It would seem to be that Lower Merion School District administrators are being sued. Why? They apparently were using integrated web cams in student laptops to spy on students at home. The lawsuit is a class action, and in addition to civil rights violations under Section 1983, they are going after a laundry list of other federal laws regarding communications, computer fraud, and wiretapping. Good. The people who thought up this scheme ought to have their lives ruined. In my opinion they should also face criminal charges.
Category: Civil Liberties
Knife Bans
I Do Love Politicians
Only a politician can call for a gun ban on Friday night and then sign on to speak at a pro-liberty shooting event hosted at a gun club on Tuesday and not see the hypocrisy.
As we’ve mentioned, Jack Wagner said he supported a ban on semi-automatic rifles on Friday night at the Pennsylvania Progressive Summit. This afternoon, the Commonwealth Foundation posted a Facebook listing for their annual LiveFreePA fundraiser. Guess who confirmed his attendance? Jack Wagner. To his credit, he’s the only Democrat who is on their confirmed speakers list. To his discredit, he’d ban the guns that the members of the host club use regularly.
O’Conner Not Liking Citizens United Ruling
I thought that McConnell v. FEC was one of the most disappointing O’Conner decisions over her career. It doesn’t seem her opinion on the matter has mellowed:
“Gosh,†she said, “I step away for a couple of years and there’s no telling what’s going to happen.â€
Justice O’Connor criticized the recent decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, only obliquely, reminding the audience that she had been among the authors ofMcConnell v. Federal Election Commission, the 2003 decision that was overruled in large part on Thursday.
“If you want my legal opinion†about Citizens United, Justice O’Connor said, “you can go read†McConnell.
As it is, I agree with O’Conner on the problems of an elected judiciary, which she goes on to discuss in the article, and I am a great admirer of O’Conner’s principled stances on federalism (she was one of the three justice minority in Raich). But I think on this issue, she is very wrong.
What’s That Spinning Sound I Hear?
Oh, I think it’s just Tom Jefferson increasing his subterranean angular momentum a bit after hearing about this. Hopefully just the fact they were sued will give the park service some pause next time some folks decide to engage in some non-disruptive expression. You never know when they might have access to well-respected civil rights attorneys.
Free Speech
Dave Hardy notes some interesting tidbits in the dissent in the Citizens United case. Namely that the dissenters on the court seem to believe that there ought to be no free speech rights for corporations. So we have free speech as individuals, but if you get together in a group you have no free speech.
Makes sense to me! It used to be you could count on the “liberal” wing of the Supreme Court to be steadfast in defense of civil liberties. I guess not anymore.
Practical Translation of Yesterday’s Supreme Court Decision
I’m not going to bore you with the complexity of campaign finance laws. Really, it’s tedious. But my prediction is that the end result voters will actually see will be an increase in attack ads.
The Morning Call‘s John Micek has rounded up some insights, one in particular stands out:
Larry Ceisler, a Democratic consultant from Philly, said he thinks that while corporations might hesitate, unions will jump in with both feet. He also said that there’s a risk that unfettered corporate speech might drown out candidates’ own ads, which could cost them control of their own messages.
“For instance, if an entity is supporting a candidate and doesn’t think the message is tough or sharp enough, they can go in and do it themselves,” he told the newspaper. “That could be good for a campaign – or disastrous.”
I would be willing to put money on the fact that groups will now go more negative earlier than any candidate will. It’s unfortunate, but it is the likely result. In the Brown-Coakley race, her campaign worked alongside national groups to bombard the airwaves in the last week with nothing but negative ads against Scott Brown. Yes he was elected, but you can’t really argue they didn’t work. Rasmussen found on election day that voters who made up their minds in the last few days before the election broke for Coakley at a higher rate. He also found that more of Coakley’s supporters were really going to vote against Brown rather than for Coakley than vice versa. Unfortunately for Coakley, she just didn’t get the ads on the air early enough.
After that loss, I would say to expect more and expect them earlier. Though hopefully they will stay off of the Weather Channel this time around.
UPDATE: Marginal Revolution has posted word clouds from both the majority and dissenting opinions to give you a better idea of what each side was focused on.
Campaign Finance Decision Out
The case is Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission. Looks like a bit of a judicial trainwreck, much like McConnell v. FEC was, but the good news is we’re rid of many of the restrictions, including restrictions on independent corporate expenditures, which would apply to groups like the National Rifle Association. So this is a positive development for us in the Second Amendment community.
For some expert opinion on the matter, see SCOTUSBlog, Volokh, and the Election Law Blog.
Hope and Change
Remember all those promises of transparent government? Take a look at this:
Executive Order — Amending Executive Order 12425, signed December 16 and released a day later, grants the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) rights on American soil that place it beyond the reach of our own law enforcement agencies, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Schippert and Middleton note that Obama’s order removes protections placed upon INTERPOL by President Reagan in 1983. Obama’s order gives the group the authority to avoid Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests — which means this foreign law enforcement organization can operate free of an important safeguard against governmental abuse.
It gets even better:
Khoo Boon Hui of Singapore is the current president of the organization, and the current secretary general is American Ronald Noble. Noble is perhaps best known in America for overseeing the Treasury Department’s review of the disastrous 1993 raid and siege of a Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, that left nearly 80 people dead. Noble had cautioned against the initial raid plan as being too dangerous, but the lack of any significant ramifications for federal officials that approved of the raid and allegations of a cover-up have inspired conspiracy theorists to derisively dub Noble “the Enforcer.â€
This is going to make the blue helmeted conspiracy crowd go nuts. One of the things that’s always been amazing about the left is that they do such an effective job of making people’s paranoid delusions seem to not, in fact, be paranoid delusions.
Medical Marijuana Debated in Keystone State
I don’t see what the big deal is, but then again, I’d be willing to decriminalize it generally. We’ve paid an awfully high price in terms of civil liberties trying to control what people put into their own bodies.