

The Australians are right, of course.

Warren Buffett Subpoenaed

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He was invited to speak before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, and politely declined, so now he has been subpoenaed to testify:

When Warren Buffett testifies before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission next Wednesday, it will be because he was subpoenaed. If you don’t know how a subpoena works, this one begins with capital letters, “YOU ARE HEREBY COMMANDED to appear and give testimony.”

As Buffett characterizes it, “This is an offer you can’t refuse.”

………

But ah, it was. Buffett could by then see the likely end of this argument. But he was also determined to stick to his belief that the “private interview,” followed by hearings, would neither be beneficial to anyone nor a good use of his time. So Buffett told Cohen in a phone call that he would not be volunteering to testify — and if that meant a subpoena was in the cards, let it happen.

The subpoena — that command in capital letters — came on May 25. But the continuing, urgent wish of the commission to avoid coercion was contained in an accompanying letter, also dated May 25, that “respectfully” requested Buffett’s testimony at a hearing on June 2 in New York City.

My guess is that the net effect here is that the board won’t get its private interview, and so won’t know what he intends to say until he testifies in public, which might make for some good theater.

On a more salient legal note, now that Buffet has been compelled to testify, he can say anything, and not be held liable for those statements, since it is compelled testimony, which might make it even better theater.

Personally, I think that Buffet should bring the Geico Gecko with him. (Buffet owns Geico)

Words that I Never Thought That I Would Say (UK Edition)

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God bless the Tories.

It appears that they will be doing a real investigation of the UK government’s involvement with US Sponsored Torture:

A judge will investigate claims that British intelligence agencies were complicit in the torture of terror suspects, William Hague, the foreign secretary, said tonight.

The move was welcomed by civil liberties campaigners and may put pressure on the Labour leadership candidate and former foreign secretary David Miliband, who was accused by Hague, while in opposition, of having something to hide.

This is a far better policy than aiding and abetting the Bush/Cheney cover-up, “looking forward, and not back,” which is espoused by Barack Obama and His Evil Minions™.

Here’s hoping that they uncover some of the misdeeds of Tony Blair, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Don Rumsfeld in the process.

Final Child Trafficker Released in Haiti

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Laura Silsby, the leader of the “missionary” expedition to rescue Haitian “orphans”, wasconvicted on charges related to human trafficking and sentenced to time served, so she has been released, and I assume that she is heading back to Idaho:

All 10 of the Americans were initially detained by the Haitian authorities, but only Silsby was charged.

Prosecutors first accused her of abducting the children, but the charge was downgraded to one of “irregular travel” – a crime which covers people smuggling.

Prosecutor Jean-Serge Joseph said she had been sentenced to three months and eight days in jail – the exact time she had spent in custody waiting for her trial.

IMHO, she used the tragedy, as well as the fervor of her fellow church members, who believed that they were rescuing from Catholicism and damnation by raising them as Evangelicals, to get the ball rolling, and I think that at least part of her motivation was money.

Considering her own problems with her failing online shopping business and her association with a man under investigation for sex trafficking, there is a strong stench of corruption and the profit motive.

Older posts are here.

Hating on Sports Analogies

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Particularly when the person using them does not understand the underlying sport.

Case in point, Greg Sandoval, who in writing about a German court order banning an ISP from providing bandwidth, titles the article, ” Studios score another TKO against Pirate Bay,” in discussing the short-lived offline period.

Less than 12 hours later Pirate Bay was back on line.

I’m not sure if Mr. Sandoval wrote the headline, or if someone else did, but whoever it was, they have no f%$#ing clue as to the sport of boxing, nor what a TKO is.

TKO stands for “Technical Knock Out,” and when it occurs, it’s game over, and someone has lost:

A knockout (also referred to as a K.O.) is a winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, mixed martial arts, Karate and others sports involving striking. A knockout is usually awarded when one participant is unable to rise from the canvas within a specified period of time, typically because of fatigue, injury (serious or temporarily incapacitating, e.g. a bleeding cut above the eye can blind a fighter), loss of balance, or unconsciousness; that is, the person may literally be knocked out. A technical knockout (also referred to as a T.K.O.) is often declared when the referee or other judges (such as official ring physician, the fighter, or the fighter’s cornermen) decide that a fighter cannot continue the match, even though he did not fail the count, or, in many regions, a fighter has been knocked down three times in one round.[1] British records refer to TKOs as either “retired”, if the fighter refuses to continue, or “R.S.F.”, for Referee Stopped Fight. In amateur boxing, a knockout is scored as “RSC,” for Referee Stopped Contest. A technical knockout (“Outclassed”) can also be declared if a fighter is ahead by 15 points in a bout.

If you want to use a sports analogy, this is something like a yellow card. It’s inconvenient, and a warning, but the game is still on.

Better yet, Don’t Use a Sports Analogy!!!!