The California Supreme Court has sent back a case challenging the practice of security patting down fans at games for the San Francisco 49ers. The Court ruled that it lacks sufficient information to determine if the policy is an illegal invasion of privacy. It is the legal equivalent to an incomplete pass.
Two season ticket holders sued the team in 2005 and two lower courts ruled with the 49ers and dismissed the lawsuit. Daniel and Kathleen Sheehan sued with the help of the ACLU but the team argued that fans consent to such searches when they buy tickets.
Here is the opinion: s155742
For the latest story, click here.
Here’s an interesting passage from the opinion:
“Those who provide private entertainment venues, including the 49ers’ at NFL football games, have a substantial interest in protecting the safety of their patrons. But when the security measures substantially threaten a privacy right, courts review the policy for reasonableness under the circumstances. Here, we cannot do so because the record does not establish the circumstances of, or the reasons for, the patdown policy. The 49ers’ have not yet given any justification for its policy.”
I will be interested to see what statistical data they will provide to justify the patdown. I would like to know if metal detectors/wands could do the same or better job, and if there are other less intrusive ways of handling this search. I have been to many sporting events, and patdowns are the exception not the norm. I bet the Justices would like to know this information too.
As a member of the bay area I have attended many 49er and Raider games. I gladly submit to a pat down to ensure that one of the many knuckleheads who addend these games do not enter the stadium with a weapon.
We know have a President Doofus:
‘Fuzzy Math’ on War Funding.
Obama Begs Moscow “We will scrap missile-defense for help with Iran”.
Dow drops another 300 points; off 2,500 just since Obama inaugeration, 3,500 since Obama election, and 6,500 since Obama nomination – investor message – WE DON’T TRUST or BELIEVE IN Obama’s fruitcake answer to our problems.
Yes, Virginia, we now have a President Doofus:
‘Fuzzy Math’ on War Funding.
Obama Begs Moscow “We will scrap missile-defense for help with Iran”.
Dow drops another 300 points; off 2,500 just since Obama inaugeration, 3,500 since Obama election, and 6,500 since Obama nomination – investor message – WE DON’T TRUST or BELIEVE IN Obama’s fruitcake answer to our problems.
DANCING THE RECESSION AWAY: CONGA LINES, PARTIES, COCKTAILS AT OBAMA WHITE HOUSE…
WASHINGTON (AP) – The White House is the place to be on Wednesdays.
Since the presidency changed hands less than six weeks ago, a burst of entertaining has taken hold of the iconic, white-columned home of America’s head of state. Much of it comes on Wednesdays.
Obama says this is the worse economy since the Depression but he sure seems to have the time and our money to party at the White House.
Voters Skeptical of Dems’ Leftward Lurch
March 1, 2009
Inside the Beltway and the media bubble, Barack Obama is still the man of the hour. On CNN, his speeches are even compared to sex. (Someone needs to have a talk with that commentator. I don’t think he’s doing it right.) The Democrats obviously believe that they are in a unique historical moment, of which they can take advantage by moving the country decisively to the left.
There is strong evidence, however, that the American people are not excited about the Dems’ leftward lurch. Last week, President Obama gave his first State of the Union address to an adoring Congress and unveiled his administration’s first budget. What happened? His approval rating declined.
Scott Rasmussen has been tracking Obama’s “approval index,” which is the difference between those who “strongly approve” of his performance and those who “strongly disapprove.” Today the approval index declined to + 8, the lowest level in Obama’s brief tenure in office.
Overall, 58 percent approve of Obama’s performance so far, while 40 percent disapprove. It’s nothing special for a newly-elected President. Jimmy Carter was more popular at this stage of his administration.
What’s happening here is that, while media types swoon over Obama’s way with a teleprompter, voters are focusing on something else–the consequences of higher taxes, unprecedented federal spending and control over the economy, and crushing levels of debt. The more they focus on those things, the less they like them.
STOCK MARKET OFF 2,800 POINT JUST SINCE INAUGERATION DAY!
AMERICA IS VOTING WITH ITS POCKETBOOK; NO TO OBAMA!
STOCK MARKET OFF 2,800 POINT JUST SINCE INAUGERATION DAY!
