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[Mothra]

Alright so, the House of Representatives just passed H.R. 347, the "Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011", with 388 voting in favor and 3 voting against.

`Sec. 1752. Restricted building or grounds

`(a) Whoever--
        `(1) knowingly enters or remains in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority to do so;
        `(2) knowingly, and with intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, engages in disorderly or disruptive conduct in, or within such proximity to, any restricted building or grounds when, or so that, such conduct, in fact, impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions;
        `(3) knowingly, and with the intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, obstructs or impedes ingress or egress to or from any restricted building or grounds; or
        `(4) knowingly engages in any act of physical violence against any person or property in any restricted building or grounds;
or attempts or conspires to do so, shall be punished as provided in subsection (b).

`(b) The punishment for a violation of subsection (a) is--
        `(1) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than 10 years, or both, if--
                `(A) the person, during and in relation to the offense, uses or carries a deadly or dangerous weapon or firearm; or
                `(B) the offense results in significant bodily injury as defined by section 2118(e)(3); and
        `(2) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than one year, or both, in any other case.
`(c) In this section--
        `(1) the term `restricted buildings or grounds' means any posted, cordoned off, or otherwise restricted area--
                `(A) of the White House or its grounds, or the Vice President's official residence or its grounds;
                `(B) of a building or grounds where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting; or
                `(C) of a building or grounds so restricted in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance; and
        `(2) the term `other person protected by the Secret Service' means any person whom the United States Secret Service is authorized to protect under section 3056 of this title or by Presidential memorandum, when such person has not declined such protection.'.

Am I reading this wrong, or does this essentially make protest illegal, on any property that does not explicitly allow them to stay? Would this also make anything in the future like Occupy illegal?

[Brentai]

        `(1) the term `restricted buildings or grounds' means any posted, cordoned off, or otherwise restricted area--
                `(A) of the White House or its grounds, or the Vice President's official residence or its grounds;
                `(B) of a building or grounds where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting; or
                `(C) of a building or grounds so restricted in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance; and

That's... oddly specific.  It seems to be limiting free speech only in regards to taking some action, violent or not, against the Executive office.  Unless I'm reading it wrong, it only makes throwing your shoe at Obama more pointedly illegal.

It also may not be written very well:

        `(4) knowingly engages in any act of physical violence against any person or property in any restricted building or grounds;
or attempts or conspires to do so, shall be punished as provided in subsection (b).

I don't see a clause for "unless of course you ARE the Secret Service" unless they are specifically exempt elsewhere in their own code.

[Büge]

Uh-oh.

RT broke the news last month that H.R. 347, the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011, had overwhelmingly passed the US House of Representatives after only three lawmakers voted against it. On Thursday this week, President Obama inked his name to the legislation and authorized the government to start enforcing a law that has many Americans concerned over how the bill could bury the rights to assemble and protest as guaranteed in the US Constitution.

[Thad]

I don't expect it passing muster in SCOTUS, but it's going to be a long time before it gets there.

[Brentai]

The law would have to be relevant and enforcable to ever come to the SCOTUS.

And then you'd just have a bunch of judges tossing out a badly written law.

Until the language somehow gets hamfisted into a right to spray someone in the face, this seems like a nonissue.

[Thad]

They're already arresting people for trespassing/loitering/etc. and this carves out a more general right to arrest protesters just for protesting in the first place.  People will get arrested on flimsy grounds and sue; if it doesn't go to the SCOTUS it'll be because it gets thrown out by the lower courts first and SCOTUS lets it stand.

[TA]

They're already arresting people for trespassing/loitering/etc. and this carves out a more general right to arrest protesters just for protesting in the first place.  People will get arrested on flimsy grounds and sue; if it doesn't go to the SCOTUS it'll be because it gets thrown out by the lower courts first and SCOTUS lets it stand.

Well, a right to arrest protestors if they break into the building the President is in, knowing that the President is in there.  Which ... is kind of already arrestable.  But this makes it a federal crime.

[Büge]

OWS gathers for six-month anniversary, 73 arrested

[Amuro Ray]

But as we walked up Broadway, a noise made us turn--just in time to see the same young man fall to the ground, curl into a ball, and to see a police officer raise his foot and stomp on him. The police quickly surrounded him, and livestreamers, photographers, and onlookers shouting "Shame" quickly surrounded the police, who dragged him to his feet and loaded him into a waiting van. Others told us that the young man was a Marine.

I hoped the police wouldn't have stooped so low again, but I see now that hoping for that is hoping for too much. 

