The most frightening part of this is how willing people seem to be to give up their DNA. Most just seem to accept that eventually you'll give your DNA when you get your drivers license or register your kids for school. They also seem to think that it'll make life easier somehow.

Fuck that. My genetic code is mine. I don't want to give out the essence of my being for the sake of convenience.

America, you will never learn.

Sir, I've taken note of your many defenses of the 2nd amendment, why are you so callous about the 4th?

I would ask the same question to those who are angered by Obama's attacks on the 1st and 4th amendments but are in favor of sweeping gun control.

Why do so many of you seem eager to protect some freedoms but so willing to give others up?

In each case you folks seem to be under the assumption that the government has your best interests in mind.

Why why why why why why why why would you assume this?

I dont think most people HERE do (on this board) but the majority of the public do because we are taught that from the day we are born.

Stand behind the stripes....

Just a great day for this stuff!


http://www.startribune.com/politics/210512791.html

I'm not callously tossing out the 4th amendment. For the purposes of this case, I happen to agree with the majority of the court that swabbing ones mouth to obtain DNA is not unreasonable and is very similar to fingerprinting.

Depending on how they end up using the database information I could very strongly be against it, but I do see the value of being able to corroborate information for law enforcement. More so for good reasons.

I will always side with liberty over government intrusion, but I'm not sure how this specific case makes law abiding citizens any less free than they were before. We still have the same legal protections and they would still have to prove without a reasonable doubt. I wonder if the same debate was held over fingerprinting.

Here's a nice cheat sheet of what's coming up in the rest of the month, possibly starting as soon as tomorrow morning.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... -know.html

I'm not sure if I posted this on the archived board or not, but another way the Prop 8 case could be decided is to sidestep the whole question of sexual orientation, and rule that Prop 8 is unconstitutional on the basis of sex discrimination. The first person who actually enlightened me to this possibility was Bill O'Reilly, who would frequently mention Patty and Selma type relatives of his that he felt should be able to pursue the same benefits.

If Kennedy goes for this argument, it's even feasible that he could rope in Roberts and (in a real long shot) Alito, lest they're willing to carve out a major hole in Reed v. Reed. (Scalia, of course, is a lost cause, and I bet Thomas agrees.)

http://www.volokh.com/2012/02/07/same-s ... imination/

Why Same-Sex Marriage Bans Qualify as Sex Discrimination
Ilya Somin • February 7, 2012 8:35 pm

Today’s Ninth Circuit decision striking down California’s Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage is unpersuasive because it claims that the law fails to meet even minimal “rational basis” scrutiny. Eugene Volokh does a good job of explaining why. But there is an alternative constitutional rationale for striking down same-sex marriage bans that avoids this problem. Proposition 8 is an example of sex discrimination, and must be evaluated under the higher standards of scrutiny applied to gender discrimination by the Supreme Court.

Although the sex discrimination argument has been advanced by several academic advocates of gay marriage, nonacademics tend to be skeptical because the same-sex marriage bans seem to be targeted against gays, not men or women. Hostility towards gays is certainly part of the motivation for bans on same-sex marriage. But that does not prevent these laws from qualifying as sex discrimination. In terms of the way the law is actually structured, a same-sex marriage ban in fact discriminates on the basis of gender rather than orientation. And it is perfectly possible to discriminate on the basis of sex even if the motivation for doing so is something other than sexism.

Consider the hypothetical case of Anne, Bob, and Colin. If same-sex marriage is forbidden, Anne is allowed to marry Colin, but Bob cannot do so. This is so even if Anne and Bob are identical in every respect other than gender. Bob is denied the legal right to marry Colin (and all other men) solely because he is a man. Denial of a legal right solely on the basis of gender is the very essence of sex discrimination.

By contrast, sexual orientation actually has no effect on the way the law operates. Anne is still allowed to marry Colin, even if one of them happens to be gay or lesbian. Bob is denied that right regardless of his sexual orientation. There are actually lots of real world cases where gays or lesbians have entered into opposite-sex marriages, such as the famous example of former New Jersey Governor James McGreevey, a closeted gay man who was married to a woman for many years. McGreevey’s marriage was not illegal, even if his actions were morally dubious.

All of this simply underscores the reality that a ban on same-sex marriage discriminates on the basis of gender rather than orientation – even if the motivation for the discrimination is hostility towards gays and lesbians. Under the Supreme Court’s approach to sex discrimination, any “statutory classifications that distinguish between males and females” are subject to heightened judicial scrutiny. A ban on same-sex marriage pretty obviously “distinguish[es] between males and females.”

[...]

Myriad just came down.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12 ... 8_8njq.pdf

Thomas wrote for an almost unanimous court. Scalia joined all but one part of the opinion, where he amazingly admitted some honest ignorance about molecular biology:

<<i'm invoking my right to free speech>>

i think it's stupid to have to invoke your right to silence.

The law is often counter-intuitive, but this may be the most extreme example.

Amen to that. The poor and legally ignorant are already at a disadvantage, why make it worse than it is?

If I'm reading this correctly, SCOTUS semi-punted in Fisher. Here's the opinion.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12 ... 5_l5gm.pdf

They vacated and remanded the case, presumably to get the lower court to use the proper level of scrutiny.

Vote on the judgment was 7-1. Ginsburg was the only dissenter, and she dissented from the bench. She would have simply affirmed. Thomas, on the other hand, said separately (and by himself) that affirmative action violated the Equal Protection Clause. Scalia seems to agree with Thomas, but since Fisher didn't argue to go that far, he simply joins the Court.

Also, as expected, SCOTUS granted cert in the Noel Canning case. This is the one dealing with the challenge to Obama's recess appointments. This will be one of the big ones for next term.

http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/ca ... l-canning/

Ginsburg was also not happy at all about two other decisions that came down, and she read a special statement on those two. These had to do with suits against employers. What I'm getting from this is that she pulled a Ledbetter encore in saying that Congress should fix SCOTUS's screwup.

EDIT: Heh, the tweeter I got that from deleted his tweet, presumably because of the message at top that said "FOR PRESS CONVENIENCE ONLY, NOT FOR PUBLICATION". However, Rule #1 of Twitter should be that what is tweeted, cannot be untweeted.

SCOTUS struck down Section Four (not Five) of the VRA. This, actually, makes a lot of sense to me.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12 ... 6_6k47.pdf

If I'm reading this correctly, SCOTUS said that preclearance itself (Section 5) is OK, but the preclearance formula used in the VRA (Section 4) isn't. Only Thomas would have also struck down Section 5.

Here's the relevant part of Section 4:

It's often said that the VRA targeted states with a history of discrimination, but the other part of the test (<50% voting in the 1964 election) likely ensnared odder states like Arizona and Alaska.

This is quite close to what I think should be the proper legislation for the VRA: don't pick and choose which states/counties have to be precleared. Make all of them be precleared. Since Section 5 survived, that would be constitutional under this Court.

They voted 5-4 to return the baby to the adoptive parents.

I don't know nearly enough about that law to say which way that should have gone. I do find it really silly that SCOTUS anonymized all of the parties, even though the lower courts and the media have not done so.

No Voting Rights Act info yet?