Tag: law

No More Universal Injunctions

This is actually a very sensible decision by the Supreme Court to limit the power of lower-ranking federal judges:

The Supreme Court on Friday limited the use of nationwide injunctions, reining in federal judges’ ability to issue sweeping orders that have in recent years stymied implementation of policies from Republican and Democratic presidential administrations alike.

In a widely anticipated decision stemming from President Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship, the high court said that universal orders likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to the federal courts. Justice Amy Coney Barrett authored the majority opinion for the 6-3 court, with the liberal justices in dissent.

The court granted the Trump administration request to narrow the reach of the injunctions blocking the president’s executive order while proceedings move forward, but “only to the extent that the injunctions are broader than necessary to provide complete relief” to plaintiffs who can sue, Barrett wrote. The justices did not address the question of whether Mr. Trump’s order is constitutional, and the administration has said agencies have 30 days to issue public guidance about implementation of the policy, allowing time for more challenges to be filed.

“Some say that the universal injunction ‘give[s] the Judiciary a powerful tool to check the Executive Branch.’ But federal courts do not exercise general oversight of the Executive Branch; they resolve cases and controversies consistent with the authority Congress has given them,” Barrett wrote. “When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too.”

It’s one thing when the Supreme Court limits the Executive Branch. But permitting the lower ranking courts to do so, and to extend their state and regional jurisdictions to the entire country, has never made any sense at all, especially in light of how different District Court judges often rule differently on the same sorts of issues.

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AI Text is Fair Use

It’s not at all surprising that a Federal judge – a particularly good one who has tried to rein in various corporate abuses of the arbitration system – has recognized that AI training and AI text generation is protected under the fair use doctrine in a landmark pre-trial decision.

A federal judge in California issued a landmark ruling that protects the development of artificial intelligence and creative freedom by determining that training AI systems on copyrighted books constitutes fair use under copyright law. U.S. District Judge William Alsup’s decision in Bartz v. Anthropic represents a crucial victory against attempts to stifle technological innovation through overly broad copyright claims.

Judge Alsup ruled that Anthropic’s training of its Claude AI on authors’ works was “exceedingly transformative,” and therefore protected under the fair use doctrine as specified in Section 107 of the Copyright Act. This decision correctly recognizes that AI training represents a fundamentally different use of copyrighted material than simple reproduction or distribution.

The judge’s reasoning demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of how AI works, comparing the training process to human learning rather than mechanical copying. “Everyone reads texts, too, then writes new texts,” Alsup wrote. “To make anyone pay specifically for the use of a book each time they read it, each time they recall it from memory, each time they later draw upon it when writing new things in new ways would be unthinkable.”

This analogy captures why attempts to restrict AI training are flawed. Human authors read thousands of books, absorb their techniques and ideas, and incorporate that knowledge into their own writing without paying licensing fees for each influence. AI systems operate similarly, learning patterns and techniques rather than copying specific content.

It absolutely makes sense. How can copyright protect something that isn’t copied? How can the use of a copyright text as nothing more than a reference and a style guide be illegal in any way? And as I have pointed out repeatedly, an author’s literary style cannot be protected given the “look-and-feel” decision in favor of Microsoft when Apple tried to protect its graphic user interface.

“Legal experts expect the decision to be appealed.”

That’s not going to happen. They simply don’t have a case, and Alsup is a smart, thoughtful judge who knows what he’s doing when he writes his decisions. He’s the judge whose decision prevented corporations from indefinitely delaying their responses to the arbitrations their terms of use required.

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Mass Deportation Order

President Trump orders the mass deportation of “millions and millions” of illegal aliens:

US President Donald Trump has instructed federal agents to dramatically ramp up deportations of illegal migrants from Democrat-led cities after riots swept Los Angeles.

In a post on his Truth Social platform on Sunday evening, Trump instructed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to “achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History. In order to achieve this, we must expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America’s largest Cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside,” he added.

Trump went on to claim that the Democrats are using illegal migrants to “expand their Voter Base, cheat in Elections, and grow the Welfare State, robbing good paying Jobs and Benefits from Hardworking American Citizens.”

This a very good first step. Hopefully it will be done as directed. But unfortunately, it’s not going to be enough to save America, which is why the next step will need to be addressing the tens and tens of millions of legal aliens and paper citizens.

Remember, the alternative is the collapse of the state and a decade or more of civil war. So it’s not really optional at this point. And it’s not just the USA that desperately needs to restore its previous demographics or face massive violence, as a number of European nations are in a similarly precarious state.

