11 ms·

It would be more correct to say that they have officially interpreted a current law (the Telephone Consumer Protection Act) to clarify that AI-Generated voices

• etskinner 3y ago
  In other words, the headline should say "FCC Rules AI-Generated Voices in Robocalls Illegal"
  • dang 3y ago
    Ok, we've made it rule above. Thanks!
• downWidOutaFite 3y ago
  [flagged]
  • gwright 3y ago
    Activist? You clearly don't have the same definition of activist that I do. Half the problem with these sorts of conversations is there is no agreement on definitions. Please don't interpret my comment to mean that Supreme Court decisions can't be criticized, I just don't find the "activist" accusation to be particularly insightful.
    • benreesman 3y ago
      Citizen’s United was “yeah, leaning pretty hard here.” Flipping the hours d’ouvres table over on Roe v. Wade, a tense but stable compromise, that’s verging on activist. You don’t go knocking over fragile, workable standoffs that have held longer than an Ulster cease-fire if you can help it as a senior jurist. It’s a pretty neo-neocon consensus to put it charitably. It’s still the highest court in the land and it’s still binding, but I hope any thinking person is hoping for more a more“spirited but healthy” tension between major worldviews.
      • gwright 3y ago
        Citizen's United seems like a pretty clear cut case of individual rights from my point of view. If your definition of "activist" is strengthening individual rights and refusing to give power to the federal government and its giant bureaucracy then I guess I'm OK with an "activist" Supreme Court. Roe v. Wade had been criticized for 50 years as an example of an activist judiciary and was held in place by rigid adherence to stare decisis. Would you be as confident with stare decisis if we were talking about Plessy v. Ferguson, which held sway for 58 years before being overturned? Where the judges in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka "activists"? If "activism" is used to describe all sorts of political philosophy then it isn't really a useful term to bring to the discussion. I think it does have meaning though and that "activism" is not what conservative members of the court are doing. Too much "Orwellian" language manipulation going on these days, IMHO.
        • Ajedi32 3y ago
          I agree with most of what you said, but I disagree with this: > If your definition of "activist" is strengthening individual rights and refusing to give power to the federal government and its giant bureaucracy then I guess I'm OK with an "activist" Supreme Court. Activism is activism regardless of whether it "strengthens individual rights" or not. It would be ridiculous to argue Roe vs. Wade wasn't activist just because it "strengthened individual rights". What rights? Rights according to whom? You could justify pretty much any decision this way. I'm not familiar with the details of the case in Citizen's United, but whether or not it constitutes activism depends not on the effects of the decision, but the reasoning by which it was reached.
          • jjeaff 3y ago
            Yes, the reasoning is definitely the problem with a lot of recent decisions. One thing that stands out in my mind is the majority opinion in the prayers in school case that stated that part of their reasoning to rule in favor of the coach praying was that he was doing so in private and players could voluntarily join him. When, as noted by the descent, the case itself included photographs of said coach, kneeling in prayer with his team at center court.
    • azinman2 3y ago
      The Federalist Society, a political entity to alter the judicial branch, picked Neil Gorsuch while grooming many other federal judges who are then put in place by politicians. If you were put in place by activists, doesn’t that make you an activist judge?
      • Ajedi32 3y ago
        No. Particularly when one of the primary goals of that activism is to produce judges who aren't activists: > [The Federalist Society] is founded on the principles that [...] it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be. https://fedsoc.org/about-us https://fedsoc.org/about-us
        • azinman2 3y ago
          “What the law is, not what it should be” is code for a particular viewpoint on how to rule itself, which is activism.
          • Ajedi32 3y ago
            You and I clearly have different ideas of what constitutes judicial activism. What would you consider to be "non-activist" then, if ruling based on what the law says rather than on your personal politics is itself activist?
            • azinman2 3y ago
              Laws are not boolean logic that are cut and dry, otherwise we wouldn’t need human judges. The federalist society is a well funded organization whose goal and track record is to install conservative judges to interpret the law in a very specific way, all the way up to the Supreme Court. I’d that’s not activism then I don’t know what is.
              • Ajedi32 3y ago
                I don't disagree the Federalist Society is activist. I'm saying the judges they produce aren't, because that "very specific way" is "follow the law, not your political biases" which is, by definition, the precise opposite of judicial activism. It sounds like you disagree with that definition of judicial activism, but you haven't provided a better alternative. To preempt the answer you've given elsewhere in this thread "they rule in a way that you don’t like" isn't a good definition, and seems from my perspective like an attempt to muddy the issue in order to allow you to put activist judges on equal moral footing with those who actually follow the law. You are correct that its impossible to eliminate all bias, but responding to that reality by throwing up your hands and saying "I guess everyone's an activist then, judges should just ignore the law and rule based solely on their personal biases instead" definitely isn't helping the situation. There's a spectrum here, and The Federalist Society has as one of its explicit goals encouraging judges to move towards the non-activist side of that spectrum.
