Month: September 2011

Police Shoot Armed Woman in Golden Valley

Yesterday a Golden Valley police officer shot an armed woman. I bring this story up mainly because the police are being incredibly cagey about it and have refused to release any details whatsoever:

Police said the officer had tried to stop the woman, who eventually pulled over along the median shortly after 1 p.m. Thursday on westbound Interstate 394 in Minnetonka.

“The lone occupant of the vehicle, an adult female, was in possession of a handgun and was subsequently fatally shot by the officer,” according to a statement from Golden Valley police.

At this point we don’t know why the officer shot the woman. Did she take a shot at the officer? Did the officer simply see she had a firearm and shot her on the spot? Who knows. Usually with cases like this some amount of detail is given about the events leading to the shooting but in this case we’ve received nothing. This lack of information makes it appear as though the police are trying to cover it up which is usually done to protect an officer who unjustly killed somebody.

I’m reserving no judgement at this time but I want people to be aware of this story and to pay attention to the details as they are released. It is my hope that this is not another incident of police brutality but until we know for sure I won’t rule the possibility out.

More Blatant Ignoring of Ron Paul

Whether you love or hate Ron Paul you have to admit that the media has been doing everything they can to screw the man over. For example take the title of this article:

Poll: Romney leads New Hampshire, Huntsman in third, Perry in fourth

So Romney got first, Huntsman third, and Perry fourth… isn’t there a number missing? Who in the hell got second place? Oh yeah, it was Ron Paul which is mentioned only in passing:

The Suffolk University/7News poll found Romney leading with 41 percent of the vote from independents and Republicans. His closest competition is Ron Paul, with 14 percent, followed by Jon Huntsman with an uncharacteristically high 10 percent. Perry, who has topped most national polls since announcing his candidacy, does not even break double digits, getting just 8 percent of the primary vote.

The good doctor is never mentioned again in the article. My friend Jeff summed up Ron Paul perfectly, he’s the 13th floor of the Republican race. The media knows he’s there but they simply ignore his existence and are willing to go so far as to ignore the number two in order to maintain their attempted ignorance.

A Slight Victory Against the PATRIOT Act

United States District Judge Ann Aiken has proven herself to have some competence and has ruled that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which is an amendment to the PATRIOT Act, is unconstitutional:

U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as amended by the Patriot Act, “now permits the executive branch of government to conduct surveillance and searches of American citizens without satisfying the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment.”

This is only a minor victor since, I believe, there are still several levels of appeals courts the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) can take to overrule this decision if they so choose. I would be utterly shocked if the FBI didn’t attempt to fight this decision as they seem to find constitutional restrictions an inconvenience to their mission of arresting anybody and everybody to get their numbers up and make themselves sound impressive.

This court case also exemplifies the need for protections against illegal search and seizures. The target of the FBI’s wrath this time was an innocent man who should have never been accused in the first place as the FBI’s evidence was flimsy at best:

Portland attorney Brandon Mayfield sought the ruling in a lawsuit against the federal government after he was mistakenly linked by the FBI to the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people in 2004.

The federal government apologized and settled part of the lawsuit for $2 million after admitting a fingerprint was misread. But as part of the settlement, Mayfield retained the right to challenge parts of the Patriot Act, which greatly expanded the authority of law enforcers to investigate suspected acts of terrorism.

How magnanimous of the government to allow Mr. Mayfield the right to challenge the PATRIOT Act. It’s a good thing this ability to challenge was allowed because, as pointed out by judge Aiken, dismissal of this case would have been akin to a constitutional convention:

“For over 200 years, this Nation has adhered to the rule of law — with unparalleled success. A shift to a Nation based on extra-constitutional authority is prohibited, as well as ill-advised,” she wrote.

By asking her to dismiss Mayfield’s lawsuit, the judge said, the U.S. attorney general’s office was “asking this court to, in essence, amend the Bill of Rights, by giving it an interpretation that would deprive it of any real meaning. This court declines to do so.”

What many people fail to realize is the fact that our courts can act as de facto constitutional conventions by interpreting the bylaws expressed in the Constitution. For example if the Supreme Court had ruled that the second amendment only applied to the federal government they would have basically stripped the right to keep and bear arms from the people as the states would be allowed to make any laws they pleased in regards to firearms. Had judge Aikens ruled that FISA was within the scope of the fourth amendment then the FBI would be allowed to continue secret searches of homes with flimsy evidence (which they may still be able to do if they appeal this decision).

The power to write law is obviously open for abuse but the true power lies in the ability to interpret law.

Why Controlling Your Personal Information is So Important

Many people have a lackluster attitude towards control of their private information. When the fact that companies maintain a great amount of details about their customers is mentioned people will often cite laws forcing those companies to protect that information. Those laws may make you feel nice and all but what do you do when the company goes bankrupt? That’s the concern facing former Borders customers right now:

To perhaps to no one’s surprise, Borders bookstore collected a ton of consumer information – such as personal data including records of particular book and video sales – during its normal course of business. Such personal information Borders promised never to share without consumer consent. But now that the company is being sold off as part of its bankruptcy filing, all privacy promises are off.

