Law

Scientology critic Keith Henson was arrested on Friday evening in Prescott, Arizona. Henson had been a fugitive since his conviction in Riverside County, California on April 26, 2001, on charges of interfering with a religion for his picketing of Scientology in Hemet, California and online jokes about a “[Tom] Cruise missile.” Henson was sentenced to six months in prison, but he fled to Ontario, Canada, where he unsuccessfully sought asylum as a victim of religious persecution. His application for refugee status was rejected in 2004, and he voluntarily left the country in September 2005, and has apparently been living in Arizona. Henson’s arrest has also been covered by the 10 Zen Monkeys blog and Sentient Developments blog. UPDATE (February 7, 2007): Declan McCullagh has reported more details at News.com. Henson’s bond was raised from $7,500 to $500,000 at the request of prosecutors, then reduced back to $5,000. He was released from jail Monday night, and must appear for an extradition hearing on March 5. He is being defended by a local libertarian of my acquaintance, Michael Kielsky. UPDATE (February 9, 2007): For a deeper look at exactly what caused Keith Henson to be convicted on a misdemeanor charge, see this ex-Scientologist’s web page of postings from Henson and Scientology critic Diane Richardson. Diane Richardson is a meticulously accurate critic who has come under fire from fellow critics for negative posts about critics rather than restricting her focus to Scientology. While I’ve disagreed with her from time to time, when it comes to facts she is quite reliable. She is, as am I, a skeptic of claims of “cult mind control." UPDATE (March 27, 2008): I’m quite remiss in updating this. Keith Henson was extradited to Riverside, California, after his hearings were delayed into May 2007, where he was jailed on August 11. He was subsequently released from jail in September and is now a free man. UPDATE (July 7, 2008): Keith served four months of a 180-day (six-month) sentence, and is currently on probation. The Riverside County Superior Court website lists the terms of his probation: Case HEM014371 Defendant 547981 HENSON, KEITH Probation Type: SUMMARY Granted: 05/30/2007 Expire: 05/29/2010 SUMMARY PROBATION GRANTED FOR A PERIOD OF 36 MONTHS, UNDER THE FOLLOWING TERMS AND CONDITIONS: 1) OBEY ALL LAWS, ORDINANCES, AND COURT ORDERS. 2) BE COMMITTED TO THE CUSTODY OF THE RIVERSIDE COUNTY SHERIFF FOR 180 DAYS; 3) PAY A FINE AND ASSESSMENT IN THE TOTAL OF $346.00, PAYABLE TO THE COURT, AS DIRECTED BY FINANCIAL SERVICES. 4) PAY VICTIM RESTITUTION, TO BE DETERMINED BY FINANCIAL SERVICES; ANY DISPUTE TO BE RESOLVED IN A COURT HEARING. PAY RESTITUTION (VICTIM) IN AN AMOUNT DETERMINED BY AND PAYABLE TO THE COURT, AS DIRECTED BY FINANCIAL SVCS; ANY DISPUTE TO BE RESOLVED IN A COURT HRG 5) NOT HAVE ANY NEGATIVE CONTACT WITH ANY MEMBER OF THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY. 6) ADDED TERM: DONT KNOWINGLY COME WITHIN 1000FT OF ANY 7) ADDED TERM: DONT ANNOY OR HARASS ANY MEMBER OF CHURCH OF

Connecticut substitute teacher Julie Amero faces up to 40 years in prison for “risk of injury to a minor or impairing the morals of a child” because a seventh-grade classroom computer was infected with malware. While browsing the web for information about hair styles, the browser hit a website that caused pop-ups ads for pornographic sites to pop up. Because Amero’s attorney failed to raise the issue of malware, most of a defense expert witness’s testimony was excluded from presentation to the jury, which unanimously voted for conviction. There are so many things wrong here: * The school district had let its filtering software expire, so the machine didn’t have adequate protection (and was likely unpatched for major vulnerabilities). * The police did an incompetent investigation, failing to check for malware. * The police testified, falsely, that Amero would have had to physically click on a pornographic link to get those sites to pop up. * Amero’s attorney did an incompetent job of defending her, by failing to bring up the critically important issue of malware. * And the law itself is absurd–Amero shouldn’t get 40 years in prison even if she had intentionally shown pornography to seventh graders. Lindsay Beyerstein has a good summary of the case at the Huffington Post, including links to the expert testimony that shows conclusively that malware, not Amero, was at fault. P.Z. Myers criticizes the “insane anti-porn hysteria” aspect of the case at Pharyngula. UPDATE (June 7, 2007): Julie Amero has been granted a retrial! She will get a new trial sometime in 2007. UPDATE (November 26, 2008): The state of Connecticut has finally decided to drop the charges against Amero. UPDATE (December 4, 2008): But Amero still loses her teacher’s license! ...