    • downWidOutaFite 3y ago
      They have been hunting for cases to pursue their political agenda. It's probably the most activist court we've ever had. What is your definition of activist?
      • gwright 3y ago
        Your comment illustrates the problem. Do you think that everyone agrees that "activist" means "hunting for cases"? What does "hunting for cases" actually mean? The term "activist" is often interpreted as "legislating from the bench" where the judiciary usurps the role of the legislature. Some people actually want that. Other people don't want that. Refusing to solve a problem and instead requiring Congress to clarify the law is another judicial philosophy. Is that being an activist? Deciding that the federal government has no authority and that state authority or individual rights are more paramount is also a course of action that some people agree with and some people don't. Supporters probably don't call that "activism" but detractors might. So I think the term is mainly used to slur your political opponent as opposed to being a succinct term for some particular judicial philosophy.
        • downWidOutaFite 3y ago
          Their politics comes first the "judicial philosophy" is fake and is bent to fit the political outcome they want.
          • gwright 3y ago
            This is just stating an opinion that you disagree with the philosophy. Do you think leftist judges also don't have a philosophy but just aim for outcomes?
            • downWidOutaFite 3y ago
              There is no philosophy, it's just partisan politics. Some examples, They are supposedly "originalist" except in their 2nd amendment rulings they ignore "A well regulated Militia" because guns is a Republican religion. In banning Biden's student relief they ignored the text of the law and legislated from the bench just saying that it was unfair because the size was too "significant". Activism. Last year they invented out of thin air the "major questions doctrine" to override the Clean Air Act and help polluters. Activism. In 2022, without citing any principle, they said OSHA couldn't protect workers from covid. Activism. When they gutted the Voting Rights Act they invented an "equal dignity of the states" doctrine. Activism. To conservatives judicial activism is only a problem when liberals do it.
    • jjeaff 3y ago
      the current court solidified itself as an activist court by taking on a litany of controversial, yet already decided cases one after another that were all lined up by the same organization that not only lobbied for their placement on the court, but even went so far as to line up a billionaire buddy system to make them more comfortable financially so they wouldn't retire from the court during a democratic administration.
    • zeroonetwothree 3y ago
      Usually "activist" just means "not in agreement with my political views".
  • benreesman 3y ago
    Usually I challenge people when they call a court stacked or activist, because it’s just so rarely true: this is as close as you’ll (hopefully) see to a 1-bit high court. It’s the masterpiece, the magnum opus of the Magnus of parliamentary politics. Nicollo Machiavelli doesn’t have shit on Mitch McConnell at that chess game. I’m pretty indifferent to which color bumper-sticker late capitalism is sporting when it pushes the newest round of formerly “looking forward to better” working people below the waterline, it’s not a partisan thing. The other team have plenty who match Mitch on evilness, but zero on skill.
  • scythe 3y ago
    I think it's pretty unlikely that the Chevron doctrine would be overturned completely. The specifics of the case before the Court involve a case where the NMFS has interpreted a fisheries act to require fishers to pay the salaries of government monitors, simply because the act does not specify who should pay the salaries. The more reasonable objection is whether "reasonable interpretation" under Chevron should be limited to prevent the creation of affirmative powers out of thin air. As Wikipedia puts it: > Whether the Court should overrule Chevron or at least clarify that statutory silence concerning controversial powers expressly but narrowly granted elsewhere in the statute does not constitute an ambiguity requiring deference to the agency. The initial "overrule Chevron" seems like a DITF [1] and the latter is probably what the plaintiffs are hoping to achieve. Granted, I find it hard to trust a Court that overruled PP v. Casey, but most of this Court's other rulings, at least, have not been as extreme. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door-in-the-face_technique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door-in-the-face_technique
• ranger_danger 3y ago
  what authority do they have to set a legal precedent?
  • djur 3y ago
    It's not a legal precedent, it's an interpretation of a law that they are mandated to enforce.
    • hackernewds 3y ago
      the case from the fishermen currently in Supreme Court, precisely will nullify unelected agency officials from interpreting laws like this to legislate, then enforce, rules outside of the mandates and powers granted by the populace
    • ranger_danger 3y ago
      how can the FCC enforce laws?
      • nsporillo 3y ago
        ITG Tracebacks https://tracebacks.org/ https://tracebacks.org/ With enough evidence, operators are compelled to provide data and are given an opportunity to correct their action. If they refuse, FCC will eventually issue an order to all other providers to not accept calls from the bad actor.
• bell_tower 3y ago
  This ruling just ended a bunch of businesses and startups, including a startup by Stanford founders
  • hackernewds 3y ago
    that's great
  • cosmojg 3y ago
    > including a startup by Stanford founders Is this a humorous reference? Or is this supposed to be notable for some reason?