AMERICA IS VOTING WITH ITS POCKETBOOK; NO TO OBAMA!
STOCK MARKET OFF 2,800 POINT JUST SINCE INAUGERATION DAY!
AMERICA IS VOTING WITH ITS POCKETBOOK; NO TO OBAMA!
Hey Stocky:
Just a quibble, but the market dropped 5000 points under Bush. But that’s besides the point. What if it crashes to 2000, or even lower. So what! Will we die? Will goods no longer need to be produced and services stop being required? Will we do what our grandfathers and grandmothers did and soldier on, or just run around like we did after 9-11 and make every hasty, ill-considered fear driven decision we could to get us to this point? Believe it or not we are made of sterner stuff, or do your brave neo-con friends fear the loss of their money more than life itself. When you neo-cons quit equating your self-worth with your net worth, you’ll reach level of maturity I never even hoped for you. We’re better than the mob or herd you presume us to be,and we need none of your totalitarian fear-mongering. Go to the buildings’ ledges and ponder you’re fate, while the rest of us get right back to work building a country you never knew since you could never see it over your stacks of “unearned” income, and happy jaunts out of the country on “holiday”. Real courage does not come from rattling sabers or landing on carrier decks, but confronting the danger calmly, deliberately, and, perhaps most importantly, with grace. Great tribulation always involves a reckoning and pruning. I think I am beginning to understand why you have so much to fear. HUIC HABEO NON TIBI!
There could be worse reasons for the 49ers ending up in California Court. At least there’s no steroids involved here!
Don’t give us this crap about the market tanking under Bush; the market is tanking BECAUSE of the DOOFUS Obama.
Mespo, you moron.
The stock market is down 5,000 point since Bama was nominated, 3,500 points since he was elected, and 2,500 points since his inaugeration.
Don’t give us this crap about the market tanking under Bush; the market is tanking BECAUSE of the DOOFUS Obama.
Mespo, you moron.
The stock market is down 5,000 point since Bama was nominated, 3,500 points since he was elected, and 2,500 points since his inaugeration.
Don’t give us this crap about the market tanking under Bush; the market is tanking BECAUSE of the DOOFUS Obama.
Mespo, you moron.
The stock market is down 5,000 point since Bama was nominated, 3,500 points since he was elected, and 2,500 points since his inaugeration.
Don’t give us this crap about the market tanking under Bush; the market is tanking BECAUSE of the DOOFUS Obama.
Stockless:
“Don’t give us this crap about the market tanking under Bush; the market is tanking BECAUSE of the DOOFUS Obama.”
*****************
Prove it, don’t just shout it, lest you be compared with any three year old. Even the dumbest Republican (and that’s saying something) knows that post hoc ergo propter hoc arguments are fallacious.
Mespo you CLUELESS DOLLARLESS MORON, read what the smart people are saying about your hero Obama the Market Crasher:
REVIEW & OUTLOOK MARCH 3, 2009 The Obama Economy
As the Dow keeps dropping, the President is running out of people to blame.
As 2009 opened, three weeks before Barack Obama took office, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 9034 on January 2, its highest level since the autumn panic. Yesterday the Dow fell another 4.24% to 6763, for an overall decline of 25% in two months and to its lowest level since 1997. The dismaying message here is that President Obama’s policies have become part of the economy’s problem.
Americans have welcomed the Obama era in the same spirit of hope the President campaigned on. But after five weeks in office, it’s become clear that Mr. Obama’s policies are slowing, if not stopping, what would otherwise be the normal process of economic recovery. From punishing business to squandering scarce national public resources, Team Obama is creating more uncertainty and less confidence — and thus a longer period of recession or subpar growth.
The Democrats who now run Washington don’t want to hear this, because they benefit from blaming all bad economic news on President Bush. And Mr. Obama has inherited an unusual recession deepened by credit problems, both of which will take time to climb out of. But it’s also true that the economy has fallen far enough, and long enough, that much of the excess that led to recession is being worked off. Already 15 months old, the current recession will soon match the average length — and average job loss — of the last three postwar downturns. What goes down will come up — unless destructive policies interfere with the sources of potential recovery.
