Tag Archives: government

Government-Tech Censorship?

Posted on by
Reply

In his op-ed concerning social media censorship, Philip Hamburger, Columbia Law School Maurice & Hilda Friedman Professor of Law, had this:

Amid growing revelations about government involvement in social-media censorship, it’s no longer enough to talk simply about tech censorship. The problem should be understood as gov-tech censorship.

He’s on the right track, but he doesn’t take it far enough, even as he writes this:

The Biden White House has threatened tech companies and federal agencies have pressed them to censor disfavored opinions and users.

That’s the nub of the matter. It’s not gov-tech censorship; it’s Government-directed tech censorship. Nothing less.

Blockchain and Cryptocurrency

Posted on by
1

Lots of folks tout cryptocurrency as the be-all and end-all of currency and liberation of our money from Evil Government.

However.

Here’s a bit about blockchain.

A blockchain is a distributed database or ledger that is shared among the nodes of a computer network. As a database, a blockchain stores information electronically in digital format. … The innovation with a blockchain is that it guarantees the fidelity and security of a record of data and generates trust without the need for a trusted third party.

Guarantees the fidelity and security of a record of data—the fidelity part of that is that each transaction of good in a sequence of transactions is explicitly tracked and its provenance known: who or what did the transaction and who or what received the transaction. At every step of the way from first origin of the first transaction to the last recipient of the last transaction.

Here’s a bit about cryptocurrency, using the hoary Bitcoin as a canonical example.

The key thing to understand here is that Bitcoin merely uses blockchain as a means to transparently record a ledger of payments, but blockchain can, in theory, be used to immutably record any number of data points.

Cryptocurrencies use blockchain—and that ledger, here, of payments (from whom or what to what or whom)—to track the financial transactions.

That immutable record of transactions is just what governments love to have in order to track their subjects’ doings.

Cryptocurrencies are encrypted, though—that’s the “crypto” part. Except that any encryption mechanism can be cracked, and governments have the resources to do exactly that should the men in government decide they have a “need” to.

On the other hand, cash transactions still are untrackable.

Courts and State-Controlled Federal Elections

Posted on by
Reply

In Moore v Harper, the Supreme Court is being called on to decide whether State courts can rearrange State elections laws—in particular, write their own Congressional district maps—as these pertain to how a State runs Federal-level elections.

It shouldn’t even be a question. Our Constitution is quite clear on the matter of who is responsible for setting the rules for Federal elections. Here’s Article I, Section 4:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof….

And only the Federal Congress can adjust those Times, Places and Manner. Not State courts, not even Federal courts.

Our Constitution and every State constitution also is clear on the place and role of the court system in our Federal and State governments. The Judiciary branches are coequal with the Legislature and Executive Branches—neither subordinate nor superior to either. Especially, the Judiciary branches are separate from the other two branches; they are not additional legislative facilities.

State courts, including State Supreme Courts, the facility at proximate case in Moore, have no role in setting or adjusting State Legislature-written Federal-level election rules for their States.

One argument that is being pushed on the Supreme Court for allowing State courts to overrule State Legislatures is “the Founders couldn’t possibly have meant no court oversight of State election laws.” This is obviously inaccurate. In the first place, what the Founders meant in our Constitution is what they actually wrote down and passed out of Convention to submit to the people to ratify.

In the second place, what We the People meant when we ratified that Constitution is that written-down, passed out of Convention, Constitution, with a single modification by us. The Federalist and Anti-Federalist debate, which involved a number of folks in We the People, resulted in a commitment to pass Amendments comprising what came to be called the Bill of Rights—the first 10 Amendments—and We the People ratified those Amendments promptly out of the First Congress. None of those Amendments address in any way how an individual State conducts its Federal-level elections.

No court oversight State election laws is precisely what the Founders intended, and it’s exactly the intention of We the People.

Full stop.

Works for Me

Posted on by
Reply

Senator Chris Murphy (D, CT) has his gun control panties all knotted up because lots of county sheriffs have said they won’t enforce intrinsically unconstitutional gun control laws.

I think we have to have a conversation about whether we can continue to fund law enforcement in states where they are refusing to implement these gun laws[.]

I’ve addressed whether local and county jurisdictions should accept State funding for this or that purpose or whether they, instead, should decline the funds and free themselves from higher government’s controlling strings.

At the national level, Murphy’s terms are acceptable.

In Which a Judge Gets It (Mostly) Right

Posted on by
Reply

Judge Reed O’Connor of the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled at the end of the summer that the Obamacare requirement that health coverage providers must provide coverage for particular aspects of health care—and do so at no cost to the individual being covered—was unconstitutional. He’s currently considering whether to make his ruling permanent and if so, whether to make his ruling applicable only to the litigants in the particular case or to make it nationwide. (As an aside, I have trouble seeing how a ruling of unconstitutionality can have any range less than national.)

Michael Cannon, Cato Institute’s Director of Health Policy Studies, testified as an expert witness in the case that

People have a right to choose whether and what kind of health insurance they need and want. The government shouldn’t be requiring people to buy coverage of any service, whether preventive or otherwise.

O’Connor’s ruling to that extent would be partially correct. However, Government also shouldn’t be dictating to private companies what they must or must not produce. That’s textbook fascism.

There’s also no authority in our Constitution for government to determine what private companies can and cannot produce.