Generally speaking, I’m a proponent of freedom of religion, even in cases in which the religious beliefs in question are rather extreme. I do not think the state should go about preventing people from being Amish, even though by being Amish those individuals reduce our collective economic efficiency. Being Amish is no more debilitating to our economy than many other behaviors adults routinely engage in legally, and a good deal less than some–the Amish do contribute to society, albeit in economically less efficient ways. Some individuals (typically both the very poor and the very rich) lead wholly unproductive lives. However, I’m not so sure I can take this permissive attitude in certain cases involving children.
Tag: Law
Search and Seizure
In the United States, we often get very upset about violations of privacy on the basis that they are thought to violate the 4th amendment, which protects against “unreasonable searches and seizures”. But what is it about search and seizure that is objectionable in the first place, and to what extent do the modern privacy violations we often argue about conform to that?
Police Prejudice
I ran across an interesting old Supreme Court decision today from the mid-2000’s. It was a 7-2 decision and if I remember it didn’t get much play at the time in the press–though that was eight years ago, and I may just be forgetful. The court ruled that the police do not have a legal duty to protect any given citizen. The decision justifies a whole slew of first principle injustices–it was wrong, and we are worse off for it. Here’s how.
Aaron Swartz and Copyright Law
Recently, Aaron Swartz, a talented programmer involved in the creation RSS feeds and Reddit, committed suicide. Apparently this was in response to his being hounded by a federal prosecutor for the crime of violating copyright protections and sharing a large cache of academic articles access to which was controlled by JSTOR, an online academic library club of sorts. In the aftermath of the Swartz suicide, activists are demanding a significant curtailment of copyright law. Is this a reasonable policy? That’s my question for today.
The HSBC Moral Hazard Paradox
Recently HSBC, the British bank, was found by the Department of Homeland Security to have laundered vast amounts of money for drug cartels, terrorist organisations, and rogue states. One would expect a steep penalty for aiding and abetting such malevolent organisations. Consider Salim Hamdan, a man whose sole crime was to drive Osama bin Laden around for $200 a month, yet nonetheless ended up in prison from 2001 to 2009 and was subjected to “coercive interrogation” and “sexual humiliation”, whatever that means. Given the billions of dollars HSBC laundered for these kinds of groups, what Hamdan got should be a picnic in comparison, right? Well it turns out, not so right, as the Justice Department decided not to prosecute.