Wired looks at the law under which Peter Beredovsky was charged regarding the Boston Mooninite lights: Whoever possesses, transports, uses or places or causes another to knowingly or unknowingly possess, transport, use or place any hoax device or hoax substance with the intent to cause anxiety, unrest, fear or personal discomfort to any person or group of persons shall be punished by imprisonment in a house of correction for not more than two and one-half years or by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than five years or by a fine of not more than $5,000, or by both such fine and imprisonment.Note the requirement of intent, which should be impossible to prove–it’s clear the intent was to promote the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie, not to cause panic. But this law also requires that the object being planted be a “hoax device,” which is defined as: For the purposes of this section, the term “hoax device” shall mean any device that would cause a person reasonably to believe that such device is an infernal machine. For the purposes of this section, the term “infernal machine” shall mean any device for endangering life or doing unusual damage to property, or both, by fire or explosion, whether or not contrived to ignite or explode automatically. For the purposes of this section, the words “hoax substance” shall mean any substance that would cause a person reasonably to believe that such substance is a harmful chemical or biological agent, a poison, a harmful radioactive substance or any other substance for causing serious bodily injury, endangering life or doing unusual damage to property, or both.That’s a nice term, “infernal machine”–it sounds like something demonic, perhaps appropriate for a state that still has blasphemy laws on the books. Here again, the law is clearly in Beredovsky’s favor. There is no way that a person would reasonably believe that the magnetic lights depicting Mooninite characters were “infernal machines”–devices designed to ignite or explode. I predict the authorities will drop the charges rather than go through the further embarrassment of a trial.

Rather than increase the Earned Income Tax Credit or reduce payroll taxes, Congress is moving forward with an increase in the minimum wage. Gary Becker and Richard Posner have written a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “How To Make the Poor Poorer” which describes the likely consequences of this feel-good legislation: Although some workers benefit -- those who were paid the old minimum wage but are worth the new one to the employers -- others are pushed into unemployment, the underground economy or crime: The losers are therefore likely to lose more than the gainers gain; they are also likely to be poorer people. And poor families are disproportionately hurt by the rise in the price of fast foods and other goods produced with low-skilled labor because these families spend a relatively large fraction of their incomes on such goods. Because most increases in the minimum wage have been slight, their effects are difficult to disentangle from other factors that affect employment: But a 40 percent increase would be too large to have no employment effect; about a tenth of the work force makes less than $7.25 an hour. Even defenders of minimum-wage laws must believe that beyond some point a higher minimum would cause unemployment, otherwise why don't they propose $10, or $15, or an even higher figure? Good intentions don't make for good legislation. UPDATE (February 9, 2007): Glen Whitman writes about how the minimum wage debate is largely symbolic on both sides, though this time it could be different. UPDATE (September 6, 2007): I just came across this interesting post at the Coyote Blog about how minimum wage changes affect his specific business. UPDATE (October 10, 2007): Here's a nice summary of U.S. minimum wage worker statistics, including: According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the median annual income of a U.S. worker is $32,140. Federal minimum wage is currently $5.85 an hour, or about $11,500 per year — just above the poverty line. Of the 76.5 million people paid by the hour in the United States in 2006, 2.2% make minimum wage or less. Here are some generalizations we can make about minimum wage workers: Most minimum wage earners are young. While 2.2% of all hourly workers earn minimum wage or less, just 1.4% of workers over the age of 25 are paid at or below the Federal minimum wage. More than half (51.2%) of minimum wage workers are between 16 and 24 years old. Another 21.2% are between 25 and 34. Most minimum wage earners work in food service. Nearly two-thirds of those paid minimum wage (or less) are food service workers. Many of these people receive supplemental income in the form of tips, which the government does not track. Most minimum wage earners never attended college. Just 1.2% of college graduates are paid the minimum wage. If you only have a high school degree, you’re more likely (1.9%) to be paid minimum wage. Those without a high school degree are nearly three times as likely (3.7%) to earn minimum wage. 59.8% of all minimum wage workers have no advanced education. Finally, as you might expect, part-time workers are five times more likely to be paid the minimum wage than full-time workers. UPDATE (November 25, 2012): There has been an accumulation of evidence that a moderate minimum wage is a net benefit, improving both wages and employment in some cases (reference to The Economist, Nov. 24, 2012, p. 82, "Free exchange: The argument in the floor"). Historical Comments Einzige (2007-02-03): Economics Professor Russel Roberts, over at Cafe Hayek, recently posted a brief survey of the empirical evidence on the effects of the minimum wage. Like the story of the broken window, it’s a lot easier to point to the benefits of a minimum wage than to the costs, but that doesn’t make the costs any less real. ...

