Oh, HELL No!

Real ID 2.0, anyone?

Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain.

Can you think of a better way to unite large numbers of conservatives and liberals than this? I mean, Real ID has states passing laws making it illegal for state agencies to comply with parts of the RealID Act. Why?

Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker.

Potentially controversial? What planet were they living on when Real ID was being debated? Do they really think Americans have changed enough that quickly for this to not stir up a rain of fecal matter?

Also, unless there's a central database that the information is checked against every time the card is read, I predict it will take less than six months for criminals to crack the code on the cards and start making fakes that read with biometrics matching whoever they decide to give the card to. Less than a year to spoof it, if there is a database (unless some .gov idiot leaks the whole bloody database on a 'lost' laptop, sooner).

"It is fundamentally a massive invasion of people's privacy," said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "We're not only talking about fingerprinting every American, treating ordinary Americans like criminals in order to work. We're also talking about a card that would quickly spread from work to voting to travel to pretty much every aspect of American life that requires identification."

Exactly. Just like social security numbers were only supposed to be used for Social Security purposes. It will spread to everything.

(h/t A Conservative Shemale)

McDonald v. Chicago - Oral arguments today

Update: Analysis: 2d Amendment extension likely (from SCOTUSBlog)

This is troubling, though:

The dominant sentiment on the Court was to extend the Amendment beyond the federal level, based on the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of “due process,” since doing so through another part of the 14th Amendment would raise too many questions about what other rights might emerge. [emphasis mine]

Why is that relevant? Or, to echo a point Mr. Gura made at one time, the SCOTUS should be concerning itself with what the Constitution means, not whether it’s a good idea to follow it.

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Just a reminder, oral arguments in McDonald v. Chicago are at 10:00 today. Apparently, SCOTUS has decided they will not release the audio, but the transcript should be available later today.

Bill further restricts sex offenders

From the Roanoke Times:

Legislation that would further limit where sex offenders can live and expand the list of convictions that activate those restrictions has drawn the ire of civil libertarians and advocates of reforming those laws.

[...]

If enacted, Athey's House Bill 1004 would bar individuals ordered to register as sex offenders for crimes involving a juvenile victim from living within 500 feet of multiple places children are known to frequent.

It would add school bus stops, community parks, playgrounds, recreation centers, public pools and private, parochial and Christian schools to state law, which applies to day care centers, public schools and adjoining public parks.

I have just two comments on this right now:

1) In addition to my next objection, I would have to object to adding school bus stops to the list. They can change from year to year without notice (unless it affects your own kids). What happens to a sex offender who wakes up one morning and finds out they've moved a school bus stop in front of his house? Does he have to move? Can he be charged with a violation immediately even though he wasn't notified? If he does have to move, how long does he have before he can be charged?

2) This objection is actually the most important - even beyond Constitutional considerations. It is, of course, the perennial objection to sex offender registration/restriction laws: If they're so dangerous we have to continually track where they live, and restrict where they can live, work, and travel,

WHY ARE WE LETTING THEM OUT OF JAIL IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!

State Censorship

Update: VT administration rejects Commission on Student Affairs' stance

Any effort to end Tech's contract with the Collegiate Times or its parent company, or to ban student organizations from advertising in the newspaper, "is not in the offing," [university spokesman Larry Hincker] said. "That is not the position of this administration."

Good.

----------

Virginia Tech is threatening to pull funding from the campus paper (the Collegiate Times, or "CT").

The dispute centers upon a CT policy that allows online readers to post anonymous comments at collegiatetimes.com. The [Commission on Student Affairs] and others who support its proposal have objected to reader postings they characterized as racist or otherwise offensive.

[...]

Despite its independence, the newspaper receives free office space and $70,000 annually from the university, Vice President for Student Affairs Ed Spencer said.

The commission would further seek to ban student organizations from using university funds to buy ads in the CT, the letter stated.

Such a move could cripple or shut down the newspaper, which derives the majority of its revenues from ad sales. The newspaper's leadership pushed back publicly Thursday.

Essentially, the university wants to ban all anonymous comments on the paper's website because of some "racist or otherwise offensive" postings (ignoring, of course, the question of just who decides what is racist or offensive). The company that owns the CT is standing its ground, and doing so rather aggressively at this point.

The commission has requested another meeting with CT representatives.

But in a response to [commission chairwoman Michelle McLeese], [Kelly Wolff, general manager of the Educational Media Company at Virginia Tech, which owns the CT] wrote: "We have advised the Collegiate Times staff to discontinue discussions with CSA members, individually and collectively, on the topic of online comments. ... This is no longer a dialogue; it is coercion.

"We will wait to hear what the commission says. ... But if they are going to pursue this course of action, then we will take legal action," Wolff said in an interview Thursday.