[NexAdruin]

Protests in Spain, riots in Barcelona

Not really Occupy Wall Street, but I wasn't sure if there was a better place for this post. People are protesting spending cuts and such, and some of the protests turned violent.

[Thad]

Not quite Occupy, but closely-related: Santa Monica College students pepper-sprayed for protesting tuition hikes.

    There is apparently money for 3 cop choppers, pepper spray, batons, five squad cars, 8 ambulances, but no money for education.

    — Sarah Belknap (@mary_menville) April 4, 2012

[Shinra]

College tuition is such a complicated issue, further complicated by the growing uselessness of the college degree. A bit of off-topic musing, but at the rate they're going it's going to reach a point where employers can't rationally expect their employees to have degrees due to the cost, and the colleges will sink from the lack of attendees and have to further raise tuition to sustain themselves, creating an endless loop of self-immolation until they collapse completely. I don't know how it is in the rest of the country, but in Oklahoma nobody seems to care about education when it comes to IT. Certifications still matter, but you don't need to go to college to get a cert.

[Mongrel]

I think it will eventually implode in a way, but it's anyone's guess as to what that will look like.

Somehow I don't think the answer will be "Large numbers of employers just start letting stuff slide". Because if there's anybody who can't think their way out of a paper bag, it's an average HR employee.

[sei]

College tuition is such a complicated issue, further complicated by the growing uselessness of the college degree.

Consider how many people are majoring in shit that doesn't make them more marketable, vs STEM and things more directly applicable to their desired field.

I think a lot of the "college graduate" bitching about how employers aren't kicking in their doors is coming from people with BAs in psych, history, communication, etc..

I don't know how it is in the rest of the country, but in Oklahoma nobody seems to care about education when it comes to IT. Certifications still matter, but you don't need to go to college to get a cert.

1) I'd be surprised if it had no impact on salary.

2) I can't speak for the nation at large, but the local CSU's program for Information Systems (Management of Information Systems elsewhere) is largely a business degree with a minor in some slightly technical classes. In other words, it's worthless, and doesn't work towards preparing one for the job. Computer Science, on the other hand, has some somewhat meaty classes on the subject, but not many, and it's encased in a ton of rather unrelated curriculum, most dissuasive of which is basically the same fucking death-march of mathematics prerequisites given to budding scientists.

[Mongrel]

I think the large number of useless BAs is a big part of the problem. But that's really masking the fact that we really have nothing for those people to do besides crap office jobs (half of which will be gone before those people are 45). And the fact of people leaving high school with appalling skill deficiencies in the first place.

I think the Germans were on to something with their massive apprenticeship programs. That helps keep more people out of university who shouldn't be there in the first place, gets technical folk accreditation without university if that's not needed, and increases the value of university by keeping quality and exclusivity a little higher than it might otherwise be. It also gets people used to the idea of being in the workforce at a younger age (but not in a "We were fucked, so I had to work at 12" kind of way).

[Büge]

I think the Germans were on to something with their massive apprenticeship programs. That helps keep more people out of university who shouldn't be there in the first place, gets technical folk accreditation without university if that's not needed, and increases the value of university by keeping quality and exclusivity a little higher than it might otherwise be. It also gets people used to the idea of being in the workforce at a younger age (but not in a "We were fucked, so I had to work at 12" kind of way).

Yeah, except a lot of the work that requires apprenticeship is being outsourced. Places like GM and Cat Tractors are closing up shop.

[Mongrel]

I think the Germans were on to something with their massive apprenticeship programs. That helps keep more people out of university who shouldn't be there in the first place, gets technical folk accreditation without university if that's not needed, and increases the value of university by keeping quality and exclusivity a little higher than it might otherwise be. It also gets people used to the idea of being in the workforce at a younger age (but not in a "We were fucked, so I had to work at 12" kind of way).

Yeah, except a lot of the work that requires apprenticeship is being outsourced. Places like GM and Cat Tractors are closing up shop.

In Germany this is not so much the case, because of their longstanding tradition of high engineering standards and efficiency. So now they manufacture most of the hard goods and machinery in Europe that isn't "cheap plastic crap". 

[Büge]

In Germany this is not so much the case, because of their longstanding tradition of high engineering standards and efficiency. So now they manufacture most of the hard goods and machinery in Europe that isn't "cheap plastic crap". 

lol Games Workshop

[Mongrel]

Okay, that was a good one.

[Brentai]

Well yeah, the last four years in the U.S. has been pretty much a back and forth dialogue consisting of nothing but "Create jobs!" followed by "Create WHAT jobs?"