Archive for the ‘ Law ’ Category

Dictionary of Occupational Titles, Revised Fourth Edition

After weeks of hunting, I am pleased to present to you the complete elec­tronic version of the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, Revised Fourth Edition, as supplied by the U.S. Department of Labor as ASCII files on 34 floppy disks. This elec­tronic version contains data published in the following print volumes: Dictionary of Occupational Titles, Revised Fourth Edition, Vol. I Dictionary of Occupational Titles, Revised Fourth Edition, Vol II Selected Characteristics of Occupations Defined in the Revised Dictionary of Occupational Titles Data published in these volumes are in the public domain and may be repro­duced and distributed without source credit. This version also includes [ . . . ]

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On Amendment One and Obama’s ABC Interview

On Tuesday, North Carolina voters approved Amendment One, which strips unmarried couples of all legal recog­nition of their rela­tion­ships under State law. Billed as a simple gay marriage ban, the amendment actually goes much further, as Patrick at Popehat describes, and voids all other legal protec­tions unmarried couples, gay or straight, might seek for them­selves, including wills, adoptions, medical powers of attorney, and possibly even joint tenancy in realty. [Part 2 and Part 3 in the Popehat series on Amendment One] It also prohibits North Carolina from recog­nizing these non-​​​​marriage rela­tion­ships when they’re formed and governed by the laws of other [ . . . ]

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The Producer, the Librarian, and the Promise-​​Breaker

TLDR: This changes nothing. Today the Librarian of Congress announced new rules promul­gated pursuant to the Librarian’s rule­making authority under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to exempt certain actions from the prohi­bition against circum­vention of copyright protection systems found in 17 U.S.C. §1201. The “anti-​​​​circumvention provision” states: No person shall circumvent a tech­no­logical measure that effec­tively controls access to a work protected under this title. The Librarian is required by §1201 to make a deter­mi­nation every three years as to whether any exemp­tions from this prohi­bition are necessary in order to preserve access to copy­righted works. In the words of the Librarian, his task [ . . . ]

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Gill v. OPM Update

Sixteen months ago, I reported on Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, a suit against various govern­mental agencies by same-​​​​sex married and widowed persons chal­lenging the consti­tu­tion­ality of §3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. The United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts (specif­i­cally, Judge Joseph L. Tauro) granted summary judgment on many of the plain­tiffs’ claims today. Opinion here. [PDF] Back then, I opined that the case was philo­soph­i­cally flawed because it sought equal protection at the expense of expanding the federal welfare state. It was and continues to be my opinion that the federal welfare state (by which [ . . . ]

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McDonald v. Chicago

The Supreme Court decided McDonald v. Chicago, the sequel to D.C. v. Heller, this morning. A majority held that the Second Amendment applies to state and local govern­ments and threw out Chicago’s ban on handguns. A plurality of four Justices (Alito, Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy) held that the Second Amendment is incor­po­rated by the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment, and avoided addressing the question of whether the Slaughterhouse Cases, which long ago castrated the other half of the 14th Amendment, the Privileges or Immunities Clause, should be recon­sidered. One Justice, Justice Thomas, wrote a separate opinion concurring in the judgment, but asserting [ . . . ]

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Snyder v. Phelps

One who would defend the [Constitution] must share his foxhole with scoundrels of every sort, but to abandon the post because of the poor company is to sell freedom cheaply. It is a fair summary of history to say that the safe­guards of liberty have often been forged in contro­versies involving not very nice people. Kopf v. Skyrm, 993 F2d 374, 308 (4th Cir. 1996). Judge Hall was writing about the Fourth Amendment, but the sentiment applies most admirably to the First Amendment as well, as another 4th Circuit panel noted recently in Snyder v. Phelps, 580 F.3d 206 (4th Cir. 2009). In [ . . . ]

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Lawyers are Good People

Via Paul Hsieh at Geekpress, “16 Things Your Lawyer Won’t Tell You”, a piece purporting to arm consumers of legal services the better to keep tabs on their lawyers, but which ulti­mately severely misrep­re­sents the profession. The overall problem with the article is that it assumes that it is immoral for a lawyer to make money off his clients’ legal woes. Here are the most misleading points from the article, and my expla­nation of why they are misleading. 1. I use forms but charge you as if I did it from scratch. Lawyers who create and sell operative legal documents (wills, contracts, trusts, &c.) [ . . . ]

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