In a purely private enterprise, this would not be a problem - a sponsor can provide or withdraw funding, facilities, or services at will and for any reason (within the limits of existing contracts). Virginia Tech, however, is an agency of the state (which is why they can't ban firearms on campus for anyone other than employees and students, or for specific events).

Note the sentence that I put in bold in the first quote. This actually goes farther than the university just pulling funding and support, they're also seeking to restrict where student organizations (the Fencing Club, the LGBTA, etc.), would be allowed to advertise.

Should an agency of the state be allowed to dictate terms about content to a newspaper? Should they be allowed to restrict where student organizations advertise? Or does this become a First Amendment violation? My first instinct is that this goes to far, and is an unallowable government coercion of media, but I'm not 100% settled yet - I really haven't had time to give it good, thorough, consideration. Opinions?

Pirates successfully repelled - by GUNS!

Arming ships to stop pirate attacks works.

Somali pirates attacked the Maersk Alabama on Wednesday for the second time in seven months and were thwarted by private guards on board the U.S.-flagged ship who fired off guns and a high-decibel noise device.

See? Pirates don't want to deal with high-risk targets - ones that can perforate their precious hides with lead. Unfortunately, some people still don't get it.

However, Roger Middleton, a piracy expert at the London-based think tank Chatham House, said the international maritime community was still "solidly against" armed guards aboard vessels at sea, but that American ships have taken a different line than the rest of the international community.

"Shipping companies are still pretty much overwhelmingly opposed to the idea of armed guards," Middleton said. "Lots of private security companies employee people who don't have maritime experience. Also, there's the idea that it's the responsibility of states and navies to provide security. I would think it's a step backward if we start privatizing security of the shipping trade."

No matter how much you trust other people to protect you, ultimately you are responsible for your own safety. The owners of the Maersk Alabama have at least partially realized that, and addressed it by hiring an armed security team. They have at least realized (through bitter experience) that you cannot rely on people who aren't there - the navies of the world simply cannot provide an armed escort for every single ship on the oceans. When there is a navy vessel close enough to respond to an attack, the pirates just go looking for another victim where there isn't one close enough.

This quote sums it up nicely:

"Somali pirates understand one thing and only one thing, and that's force," said Capt. Joseph Murphy, who teaches maritime security at the school. "They analyze risk very carefully, and when the risk is too high they are going to step back. They are not going to jeopardize themselves."

Sounds like most criminals, to me.

Random Discovery

It's been a while, hasn't it?

Tonight, while doing a little internet research for responding to a comment in the Roanoke Times editorial blog, I discovered something interesting. I can't quite decide if it's amusing or disturbing that this law is still on the books in Massachusetts.

PART IV. CRIMES, PUNISHMENTS AND PROCEEDINGSIN [sic] CRIMINAL CASES

TITLE I. CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS

CHAPTER 272. CRIMES AGAINST CHASTITY, MORALITY, DECENCY AND GOOD ORDER

Chapter 272: Section 36. Blasphemy

Section 36. Whoever wilfully blasphemes the holy name of God by denying, cursing or contumeliously reproaching God, his creation, government or final judging of the world, or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching Jesus Christ or the Holy Ghost, or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching or exposing to contempt and ridicule, the holy word of God contained in the holy scriptures shall be punished by imprisonment in jail for not more than one year or by a fine of not more than three hundred dollars, and may also be bound to good behavior.

You know, if anyone actually got charged with this, it would get thrown out on 1st Amendment grounds so fast you'd hear the sonic boom in Alaska.

Something we tend to forget

Atom Smasher over at Men are Not Potatoes mentions something that tends to get forgotten in the 2nd Amendment debate.

"I think the Framers would have been far more comfortable with the locals having an Abrams and a Mark 19 and an F-22 than with the government having one. Hell - they didn't even want a standing army, let alone one that could run roughshod over the citizenry." [emphasis mine]

That's important to remember when someone throws out the old "it only applies to the militia" argument. The founders did not want a standing army. This is mentioned in many of the constitutions of the original 13 states. For example, Section I, Article 13 of the Virginia Constitution:

"That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state, therefore, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power." [emphasis mine]

The founders had a deep distrust of standing armies, and they didn't want one - they wanted a militia made up of ordinary citizens, that could organize into an army if a war occurred, because they knew it a militia made up of the people could not be easily turned against the people.

So why would they restrict the right to keep and bear arms to a select few in a standing military?

(On another note, Men Are Not Potatoes has been added to my blogroll. Welcome!)

You can’t have effective gun control in a free society.

Jim W makes an excellent observation in a comment over at SayUncle.