And those sources have been forming for some time. The price of oil and other commodities have fallen by two-thirds since their 2008 summer peak, which has the effect of a major tax cut. The world is awash in liquidity, thanks to monetary ease by the Federal Reserve and other central banks. Monetary policy operates with a lag, but last year’s easing will eventually stir economic activity.
Housing prices have fallen 27% from their Case-Shiller peak, or some two-thirds of the way back to their historical trend. While still high, credit spreads are far from their peaks during the panic, and corporate borrowers are again able to tap the credit markets. As equities were signaling with their late 2008 rally and January top, growth should under normal circumstances begin to appear in the second half of this year.
So what has happened in the last two months? The economy has received no great new outside shock. Exchange rates and other prices have been stable, and there are no security crises of note. The reality of a sharp recession has been known and built into stock prices since last year’s fourth quarter.
What is new is the unveiling of Mr. Obama’s agenda and his approach to governance. Every new President has a finite stock of capital — financial and political — to deploy, and amid recession Mr. Obama has more than most. But one negative revelation has been the way he has chosen to spend his scarce resources on income transfers rather than growth promotion. Most of his “stimulus” spending was devoted to social programs, rather than public works, and nearly all of the tax cuts were devoted to income maintenance rather than to improving incentives to work or invest.
His Treasury has been making a similar mistake with its financial bailout plans. The banking system needs to work through its losses, and one necessary use of public capital is to assist in burning down those bad assets as fast as possible. Yet most of Team Obama’s ministrations so far have gone toward triage and life support, rather than repair and recovery.
AIG yesterday received its fourth “rescue,” including $70 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program cash, without any clear business direction. (See here.) Citigroup’s restructuring last week added not a dollar of new capital, and also no clear direction. Perhaps the imminent Treasury “stress tests” will clear the decks, but until they do the banks are all living in fear of becoming the next AIG. All of this squanders public money that could better go toward burning down bank debt.
The market has notably plunged since Mr. Obama introduced his budget last week, and that should be no surprise. The document was a declaration of hostility toward capitalists across the economy. Health-care stocks have dived on fears of new government mandates and price controls. Private lenders to students have been told they’re no longer wanted. Anyone who uses carbon energy has been warned to expect a huge tax increase from cap and trade. And every risk-taker and investor now knows that another tax increase will slam the economy in 2011, unless Mr. Obama lets Speaker Nancy Pelosi impose one even earlier.
Meanwhile, Congress demands more bank lending even as it assails lenders and threatens to let judges rewrite mortgage contracts. The powers in Congress — unrebuked by Mr. Obama — are ridiculing and punishing the very capitalists who are essential to a sustainable recovery. The result has been a capital strike, and the return of the fear from last year that we could face a far deeper downturn. This is no way to nurture a wounded economy back to health.
Listening to Mr. Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, on the weekend, we couldn’t help but wonder if they appreciate any of this. They seem preoccupied with going to the barricades against Republicans who wield little power, or picking a fight with Rush Limbaugh, as if this is the kind of economic leadership Americans want.
Perhaps they’re reading the polls and figure they have two or three years before voters stop blaming Republicans and Mr. Bush for the economy. Even if that’s right in the long run, in the meantime their assault on business and investors is delaying a recovery and ensuring that the expansion will be weaker than it should be when it finally does arrive.
Speaking of Doofus’, how’d you do at Harvard? President of the Law Review like Obama, I’d bet.
Stockless:
Thanks for cutting and pasting another’s words when intelligent thoughts elude you. I’ll argue with someone with a mind, not simply a “Copy” button. I suspect the “smart people” you refer to, on average have about the same IQ as that college drop-out crowd, Limbaugh, Hannity, and, of course,that valedictorian, Beck.
dollarless?
What kind of venal fascist half-wit even thinks that’s an insult?
Rhetorical. Asked and answered.
Another Campaign Promise Bites the Dust
We’ve often been critical of the Associated Press for its left-wing agenda journalism, but this article, by Andrew Taylor, is surprisingly balanced. It’s titled, “Obama beats early retreat on promise to fight pork:”
Despite campaign promises to take a machete to lawmakers’ pet projects, President Barack Obama is quietly caving to funding nearly 8,000 of them this year, drawing a stern rebuke Monday from his Republican challenger in last fall’s election. …
Obama is hardly the first president to promise to make Congress change its pork-barreling ways, and he certainly won’t be the last. But he is the first to retreat so quickly, after only six weeks in the White House.
