The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled by a narrow margin that without a warrant police can sneak into your driveway at night and stick a GPS tag on your car so they can remotely monitor your travels.  The 4th Amendment weeps.

Curiously, the case was all about whether or not police had the right to enter the man’s driveway to attach the device.  A point which is likely to be appealed since there is a longstanding precedent for courts recognizing a person’s reasonable expectation of privacy in their homes and in the “curtilage,” a legal term meaning the area around the home.  Of larger concern is the apparent legality of the police tagging the car if only they’d had the good sense to get it while it was parked outside the Wal-Mart.

Adding complexity is that while the California court ruled in favor of warrentless GPS tracking, the D.C. Federal Circuit Court ruled firmly against the practice.  The court argued, “It is one thing for a passerby to observe or even to follow someone during a single journey as he goes to the market or returns home from work. It is another thing entirely for that stranger to pick up the scent again the next day and the day after that, week in and week out, dogging his prey until he has identified all the places, people, amusements, and chores that make up that person’s hitherto private routine.”

Meanwhile, the Obama administration has argued repeatedly that such tracking is legal.  It has defended not only the tagging of vehicles, but the tracking of personal cell phones without any burden of probable cause.

The reality is that it is now cheap and easy to track anyone’s whereabouts, as well as monitor a number of conversations, and most financial transactions.  These bits of data can be gathered, compiled, and assembled for the most part without the cops ever leaving the precinct.  And collectively, they provide a fair bit of detail about the suspect’s activity.  Certainly more than any reasonable person would expect.  Hence the seemingly inevitable conclusion this violates a person’s “reasonable expectation of privacy” assured by the 4th Amendment.

While it’s certain these issues will continue to be battled out in the courts, the larger issue is that the existing laws governing legal surveillance were all written when this sort of capability was all science fiction.  They are woefully inadequate to address modern technology.  Judges are stretching the antiquated legislation to the breaking point trying to get it to fit around the world we live in. Which suggests the problem isn’t with the judiciary, but with the legislature.

It’s easy to lash out against so-called activist judges who are apparently legislating from the bench.  However, the situations exist, and it is the responsibility of the judges to make the best rulings they can.  The shortcoming is on the legislative side where these issues are not clarified and settled through new laws reflecting the constantly evolving technology available to citizens and law enforcement alike.

Glenn Beck hosted his non-political rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial yesterday.  The event came off more like a religious revival meeting.  He even had Gospel singers.  Meanwhile, the rhetoric was full of references to God and biblical tales and allusions.  At one point he likened the plight of Americans to the Jewish slaves in ancient Egypt, and there were repeated uses of the number 40.

Beck made frequent tie ins between God and politics.  So while this wasn’t a political rally per se, he certainly made every effort to encourage people to take back the country for God.  To keep it on God’s path.  To vote for people who will govern with God in their hearts and on their minds.  There were no specifics given of how all that was supposed to work.  It seemed mostly based on the Transitive Law.  God is Good.  America is good.  Therefore, God = America.

From a sufficient altitude, it’s hard to disagree with the basic sentiment.  If Jesus were President, we’d be in way better shape.  Although I expect His philosophies about healing the sick, clothing the poor, paying your taxes, and turning the other cheek would leave the current crop of Conservative Christians in a bit of an ideological bind.  But Jesus isn’t here, and historical attempts to have mortal stand-ins haven’t worked out so well.

The Protestant Reformation was a people’s uprising against the Papal theocracy of Rome.  The 18th century French theocracy ended with the French Revolution.  Perhaps somewhat ironically, the American revolution was a people’s revolt to get out from under the thumb of the British theocracy of that period.  And do we really even need to discuss the shortcomings of current Islamic theocracies?