Arizona State Senator Karen Johnson (R, District 18-Mesa) is no stranger to stupidity. She was one of a number of legislators who got in bed with the Church of Scientology last year, accepting invitations to Scientology events and sponsoring anti-psychiatric legislation pushed by Scientology’s Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) front organization. Now she’s behind SCR 1026, a proposal to amend the Arizona Constitution to prevent courts from the ability to address violations of the separation of church and state: Her proposal, SCR 1026, would specifically bar courts from being able to grant any injunctions or other legal relief if the question involves “the acknowledgement of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty or government.” And that bar would remain in place whether the action were brought against the government as a whole or any state or local official.She goes on to demonstrate that she doesn’t understand the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause: Johnson said she is unhappy that judges in other states have ruled that the words “under God” have to come out of the Pledge of Allegiance, and that a monument of the Ten Commandments had to be removed from an Alabama courthouse. “We don’t want that,” she said. ...

Trent Stamp of Charity Navigator points out that, rather than distinguishing themselves from Republicans Bill Frist, Rick Santorum, and Tom DeLay, each of whom played fast and loose with the rules on nonprofits, prominent Democrats in Congress are doing the same. Nancy Pelosi, Rahm Emanuel, and Evan Bayh are each officers in their family charities; their failure to disclose this makes them guilty of felonies. Pelosi calls her failure an “oversight” and promises to file amended annual disclosure statements.

Today I received the following email from John Martin of Phoenix (whose email address begins with “satguys01”), who was apparently set off by my web page reporting my record of lawsuits against telemarketers, which he came across about 30 minutes earlier while doing a Google search for “arizona telemarketing attorney” (could he be in need of one?): Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 08:12:22 -0800 (PST) From: John Martin Subject: Get a life You are just as bad as the telemarketers that call you. Just like a scummy attorney that profits from filing frivolous lawsuits. You raise the cost of doing business for companies, raise taxes by overburdening the courts, and therefore raise the cost of goods for consumers in the marketplace. What do you care? You made a dollar. Telemarketing is critical for the economy to function. The wheels would stop turning if there were no phones or business conducted on them. The Federal and State do no call list is just another angle for the Fed and State to make a buck. Just ask yourself, why is it legal for politicians to contact and harass millions of citizens with automated messages and call people on the so called do not call list? So its OK for them to fund raise and get re elected (profit) using unscrupulous methods. But a legitimate business offering legit goods or services is restricted. Are there Marketers that take advantage of people yes. Like any other business there are bad apples. But most offer legit goods and services. Does your mailbox get full of junk mail? Do you watch commercials on TV? or even now at the movies? Why not sue them? Junk Mail does more damage to the environment than anything else. But the US post service make money on it so that will never stop. Screen you calls, that’s what caller id is for, hangup on automated messages and telemarketers. And stop with the lame lawsuits. Do you really suffer any damages by listening to a message or having a dialer hang up on you? Or are you just an other greedy opportunist like you EVIL telemarketing counterparts just out for a quick buck? I sent the following reply: From: “James J. Lippard” [my email addr] To: John Martin Subject: Re: Get a life In-Reply-To: [email protected] The difference, John, is that they are knowingly violating the law, and I’m not. None of my lawsuits have been frivolous, which is why I have a 100% record of success. I’m only raising the cost of business for companies that are blatantly breaking the law; my impact on the courts is negligible–I always offer to settle out of court for the minimum statutory amounts before filing a lawsuit, and I always file in small claims which minimizes the paperwork. The money I collect is specified as damages in the statutes, and serves not only to compensate me for the violations but to act as a deterrent to further violations. It has worked pretty well–I don’t get many such calls any more. If you think the law is wrong, petition to have it changed. But if you violate it, be prepared to get sued and to lose. What’s your interest that motivates you to send a nasty email to someone you don’t know? From your email address, I would guess that you’re in the satellite dish resale business, which is well known for its sleazy violations of telemarketing law. Are you a regular violator of the TCPA, John? BTW, I have a nice life. What kind of life do you have that you seek enjoyment out of sending such an email as this?For the record, I don’t watch television commercials (thanks, TiVo!) and I’m also very opposed to spam (and much of my professional life in the Internet industry has been devoted to combatting it). We also don’t go to see movies in the theater anymore except on rare occasion; we rent DVDs. I’m an advocate of permission-based marketing to individuals, not indiscriminate broadcast advertising.

