RIAA Lawsuits

I’ve been meaning to post about the RIAA’s subpoena onslaught, but haven’t been able to put words to my very bad feeling regarding this. 

First of all, I think it is an idiotic business decision for the RIAA to sue its customers, but businesses make stupid decisions all the time.  Second of all, I do think it is wrong and illegal for folks to trade music online. 

That being said, there’s something about the process that’s been bugging me and I think I’ve finally identified it.

I am very uncomfortable with a party in a civil suit using the power granted to the State to further its case.  We the people have granted the State the right to search our property without our permission when there is probable cause that we may have committed a crime.  The RIAA is using that same power, though without the check of getting a judge’s approval, to search information held by the ISPs regarding their customers.  This is a violation of the ISPs’ and the customers’ Fourth Amendment rights without due process and by another private entity - not the government. 

This is totally wrong.  Although copyright infringements are a crime, this is not being pursued as a criminal matter - it is being pursued as a civil matter, undoubtedly because then the RIAA only has to prove their case by a preponderance of the evidence and not beyond a reasonable doubt.  Yet, the RIAA is using the power granted to the State to further its case. 

Perhaps I am missing something, but I don’t see how this is right or just.

Found

Has Patrick Dennehy been found?

Waco, TX (Sports Network) - A body was found on Saturday morning in an area being searched for missing Baylor basketball player Patrick Dennehy. Authorities have not yet identified the body.

NY Shooting

I won’t get into the usual discussion of how the NY City Hall shooting will be twisted into a gun control issue, cause I’m too busy studying.

I did notice this line from the article:

The killer was sitting in the balcony near Davis when he suddenly shot the councilman, police sources said. The security officer, who was on the floor of the chamber, shot up at the gunman, striking him five times, according to the sources.

 

Five hits and a kill from medium range in the heat of the moment.  Impressive.  

And to those who will inevitably complain that the use of five shots was excessive…  As the old maxim goes, “Don’t stop firing till the body hits the floor.”

Murder Trial

In another bizarre murder case out of Dallas, a jury has convicted 19-year old Sarah Foust of the murder of Jennifer Sanchez, a 20-year old waitress at a Bennigan’s.

Foust and three friends went to Bennigan’s with the intent of dining and dashing.  Despite being underage, the teens managed to get alcohol, and proceeded to get drunk.  As they dashed on a $131 check, Sanchez ran out to get their license number.  Foust, the driver, hit Sanchez, who ended up on top of the car.  As the car sped away, Sanchez was thrown to the pavement, where she suffered fatal head injuries.

I don’t see the jury giving her the max (99 years), but I’d like to see a pretty hefty punishment.

Drivers’ Ed

In the wake of the Santa Monica killings, I suspect we’ll see an increase in the calls for mandatory testing of older drivers.  In fact, the issue is already coming up in Texas.

I’m all for requiring testing of drivers who reach a certain age.  The state of drivers’ ed in our country is pretty poor these days.  I’m not sure of the law these days, but a few year ago Texas didn’t even require an actual driving test as long as you could show that you’d passed drivers’ ed.

Money quote from the DMN article:

“It would be discrimination,” Mr. Kormos said. “We are trying to make sure nothing like that happens in the Legislature.”

 

Discrimination is not illegal.  If there’s a compelling state interest, the government can discriminate all day (OK, almost all day…).  We don’t allow 10-year-olds to drive because they can’t do it safely.  When we reach the point where seniors can’t either, it’s time to take steps to solve the problem.  I believe we’re at that point.  (Ditto for teens under 18, too, IMHO—at least until we get far more stringent training and testing).

Driving is not a right, it’s a privilege.  It’s also one of the rare activities in which you pose a great danger to others, but never have to demonstrate any skill whatsoever once you’re initially licensed.

UPDATE: See the extended entry for a further note.

Read the rest

Concealed Carry

This is fantastic news.

Here’s the story:

It is absolutely verboten to carry a concealed weapon in Wisconsin - under any circumstances.

In 1998, Wisconsin passed a Constitutional Amendment that says, “The people have the right to keep and bear arms for security, defense, hunting, recreation or any other lawful purpose.”

These two laws collided in the Supreme Court of Wisconsin and the ruling came down today.  The case revolves around a guy who runs a store in a very bad neighborhood in Milwaukee.  Because of the danger, the storeowner took to carrying a weapon.  The police, on a routine license check, discovered that he was armed and cited him carrying a concealed weapon. 

