http://www.fff.org/comment/com0406j.asp
No Right to Remain Silent
by Sheldon Richman, June 25, 2004
You have the right to remain silent — unless you’re asked your name when you aren’t even charged with a crime. That’s right: it can now be a crime to refuse to tell a policeman your name. What’s happening to America?
Nevada and 20 other states have criminalized remaining silent in the face of a policeman’s question “What’s your name?” By a 5-4 vote the U.S. Supreme Court said that’s okay — it’s no violation of the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches or the Fifth Amendment prohibition against compulsory self-incrimination.
“Obtaining a suspect’s name in the course of a Terry stop serves important government interests,” wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the majority, referring to an earlier case (Terry) that permits the police to detain people on the basis of a suspicion that falls short of the traditional standard of “probable cause” for arrest. It may serve “important government interests.” But some of us in the United States still harbor the impression that the rights and interests of individuals trump the interests of state.
The latest case arose out of a rancher’s refusal to identify himself while the police were looking for a man in a truck who had been seen beating a woman. The rancher had been spotted by his truck and, after refusing 11 requests to give his name, he was charged with and later convicted of a misdemeanor. He was fined $250. {continued on site}
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0...w=wn_tophead_5
Florida to Tax Home Networks
By Michelle Delio | Also by this reporter Page 1 of 1
02:00 AM Jun. 24, 2004 PT
Florida state officials are considering taxing home networks that have more than one computer, under a modified 1985 state law that was intended to tax the few businesses that used internal communication networks instead of the local telephone company.
Officials from Florida's Department of Revenue held a meeting on Tuesday to see whether the law would apply to wired households, and exactly who would be taxed. About 200 people attended, including community and business representatives. In 1985 the state passed a law to tax businesses using their own communications networks, because otherwise the state could not collect tax revenue on the businesses' local telephone service. In 2001, that law was expanded to make "any system that is used for voice or data that connects multiple users with the use of switching or routing technology" taxable up to 16 percent.
The law is so broad that it would apply to networked computers, wireless services, two-way radios and even fax machines -- or "substitute communications systems," as the state calls them. The tax would be applicable (PDF) to the costs of operating such a substitute communications system, not to the purchase of the system's components. {continued on site}