The blogosphere was in an uproar about Section 220 of Senate Bill 1, on the basis of a press release from astroturf organization GrassRootsFreedom, run by conservative political activist Richard A. Viguerie. This press release claimed that this section of the “Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2007” would require all bloggers with audiences of 500 or more people to register with the government. Slashdot promoted the press release with its typical inaccuracy, with very few commenters actually bothering to read what Section 220 actually said. In fact, the bill only required registration for bloggers with audiences of 500 or more people who are paid. And not just paid, but paid at least $25,000 per quarter. And not just paid at least $25,000 per quarter, but paid at least $25,000 per quarter by a client to promote lobbying on a political issue. Specifically, Section 220 required “paid grassroots lobbying firms” to register and file reports, and defined those as a person or entity that “is retained by 1 or more clients to engage in paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying on behalf of such clients; and receives income of, or spends or agrees to spend, an aggregate of $25,000 or more for such efforts in any quarterly period." The Captain’s Quarters blog was one of those that correctly identified the misinformation from Viguerie. Viguerie has been a major player in U.S. politics for a long time, and is described as follows in my “Fundamentalism is Nonsense” pamphlet (6th edition, 1986): Richard A. Viguerie, of the Richard A. Viguerie Company of Falls Church, Virginia, runs one of the largest direct mail fundraising companies in the country. He has raised money for such organizations and individuals as the Panama Canal Truth Squard, Gun Owners of America, the American Security Council, Citizens for Decency Through Law, Terry Dolan’s National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC), the Conservative Caucus, and the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress, Senators Jesse Helms (NC), Jim McClure (ID), Orrin Hatch (UT), William Armstrong (CO), John Warner (VA), and Representatives Philip Crane (IL), Mickey Edwards (OK), Larry McDonald (GA), and Phil Gramm (TX). Viguerie also publishes the magazine Conservative Digest [Conway 82, pp. 83-84, 87].The reference is to Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman’s 1982 book, Holy Terror: The Fundamentalist War on America’s Freedoms in Religion, Politics, and Our Private Lives (Doubleday). Viguerie’s efforts were successful, and Section 220 was removed from S. 1 by Senate Amendment 20. ...

