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> “We can’t pretend the Constitution doesn’t say what it says.” And then you read how some Supreme Court justices make a decision and you’re wondering if they

> “We can’t pretend the Constitution doesn’t say what it says.” And then you read how some Supreme Court justices make a decision and you’re wondering if they are even reading the same document

ixacto 5y ago
We also pretend the law doesn’t say what it says. Look at the sanctuary states for illegal immigration and marijuana. Then the red states started doing the same thing with second amendment sanctuary states. Looks like if there’s no political will to enforce the law it doesn’t get enforced.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  The US system is, perhaps, unusual in that it started from a set of independent states that formed a federal government. While the balance of power has shifted century-upon-century towards federal centralization, the power of the federal government to enforce federal law is still constrained by the money spent on federal-level enforcement; states are not generally legally obligated to go out of their way to assist federal law enforcement (and proving obstruction of justice in an inter-jurisdictional situation is pretty difficult most of the time if the states just use "malicious compliance" and stick to the letter of the law). Hence, "sanctuary cities" where the state and local government just doesn't feel obligated to hand over records and resources they aren't legally compelled to. It's basically daring the federal government that if the law is so important, they can spend the money on ICE / FBI / ATF / etc. resources to enforce it (because those resources are paid from a completely different pool than the state or town police).
acuozzo 5y ago
I can hardly imagine how our technical jargon will change in the next 250 years. If you'll permit me… What it means to execute code on the "bare metal" has changed over time. If you track its usage on HN, it is now common for programmers to use this to describe running a program outside of a Docker container or hypervisor/VM, but still atop an OS. (I personally think this change in meaning is silly, but my feelings on this matter don't matter.) Interpreting security policy making use of this "bare metal" term is now tricky. Choice #1 is to interpret the policy in the context in which it was written. Choice #2 is to attempt to interpret the policy in the context of how the term is now used. (The best choice is, of course, to rewrite the security policy in question to address the change in definition, but for the sake of argument let's consider this to be too impractical to even consider.) Let's assume that the 1996 policy in question is: "No company-written code that interacts with the Internet shall run on bare metal." If we strictly interpret the policy in the context in which it was written, then we're in a pickle. Agner's hand-rolled x86_64 HTTP server is permitted. It runs atop GNU/Linux, so it's not freestanding and therefore isn't a "bare metal" program. On the other hand, if we determine that the modern use of "bare metal" is compatible with what the authors of the policy intended, then the security team is clear to insist that Agner run his HTTP server within Docker, for instance.

ixacto 5y ago

We also pretend the law doesn’t say what it says. Look at the sanctuary states for illegal immigration and marijuana. Then the red states started doing the same thing with second amendment sanctuary states. Looks like if there’s no political will to enforce the law it doesn’t get enforced.

shadowgovt 5y ago
The US system is, perhaps, unusual in that it started from a set of independent states that formed a federal government. While the balance of power has shifted century-upon-century towards federal centralization, the power of the federal government to enforce federal law is still constrained by the money spent on federal-level enforcement; states are not generally legally obligated to go out of their way to assist federal law enforcement (and proving obstruction of justice in an inter-jurisdictional situation is pretty difficult most of the time if the states just use "malicious compliance" and stick to the letter of the law). Hence, "sanctuary cities" where the state and local government just doesn't feel obligated to hand over records and resources they aren't legally compelled to. It's basically daring the federal government that if the law is so important, they can spend the money on ICE / FBI / ATF / etc. resources to enforce it (because those resources are paid from a completely different pool than the state or town police).

acuozzo 5y ago

I can hardly imagine how our technical jargon will change in the next 250 years. If you'll permit me… What it means to execute code on the "bare metal" has changed over time. If you track its usage on HN, it is now common for programmers to use this to describe running a program outside of a Docker container or hypervisor/VM, but still atop an OS. (I personally think this change in meaning is silly, but my feelings on this matter don't matter.) Interpreting security policy making use of this "bare metal" term is now tricky. Choice #1 is to interpret the policy in the context in which it was written. Choice #2 is to attempt to interpret the policy in the context of how the term is now used. (The best choice is, of course, to rewrite the security policy in question to address the change in definition, but for the sake of argument let's consider this to be too impractical to even consider.) Let's assume that the 1996 policy in question is: "No company-written code that interacts with the Internet shall run on bare metal." If we strictly interpret the policy in the context in which it was written, then we're in a pickle. Agner's hand-rolled x86_64 HTTP server is permitted. It runs atop GNU/Linux, so it's not freestanding and therefore isn't a "bare metal" program. On the other hand, if we determine that the modern use of "bare metal" is compatible with what the authors of the policy intended, then the security team is clear to insist that Agner run his HTTP server within Docker, for instance.