The Supreme Court of Wisconsin voted 6-1 to overrule that conviction, saying that it violated the Wisconsin Constitution.  Essentially, it said that it was illegal for the state to prohibit people from carrying a concealed weapon on their own property if they are carrying it for a lawful purpose.

Furthermore, the Court advised the legislature to take up the task of rewriting the concealed carry laws in Wisconsin. 

We may yet regain our God-given right to self-defense.

Retroactive Law

Some folks are getting upset with the SCotUS.

He is among perhaps hundreds of people in California who are being freed from trial or jail as a result of a United States Supreme Court ruling on June 26 overturning a 1993 California law that allowed charges against child molesters protected by a previous deadline on prosecutions.

State officials said the decision affected as many as 800 people accused of sexual offenses or already convicted.

There’s nobody harder on crooks than I am (see bio - I’m a former bondsman), but this was a good ruling.

An ex post facto law is a law passed after the occurrence of an event or action which retrospectively changes the legal consequences of the event or action.  It is expressly forbidden in the Constitution in Article 1 Section 9 and 10 (section 9 forbids it for the Federal government and section 10 forbids it for the states).  This was an easy call by the SCotUS.  I have no idea why it was a 5 to 4 vote. 

California passed a law in 1993 extending the statute of limitations for sex crimes.  The state then began tracking down and prosecuting crooks even though the previous statute of limitations had run out.  This was clearly an ex post facto law. 

This story is packed full of stories about vicious child molesters and other nefarious crooks getting released.  They are undoubtedly all horribly true.  But it is a greater injustice to allow our government to pass ex post facto laws. 

The moral of the story is that California should never have had such a short statute of limitations for these crimes.  They did the right thing when they extended it in 1993, but you can’t apply that law to crimes committed before 1993.  Perhaps next time they want to give crooks a break, they’ll think twice.

Wha??

Not only was this in very poor taste, it’s a bunch of crap.

Mayor John Robert Smith was speaking during the community service when Shirley Price stood and spoke: “Excuse me. Don’t criticize this man. He was human too ... don’t exclude him. He was a victim, too. ... He was a kind and loving human being.”

Excuse me!?!?  A victim?  Tell that to the families of those who are dead and the folks still in the hospital. 

This is the problem with the victim society that we’re becoming.  The word “victim” is losing its meaning.

Mississippi Shooting

Here’s one report of the shooting.

Essentially, a factory worker comes into work and shoots 14, killing 5.  Some think it may be racially motivated.  I have a few general thoughts.

RACIST?  I don’t deny that this guy was probably a racist.  But the nature of the crime seems to be fairly random.  He pretty much shot whomever he saw.  But I find it interesting that some feel the crime would be worse if it were motivated by race.  The early reports were that the shooter was a disgruntled worker who was angry with management.  Although I wouldn’t characterize the reports as sympathetic, there was a sense of almost understanding - as if the reporter was thinking, “Yeah, why shouldn’t the little guy be angry with management?”  But as reports began to surface that the shooter was a known racist, the reports took on a much more critical tone.  Frankly, except for the purpose of curiosity or the sake of finding root causes, I don’t care what his motives were.  Rather, whatever his motive was, I find them all equally horrific.  Aren’t the same people dead?  Does it matter what race they were?  Does it matter what race he was?  Does it matter if he shot out of hate for blacks, or hate for authority, or hate for himself?  The crime was a tragedy, and the motive neither enhances nor mitigates the degree of which it was such.

LIABILITY?  Does Lockheed Martin share any liability for the crime?  Here was a man who was obviously off-kilter.  He was reported to have been a hothead.  He was reported to have been a vocal racist.  He was reported to have been one who railed against anyone who crossed him.  He was reported to have kept a list of those who had angered him.  Granted, the comments of many of those speaking to the press should be taken with a grain of salt.  Although they look back now and say, “hey, this guy was not stable.”  Did they recognize it at the time and was management notified?  It does appear that the shooter was under investigation for at least a year before the shooting, so perhaps they did have some indication of his mental state.  Let’s take this a step further.  If they knew, why didn’t they fire him?  Aren’t they somewhat responsible for taking reasonable measures to keep their workplace safe?  Was the shooter in a union?  As an assembly line worker at a defense contractor, I’m willing to bet that he was.  Did the fact that he was a union member make it too difficult for management to fire him?  Was management in the process of collecting the massive, yet requisite, paper trail in order to fire him?  Does the union share some of the responsibility for keeping this unstable lunatic on the job?

