Law and Justice

Posts Tagged ‘Congress’

Congress is considering legislation that would require colleges receiving federal aid to educate students and faculty about illegal file-sharing on campus and develop a plan to offer “technology-based deterrents” to illegal downloading.

The provisions are part of the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007, introduced in the House by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, and Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, D-Texas, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness.

The legislation would require colleges and universities participating in any Title IV program to inform students and employees on certain “policies and procedures related to the illegal downloading and distribution of copyrighted materials,” and to “develop a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity.”

The legislation makes available competitive grants to support “Campus Based Digital Theft Prevention Solutions.” SafeMedia CEO & Chairman Safwat Fahmy applauded Miller and Hinojosa for sponsoring the legislation.

“This vision, intent and wording of the bill shows that Congress understands the complex issues of illegal file sharing and identity theft associated with contaminated P2P networks on U.S. campuses,” said Fahmy. “The proposed measure also recognizes that technology is available today to stop contaminated P2P, while allowing the legitimate ones, which are critical educational tools to operate without interruption.” “

“SafeMedia products available now stop contaminated P2P networks and offer immediate alternative to illegal downloading. SafeMedia unique lock and key system creates a safe and secure environment to distribute copyrighted material can be used by Universities as an alternative to illegal downloading, .” said Fahmy.

“SafeMedia has the only products available today that can end all illegal file sharing and identity theft associated with encrypted or non-encrypted contaminated P2P,” he said.

Contaminated P2P networks are known to contain illegal copyrighted files, classified business information, national security data and personal identification documents. SafeMedia’s P2P Disaggregator technology (P2PD™) was developed to create a secure environment for unencumbered, economical use of legitimate P2P and Bit Torrent networks on campus.

The Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities – a non-profit organization that promotes use of information technology in higher education – wrote to Miller’s committee expressing concerns that no technology exists that can stop illegal file-sharing, an assertion that Fahmy strongly disputes.

“SafeMedia’s P2PD is available today and was designed specifically to address the complex issues of P2P networks on college campuses,” he said. “We challenge any college in America to test our solution and see if it doesn’t solve the problem of eliminating illegal file sharing, creating a safe environment for the legitimate use of P2P and Bit Torrent networks and provide a safe, secure and economical digital download solution.”

Dan Glickman, chairman & CEO of the Motion Pictures Alliance of America, said intellectual property theft costs more than 140,000 U.S. jobs each year. Glickman said almost half the U.S. motion picture industry’s domestic losses are attributed to illegal file-sharing over campus P2P networks.

“We are pleased to see that Congress is taking this step to help keep our economy strong by protecting copyrighted material on college campuses,” said Glickman.

About SafeMedia Corporation

SafeMedia Corporation, based in Boca Raton, Fl, is a global developer of P2P Disaggregator technology (P2PD™) that stops illegal peer-to-peer file sharing. SafeMedia’s technologies provide individual users, businesses, educational institutions, and public/private organizations with an immediate, effective way to totally safeguard their network infrastructure from every risks associated with illegal file sharing of copyrighted files, ensures 24/7/365 compliance with all federal and state digital copyright laws and eliminates the risk of legal prosecution. By preventing upload participation, these networks become incapable of growing and lose their reason to exist. The P2PD™ technology is deployed at end-user sites, either integrated into network devices installed in user locations such as edge routers/modems or subnet edge routers and concentrators, or as an independent network technology (Clouseau®).

[Editors: To view the full published report visit The Register at: (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/08/bittorrent_encryption_explosion/), or whitepapers and studies on P2P or SafeMedia technology. For more about SafeMedia visit: www.SafeMedia.com.

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On January 29, 2009, President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 into law. This Act outlaws “discrimination in compensation” which is broadly defined to include wages and employee benefits. The Ledbetter Act, by legislation, overturns the U.S. Supreme Court’s May 2007 decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. That decision required workers to file charges on a pay discrimination claim within the first six months of receiving their first discriminatory paycheck.

Ms. Ledbetter was a longtime supervisor at a Goodyear tire plant in Alabama. When she discovered that she was paid significantly less than male supervisors, she filed a Charge of Discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for gender-based pay discrimination under Title VII. Ms. Ledbetter won in the trial court. However, on appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed Ms. Ledbetter’s claims. It held that, although there was unlawful discrimination, Ms. Ledbetter failed to timely file her Charge of Discrimination because she did not file within 180 days of the first time her paycheck was less than her male counterparts. The Supreme Court took this position even though Ms. Ledbetter was not aware of the discrimination during this time period and, accordingly, it would have been impossible for her to meet this standard.

