Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

motherjones.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 190 posts

Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#161

Post by brookst »

rayiner wrote: post #153
brookst wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a map/territory error in conflating the right to accurate information (or the obligation of government officials to not knowingly lie) with court determination of what accurate information is in any specific case. We have a very clear constitutional right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, and yes, determining what that means is very fuzzy and always has been. Doesn’t make the right evaporate. B…

Fact-finding is a subsidiary function of courts that is cabined by two important principles. First, there must be a cause of action: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/cause_of_action . Courts cannot just go fact-finding on their own. Common law or statute must have articulated a specific set of factual conditions that gives rise to a legal claim for relief. So courts can engage in fact-finding, but only within very spe…

Sure, agreed on both counts. But to the extent government officials have a duty not to lie to the public, that duty extends to facts, not political opinions. I find the courts a perfectly reasonable way to adjucate e.g. the actual water volume in the Colorado river.

Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#162

Post by mschuster91 »

bamboozled wrote: post #28
mschuster91 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A good deal of what america is doing to itself these days looks just as insane as what they are doing to other countrys, or at least other countrys that are not doing it to themselves. America voted for unrestrained rabid turbocapitalism not just once but twice . They knew what MAGA and Project 2025 were about, both announced their intentions clear as day, and now they're getting unrestrained rabid turbocapitalism…

Can’t really see how it can be reigned in and once it’s done with America it’s coming for everyone else. Australia with one nation and UK with reform for example. My honest assessment is the tech bros felt threatened from potential regulation and decided to do use their platforms and influence to encourage more of the same destruction everywhere else. I cannot explain it any other way. Why would nearly all of them ha…

> Can’t really see how it can be reigned in

By political revolution. The coming, inevitable AI bubble implosion and the resulting chaos will provide for it. We are already seeing the first signs with local anti datacenter movements.

Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#163

Post by shevy-java »

mbeavitt wrote: post #8

This headline is not correct. The ruling was that a constitutional lawsuit was not successful, not that the the US government has carte blanche to poison its citizens drinking water… So, the correct headline would be “safe drinking water ruled not to be covered by the US constitution”. There are other binding agreements and regulations than the constitution in the US.

No, that headline would still be wrong. It makes no sense to make water exempt from other forms of damage caused by treatment or contamination. By the same "logic" you apply here, you could reason that radiation is exempt from the constitution because back in 1796 something they did not specify that down via law. That makes no sense.

Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#164

Post by doom2 »

openasocket wrote: post #128

Ok, so the article buries a lot of the context here. To clarify: plaintiffs can 100% sue the city for this under tort law (I believe the clean water act, but there’s probably other causes of action). This particular case was about suing the city officials in their personal capacity. So making those individuals pay, instead of/in addition to the city. Government officials are generally protected under qualified immuni…

> This is more about holding government officials individually accountable.

The state can also file criminal charges against the officials, although given that the Flint water crisis didn't result in any criminal convictions despite the evidence, I'm not holding my breath. Not to mention that the state could choose _not_ to file charges. In which case, what avenue for justice is left? Financial compensation is only part of it.

Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#165

Post by _DeadFred_ »

rayiner wrote: post #98
gpvos wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first one I can understand from history (although I do not agree for modern times). But the right to accurate information from public officials, I thought that was indeed an absolute and basic right in a democracy, and it should very strongly be and always have been. (Exceptions like "national security" notwithstanding, and those should probably be more narrowly restricted than they are now.)

I implore people to think about separation of powers. Just because something is desirable in the abstract doesn’t mean the judiciary should be doing it. Who decides what information is “accurate?” What are the implications of having the judiciary start policing the other two branches over such a fuzzy concept?

Who decides if I committed a crime by lieing/telling inaccurate information to the FBI? Oh, the courts do you say? If they can police me over such a fuzzy concept, they can police themselves as well.

https://www.dougmurphylaw.com/criminal-defense/federal-crime...