Perhaps a more curious element of Beck’s speech was the several minutes he devoted to explaining the importance of tithing 10% of your income to the church.  The churches no doubt appreciated the shout out, but it’s difficult to see how that helps the situation Beck lives in fear of.  The right is repeatedly warning how higher taxes right now will cripple the struggling economy.  Businesses won’t invest and people won’t be able to afford to live.  It’s pretty clear the vast majority of Americans are giving well below the 10% guideline.  Therefore, relative to the money available to spend on groceries and new employees, won’t the charitable donations hurt even more than say allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire?  And what would churches do with this money?  Will they build roads, bridges, and schools?  Will they start businesses to hire people and reduce unemployment and boost GDP?  Will they provide health care or senior care?  Will they start inspecting egg farms for salmonella?  In other words, how does that money help the current government deficit, reduce the need for government, or increase freedom and liberty?  That seems a rather important point Beck left out of his talk.

No doubt, many found Beck’s rally inspiring.  Yet as a call to action, it was woefully short on any specifics.  If you’ve just won a beauty pageant, it’s pretty reasonable to dedicate your reign to creating world peace, ending hunger, and building a world where we all just get along.  But if you’re trying to incite an actual movement to make a difference in people’s lives, you need to bring a little more of a plan to the party.  God may be good and all, but it seems Beck finds the Devil is in the details.

The 1st Amendment in particular, and the essence of our culture in general, provide ample protection for anyone to express themselves about anything anywhere.  This is one of the few agreements to be had across the political spectrum.  But lately a few significant examples have arisen begging the question not of the right, but rather the propriety of such expression.  Just because it’s legal to do a thing, is it still in our collective best interest for you to do so?

First up is the controversy over the Islamic Community Center in Manhattan (aka the Ground-Zero Mosque), and it’s counterpoint, Pastor Terry Jones’ “Burn a Quran Day” festival.  Both situations involve religions and whether or not there is some sort of obligation for mutual respect.

Next up, we have today’s “Restoring Honor” rally being held by Glenn Beck and Fox News on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.  While claiming it wasn’t intentional, the rally is being held on the anniversary of, and in the location of, the famous Martin Luther King Jr. “I Have a Dream” speech.  Beck has rationalized that his rally will re-energize the civil rights movement in America.  Yet many African-Americans are having trouble seeing that the plight of white conservatives in 2010 has a lot in common with the issues the black community faced in the 1960s.  Especially since it was largely white conservatives who were the issue facing blacks 50 years ago.  It’s not hard to see that Beck’s rally might be perceived as disrespectful of Dr. King’s legacy.

Finally, Dr. Laura Schlessinger was compelled to announce her retirement after a radio tirade where she said the “N-word” eleven times.  She is claiming to be the victim here, although it’s worth noting that despite her assertions, this is not a 1st Amendment issue because the government did not censor her.  Her employer did based on sponsor reaction to her show.  This is actually the way it’s supposed to work.  You get to say what you want, but people get to vote with their ears, feet, and wallets as to whether or not you deserve further attention.   The right to expression does not extend to a guarantee to have an audience.

Make no mistake, America’s history is rife with examples of boisterous expressions trampling an individual’s or a group’s feelings.  After all, there is no assurance in this country you won’t get your nose bent out of shape by someone else expressing their freedoms.  But what’s also clear is that you can’t have it both ways.  You can’t make “in your face” expressions on the one hand, and then turn around and act like a wounded puppy the next time you get a verbal bloody nose.  This is something Mosque opponent and Beck rally guest speaker Sarah Palin might keep in mind as she was quick to support Dr. Laura and rail against her being pushed out of her job.  Yet Palin was equally quick to call for Rahm Emanuel’s head back in February when he referred to a group of liberal activists as “retarded”.

Freedom is a messy business.  You can’t have yours and expect to be insulated from everyone else’s.

Recent business news has been abuzz about small investors cashing out of their mutual funds to the tune of $33.12 billion. Depending on who you listened to, this allegedly reflected either a loss in faith in the economy, dire cash needs by small investors, or a return to the 1960′s era markets where individual investors were basically non-existent.  But everyone agreed this was a significant economic event.

This story started with Graham Bowley in the NY Times over the weekend and snowballed until it was making the rounds on most of the news networks yesterday.  MS-NBC’s Dylan Ratigan devoted a whole segment to the “crisis” on Tuesday’s show.  This might have been some crack reporting except for the fact that Bowley turns out to have been impressively wrong.

