{"id":51059,"date":"2015-05-13T07:48:36","date_gmt":"2015-05-13T13:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/13\/when-is-a-rule-not-a-rule.html"},"modified":"2015-05-14T14:20:38","modified_gmt":"2015-05-14T20:20:38","slug":"when-is-a-rule-not-a-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/13\/when-is-a-rule-not-a-rule.html","title":{"rendered":"When is a rule not a rule?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it's presented as a rule to tell people they can't do stuff, but, when pressed in court, the Justice Dept. says it's merely a guideline so the court shouldn't make any rulings about it.<\/p>\n

' The Justice Department lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland to throw out the APA challenge, saying the rules set forth in the DAG letter about what companies can disclose aren’t actually rules. They’re guidelines, said DOJ attorney Steven Bressler. He used an example of a portrait covered by a curtain and said that the DAG letter, far from being rules for Twitter, was merely a description of how the government had drawn the ''curtain back in part'' on otherwise classified information to let companies describe national security-related requests. But, he claimed, the DAG letter didn’t necessarily reflect the full amount of information that the law allowed to be revealed.<\/i><\/p>\n

Gonzalez Rogers took issue with Bressler’s characterization, saying the DAG letter to tech companies established not mere guidelines, but a "protocol" defining ''specifically what they could do and how they could do it," indicating that to her, they sound quite a lot like rules. Bressler then said the DAG letter set forth a ''safe harbor,'' but that compliance with that letter wasn’t necessarily the only way one could comply with the law. ''Isn’t that exactly what it’s been used for now?" Gonzalez Rogers asked. Twitter sought to disclose information, ''and the response was—you cannot. See the DAG letter,'' Gonzalez Rogers said.'<\/i><\/p>\n

Not Kafkaesque at all, nosirree.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n
\n<\/a>
\nWhen Is a Justice Department Rule Not a Rule? Report From Twitter’s Transparency Fight<\/a><\/span>
\nWhen is a government rule not a rule? Making that question difficult, when it should be simple, seems to be the government’s leading strategy in a hearing this week in Twitter Inc.’s lawsuit challenging the government’s squelching of its transparency report. Twitter wants to provide a closer look at how often federal agents are demanding private user data for surveillance, and part of its suit fights back against the government’s rules on what it…\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it's presented as a rule to tell people they can't do stuff, but, when pressed in court, the Justice Dept. says it's merely a guideline so the court shouldn't make any rulings about it. ' The Justice Department lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland to throw out the APA challenge, … Continue reading “When is a rule not a rule?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,132],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-privacy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":27112,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/03\/15\/scotus-and-political-decisions.html","url_meta":{"origin":51059,"position":0},"title":"SCOTUS and "Political" Decisions","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 15-Mar-12 2:32pm","format":false,"excerpt":"It's probably unreasonable to expect any Supreme Court Justice to rule with Vulcan-like precision merely on the legal merits of a given case -- if for no other reason than that they are (a) human, and (b) cases that get to (and are accepted by) SCOTUS are rarely so clear\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":45983,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/17\/electing-judges-is-a-bad-idea-heres-how-to-make-it-worse.html","url_meta":{"origin":51059,"position":1},"title":"Electing judges is a bad idea. Here's how to make it worse","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 17-Oct-14 7:31am","format":false,"excerpt":"Electing judges creates an inherent conflict between ruling wisely and impartially and ruling the way The People want you to rule. I don't see how loosening rules about fundraising related to such elections will make that conflict any better. The Supreme Court Is Poised to Make Judicial Elections Even More\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":51771,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/17\/the-eeoc-rules-that-sexual-orientation-discrimination-is-already-illegal.html","url_meta":{"origin":51059,"position":2},"title":"The EEOC rules that sexual orientation discrimination is already illegal","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 17-Jul-15 8:20am","format":false,"excerpt":"In a 3-2 decision, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission -- which oversees federal discrimination actions -- says that workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is covered by the Civil Rights Act of 1964's Title VII, barring discrimination based on sex.Which, after a moment of thinking, makes sense. If\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28349,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/17\/first-law-of-holes-if-you-are-in-one-stop-digging.html","url_meta":{"origin":51059,"position":3},"title":"First Law of Holes; if you are in one, stop digging","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 17-Jun-12 9:47pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Oh, Charles Carreon, you are bringing a piece of paper to a Super-soaker fight. \u00a0Lawyers are, for reasons good or ill, \"rules lawyers\" -- \"If I can only find the rule I can turn to my advantage, I can win.\" Lawyers often don't understand that there is a social component\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":50202,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/28\/scalia-has-an-odd-understanding-of-the-first-amendment.html","url_meta":{"origin":51059,"position":4},"title":"Scalia has an odd understanding of the First Amendment","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 28-Apr-15 3:28pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Or he's been reading too many Conservative Christian fear mags.As Justice Kagan noted, Jewish rabbis who choose not to marry mixed-religion couples are still licensed by the state to officiate at marriages. Catholic priests are not required to marry non-Catholics, or divorcees. And there are still churches (few and far\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":129834,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/02\/12\/because-we-cant-possibly-pay-people-for-the-work-they-do-its-un-american.html","url_meta":{"origin":51059,"position":5},"title":"Because we can't possibly pay people for the work they do! It's Un-American!","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 12-Feb-16 2:25pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Congressional Republicans are outraged, outraged at proposals to raise the salary limit at which point someone becomes ineligible for overtime pay.'Currently, employers are required to pay overtime for all employees who make $23,660 or less per year. The new rule, proposed by DOL\u2019s Wage and Hour Division, would raise the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51059"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51120,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51059\/revisions\/51120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}