Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

The Supreme Court and Civil Liberties

Posted

The United States Supreme Court has been faced with a number of very important cases over the last decade that address our most fundamental civil liberties. Thankfully, in most recent cases it has ruled correctly—though often by a depressingly narrow 5-4 margin.

Here is a review of how the Supreme Court has ruled on three important civil liberty issues over the last several years, and a look at two new ones the Court will be ruling on within the next year.

Right to Free Speech (Citizens United, 2010)

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in 2010 that the First Amendment right to free speech still applies in election season. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (558 U.S. 08-205 (2010)), the court found that several provisions of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law were an unconstitutional limitation on corporate speech.

Critics say that the First Amendment applies to people, not corporations, but the Constitution doesn’t say that. The First Amendment plainly states that “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” In fact, the Amendment goes on to say, “ . . . or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Corporations are peaceable assemblies of people, which have their own Constitutional protection in the context of the First Amendment. The Bill of Rights clearly codifies free speech as a fundamental civil liberty enjoyed equally by people acting individually and collectively (whether they be in corporations, non-profits, or ad-hoc protest communities on Wall Street).

Read more . . .

‘This is Only a Test . . . ’

Posted
This is a test . . .

Because overwhelming us with mostly-spurious weather alerts, fire drills, and terror warnings just wasn’t enough, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will soon be performing the first-ever nationwide Emergency Alert System (EAS) test.  At 2pm ET today, every broadcast television and radio station in the United States will (or rather, should) interrupt its regular programming to let you know that EAS is capable of sending out a national alert.

EAS’s predecessor, the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS), was put in place in 1963 as a mechanism by which the President of the United States could authorize important emergency information to be broadcast all across the country in a national emergency. The system was expanded later to allow local and regional emergency broadcasts and severe weather alerts. The EBS and its dual-frequency activation tone were replaced in 1997 by the EAS with its digitally-encoded ‘SAME’ header (similar to an old modem noise), which has been used ever-since for local emergency broadcasts.

Like EBS before it, EAS is primarily intended for use by the President (or his designee) in a full-fledged national emergency . . . but in its fourteen year history, this national alert capability has never been used or even tested. While I object to the constant ongoing stream of weekly local tests and spurious alerts about a two-point-seven percent chance of a tornado, I’m equally troubled that the main function of something like EAS has never been tested in realistic conditions. All television and radio broadcasters and providers (including broadcast, cable, fiber, and satellite) are part of the EAS network, and they are all required to be able to receive and rebroadcast alerts, but we really don’t know if the thing would actually work the way we expect it to in an emergency.

Well, this afternoon we’ll find out. And our officials seem to have come to their senses because, from now on, the national alert capability will be tested annually. Better to test your systems fourteen years late than to never do it at all, I guess.

Update 3:30 p.m.: Well, the EAS test didn’t work very well.

I verified that it was carried on a DC-area broadcast channel over Verizon Fios, but it came through with poor quality audio. It was understandable, but it sounded like a bad AM-radio transmission. It also seems to have not worked for a significant number of Americans, including (notably) the New York metro area. Most satellite television customers didn’t get any alert at all (with some DirecTV viewers reporting that their TV’s played a Lady Gaga ‘song’ instead). Many others report getting no alert or hearing only static.

In other words, we’ve had a national emergency alert system in place for 14 years that doesn’t actually work properly. Nice.

Election 2011 Results (Final)

Posted
Updated
Ballot Races
Virginia Senate, 13th
Dick Black (R):56.95%
Shawn Mitchell (D):42.78%
Other:0.27%
Virginia House, 87th
Mike Kondratick (D):49.45%
David Ramadan (R):49.92%
Other:0.63%
Loudoun Board (Chairman)
Thomas Bellanca (D):35.25%
Scott York (R):64.43%
Other:0.33%
Loudoun Board (Dulles)
Matt Letourneau (R):63.33%
Larry Roeder (D):36.40%
Other:0.27%
Loudoun Treasurer
H. Roger Zurn Jr. (R):98.86%
Other:1.14%
Loudoun Sheriff
Mike Chapman (R):54.18%
Steve Simpson (I):35.33%
Ron Speakman (I):10.10%
Other:0.39%
Loudoun Com. Attorney
James Plowman (R):51.82%
Jennifer Wexton (D):47.95%
Other:0.24%
Loudoun Comm. of Revenue
Bob Wertz Jr. (R):98.83%
Other:1.17%
Loudoun Sch. Board (At-Large)
Jay Bose:12.06%
Bob Ohneiser:31.05%
Tom Reed:56.23%
Other:0.65%
Loudoun Sch. Board (Dulles)
Anjan Chimaladinne:30.00%
Margaret Michaud:10.90%
Jeff Morse:58.91%
Other:0.30%
Loudoun S&W Conservation
Peter Rush:35.42%
Chris Simmons:37.63%
James Wylie:26.18%
Other:0.77%
Ballot Issues
Loudoun Fire Bonds
Yes:72.16%
No:27.84%
Loudoun School Bonds
Yes:57.93%
No:42.07%

Election LiveBlog

Watch this space for news from important local and regional elections!