Felix Salmon actually bothered to recheck the facts, and it turns out that while Bowley was essentially right about the retreat from domestic mutual funds, he neglected to look at Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) or international mutual funds which grew suspiciously at a little short of $40 billion over the same period.

So the news really turns out to be that people reinvested in ETFs with more flexibility and lower cost structures than mutual funds and divested into more global portfolios.  Or perhaps it was seniors continuing to draw on their 401k mutual funds while younger working investors placed their money in ETFs.  Either way, that seems pretty darned sensible of them.  Sorry folks, no crisis to see here.  Please go back about your business.

The problem here is that the “crisis” was covered with great fanfare.  That will not be true of this news.  Rather, it will buried if mentioned at all.  The result being the meme about people fleeing the stock market will stick despite there being no truth to it.

Perhaps Bowley made an innocent mistake in his initial report.  But that doesn’t excuse all those who ran with the story.  What’s supposed to distinguish bloggers from professional journalists is that journalists are expected to double check the facts.  They are trusted to be correct.  Yet increasingly that is not the case.  Whether it is just over eagerness to report a breaking story in a world of ridiculously rapid news cycles, or if it’s a more deliberate attempt to sensationalize the news for the sake of ratings, it amounts to malpractice.

In other professions there are dire consequences for malpractice.  Whether you’re a lawyer, a doctor, or an engineer malpractice can result in people being hurt.  Journalists should be held to these same high standards.  People make decisions based on information provided by journalists.  Decisions that influence public policy and ultimately all our lives.  That is no less impactful than malpractice in other professions.

This is a small example, but it’s indicative of a more endemic problem.  If journalists want to be valued and trusted, they need to step up to the plate, do the hard work, and get us the real truth we so desperately need.

The New York GOP Gubernatorial primary race has taken a turn for the interesting as candidate Carl Paladino has unleashed “Little Ricky” (a staffer in a chicken suit) to dog his opponent Rick Lazio.  At issue is Lazio’s unwillingness to commit to a debate with Paladino, hence Paladino’s attempt to call him “chicken”.

On the one hand, it would seem Lazio is not really playing fair.  After all, voters should get to hear their candidates out, and political debates have long been the gold standard for sorting out potential politicians.

Yet on the other hand, Lazio has little to gain by engaging Paladino.  He’s currently enjoying a 30% lead in the polls.  Further, Lazio has the overwhelming support of the Republican party officials in New York.  Meanwhile, millionaire developer Paladino basically bought his way into the race and forced a primary against the GOP’s wishes.  And he’s threatening to run as a third party in November if he loses the GOP nod anyway.  Debating Paladino arguably only lends credibility to a fringe candidate.

Not that Paladino minds being on the fringe.  He’s increasingly positioning himself as a Tea Party candidate.  He’s even gone so far as to recommend New York’s prisons be turned into dormitories for the poor where they will be put to work for the state and taught lessons in personal hygiene.  After all, how does one achieve affluence if one doesn’t know how to properly use a loofah?  It would be incredible (and a little sad) if his plans to open indigent work camps resonated strongly with New York voters.  It certainly seems Paladino is more of an irritant to the GOP than a serious contender.

Still, Paladino is a valid candidate.  No one is questioning his right to run.  As a candidate, he should have the right to face off against his opponent, the right to take his shot.  If he’s really as far out there as he seems, Lazio should have no trouble taking him down.

Granted, Lazio, doesn’t have to debate Paladino… but he should.  Ideally, with both men wearing chicken suits.  That would be must-see TV.

The Main Street Fairness Act (HR 5660) is intended to get states and local governments the sales tax revenue they are owed from Internet sales, but it is the wrong solution to the problem.

Massachusetts Congressman Bill Delahunt, along with five Democratic co-sponsors introduced the bill last month.  As proposed, it would allow states to optionally join in a compact that permits them to require all businesses to collect sales tax on every purchase by a customer living in that state.  Mercifully, it at least requires states to adhere to certain simplifications of, and provide for, uniformity of the state’s sales tax code in order to join.

