Monthly Archives: February 2006

French ISPs Found to Violate French Consumer Protection Law

Posted on February 26, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

My dad forwarded me this interesting article in Le Monde, Wanadoo et Free : des clauses abusives à haut débit.

Following a trail blazed by AOL and Tiscali, supposed good-guy ISPs Wanadoo.fr and Free have been found guilty of violating French consumer protection law. Wandoo now becomes the holder of a special booby prize (Le Monde calls it a gold medal for abusive clauses), having been ordered to revise no less than 32 clauses in its standard form contract that were found to be “abusive or illicit”.

Among the clauses ruled illegal by the court were those which:

  • disclaimed of any liability for interruptions of service due to equipment breakdowns or poor maintenance
  • disclaimed all liability in case of damage
  • disclaimed any risk of transport in the case of distance selling
  • claimed the right to modify unilaterally the conditions of service offered at any time
  • reserved the right to to terminate in certain cases consumer contracts without notice or warning
  • made automatic e-payment the only accepted means of payment
  • asserted that terms and conditions published online would trump the terms and conditions agreed to by the consumer a the time of subscription

(all translations are mine).

I’m sure almost every reader of this blog in the US is party to one or more contracts with clauses like these. But good luck getting anyone to declare them illegal (although conceivably a state court might refuse to enforce one or two of them if push came to shove).

Posted in Internet, Law: Internet Law | Comments Off on French ISPs Found to Violate French Consumer Protection Law

Florida Cops Intimidate Would-be Complainants

Posted on February 25, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Via Boing-boing, a link to this absolutely amazing piece of investigative reporting: Police Station Intimidation-Parts 1 and 2 in which “CBS4 News found that, in police departments across Miami-Dade and Broward Counties, large and small, it was virtually impossible to walk in the door, and walk out with a complaint form.”

Given I am currently doing work on ID cards, I was particularly struck by this transcript of the reaction of the Sea Ranch Lakes PD in Broward County, not all that far north of here:

cop; We don’t give you — we don’t give you a form. Where do you live?
tester: I don’t want to say.
officer: You don’t want to say?
tester: Where are you going?
officer: You want to play hardball? We’ll play hardball. I want ID.
tester: For what?
officer: I’m asking you for ID right now, that’s why. Here, hand it to me. Hand it to me.
tester: Are you kidding me? Here.
officer: I said, hand me your ID. What are you doing here? This is —
tester: I came to ask you how to file a complaint.
officer: This is very suspicious.
tester: Asking how to file a complaint is suspicious?
officer: Why don’t you shut up?
officer: I say this is very suspicious, that you pull in here at this time of night —
tester: Eight o’clock?
officer: You’re constantly butting in.
tester: I’m constantly butting in?
Mike: Sir, I would like to leave.
officer: I would love it, but he’s got your driver’s license, so you’re just going to have to stay.
Mike: Sir, are you detaining us?
officer: Okay, could I give you a ticket right now for improper backing.
Mike: You can do whatever you want, I suppose.
officer: Okay, that means yes, I guess you’re saying, right? ANd for backing up, correct, yes?
Mike: I was backing up, sir, because I was leaving.
officer: But because I’m a nice guy, okay, I’m going to give you a warning. Is that fair?
Mike: Yes, sir.
officer: Okay.

The TV station that broke the story reports that “Remarkably, of 38 different police stations tested around South Florida, all but three had no police complaint forms” yet it nonetheless felt obligated to introduce its report by saying that “Most police officers are a credit to the badge, serving the community and the people who pay their salary, getting criminals off the street, making the community safer for everyone.” Guess none of those guys happen to work the front desk, eh?

And much of the report is also devoted to quoting Miami police chief John Timoney saying that stuff like this can’t and shouldn’t happen, if it did it would surely have consequences. Not one suggestion that maybe Timoney himself might be a poster child for intimidatory policing.) To be fair, though, Timoney’s department, the City of Miami was one of the few south Florida jurisdictions that actually had complaint form on hand, and trilingual ones at that. Could be due to the high demand?

Posted in Florida, ID Cards and Identification | Comments Off on Florida Cops Intimidate Would-be Complainants

I Love Stories Like This

Posted on February 25, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Via Wampum, whom I have inexplicably failed to blogroll until now, comes Hotter Than A Pistol, the sort of story that could make a grown man get a bit misty-eyed.

It’s so nice to read about ordinary goodness.

Posted in Etc | 1 Comment

US Iraq Policy: Total Failure

Posted on February 25, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

The administration is fond of throwing statistics about how there are 100 or so Iraqi brigades in the new refored Iraqi army. Subtext: the US can pull out soon, leave things to the Iraqis. Progress.

In fact, however, not at all:

The only Iraqi battalion capable of fighting without U.S. support has been downgraded to a level requiring them to fight with American troops backing them up, the Pentagon said Friday.

It reminds me of a Vietnam war cartoon which unfortunately I’ve been unable to find online: as I recall it, Herblock’s everyman is pointing to traintracks that lead to a dark tunnel into the mountain and saying, “No there isn’t: There’s a tunnel at the end of the tunnel”. (I couldn’t find that one, but I did find this classic Herblock cartoon, which is similar.)

Posted in Iraq | Comments Off on US Iraq Policy: Total Failure

My Legislature at Work

Posted on February 25, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

The state of Florida faces a number of serious problems. For example, the state child welfare system is something worse than a total disaster. Not only does it lose track of kids who then vanish, leave kids in dangerous homes, and cut off health care for poor kids with no alternatives but the state also runs a series of ‘boot camps’ for ‘young offenders’ in which state employees are encouraged to beat up children. We don’t know how many they have killed in the process, but we do know that the latest fatality happened to be captured on a video that sounds totally repulsive. Personally, I don’t have the stomach to watch it. (The autopsy, by the way, appears to have been phonied up by a local ME with an expired medical license who also has a record of botching autopsies. He said the death, shortly after the beating, was due to ‘natural causes’. Did I mention the victim was black?)

So what’s the Florida legislature worrying about? Why, the state pie of course! Should it be pecan or key lime? The battle lines are drawn!

Posted in Florida | 2 Comments

The Legal Equivalent of a ‘Hail Mary’ Pass

Posted on February 24, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

I haven’t the energy to go into any detail this evening, but I thought I would just mention that at least based on the news reports, the latest argument to emerge from Scooter Libby’s lawyers, Libby’s Lawyers Say Prosecutor Acted Unconstitutionally, smacks of desperation.

I’d have to read the actual brief to be sure, but the general legal area in which arguments of this sort fall is territory I teach and write in. The Supreme Court held in 1988, in Morrison v. Olson, that a special prosecutor with far more independence than Fitzgerald — one appointed under the old special prosecutor law which has since lapsed — was not an unconstitutional actor. That 7-1 decision has been criticized in hindsight, and only two Justices who participated remain on the Court, including Scalia who wrote a fiery dissent, which may be what prompted this challenge. The trouble is that — unless of course there’s a surprise in the brief — in order for this argument to work you’d not only have to get the Supreme Court to overturn the Morrison decision, which is conceivable if unlikely, but then also get that revised logic to apply to a set of facts that amount to a much, much weaker case for a separation of powers violation — which I think is just not gonna happen.

Update: Fuller Washington Post story.

Posted in Law: Constitutional Law | 4 Comments