Read more . . .

Get Out and Vote! I Did!

Posted
I voted . . . Did you?

While the media continues to drone on and on about next November’s presidential election, the actual civic life of the country is focused elsewhere today. Here in Virginia, we are voting for who will represent us in the Virginia General Assembly and in our local city and county governments. Louisiana, Mississippi, and New Jersey will also be holding state legislative elections and the people of Kentucky and Mississippi will be choosing their governors and other state offices. The people of Mississippi will also be voting on a very important state constitutional amendment that would legally recognize that human life begins when science, faith, and logic all say it does: at conception.

As I have told many friends and family members over the last several weeks, we do ourselves a disservice if we ignore these elections and focus instead on a national election that is still a year away. The national elections are important, no doubt, but our state and local governments have more real impact in our day-to-day lives. Your roads, fire departments, schools, police, libraries, and public utilities are the business of your state and local governments. Federal policy has comparatively small impact in these areas. The founders envisioned a system where the bulk of government would be at the state and local levels, while the federal government would stay focused on its comparatively narrow areas of responsibility—foreign policy, interstate commerce, printing money, etc.

So it is important that you pay as much attention to your local elections as you do to your national ones. It is important that you go out and vote today, assuming you live in a jurisdiction holding elections and are legally eligible. I did (and I even got to shake hands with a couple of local candidates). The polls in Virginia don’t close until 7pm, so you still have plenty of time to research your candidates and ballot issues and get out there.

My ‘Class M’ License

Posted
Class ‘M’ License

Back in June I took a three-day Apex Cycle Education Basic RiderCourse to learn to ride a motorcycle. I figured that it would be a fun and interesting way to spend a weekend, if nothing else. It most-certainly was.

The course was an evening classroom session, followed by two afternoons on ~250cc trainer bikes (a Honda Rebel in my case) learning progressively difficult rider techniques. Assuming you pass the written exam and on-bike skills test, you finish the class with a certificate that serves as a temporary 30-day motorcycle license. This certificate, after a trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), becomes a permanent license. I passed, and my license now has a “Class M” indication on it. In fact, I passed with the highest score in my class of twelve students (one-hundred percent on the written exam, and -2 [up to -20 is ‘passing’] on the skills test).

I didn’t realize until today that I had never mentioned this on Off on a Tangent. As Facebook has become more and more of an outlet for ‘personal’ blatherings, this site has become more and more of a (dare I say it?) ‘journalistic’ outlet. There’s been less and less about my day-to-day life here. In some ways that’s a good thing, and I’m really proud of how this site has developed and grown over the years. But I probably need to do a better job of striking a balance. My lengthy diatribes on politics and religion aren’t going anywhere any time soon, but maybe I should be spending a bit more time on the other random esoterica of my life.

Anyway, I’ve been a licensed motorcyclist for nearly five months now . . . but I don’t yet have a bike. Hopefully that will be changing some time soon. Slowly-but-surely I have been putting some money aside. Melissa has been helping by enlisting my technical assistance with some of her freelance web design work, and putting my portion of those revenues into a motorcycle fund. I’ve also been setting aside the bulk of monetary gifts I’ve received (for birthdays and other holidays) for this purpose. As of right now, the bike fund is floating somewhere around $1,500—which is probably enough for a serious down payment on one of the $7,000 or $8,000 bikes I’m looking at (e.g., the Yamaha V-Star 650 Custom or the Honda Shadow Spirit 750). By next spring—based on our expected tax refunds, annual bonuses, and additional freelance work—I expect this fund to have doubled.

Of course, as a new motorcyclist I would have to worry about a lot of additional expenses beyond the bike itself. Helmets, jackets, gloves, and boots are necessary safety equipment, and they don’t always come cheap. There is also the recurring expense of motorcycle insurance, though I expect this to be quite affordable (and I expect it to be largely offset by fuel cost savings, as bikes get ~50mpg compared to my Subaru’s average of ~23mpg). All-in-all, we’re not quite in a position to buy just yet . . . but it is definitely on the horizon. In fact, I’m told that the best time to buy is in the dead of winter . . . because nobody wants to buy a motorcycle when it’s freezing cold, and the dealers are desperate to sell. It’s starting to get cold, so stay tuned ;-).

Share to:

Send to:

Posted in: Life

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.