The name of the bill and Delahunt’s own press release emphasize the need for this to level the playing field for online retailers.  Yet it’s not at all clear this is a boon to local businesses.  Repeated studies show that cost is at best a minor reason people shop online.  Certainly, there is not a significant number of customers avoiding local stores simply to avoid paying sales tax.

In many states, such as here in New York, sales tax is already required to be paid if the retailer has any brick & mortar presence in the state.  Further, the New York income tax form specifically requires you to report Internet or out of state purchases (or estimate them) so that the proper tax may be collected.  Therefore, much of the perceived cost savings doesn’t exist anyway.

While part of this bill is certainly intended to boost state sales tax revenues, it is likely to also hurt small retailers trying to do business online.  Online business is an increasingly big part of a small specialty shop’s business—even single proprietors.  Yet the sales tax laws, even with the proposed simplifications, still vary in both rates and products covered for each state.  In many states, the variances are by county.  This would almost demand that small businesses use some sort of service to automate the calculation of the appropriate tax to charge, and facilitate getting those funds paid to all the proper taxing authorities.  And that service is going to complicate their business and erode already small profit margins.  A pain that will less likely be felt by large national operations who already have ample infrastructure in place to handle the complexity.

Online sales are not going anywhere anytime soon.  They do erode from traditional local businesses, but they also provide an opportunity for a small business to reach a set of customers they never would have been able to dream of 50 years ago.  So rather than trying to prop up the dying business model, let’s try and enable the new one.

That could be accomplished by introducing a national sales tax.  That is, the policies for what products are subject to the tax, and the tax rate itself, are set uniformly at the national level.  The funds are collected centrally, but then redirected back out in their entirety to the states and counties of the purchasers.  This moves the administrative burden to the government (after all, they are the ones who want the money), and makes tax collection simple for businesses.

Politicians keep posturing about helping small businesses.  They often say how they are our future, and the means to restart the economy  Well here’s a perfect opportunity to put your legislation where your mouth is.  It’s time to truly reform an old system rather than just adding more duct tape to the ancient one whose time has long passed.

Mitt Romney, 2008 and likely 2012 GOP Presidential contender, went a little out on a limb and proposed some substantive and realistic economic policy initiatives.

This is huge in a climate where others in his party have just talked in broad sweeping plans like cutting taxes and spending, or have opted for pushing for dismantling Medicare and significantly altering Social Security benefits in ways that would be politically dead on arrival.

Among his proposals is a plan to permit businesses to write off in 2010 and 2011 the capital investments made in those years rather than over time.  This might well go a long way toward liberating some of the cash corporations are currently hoarding, and could amount to a potent stimulus to the economy.

He also wants to align corporate taxes with those of other developed economies, eliminating special corporate tax breaks that lobbyists have inserted over the years.  That could be a big rise in tax revenue by just plugging holes through intelligent tax reform rather than raising rates.

Further, he’s advocating for adopting an energy policy that will actually eliminate our dependence on OPEC and hostile states.  This is good for jobs, good for the climate, and good for national security.

Of course he still wants to maintain the Bush tax cuts and eliminate the capital gains tax, both of which are party staples.  And he opens with the requisite accusation that almost every action the President has taken has deepened and lengthened the economic downturn.  But that’s pretty tame stuff compared to what other Republican hopefuls are saying.

The key point being there are some actionable ideas here that Obama and the Democrats might be willing to work with the GOP on.  This is a constructive offering, and exactly the sort of thing that politicians should be putting on the table.  However, Romney’s not currently in a position to drive those proposed policies.  So it will come down to others in the GOP side of Congress to pick up on these ideas and push them forward.

Let’s see if anyone wants to play ball…

Monroe County, NY is one of several locations identified by NYPA, through its Great Lakes Offshore Wind Project, to potentially host an offshore wind farm.  Yet the reception by local communities has been less than welcoming.

In recent weeks the town boards in Greece and Webster have voted unanimously to oppose the authority’s project, and Monroe County legislators have been entertaining their own ban.