The main problem is that gun control people think that they can take guns out of the hands of criminals by passing laws.
[...]
Without prison type levels of control, you can’t effectively disarm people who don’t want to be disarmed. And even then, you are not going to have a foolproof success rate.

And if these measures barely work in prison (which is enormously expensive and the residents have no rights at all) it sure as hell isn’t going to work in a society where people have rights to privacy and not being searched, etc. You can’t have effective gun control in a free society. [emphasis mine.]

Think about it. In prisons - where the inmates are subject to detailed searches whenever the guards want, where their contact with the outside world is severely limited and constantly monitored, where their daily movements and activities are severely restricted and constantly monitored - prisoners still get weapons, and still kill other prisoners.

If we can't keep weapons out of prisons - the most restrictive environment we can create - there is simply no possibility of keeping them out of a free society.

Welcome to Soviet Washington, DC. Your travel papers please.

This is being covered by several blogs, but I had to put my two cents in anyway.

This is how tyranny begins. Small infringements on rights are made to sound reasonable, due to circumstances at the time. The tyrants-to-be build on people's fears, and propose 'solutions' that may or may not work to fix the problem, using fear to get people to consent to give up rights and freedoms. Then another fear comes along, and the tyrants-to-be do it all over again. This time it's easy to go a little farther, to infringe peoples rights even more, because people are used to the last infringement. It's normal to them now. So a bigger infringement is seen as being not much, because it's not a lot more than what people are used to. And people are afraid, and willing, because it might fix the cause of their fear. (This works even better if the previous infringement even appears to have worked.) Eventually, you have tyranny.

How does this apply to DC? First you have the intermittent checkpoints they're creating now. Checking peoples ID for their addresses and, if they don't live in the neighborhood, making them give a 'legitimate purpose' to enter. Once people get used to that, and start thinking it's 'normal' and 'legitimate,' they'll say "We're seeing results, but it's not as effective as it could be. There's still a crime problem." The next step will be to make the checkpoint permanent. Then once people are used to that, they'll add more. Then they'll say "It worked in this neighborhood, we're going to do it in other 'high crime' areas." Other cities will start, because "it worked in Washington." Eventually, we'll need to state a 'legitimate purpose' when you try to cross state or even county lines, and to enter cities. Then you'll have to state a 'legitimate purpose,' and get government approval, before you travel. Travel papers. Just like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.

If anyone thinks this is far-fetched, that it could never go that far in America, look at gun control for an example. Washington DC is a good place to start. First they started restricting some guns. They restricted when and who could carry guns away from home. Who could carry concealed. Soon, very few could own a handgun. Eventually, the laws became so pervasive that they dictate what you can do with a gun inside your own home. Today, carrying a functional gun from one room to another in your own home is illegal in DC.

Look at gun control in Canada. In Great Britain. In Australia. The American Colonies of the British Empire. (Wait, that last one didn't really take, did it?)

Look at Nazi Germany. Soviet Russia. They started with small infringements, or infringing the rights of unpopular groups. Then more, bits and pieces at a time. Eventually, they fell into tyranny.

If we do not stop this today, if we allow these small, popular infringements to continue, they will build into tyranny. It may take ten, fifty, or one hundred years, but it will happen.

Unless it is stopped today.

Thoughts On the Second Amendment and the Bill of Rights

Note: This is only my reasoned opinion, as an average citizen. I am not an attorney. Do not take this as legal advice. If you do, you will probably be arrested, since the courts and the government do not seem to agree with me. You have been warned.

Something recently struck me about the Second Amendment. It actually contains the boldest and most powerful statement of protection of any of the ten amendments that are the Bill of Rights. The phrase "shall not be infringed" is clear, concise, and says that not even the slightest restriction or regulation is to be tolerated. Think of this: an infraction is "the act or an instance of infringing" and an infraction is the smallest violation of law possible. Driving 20 in a 15mph zone is defined as an infraction. Nobody counts an infraction as a crime. But the Second Amendment is the only part of the Bill of Rights that says a right "shall not be infringed."

Read all ten. You can find them here.

The First Amendment? It says "Congress shall make no law [...] abridging [...]" the rights listed. The founders did not say that the states could not do so. The First Amendment specifies congress, which, the way the Constitution was written and interpreted at the time, meant that it did not apply to the states.

The Third Amendment does not specify a right, but while it does limit a government action, it also limits that restriction. "[...] in time of war, [...] in a manner prescribed by law."

The Fourth Amendment limits it's right, using the words "unreasonable" and "probable cause." If the government has reason, or probable cause, they can search and seize and arrest with impunity.