The Arizona Republic has just caught on to the fact that there’s a lot of mortgage fraud going on in Phoenix: A wave of mortgage fraud is rippling through pockets of the Valley, inflating home values through scams called cash-back deals. Left unchecked, cash-back deals cost homeowners and lenders millions of dollars and could erode confidence and values in Arizona’s real estate market. The fraud involves obtaining a mortgage for more than a home is worth and pocketing the extra money in cash. Neighbors may then discover home values in the area are exaggerated. Homeowners stuck with overpriced mortgages may never recover the difference. And lenders end up with bad loans that, in the long run, could hurt the Arizona real estate market, the largest segment of the state economy. While the extent of the fraud is unclear, an Arizona Republic investigation into these cash-back deals found organized groups of speculators have bought multiple homes this way, leaving whole neighborhoods with inflated values. Add to these the individual deals done by amateurs who hear others talk about the easy money they made from cash-back sales. State investigators and real estate industry leaders want more enforcement and greater public awareness to stop the spread of cash-back deals before the damage mounts. “Mortgage fraud in the Valley has become so prevalent people think it’s a normal business practice,” said Amy Swaney, a mortgage banker with Premier Financial Services and past president of the Arizona Mortgage Lenders Association. Under federal law it is illegal to misrepresent the value of a home to a lender. Everyone who is a party to the deal is subject to prosecution. Felecia Rotellini is a Notre Dame law school graduate and former assistant attorney general who is now superintendent of the Arizona Department of Financial Institutions. Her agency regulates mortgage lenders, state banks and credit unions in the state. Alarmed by what she was hearing from lenders and real estate agents, she has just pulled together state and federal regulators to form an Arizona mortgage fraud task force. “People need to understand these cash-back deals are illegal and stop,” she said. “We are going after mortgage fraud." I think this is likely to be too little, too late. When I was actively suing telemarketers using illegal prerecorded calls to residences in 2003, the worst offenders were mortgage brokers. In the process of going after some of them, I found signs that some of them were engaged in other illegal activities as well, such as defrauding other lenders, defrauding their customers, defrauding the IRS and Arizona Department of Revenue, and transferring assets between entities prior to filing bankruptcy to evade creditors. I found the Arizona State Department of Banking (now known as the Arizona State Department of Financial Institutions), which regulates mortgage brokers, to be completely uninterested in investigating–though they did send some warning letters after I won judgments against brokers, which prompted some of them to pay their judgments. They said that they did not have resources to investigate my claims of violations, even though I offered up specific areas of the law that they are supposed to enforce (they don’t enforce the Telephone Consumer Protection Act or FCC regulations). There’s more on this subject at Ben Jones’ Housing Bubble Blog. UPDATE (January 22, 2007): Arizona Senator Jay Tibshraeny has introduced a bill making mortgage fraud a felony. But it’s already criminal activity covered under current laws–adding more laws against it doesn’t do anything to cause those laws to be enforced.

My letter to the editor in response to David Paszkiewicz’s letter in the Observer was too late for the print edition, but was published on the newspaper’s blog. Here’s the letter with a couple typos corrected (“nor” for “not” and an extraneous possessive): David Paszkiewicz quotes from Thomas Jefferson’s April 21, 1803 letter to Benjamin Rush in support of his argument that the Founding Fathers would have agreed with his bringing his religious views into the public school classroom. The original letter, in Jefferson’s handwriting, can be found on the Internet at the Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel06-2.html What Jefferson actually wrote in this letter was “To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; & believing he never claimed any other.” In other words, Jefferson rejected the divinity and miracles attributed to Jesus. His “Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth” (also known as the “Jefferson Bible”) was composed by removing miracles and claims of godhood from the gospels. Paszkiewicz’s quote comes from a letter from Jefferson to Charles Thomson on January 9, 1816, regarding his “Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth,” stating that he is “a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus” in that work. This letter may be found online here: http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=JefLett.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public∂=2 37&division=div1 Paszkiewicz also misquotes George Washington’s May 12, 1789 address to the Delaware Indians–what Washington said was “You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are. Congress will do every thing they can to assist you in this wise intention.” He said nothing about teaching this in schools nor that he believed it; he was giving the Indians advice for cultural assimilation. Paszkiewicz argues that because the words “separation of church and state” are not in the Constitution (a document that contains no reference to God), the concept is not there, either. But neither are the words “checks and balances,” and the New Testament contains no use of the word “trinity,” for that matter–the concepts are expressed using other words. The arguments over the wording of the First Amendment make it clear that the Founding Fathers were very concerned about religious control of government resulting in persecution of those with different beliefs, as had already occurred with established religions in the colonies, such as persecutions by the Puritans in Massachusetts. Jim Lippard Phoenix, Arizona