While any significant development project has its pros and cons, the ire against offshore wind farms in Lake Ontario seems mostly driven by NIMBY (not in my backyard).  There’s little opposition to wind power in general.  75% of respondents to a Rochester Business Journal poll said they supported it at least somewhat, and a majority strongly supported it.  And why not?  It’s clean, renewable, and cost effective. Further, a $1B project is bound to be a boon to the local economy.

Perhaps most importantly, it lessens our dependence on coal for electricity production.  While coal has a reputation as “cheap fuel”, there are many hidden costs in terms of government subsidies, pollution, and environmental impacts, not to mention the glut of health and safety issues plaguing coal miners.

However, Rochester is a long way from West Virginia.  We don’t see the strip mined hillsides here.  Sure, we still suffer from acid rain, but it’s way better than it was in the 1970′s, and we’re used to it.  Wind turbines are new, potentially local, and might be seen from your house.  This has fostered an understandable sense of fear in lakeside towns, but has also ushered in a groundswell of misinformation.

Conservative Examiner Willard Fox recently wrote about wind power and published “some of the negatives you may not have read about.”  Although in reality, you may not have heard about these “facts” because many of them are untrue or misleading.

For example, while wind power will not eliminate the need for conventional energy sources like coal and nuclear, it does lessen the demand on them.  This means the existing plants burn less non-renewable fuel, and fewer new plants need to be built to meet the ever increasing American appetite for power.  A concern is also levied against the need to build massive electrical storage facilities, which would be nice except that we don’t yet know how to store electricity on an industrial scale.  If we did, wind and solar power would be even more attractive options than they are now.  And concerns about power transmission and its impact on the county’s grid are the same issues that would arise if any power generation facility was built using any technology.  The value of cheap power to the community far outweighs the investment in the power grid.

The more valid concerns are when Fox cites the issues of noise, property values, and simply having to look at the wind farm looming on the lake’s horizon.   He says, “They [the turbines] produce a noise level of a car that is doing over 60 miles per hour.”   This is a good point, but keep in mind the proposal is to build the turbines over two miles offshore.  Would you worry about buying a house two miles from a major highway?  Probably not.  Further, studies have shown wind farms have no long term impact on property values.  Are they an eyesore?  Maybe, but you do get used to things.  Remember when cell towers were going to destroy the landscape?  Now you don’t even notice them.

The bottom line is that the country needs wind power and other forms of green energy.  It has to be located somewhere.  Perhaps it would be better to ask yourself if you’d rather live in the same town as a wind farm or a strip mine, a coal fired power plant, or another nuclear reactor?  Sure, it would be great if we could just make our energy needs some other community’s problem.  But if we’re going to step up to the plate, then a few windmills aren’t looking so bad now are they?

President Obama is desperately trying to convince the public his policies prevented a looming depression that would have devastated  our economy.  This is more than an uphill battle because as everyone is saying, you just can’t prove a negative.  That is, you have no way to show what would have happened if you hadn’t done what you did.

On Tuesday’s episode of Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Olbermann offered a special comment on a different topic which contained an interesting insight.  President Bush had great success at proving the negative case that his policies prevented another terrorist attack (clip showing this point below).  Now Olbermann went on to blame others for this (full video available here), but there is a more interesting point to be gleaned.

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Ignoring the questions of whether Obama actually prevented a depression and whether Bush actually prevented another terrorist attack, let’s examine only the public perception.  The simple fact is, there were no more significant domestic terror incidents while Bush was proving his negative.  Consider instead what would have happened had there continued to be one or two attacks each year, resulting in hundreds of deaths each.  It may well have been that without the Bush policies those attacks would have numbered a dozen a year, but it wouldn’t have mattered.  He never would have sold his story.  He likely never would have gotten reelected.

This is the reason Obama fails to prove his negative on the economy.  Had we bounced in 3 months back to 2007 levels of unemployment and the Dow hit 14,000 again, then he could sell his success story.  But while he may well have prevented devastation, he did not keep us from suffering.  And as long as the pain continues,the public will not accept his proof.