The Fifth Amendment enumerates several restrictions on the government, but, except for the restrictions against double-jeopardy and self-incrimination, each of them has exceptions. Even self-incrimination is questionable - a comma instead of a semicolon places it grammatically within the effect of the "due process" exception. And nowhere does it specify these as "rights," though they are understood as such.

The Sixth Amendment says "the accused shall enjoy" the rights listed. Nowhere does it say that these rights shall not be regulated.

The Seventh Amendment simply extends the right of trial by jury to civil cases. The amendment itself restricts this right to matters over twenty dollars (a ridiculously small amount, by today's standards, but significant at the time).

The Eighth Amendment, while restricting the government, again never uses the word "right," and is written in subjective terms ("excessive," and "cruel and unusual") which are argued regularly in front of the Supreme Court.

The Ninth Amendment simply protects rights that are not specifically stated in the Constitution, and the Tenth Amendment says that anything not addressed in the Constitution is reserved to the states or the people.

Nowhere in the Bill of Rights is a right protected as fiercely, and as specifically, as in the operative clause of the Second Amendment. "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." It specifies that this is a right, that it belongs to the people, and that it shall not be infringed. It allows no restriction, no regulation, and no debate. It does not limit this prohibition to the Federal government - it is a blanket statement. What does this mean?

It means that no gun control law passed by the federal government is constitutional.
Because it is a blanket statement, it means that the power to regulate or restrict guns is prohibited to the states, as well as to the federal government.
It means that no gun control law passed by a state government is constitutional.
It means that no government can tell you that you can't carry your gun concealed, or into a business that serves alcohol, or onto school property. Your rights apply everywhere.
It means that the government cannot restrict the type or number of guns that you can purchase.

It means that, while the government cannot restrict or regulate who can have guns, what kind of guns you can have, or where you can carry your guns, it can bring charges against you based on your actions.
If I fire my gun into the air, I can and should be charged with reckless endangerment. I have recklessly done something which could injure or kill someone. If I throw a knife in the air in a crowd, it could also injure or kill someone, and I can and should be charged with reckless endangerment. A bullet travels farther than I can see, so no crowd is needed to make it reckless and dangerous.
If I shoot and kill someone, and it was not done in defense of myself, my property, or someone else, that is murder. It is still murder if I kill them with a knife, or a bat, or my bare hands.
If I point my gun at someone to frighten them into giving me money, I have committed robbery, and should be punished accordingly. It is still robbery if I used a knife, or a bat.

No gun control law is constitutional. The wording of the Second Amendment is absolute and unyielding. Unfortunately, no court in this nation recognizes that fact today.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." U.S. Constitution, Amendment 2

On Wiretaps and Warrants

I'm not a flaming liberal, really, I'm not. I'm anti gun-control, anti-abortion, and for personal responsibility. But I do think Bush has gone too far. I just read Ann Coulter's column "Why We Don't Trust You With National Security" and it finally crystallized my annoyance with those defending the President on this issue.
The most annoying thing is that they are missing the point of the criticisms against the wiretapping program, which is that the government could have initiated the taps without a warrant and then obtained one later. There would be no delay, and the court is allowed by law to operate in secrecy, so security is not compromised by allowing the proceedings to become public record before it is necesary. If these phone calls were to or from numbers linked by evidence to terrorist organizations (as the President claims), that fact alone should meet the requirements of probable cause for a warrant to be issued.
I agree with Ms. Coulter that if someone is calling al-Zarqawi, then the government should be listening. But if we know that's who they're calling, then we have probable cause for a warrant. If we don't know that's who they're calling, or that they themselves might be a terrorist, then why is the government listening to someone's private conversation at random?
Ms. Coulter also tries to counter the argument that the FISA court rarely rejects wiretap requests by saying that the court has rejected them "like never before." This may be true, that they have rejected more requests in the last four years than any years before, but even looking at the numbers she presents is telling. She states that in 2001 the court "modified 179 of the 5,645 requests." That's only 3.2% that were "modified." It doesn't tell us how many of those, if any, were rejected. For 2003-2004 she only gives us the number of requests that were modified, not how many were submitted, making that number meaningless in this argument. She quotes the Seattle Post-Intelligencer as saying the court "modified more wiretap requests from the Bush administration than from the four previous presidential administrations combined." We don't know why or how these requests were modified (and rightly so; it is, after all, a secret court, and for good reasons), but we must entertain the notion that those requests did not show sufficient probable cause for what was requested.
In the final analysis, the President has created a legal tangle that, when finally straightened out, could result in the release of an unknown number of terrorists if the courts decide that the evidence leading to thier convictions was obtained illegally. In bypassing the courts he has, in the long run, actually compromised national security. He has also sown distrust of the government among it's own law abiding citizens.
The sad part is, it could have been easily avoided just by doing a little paperwork.