Reuters wrote this week that Barnes & Noble, which paid almost $14 million for Borders intellectual assets including customer information at auction last week, said it should not have to comply with certain customer privacy standards recommended by a third-party ombudsman. In court papers, Barnes & Noble said that its own privacy standards are sufficient to protect the privacy of customers whose information it won during the auction.

Sure the company that currently holds your private information may be magnanimous but what about the next holder of that information? Concerns such as this should be at the top of everybody’s list as personal information of any sort is valuable both for good and bad guys. If you believe any personal information held by companies about yourself is unimportant you’re simply not creative enough.

Patents on Methods to Keep Your Money no Longer Being Accepted

Seldom can any good news be found in a bill with the word reform in the title but alas I’ve found some. Among clauses that will bail out fraudsters there is one decent point in the recent America Invents Act that disallow patents on methods to keep what is rightfully yours:

Under a provision in the far-reaching patent reform bill, it’s no longer possible to get a patent on a strategy for reducing, avoiding or postponing taxes. (See Section 14 of the law, which downloads here as a pdf.) By the time the bill, known as the America Invents Act, was signed into law, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had issued more than 161 tax patents, and another 167 tax patent applications were pending.

The patent system in this country is completely broken and the American Invents Act does nothing to fix the real problems but it’s nice to see a company can no longer sue you for violating a patent on using the complex tax code to your advantage. I know the reason this was slipped into the bill is because the government wants to discourage the practice of using the tax code to your advantage but this may backfire on them. Now when a clever accountant finds a point in the tax code overlooked by the revenuers he can’t file a patent and claim exclusive rights over the practice. This is good news as it may allow more people and companies to avoid a little bit of the theft perpetrated by the government.

Unintended Consequences of Government Policies

As part of the government If You See Something Do Something campaign many states have enacted restrictions against young drivers. The government saw that young drivers were involved in more accidents than older drivers and decided that something must be done (to protect the children) so they decided to jump into enacted legislation that restricted various actions that younger drivers were allowed to take. What these bureaucrats never stopped to consider was the possibility that inexperience, and not merely age, was the root cause of the higher accident rates among younger drivers. As Bruce Schneier points out it appears as though inexperience may be the actual problem:

For more than a decade, California and other states have kept their newest teen drivers on a tight leash, restricting the hours when they can get behind the wheel and whom they can bring along as passengers. Public officials were confident that their get-tough policies were saving lives.

Now, though, a nationwide analysis of crash data suggests that the restrictions may have backfired: While the number of fatal crashes among 16- and 17-year-old drivers has fallen, deadly accidents among 18-to-19-year-olds have risen by an almost equal amount. In effect, experts say, the programs that dole out driving privileges in stages, however well-intentioned, have merely shifted the ranks of inexperienced drivers from younger to older teens.

All these restrictions have managed to accomplish is kicking the can down the road for a couple of years. Since 16 and 17 year-old kids aren’t allowed to drive at night they are unable to gain experience at driving in the dark so when they finally are legally able to do so they make mistakes.

So what’s the solution? I would say we should remove these laws as it’s been demonstrated that they aren’t increasing safety but simply pushing the problem down the road. But then we have those people out there that subscribe to the belief that if something doesn’t work we need to try it again, only harder:

McCartt said the solution may be to expand graduated driver licensing programs to include 18- and 19-year-olds who are getting behind the wheel for the first time. The idea isn’t without precedent: In New Jersey, such rules apply to all initial driver’s license applicants under the age of 21.

“The concept of easing drivers into riskier driving situations could apply to older teens as well,” she said.

But Males, who has studied California’s program, said it was inappropriate to impose such restrictions on legal adults and noted that the rules could disqualify them from holding certain jobs.

“That’s a terrible idea,” he said. “That’s saying the programs didn’t work, so we’ll have to make them even stronger.”

Yes that must be the solution! By Thor in Valhalla we may need to go so far as to put these restrictions in place on people as old as 50 years of age!

There is a Law Somewhere They Can Use

Our so-called justice system has many flaws including the fact that there are so many laws on our books that it’s impossible for a person to actually be considered innocent in a court. If the state wants you gone they can make it happen because they know somewhere on the books there is a law you’re violating right now and all they must do is find it. Case in point demonstrators on Wall Street are being arrested for violating a 150 year-old law against wearing masks:

New York City police monitoring a social media-fueled protest in Manhattan’s Financial District have charged demonstrators with violating an obscure, 150-year-old state statute that bans masked gatherings.

Since Saturday, five people connected with the protest to “occupy” Wall Street have been issued a violation for running afoul of the antimask law, according to police.

First of all everybody who knew that there are protests going on on Wall Street raise your hands. I’m not expecting many hands to be raised since the media hasn’t been covering this at all but alas these protests have been going on since Sunday:

The protest against U.S. banking institutions began Saturday, drawing hundreds from across the country.