David Betz, Professor of War in the Modern World at King’s College London, says his research shows is a statistically significant chance of a civil war breaking out within five years in a major European country, with a distinct possibility that the conflict could spill over to neighbouring nations.

“I would probably avoid big cities. I would suggest you reduce your exposure to big cities if you are able,” Betz chillingly urged. He added, “there isn’t anything they can do, it’s baked in. We’re already past the tipping point, is my estimation… we are past the point at which there is a political offramp. We are past the point at which normal politics is able to solve the problem.”

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Dialectic > Rhetoric

The very best rhetoric is when it aligns perfectly with the dialectical truth.

That’s the sort of thing that the acronym BTFO was invented for. But it’s nice that Rep. Jordan helped underline why Conservative Inc. is suddenly pushing for NET ZERO IMMIGRATION and no more legal or illegal immigrants from THE THIRD WORLD.

That sound you heard was the Overton Window shifting. Not nearly far enough, of course, but it has moved substantially.

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Dual-Citizenship Illegal

The ban on dual-citizenship in Japan was upheld as constitutional by the Japanese Supreme Court:

Japan’s top court has rejected an appeal by a Japanese-born U.S. citizen challenging the constitutionality of the country’s ban on dual citizenship, finalizing lower court rulings.

The decision by the Supreme Court’s First Petty Bench, dated Monday, was on a claim that Article 11 of the Nationality Law, which stipulates the loss of Japanese nationality upon voluntarily acquiring a foreign nationality, infringes on the right to self-determination.

The Fukuoka District Court turned down the initial claim in 2023, noting that the law was appropriate and was not beyond the scope of discretion. The Fukuoka High Court also supported the first decision last year.

According to the ruling, the woman acquired U.S. citizenship in 2004. She applied for a Japanese passport in 2017, but her application was rejected the following year on the grounds that she had lost her Japanese nationality.

This is an interesting rejection of Clown World’s anti-nationalist campaign, particularly because the Japanese constitution was imposed upon Japan by the US occupiers after World War II. It’s a strong indication that the dual-citizenship effectively created by the US Supreme Court decision in Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253 (1967) was both incorrect and inappropriately utilized in an excessively expansive manner to create a supra-national individual right that does not and should not exist.

Being ruled by foreigners is not only a curse in the Bible, it is a common late stage in empires that usually presages an eventual collapse.

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MAILVOX: Advice From the Terminated

In which a whistleblower discovers that no one cares about would-be heroes.

Advice from the Terminated

I once was terminated from a long-term white-collar job and refused to take the generous severance package they offered. Here’s some advice based on what I learned.

Only Do Real Whistleblowing

If your company is doing something unethical or even illegal and you feel you must inform others, never do so internally, trusting your managers to be appreciative or even just reasonable. Sadly, sometimes no good deed goes unpunished. Go external to have proper protection, especially if you have a reputation for being difficult (where your “not listening” means not always being compliant enough!).

“Help”, “Guidance” and “Protection” = Corrective Action

If you are being given “guidance” or “help” or even “protection” by your managers or HR person or Dean of Diversity – even if this is framed as “friendly concern” – consider that such actions can easily be characterized as discipline or corrective action later on. Especially if you are told you need to sign what you think is just something like an “incident report”, even when you think that your supervisor is supporting your actions – or even just acknowledge the reception of an email seemingly containing both praise and what could possibly be perceived as a subtle warning. I’d immediately start looking for a new job if you get one of these.

Your Excellent Reputation is Only as Good as Today

Years of past successes, impressive references, compliments about communication and social skills, professional accomplishments, glowing talent management evaluations, etc. can become irrelevant in a minute. If you are perceived by higher-ups as being insufficiently supportive of your organization’s direction or “problematic” in any way, watch out! And do not think for a minute that one manager will ever overturn the termination decision of another.

Just Shut the Hell Up

If you are involved in a meeting with higher-ups and you suspect that they are not open to concerns about how you are being treated unfairly do not try to persuade them at all. Just listen very carefully during the meeting, taking notes if that seems acceptable, and saying “Thank you”, and “I understand” a lot (maybe ask if you can record the meeting, as you truly don’t want to miss anything important – this, of course, will also serve to protect you). Later on, you can do more reflection and try to figure out what to do next. All of this is especially important if you are feeling frustrated or caught off guard by what happens. Unlike me, try not to show any lack of prudence or a dearth of absolutely impeccable manners and poise. Any weakness you show here might enable groups to create accounts about how they felt victimized by you.