The federal courts are going to be surprised when their 'there is no law, just enforcement we want on the plebs' results in juries made up of plebs stop approving the unfairly applied to some people convictions the feds want. It's basically the last recourse we have. 'enforce the law correctly and fairly, or we the people will stop enforcing it at all'.

Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#166

Post by impossiblefork »

evancox100 wrote: post #159
impossiblefork wrote: post #3

I think this is a ruling that's hard to justify. There are many frameworks under which the judge could have chosen to rule, it could be treated as assault, or some type of aggravated assault/battery, if the lead can be measured in the people who consumed it, it could be treated as fraud, since the water is presumably sold, etc. and reasoning about that it would ordinarily be a punishable tort would make it clear that…

The ruling expressly states that they are free to pursue whatever tort claims they want. This ruling is about violations of constitutional rights and standing to sue under 42 U.S. Code § 1983 - Civil action for deprivation of rights.

Still, it's very obviously a deprivation of right to deliberately trick people into drinking poisoned water or other poisoned things.

The right not to be deliberately poisoned doesn't disappear just because the act was achieved by leading you to the poisoned object and deceiving you that it was safe, instead of handing you an object that has been poisoned by hand.

This does not imply a right to clean water, as the judge chooses to interpret their question as asking him to recognize, and shows that his choice is in fact sufficient even if that is what they asked.

Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#167

Post by _DeadFred_ »

ptero wrote: post #125
gpvos wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first one I can understand from history (although I do not agree for modern times). But the right to accurate information from public officials, I thought that was indeed an absolute and basic right in a democracy, and it should very strongly be and always have been. (Exceptions like "national security" notwithstanding, and those should probably be more narrowly restricted than they are now.)

> the right to accurate information from public officials, I thought that was indeed an absolute and basic right in a democracy In many countries, both democratic and not, police can lie (e.g. to try to get a suspect make a mistake and expose some information).

In the USA the police can lie to you, but you can not lie back to them. To do that is a crime.

Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#168

Post by _DeadFred_ »

lukan wrote: post #152
ptero wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the right to accurate information from public officials, I thought that was indeed an absolute and basic right in a democracy In many countries, both democratic and not, police can lie (e.g. to try to get a suspect make a mistake and expose some information).

But even police in interrogation mode may not lie that will result in lead poisening.

Sure they can. Jails (run by the local police or sheriff) lie about the safety of the food they serve, the facilities they run, the outcomes of the policies they implement all the time.

Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#169

Post by toast0 »

kstrauser wrote: post #54
Smaug123 wrote: post #5

Misleadingly provocative headline, right? The actual ruling from the article is that the US Constitution does not by itself grant US citizens that right. As the article itself points out, there’s nothing stopping other agreements from granting the right, and indeed several states do so explicitly.

The US Constitution, by itself, grants US citizens everything as a right, then enumerates the exceptions to those all-encompassing rights carved out as necessary for the operation of a government. The correct question is: Where does the US Constitution grant governments the power to poison and lie to residents? This isn’t some pedantry but fundamental American civics. The US Constitution explicitly does not enumerate…

The tenth amendment provides that the federal government has only the enumerated powers and everything else is for the States or the people. It doesn't limit the States to enumerated powers.

I looked a bit in the early morning to see what arguments were effective in the Flint case which has similiar municipal activities... The case history there was too complex for me. Many suits in federal and state court, lots of federal suits dismissed for various reasons (mostly lack of standing if I understood the summary) and then a settlement in federal court that resolved all (most?) of the suits. I didn't really see a discussion of the legal theory from which liability arose, just what the remedy was and if it the settlement was reasonable for minors and unrepresented parties.

Finding an argument that pleases the court and/or appealing to a higher court in the hopes that your argument pleases them is pendantry and american civics.

Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#170

Post by earth-tattoo »

softwaredoug wrote: post #79
earth-tattoo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

There basically is no election fraud In 2020 Trump admin tried very hard to find some and there attempts were thrown out in court 59/60 cases The only thing they won on involved a Pennsylvania judge extending mail in ballot deadline beyond their authority. Not a case of fraud.

Thrown out by Obama appointmented judges?
Post reply on HN