Padilla vs Rumsfeld

Prof Volokh writes: The Court will agree with the dissenting judge, and hold both that the President had Congressional authorization here, and that Padilla was entitled to a civilian court hearing on whether he was indeed an enemy combatant.

Is this because he was arrested in the ZI (Zone of the Interior) instead of Afghanistan or Iraq?  Presumably you would not have required a status hearing for the 210,000 US citizens detained during the American Civil War (because they were Confederate Soldiers).   I assume that some of those POWs were arrested off the battlefield by civilians when attempting to escape and evade after a defeat.

The court seemed to establish a bright line between a foreign battlefield and ORD (where Padilla was arrested).  Is that bright line sustainable when 70%+ of the combat casualties suffered in this war were suffered in Zip Code 10048 one mile from where I'm sitting right now?  Isn't NYC a battlefield in this war?  And isn't the civilian air transportation system (including ORD) a battlefield?

Got.net narcing out its customers

On Mon, 8 Dec 2003, [the famous] Tim May wrote:

> It happened in one of the "movies" groups (rec.arts.current-movies),
> when the thread was on DVD copy protection and the (claimed) illegality
> of making DVDs of movies.
>
> I explained how I was cheerfully making an average of a DVD a day of my
> favorite current movies.
>
> A couple of "nyms" went ballistic and foamed that they had forwarded my
> "admissions" to the RIAA and how I would face civil penalties and jail
> time, oh my!
>
> Then one of them claimed he had arranged to have my account yanked, for
> "violation of the DMCA." He claimed he had sent copies of my "criminal"
> admissions to Got.net, to the RIAA, to "law enforcement" (shudder!),
> and so on.

I gather that the denizens of alt.video.dvd have yet to read the Betamax
case. Perhaps they should expand their reading before they opine on the
state of IP law.

This is one of several times that the readers of Tim's posts have reported
him to the authorities. I recall the Santa Cruz sheriffs's office call of
the early '90s occasioned by a simple admission that Tim legally possessed
weapons at home.

I'm constantly amazed by the things that people think are illegal that
aren't.

Reporting people to the authorities is such an impolite thing to do. In a
less enlightened era it would have led to an unfortunate breach of the
peace. If you have a problem with someone's behavior speak to him nicely,
first. And make damned sure that he's doing something wrong before you
complain.

Remember -- "Since Sodomy is a Virtue, can anything be a Vice?"