You Can’t Afford to Think You are Smarter and More Clever Than Them

If it comes to legal manners, do not represent yourself, ever. Even if you are highly ethical, that won’t help and could even hurt: they know the legal game better than you ever could. And take heed: If the state is involved in the case, be aware of what ultimately will be made public and what won’t be made public. Also note that there is nothing Illegal about a company selectively choosing to enforce their own internal policies. Combine this with at-will employment, and this combination also will make getting any unemployment benefits that much more difficult.

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He Shouldn’t Have Been Fired

Mike Waltz should have been arrested and put on trial for treason:

President Donald Trump sacked his national security adviser Mike Waltz because he was plotting with Israel’s leader to attack Iran, it was claimed last night. Waltz, 51, was thought to have been fired because he accidentally added a journalist to a Signal chat about plans to attack Yemen’s Houthi terrorist group, causing global embarrassment for the Trump administration.

But last night the Washington Post reported the real reason for Trump’s ire was that Waltz huddled with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the latter’s White House visit in February and ‘appeared to share the Israeli leader’s conviction that the time was ripe to strike Iran,’ according to a source.

Trump was angered that Waltz ‘engaged in intense coordination with Netanyahu about military options against Iran ahead of an Oval Office meeting between the Israeli leader and Trump.’

The source said: ‘Waltz wanted to take US policy in a direction Trump wasn’t comfortable with because the US hadn’t attempted a diplomatic solution. It got back to Trump and the president wasn’t happy with it. You can’t do that. You work for the president of your country, not the president of another country.’

Someone should probably tell Congress that too.

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Gaiman Sues Alleged Victim

But not for defamation. Oh, no, he wouldn’t want to open up that can of worms. He’s suing the woman who used to live in his house for breaking her NDA.

The author Neil Gaiman is seeking more than $500,000 from Caroline Wallner, the potter who accused him of sexual misconduct during the time she lived and worked on his property in Woodstock.
Wallner moved to Gaiman’s property in 2014 when he offered her and her ex-husband, a builder, work as caretakers. The alleged abuse occurred between 2018 and 2020, after Wallner’s marriage had fallen apart and her husband had moved out, leaving Wallner behind to take care of their three children. It was then, Wallner says, that Gaiman began to pressure her for sex in exchange for staying on the property. “‘I like our trade,’” she recalled him saying. “‘You take care of me, and I’ll take care of you.’”

Gaiman denied that he’d abused Wallner and told New York that it was she who had initiated their sexual encounters, but in 2021, Gaiman paid Wallner $275,000 in exchange for signing an extensive nondisclosure agreement that prevents her from suing Gaiman or telling anyone about her alleged experiences with him. Now, Gaiman has filed a demand for arbitration, accusing Wallner of breaching their NDA by sharing her story with the media, including with New York Magazine. In his claim, Gaiman argued that Wallner violated the confidentiality and non-disparagement provisions of their agreement and is requesting a full repayment of their settlement amount, plus attorneys’ fees and $50,000 for each interview she’s given to the media. (Wallner’s ex-husband, who signed the NDA as well, is also named in the claim, shared with New York.)

Vincent White, Wallner’s lawyer, was surprised Gaiman had filed the claim against his client. White, an employment lawyer in New York who specializes in sexual harassment in the workplace, said that in his experience, allegedly abusive men only rarely sued women for violating NDAs because the optics were so poor. When you’re trying to silence someone who’s alleging “really heinous acts,” White said, “everyone thinks, Oh, the allegation must be true. I would think he may have come to the conclusion he has nothing left to lose.”

Unless Gaiman has a gambling problem or went short on gold, there is only one reason to sue Wallner for breaking her NDA: he’s hoping to intimidate other individuals under NDA with him from breaking theirs. Which means that if he’s unsuccessful, we’re very likely going to see more alleged victims coming forward; I expect the final number to be closer to 50 than the eight who have already spoken out.

And imagine how awful and creepy a man has to be to even want to buy a woman’s silence about her experience with him, let alone pay millions of dollars for it.

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Trans Women are Not Women

The UK Supreme Court has correctly observed that the adjective modifies the verb:

The Supreme Court has announced that the definition of a woman is based on biological sex in a landmark judgement. Lord Hodge said that five Supreme Court justices had unanimously decided that ‘the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act refer to a ‘biological woman and biological sex’.

He recognised ‘the strength of feeling on both sides’ and cautioned against seeing the judgement as a triumph for one side over another, stressing that the law still gives trans people protection against discrimination.

But the decision could have far-reaching implications on how sex-based rights apply, including how women-only spaces are allowed to operate.

It is interesting, however, to observe how many NPCs can have their programming rearranged by nothing more than repetitive exposure to even the dumbest rhetoric.

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