JUSTICE?  When is justice served best, when a shooter is captured and tried, or when he kills himself?  A trial gives the state the opportunity to judge him and have him punished for his crimes.  The trial can also serve to provide an opportunity for the grieving families to vent their righteous rage.  When he kills himself, he deprives the state of the opportunity to punish him.  Yet, he also saves the state the expense of trying him.  It also eliminates the chance for the shooter to escape state justice by virtue of a technicality or botched investigation.  It also deprives the shooter of a platform from which to spew his rhetoric, if he chooses to use it as such.  As a Christian, I believe that this shooter will rot in Hell for his crimes.  I find that to be justice enough and would gladly forgo the expense and risk of a trial.  Good riddance.

Woman Kills Kids

It happened again.  A woman left her kids in a car for 5 hours, where the 3 and 5 year olds died.  The clincher:

Smoot told authorities she left the boys, ages 3 and 5, in the car around 9 a.m. outside A Child’s Place Daycare, which she ran.

Throw the book, judge.

Lunatic Teens

I’m reading the CNN story about the 3 teens that were arrested in the process of a murder spree.  Normal stuff… description of arrest… description of suspects… then… at the very end… this:

“I’m a little surprised, but you can only push a kid so far, you know? I mean, people [have been] making fun of him for the longest time,” Phillip said.

There it is!  You see?  These kids are the real victims.  They were picked on in school and the father owned (wait for it) guns!

I’m so sick and tired of criminals being treated as victims.

Monster Mothers

Here and here. 

One “mother” threw herself and her twin boys into a river.  One boy died.  The other abandoned her 6-year-old daughter in the woods after telling her they were going to play hide-and-seek.

Absolute animals.  Mark my words, in two months’ time these “moms” will be characterized as victims.  We’ll hear things like, “she’s a single mom struggling to make ends meet and she snapped under the pressure of it all” and “she was trying to raise her children right but her abusive ex-boyfriend didn’t support her” and “the government doesn’t provide a place for women like this to go get help.” 

When you start hearing this crap, just remember a scared little girl in the woods, screaming and crying and wondering what she did wrong, as her mother drives away.  Also remember the 14-month-old boy frantically flailing his chubby little arms and legs trying to stay afloat while looking up through the water at an ever-darkening sky as the bubbles of his last breath rise above him. 

These animals should rot in prison before they rot in hell.

Dems Under FBI Investigation

The story:

“During the course of our investigation, we discovered money that was going to entities outside the state of Wisconsin,” Feiss said Thursday. “We had no authority to investigate those entities and subsequently referred them to federal authorities.”

 

Our esteemed former Democratic Senate Majority Leader was forced to step down after he was charged with 17 felonies.  Chuck Chvala (it’s pronounced like Kwala) is a total crook.  He ran an extensive “pay to play” operation in the State Senate where people and businesses had to pony up cash for his cronies to get their issues pushed.  He also ran a phony organization that funneled that cash to campaigns of his choice. 

Perhaps you are wondering whom the FBI is now investigating in connection with this crook?

The out-of-state entities brought to prosecutors’ attention were the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, based in Washington, D.C., and the Kansas Democratic Party, Feiss said.

That’s right.  The DLCC. 

Will we see this in the national news?  Peter?  Dan?  Tom?

Chicago Porch Collapse

The City of Chicago is suing the owners of the building where the porch collapsed.

“The building code is not optional and the permit requirements are designed to ensure that safe housing is available to the residents of Chicago. We intend to seek the maximum fines in this case to send a message to other property owners and developers who may be thinking of cutting corners.”

So if the city had issued a permit and the porch collapsed, could the victims (the non-dead ones) sue the city?  Just a thought…

Burglary Beating

In Montreal, a convenience store owner is being prosecuted for beating a burglar with an aluminum baseball bat.  This is just wrong.

This comment sums up what is wrong with the “bend over and take it” crowd:

“If you use a weapon, chances are very often the thief will use it against you,” he said. “I always feel that the price of one’s health is worth more than the contents of the till.”

 

Two points here:

“If you use a weapon, chances are very often the thief will use it against you,”

 

Not if you do it right, which this owner obviously did.

“I always feel that the price of one’s health is worth more than the contents of the till.”

 

It’s not the value of the goods, it’s the principle.  If this crowd had its way, everyone would just peacefully hand over the money.  I think it’s safe to say that the fear of capture and prosecution after the fact is not nearly the deterrent that a 45 Auto is.