Big day for the Supreme Court

[MannyIsGod]

There are many anticipated decisions today because it is the last day the court will be in session. The 10 commandments cases are up, as are decisions on P2P sharing and liability of copyright infringement in sharing.

But probably the most important thing that may happen today is going to be the possible retirement(s). It'll be an interesting day to see how it all plays out.

[Useruser666]

Please God, smite the record labels! :lol

[desflood]

Court: No Ten Commandments in Courthouses By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer
3 minutes ago


WASHINGTON - A split Supreme Court struck down Ten Commandments displays in courthouses Monday, ruling that two exhibits in Kentucky cross the line between separation of church and state because they promote a religious message.


The 5-4 decision was the first of two seeking to mediate the bitter culture war over religion's place in public life. In it, the court declined to prohibit all displays in court buildings or on government property. Justices left legal wiggle room, saying that some displays — like their own courtroom frieze — would be permissible if they're portrayed neutrally in order to honor the nation's legal history.

But framed copies in two Kentucky courthouses went too far in endorsing religion, the court held.

"The touchstone for our analysis is the principle that the First Amendment mandates government neutrality between religion and religion, and between religion and nonreligion," Justice David H. Souter wrote for the majority.

"When the government acts with the ostensible and predominant purpose of advancing religion, it violates tha central Establishment clause value of official religious neutrality," he said.

Souter was joined in his opinion by other members of the liberal bloc — Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, as well as Reagan appointee Sandra Day O'Connor, who provided the swing vote.

[mookie2001]

^aw man
i was hoping to have a US supreme religion

[JoeChalupa]

I saw the Ten Commandments decision going down like this and the fact that Sandra Day O'Connor provided the swing vote is a good thing.

I can live with it and I could have also lived without it.

[CaptainHook]

Liberal Supreme Court strikes again in favor of hypocritical ACLU. Hmmm, I wonder when the ACLU is gonna sue the U.S. Federal Government for having the 10 commandments on the Supremen Court Building, or when they're gonna sue congress for starting off with prayer. They wont because they only like to go after things at the local level, they're too scared to go after the big ones. Well, why should I be suprised, the ACLU was founded by well-known Communist Roger Baldwin.

[desflood]

Hollywood wins piracy battle

The U.S. Supreme Court rules against Grokster in a closely watched piracy case.
June 27, 2005: 10:38 AM EDT

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The U.S. Supreme Court handed the entertainment industry a crucial victory Monday in their titanic battle to curb Internet piracy.

In MGM v. Grokster, the high court overturned a ruling that barred Hollywood and the music industry from suing Internet services used by consumers to swap songs and movies for free.

The decision was a major win for the entertainment industry and a big blow to technology companies.


The recording industry and Hollywood movie studios are looking for as much legal firepower as they can get to help prevent Internet users from sharing songs, movies, videos and other copyrighted material without paying. Internet piracy, entertainment industry executives have claimed, threatens their existence.

Technology leaders have been equally strident, claiming that holding software and hardware companies accountable for Internet piracy committed by individual users will chill innovation.

[SWC Bonfire]

The ACLU is good to have around for things like black kids getting lynched in Mississippi. But they don't stop there. They are so idealistic that they would cut their nose off to spite their face. What they don't care about are the rights of the majority. Are the Ten Commandments so horrible that millions of federal dollars are required to hash out whether they should be displayed?

Some religious right groups are not blameless in this. Some of those monuments were intended to cause controversy.

[mookie2001]

Liberal Supreme Court strikes again in favor of hypocritical ACLU.
theres a 5-4 Republican majority on the supreme court

[SWC Bonfire]

But probably the most important thing that may happen today is going to be the possible retirement(s). It'll be an interesting day to see how it all plays out.

Definately. O'Connor probably wants to retire; Rheinquist should be dragged off before he makes Strom Thurmond look like a young whippersnapper.

[FromWayDowntown]

Liberal Supreme Court strikes again in favor of hypocritical ACLU. Hmmm, I wonder when the ACLU is gonna sue the U.S. Federal Government for having the 10 commandments on the Supremen Court Building, or when they're gonna sue congress for starting off with prayer. They wont because they only like to go after things at the local level, they're too scared to go after the big ones. Well, why should I be suprised, the ACLU was founded by well-known Communist Roger Baldwin.

Uh, yeah. You should bother to read the opinions before offering up comments like that. Reading opinions tends to be very helpful when trying to discuss the merits of any particular case -- often what the media reports is only a small part of what the Court actually wrote.

You'd see that the reason the ACLU won't sue the Federal Government over the Ten Commandments at the Supreme Court has nothing to do with whether the depiction is in a courthouse (as in Kentucky) and everything to do with the fact that they bear an historical legacy and were put in place for a secular and not a religious purpose.

If you did some research, you'd also find that in Marsh v. Chambers (decided in 1983) the Court has already held that legislative prayers are very different from school prayers.

But going with sound-bytes certainly helps one to avoid the sticky confrontations that the truth often begets.

[Useruser666]

Damn Hollywood to Hell!

[Nbadan]

In another big Supreme Court decision today...


WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Monday that police cannot be sued for how they enforce restraining orders, ending a lawsuit by a Colorado woman who claimed police did not do enough to prevent her estranged husband from killing her three young daughters.

Jessica Gonzales did not have a constitutional right to police enforcement of the court order against her husband, the court said in a 7-2 opinion.

City governments had feared that if the court ruled the other way, it would unleash a potentially devastating flood of cases that could bankrupt municipal governments.

Gonzales contended that police did not do enough to stop her estranged husband, who took the three daughters from the front yard of her home in June 1999 in violation of a restraining order.
...
Gonzales reached him on his cell phone, and he told her that he had taken the girls to an amusement park in nearby Denver. Gonzales contends that police should have gone to the amusement park or contacted Denver police.

Yahoo News (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050627/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_restraining_orders)

The courts have ruled time and time again that citizens don't have a right to police protection. in "DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services," the SC ruled that the Constitution does not impose a duty on the state and local governments to protect citizens from harm.

People have, in the past, been unable to sue:

When 911 systems have been shut down for maintenance

When a known stalker kills someone

When police pull over but don't arrest a drunk driver who goes on to run someone over

When a known, violently unstable cop shoots a driver pulled over for an inadequate muffler

When authorities know in advance of a plan to murder someone but take no action to stop it

When houses burn down because the fire department doesn't respond in time

Laws and cases in all 50 states plus D.C. uphold the basic premise that the police have no legal obligation to protect citizens from harm.

Makes ya feel safe, huh?

[SWC Bonfire]

A strong argument for safe & responsible ownership of personal firearms.

[MannyIsGod]

I don't mind that decision. What pisses me off about you Dan, is that you're so busy being pissed at what is done, that you don't realize when you contradict yourself in your crusade against the government.

I don't want to the government keep tabs on people under the guise of restraining orders. You think about that angle of it next time you sit there and bitch about the patriot act.

[Nbadan]

I don't want to the government keep tabs on people under the guise of restraining orders. You think about that angle of it next time you sit there and bitch about the patriot act.

Hey, I had a friend who was raped by a guy she had a restraining order against, so this topic in particular really hits home. I'm not saying that the government has a right to keep tabs on every 'potential' law-breaker as you contend, but these somewhat useless restraining orders give people a false sense of security when they are really just for documentation purposes more than anything else. I think this really brings home the fact that your safety, your families safety, is first and foremost in your hands. No amount of digging through someone's library records, or spying on their web surfing habits is gonna change this.