Byung Kyu Park's Personal Website

Because otherwise I can’t understand their argument at all:

The Center for Constitutional Rights filed the lawsuit on ACORN’s behalf Thursday in Brooklyn federal court. It claims the law was unconstitutional because it punitively targeted an individual organization.

First off, I am not sure if any part of Constitution says that acts mentioning individual organizations are wrong. It does say something about taxes having to be uniform and all (and probably something about due process which may be relevant), but none of them apply. The Congress did not pass a law ordering ACORN officers jailed (which would be overstepping their Constitutional bounds, since that belongs to the judiciary). The Congress passed a law saying that they aren’t going to waste money on a corrupt organization—and since it is the Congress who has the power to spend (or not to), it seems entirely constitutional to me, whether they mention specific organizations or not.

But then, I am not a constitutional scholar, like Mr. Barack Obama, and unlike ACORN, I don’t have Obama representing me, so I’m probably saying something wrong. I should be re-reading the wonderful document that is our Constitution later today though, specifically looking for things that warrants such constitutional claims at all.

In any case, this is very comforting:

The group’s CEO, Bertha Lewis, says she underestimated the impact of the Congressional action. She says state, local and most private funds have been cut off as well.

Specifically in going on fishing expeditions where it has absolutely nothing to do with security on airplanes:

Thanks to Steve Bierfeldt’s courageous stand in Missouri several months ago (and in the face of an ACLU lawsuit), the TSA now has to abide by two newly declared rules:

The new rules, issued in September and October, tell officers “screening may not be conducted to detect evidence of crimes unrelated to transportation security” and that large amounts of cash don’t qualify as suspicious for purposes of safety….

Even though the congress and the office of president continue to treat the Constitution as “not a serious” document, it’s good to see that some part of the federal bureaucracy thinks that the Constitution is worth the paper it’s written on.

Too bad it had to take a lot of bad publicity and a lawsuit to goad them into taking this official position, but, hey, it’s TSA. I’ll take whatever improvements I can get.

Lessig’s account of Eldred v. Ashcroft:

When Eric Eldred’s crusade to save the public domain reached the Supreme Court, it needed the help of a lawyer, not a scholar.

Well, I’ve been calling the copyright law unconstitutional … and in the interest of fairness, I should say that I was wrong. It was not unconstitutional, at least according to the Supreme Court of 2004.

But, in all honesty, can anyone deny that congress, in the last century or so, extended the copyright into a perpetual one? Can anyone deny now that a perpetual copyright is unconstitutional?

Although I now know I can’t call this immoral law unconstitutional, I can still call it immoral, unjustified, and damaging to the society. The very thought that one should be able to own an idea or own a piece of culture (rather than “renting” it for a limited time) sickens me. What next? Can one person own another person (rather than “renting” his services for a limited time)? Supreme court justified slavery and racism for hundreds of years. That did not make them any more moral or “right”.

No matter what anyone, even the Supreme court, says, I still hold that our copyright laws are immoral, unjustified, and… destructive.

From now on, I’ll consider myself on a restrained boycott on copyright—I will refuse to buy or otherwise support anything not absolutely necessary (i.e. works of science and academics) that is not copylefted or in public domain.

If I don’t convince enough number of people to matter, at least I will know I took no part in this unjust institution (… once I came of age).