The Ledbetter Act fixes this widely criticized decision which, in effect, prevented many injured employees from exercising their civil rights. The new Act adopts a “pay-check accrual” test that had been used by many EEOC offices prior to the Supreme Court decision. This provides a new statute of limitations which makes clear that each new paycheck is a violation of law if it results “in whole or in part” from a discriminatory pay decision in the past. Employers will be liable for damages for discriminatory pay practices for the two years preceding the filing of the EEOC Charge of Discrimination.

The new Act actualizes the promise of providing a level playing field by requiring that employers establish compensation systems that are color and gender blind and gives employees the means to challenge employers that do not play by these rules. This new legislation will result in the increase the filing of wage discrimination claims because it opens the door that had been slammed shut by the U.S. Supreme Court decision. Notably, in Michigan, employees have 300 days to file with the EEOC. Smart employers will examine their compensation practices to assure that they are non-discriminatory and reward equal work with equal pay.

As in any empoloyment law case, it is in your best interest to contact an employment discrimination lawyer for professional legal assistance.

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann is rocketing up the Obama Administration’s enemies list because she is asking questions no liberal wants asked and making points they certainly do not want made. Yes indeed she is. For while asking questions of Timothy, smartest man in the room, America cannot survive without him at Treasury, Geithner about past actions and current plans to allow the federal government more power to seize and manage the assets and contracts of businesses it deems, “too big to fail,” Ms. Bachmann no doubt caught the ear of Big Brother himself over in the White House. For you see, Ms. Bachmann did something that always catches the ears of liberals and lefty politicos busily scribbling words on to paper in order to secure themselves more and more power.

What is this thing she did? Why, she cited the Constitution of these United States. And for yet another brief moment in a growing long line of brief moments it became clear once again that Timothy Geithner was indeed not the smartest man in the room.

You could hear the uneasiness in Geithner’s voice as he was forced to attempt to answer an actual question of substance. You could also imagine at how at the same time as he was trolling for an answer in that vast, empty sea of a brain of his that he was making mental notes about who he would have to contact to make sure no such substantive questions would ever be raised again.

Here is how it went down and how Geithner struggled:

BACHMANN: “What provision in the Constitution could you point to … to give authority for the actions that have been taken by the Treasury since March of ‘08?”
GEITHNER: “Oh, well, the — the Congress legislated in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act a range of very important new authorities.”
BACHMANN: “Sir, in the Constitution. What — what in the Constitution could you point to to — to give authority to the Treasury for the extraordinary actions that have been taken?”
GEITHNER: “Every action that the Treasury and the Fed and the FDIC is — is — has been using authority granted by this body — by this body, the Congress.”
BACHMANN: “And by — in the Constitution, what could you point to?”
GEITHNER: “Under the laws of the land, of course.”

Note that not once did Mr. Geithner ever actually answer the simple question posed to him. When asked to cite the Constitutional authority for any of the actions taken by the Treasury since early last year he simply responded that Congress had given the Treasury certain powers and that they are “under the laws of the land.” But his response is a non-response. The smartest man in the room was flabbergasted and unable to answer a question that he knew that if he answered truthfully would doom all the current, past and future plans of he and his fellow travelers. Perhaps he should have borrowed President Obama’s teleprompter and had his remarks prepared for him by a speech writer.

But let’s explore his non-answer answer further. Is citing Congress doing something good enough of an excuse? Is Congress’s power to make law absolute under the Constitution? Of course we all know that it is not. If it were then what powers would be reserved to the states and the people under the Tenth Amendment exactly?

Geithner’s response, had it been truthful, would have been that there was no such authority for the vast, vast, vast majority of what the Treasury has done in the last year. But to answer truthfully it would mean that he would have to admit that he and his fellow liberals, both Democratic Party socialists and Republican Party socialist-lites, had violated the Supreme Law of the Land. So truthful answers to these sorts of serious questions are never things you will get from the blowhards inside the beltway.

