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The entire US Code is now online in XML

uscodebeta.house.gov

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Re: The entire US Code is now online in XML

#121

Post by thwarted »

lobotryas wrote: post #57
OldSchool wrote: post #53

Caveat for for many of us overly rational thinkers: the powers that be deliberately are allowed to 'interpret' this code nondeterministically by many different means including its 'spirit,' admissibility of relevant information, manipulation of venue and participants, apparently even extrajudicial proceedings lately. In short, that allows a lawyer to answer almost any question with "it depends," and start billing.

You make this sound like a bad thing. Would you really prefer "black and white" laws that leave zero room for flexibility or interpretation in light of a given situation?

This preference isn't even black and white.

One quote that sticks in my mind is this one from P.J. O'Rourke in Parliament of Whores, concerning Ken Starr's written position on a flag-desecration law:

    Congress had "acted narrowly." (That is, the law is very specific, and you
    can't be arrested for having a smart look on your face near the flag or
    anything like that—which is good because being specific is the essence of
    lawmaking and the whole difference between having a congress and having a
    mom.)
The point here is that specificity is good so that J. Random Citizen can easily know if they are breaking the law or not.

But this is the reason that we have the ability to have the law interpreted on a case-by-case basis, which is different from interpreting "laws", the specific as-written instances. Note that the Supreme court doesn't hear or decide on a law randomly, only when someone brings a specific case to them.

The law should be written as "it's a crime to kill someone" (although, that may be too specific, and a more appropriate wording may be "it's a crime to rob someone of their life and livelihood"), and it's up to the executive and judicial branches to decide (or aid in deciding in the case of the executive) what the punishment should be. This is the defendant's "day in court", as it were.

I think too many people do treat the law as absolute in wording, rather than absolute in spirit. A law that enforces something unjustly on the defendant is just as bad as a law that doesn't justly enforce the plaintiff's rights. Finding that appropriate middle ground is the basis for the grey area that is the interpretation of law.

IANAL.

Re: The entire US Code is now online in XML

#122

Post by andrewfong »

jamieb wrote: post #105
lobotryas wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make this sound like a bad thing. Would you really prefer "black and white" laws that leave zero room for flexibility or interpretation in light of a given situation?

Yes, we should have black and white laws, and unit tests for them. So someone could write a unit test for "Will this allow the NSA to create a secret court that is outside the rule of law?" or "Does accessing a university computer that has an open access policy allow for a sentence of 130 years?" I believe we'd see a lot simpler laws.

No, you'd see more complex laws because law makers would just write around the unit tests rather than address the fundamental issue. Ergo, accessing a university computer would be fine (because that's in the test) but accessing a library computer would not .

Re: The entire US Code is now online in XML

#123

Post by krapp »

jamieb wrote: post #105
lobotryas wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make this sound like a bad thing. Would you really prefer "black and white" laws that leave zero room for flexibility or interpretation in light of a given situation?

Yes, we should have black and white laws, and unit tests for them. So someone could write a unit test for "Will this allow the NSA to create a secret court that is outside the rule of law?" or "Does accessing a university computer that has an open access policy allow for a sentence of 130 years?" I believe we'd see a lot simpler laws.

The problem with this is, human beings don't blindly interpret and process laws as code. Human beings can honestly differ in their interpretation of a law, and the accepted interpretation can change over time.

Some one, or some body, would have to decide what the 'proper' interpretation of these laws would be, and craft the 'unit tests' such that they correspond to the status quo. Then that someone or some body would have to ensure that anyone who disagrees with that interpretation gets put down. What you're describing seems like a particularly technocratic form of fascism to me.

Re: The entire US Code is now online in XML

#124

Post by andrewfong »

ISL wrote: post #120
lobotryas wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make this sound like a bad thing. Would you really prefer "black and white" laws that leave zero room for flexibility or interpretation in light of a given situation?

When that black and white law is: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. I'll go with yes. Alas, interpretation then falls to the definition and grammar of every part of said law.

Worth noting that definition and grammar are also contextual. Define "speech". Does that include visual images in video games? Grammatically no. Clearly not contemplated by the founders. But absolutely a fundamental part of free speech given the current times.

Re: The entire US Code is now online in XML

#126

Post by andrewfong »

lobotryas wrote: post #57
OldSchool wrote: post #53

Caveat for for many of us overly rational thinkers: the powers that be deliberately are allowed to 'interpret' this code nondeterministically by many different means including its 'spirit,' admissibility of relevant information, manipulation of venue and participants, apparently even extrajudicial proceedings lately. In short, that allows a lawyer to answer almost any question with "it depends," and start billing.

You make this sound like a bad thing. Would you really prefer "black and white" laws that leave zero room for flexibility or interpretation in light of a given situation?

To bring this into context, legislatures have actually been trying to reduce flexibility in several areas of the law recently, most notably in sentencing guidelines.

This can result in some bizarrely harsh sentences -- where a domestic violence victim firing a warning shot at her abuser gets 20 years in prison, or where someone who knowingly writes a bad check gets 25 years in prison.

Re: The entire US Code is now online in XML

#127

Post by bliker »

DannyBee wrote: post #77
sc68cal wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is currently done via scraping: https://github.com/divegeek/uscode The diffs are huge.

Remember that diff is an algorithm to generate the smallest set of operations to produce version B from version A, not an accurate reconstruction of what happened. Diff algorithms are also often tuned not try as hard to find the smallest set of changes for larger documents, due to speed concerns.

I did some work & research about diffs when I tried to visualise progression of slovak law. My best attempt was a diff method that would understand the inner structure of the law. I ended up with simple draft but I am sure somebody more competent could look into that.

Re: The entire US Code is now online in XML

#128

Post by dionyziz »

liscovich wrote: post #79

If you were to start a new country, what would the legislative process look like there? For example, how should new "startup nations" like BlueSeed ( http://blueseed.co ) inspired by Seasteading Institute go about passing and storing laws? Should they have some sort of open github repo to which anyone can make pull requests? How do you see the congress of the future?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic

Re: The entire US Code is now online in XML

#129

Post by gamblor956 »

lmkg wrote: post #26
tlrobinson wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was under the impression law is essentially "append only". New laws override existing laws, but the text of the existing law never changes.

The US Code is not the same as the laws of the US. It is a "current snapshot" of existing laws in force, and does not itself have legal weight unless explicitly granted by Congress.

See, e.g., U.S. National Bank of Oregon v. Independent Insurance Agents of America, Inc., 508 U.S. 439, 440 (1993) for the Supreme Court's ruling and underlying logic.
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