Police blocked off several streets in lower Manhattan, directing protesters to Zuccotti Park. On Monday afternoon, sleeping bags, tents and a potluck buffet were set up in the park to accommodate demonstrators.

Either way this 150 year-old laws is being used simply because the state doesn’t like the fact that these people are exercising their right to peaceably assemble. I can see how it unfolded now; some higher up got upset at the fact that people were causing an inconvenience by protesting and told his army of lawyers to, “Find something, ANYTHING, that we can use to get these fucking peasants off the street!” After receiving their orders the army of lawyers descended upon the local law library and began digging through every book, binder, and filing cabinet to fulfill their quest of finding the holy law. One of the lawyers eventually yelled out, “AH HA! I FOUND IT!” and presented a 150 year-old manuscript to his master who rewarded the lawyer with the promise of a barony promotion.

Laws need expiration dates. Personally I believe every law that is passed should have a mandatory expiration date of one year. If the law isn’t renewed a year from it’s passing or renewal it expires and everybody who was fined or imprisoned for violating that law is refunded and freed. This could help reduce the number of laws on the books as they would need to be debated every year when their expiration date approached. Or we could simply not allow laws creating victimless crimes from being legally enforceable.

Thanks Bernanke

Against all logic Ben Bernanke has come out and stated that the Federal Reserve will be performing yet another stimulus plan and needless to say the stock markets aren’t taking the news too well:

US and Asian shares have fallen after the Federal Reserve launched a scheme – dubbed Operation Twist – to help stimulate the flagging US economy.

The Fed will sell about $400bn (£260bn) worth of bonds maturing within three years and buy longer-term debt.

They should have called it Operation Rolling Thunder since the Federal Reserve’s plan appears to be an attempt to bomb the world markets into submission through the use of bad monetary policy. What the Federal Reserve seems to believe is that they can fix the problem they created by using the same strategies that landed us in this depression in the first place. I’m guessing Bernanke doesn’t have a stove in his home since he seems like the kind of person who would touch a hot burner and never realized that touching it again will lead to more pain.

If you guys want to fix the economy then get the fuck out of the way and let the free market correct for your constant interferences.

Preemptive War

Much of the United State’s foreign policy revolves around the concept of preemptive war. Although the concept seems simple on paper, take out potential enemies before they have a chance to be an actual threat, it becomes ethically dubious once you start thinking about the concept.

As with most concepts we need to break this one down to the lowest level which is the individual. Let us consider the concept of preemptive war but replace countries with individual people. In our hypothetical scenario we’re going to say you live next to Ishmael whom you believe to be not quite right in the head. Ishmael often talks about his belief that the apocalypse is coming and that it is his duty to destroy the enemies of his god, Loki. You’ve been watching Ishmael stock up on enough firepower to arm a small militia but suddenly you hear whispers that he’s found somebody willing to sell him a grenade launcher. After hearing this news you realize that Ishmael with a grenade launcher may not be the best thing in the world for your life expectancy and thus feel as though you need to stop him before he does something stupid and ends up killing you. Of course you have no actual proof that Ishmael means you harm or would actually be dangerous with a grenade launcher in his possession but it’s a possibility.

Using the concept of preemptive war you would then go over to Ishmael’s house, knock on his door, and shoot him in the face when he opened it. Congratulations, you’ve just enacted United States foreign policy in your own neighborhood.

This is the problem with preemptive war, it can’t legitimately be considered an act of self-defense because there is no fear of immediate and tangible danger. Self-defense necessarily requires the defender to feel as though there is an immediate and tangible threat to their life. You can’t shoot a teenage boy on the street and later justify your action by claiming he may have mugged you if given the change.

Preemptive war isn’t a form of self-defense no matter how many times our government claims it to be. It is the initiation of violence plain and simple and that is why libertarians oppose it.

This is What Bailing Out General Motors Accomplished

The American people footed the bill to bail out the failures that is General Motors (GM) and what has received in return? Jack shit. Well more specifically jack shit and, as Days of our Trailers points out, constant tracking of everybody whose vehicle is equipped with OnStar:

Navigation-and-emergency-services company OnStar is notifying its six million account holders that it will keep a complete accounting of the speed and location of OnStar-equipped vehicles, even for drivers who discontinue monthly service.

OnStar began e-mailing customers Monday about its update to the privacy policy, which grants OnStar the right to sell that GPS-derived data in an anonymized format.

For those who aren’t aware OnStar is a subsidiary of GM so they would have gone under had the market been allowed to operate freely. But the thing you should be taking away from this is the fact that OnStar is not only tracking the location of paying customers but also the location of customers who have cancelled the service. Although OnStar claims they aren’t currently selling this information you know they eventually will be.

Setting this violation of trust aside there is another thing to consider, the possibility of such data being used to retroactively issue traffic violations or setup speed traps. Data collected by TomTom was used by the Dutch government to setup speed traps so it’s not like the scenario I’m hypothesizing is unprecedented.