We all know that just because Congress makes a law that the law is not de facto Constitutional. If it were, no law would ever be stricken as being unconstitutional. But since many laws have been it puts the lie to any notion that just because Congress decrees from on high that the order should be accepted and obeyed. We can even go very absurd to prove this point if you like. If Congress were to, for example, pass a bill that stated all people who have blond hair and blue eyes were inferior and not subject to the same rights as people with other combinations of hair and eye colors would it be a Constitutional law? Even if everyone accepted the law would it still be Constitutional? No.

Now say that we do not have to worry about Congress being so absurd all you like. That is not the point. And besides we all know that many absurd laws have indeed come out of Congress. Add to that the fact that liberals throughout time and all over the world have espoused the same sort of social and economic philosophies and have indeed sought to treat people very differently based on how they looked . The point is that if Congress did make a law stating such it would not be Constitutional just because Congress made such a law.

But Mr. Geithner and the liberals in charge of our government probably have little to fear from the American public recognizing this fact. Because they know that most Americans do not have a clue what our Constitution says and that they will not understand the importance of this exchange between Geithner and Congresswoman Bachmann. Instead they will carry on in blissful ignorance as the nation burns and President Obama fiddles.

Unless you are in a coma, it doesn’t matter where you live in California, in Corona del Mar, San Diego, Orange County, CA, Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Long Beach, Santa Ana, Anaheim, Riverside, Chula Vista, Irvine, San Bernardino, Huntington Beach, Fontana, Moreno Valley, Oceanside, Rancho Cucamonga, Ontario, Garden Grove, Palmdale, Corona, Escondido, Orange, Fullerton, Costa Mesa, Victorville, Carlsbad, Temecula, Murrieta, Mission Viejo, El Cajon, Vista, Westminster, Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, Hesperia, Newport Beach, Buena Park, Indio, Rancho Mirage, Indian Wells or Coachella, you will have somehow heard there is an economic crisis going on, and that Congress passed a whopping $700 billion bailout plan.

What you may not know, is that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s draft proposal for the bailout of financial service firms on Wall Street as it was presented to Congress was an unconstitutional power grab of monumental proportions.

Under Paulson’s plan, no oversight, no review and no challenges would have been allowed by the courts, by Congress or by individuals. Henry Paulson had proposed that he effectively be appointed economic czar.

Under Section 8 of his initial proposal, which for years to come, will undoubtedly form the basis for questions on bar exams for law students, “Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act, are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”

Under Section 8 of this Act, the Treasury Secretary would arguably have become a more powerful figure than our largely missing-in-action President, more powerful than the head of the Federal Reserve, the SEC and Congress combined, and as such in violation of the Constitution of the United States of America.

The draft proposal was in conflict with the Constitution for the simple reason that our nation’s most important document provides that every member of the executive branch, including the Treasury Secretary, is subject to legislative and executive review. Neither Congress nor the executive may delegate its authority to a cabinet member. It would have been like Congress delegating all its power to Sarah Palin, or to a single congressman, or to Superdog for that matter.

As hard as it is to violate the nondelegation clause in the Constitution, if there has ever been a proposal to come out of the executive branch which does a good job of it, it has been argued that this is probably the one.

The question is, did the President tell Paulson to get a blank check from Congress and to heck with the Constitution or did Paulson come up with this on his own? Did the President and Paulson really believe that if they told Congress they needed this power in 24 hours like the TV show, that Congress, even the Republicans in Congress, would give it to him?

In bad times even more so than in good times, we expect the leaders of this country to protect the Constitution of the United States, not to usurp the powers it conveys on other branches of government. Let us hope that in the coming days and months as this country tries to mend itself from this economic crisis, that Congress remembers what the executive branch seems to have forgotten – the Constitution.  

If you have a constitutional, or first amendment law issue in San Diego, Newport Beach, Irvine, Orange County, La Jolla, in the Inland Empire, Los Angeles, Palm Springs or anywhere in Southern California, we have the knowledge and resources to be your California Constitutional Lawyer and your Palm Springs and San Diego Business Attorney. Be sure to hire a California law firm with business and constitutional law experience who can serve areas such as Los Angeles, Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Anaheim, Irvine, Newport Beach, Carlsbad, Corona del Mar, Laguna Beach, Huntington Beach, Santa Ana, Rancho Cucamonga, Ontario, Fullerton, Del Mar, San Diego, Orange County, San Luis Obispo, Buena Park, La Jolla, Oxnard, Ventura, La Quinta, and Santa Barbara so you are properly represented.

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