Of course, using wasteful spending to buy votes is the essence of the Democrats’ electoral strategy, so no one should be surprised that Obama has, once again, walked away from his campaign promise. Change? Forget about it!
Another Democrat Tax Dodger
This time it’s Ron Kirk, nominated by President Obama as U.S. Trade Representative:
Kirk owes an estimated $10,000 in back taxes from earlier in the decade and has agreed to pay them, the Senate Finance Committee said Monday. The committee said the taxes arise from Kirk’s handling of speaking fees he donated to a scholarship fund that he set up at his alma mater, and for his deduction of the full cost of season tickets to the Dallas Mavericks professional basketball team.
The Democratic Party has a culture of entitlement, greed and corruption. It is remarkable that, even though Obama’s vetting team must be excruciatingly sensitive to the issue, it is evidently hard to find prominent, high-income Democrats who pay their taxes in full.
I don’t think any administration has ever had an official baseball cap before, but this one seems like a no-brainer for the Obama team:
That Was Then, This Is Now: The Filibuster
On March 29, 2005, the NY Times ran an editorial defending the filibuster, and lamenting its own editorial short-sightedness during the Clinton years:
The Senate, of all places, should be sensitive to the fact that this large and diverse country has never believed in government by an unrestrained majority rule. Its composition is a repudiation of the very idea that the largest number of votes always wins out. *** While the filibuster has not traditionally been used to stop judicial confirmations, it seems to us this is a matter in which it’s most important that a large minority of senators has a limited right of veto. …
A decade ago, this page expressed support for tactics that would have gone even further than the “nuclear option” in eliminating the power of the filibuster. At the time, we had vivid memories of the difficulty that Senate Republicans had given much of Bill Clinton’s early agenda. But we were still wrong. To see the filibuster fully, it’s obviously a good idea to have to live on both sides of it. We hope acknowledging our own error may remind some wavering Republican senators that someday they, too, will be on the other side and in need of all the protections the Senate rules can provide.
Fat chance! Today the Times ran two op-eds denouncing the “segregationist’s tool,” the filibuster. This is an excerpt from Jean Edward Smith’s “Filibusters: The Senate’s Self-Inflicted Wound”:
In the entire 19th century, including the struggle against slavery, fewer than two dozen filibusters were mounted. In F.D.R.’s time, the device was employed exclusively by Southerners to block passage of federal anti-lynching legislation. … The number more than doubled under Lyndon Johnson, but the primary issue continued to be civil rights. Except for exhibitionists, buffoons and white southerners determined to salvage racial segregation, the filibuster was considered off limits.
I guess that tells us all we need to know about today’s Republicans. Of course, nothing similar will be said when the Democrats are again in the minority in the Senate.
I think it’s pretty absurd that they are doing pat-downs at Niners games. Have there been a lot of shootings and stabbings at these games? I grew up going to Candlestick Park and the only thing you had to protect yourself against was the cold wind sweeping in from the bay.
This country is truly going down the toilet, and it’s the people who roll over and except these intrusive practices who are allowing it to happen to the rest of us.
There is nothing to fear but fear itself, and if you’re too terrified to go outside without somebody nearby to pat down everyone around you then you are the problem and not the rest of us.
Instead, don’t attend any more games. Vote with your feet. If you see goons wearing black swat gear patting people down, turn around and go enjoy the game from a bar or at your home. Lost profits have a way of changing minds and policies …
OBAMA ‘READY TO DROP MISSILE SHIELD PROTECTION FOR EUROPE FOR RUSSIAN HELP ON IRAN’
Unbelievable. Only a liberal would sacrifice the security of hundreds of millions for an unenforceable “promise” from the likes of the Russian mafia now called the Russian government.
Another Campaign Promise Bites the Dust
We’ve often been critical of the Associated Press for its left-wing agenda journalism, but this article, by Andrew Taylor, is surprisingly balanced. It’s titled, “Obama beats early retreat on promise to fight pork:”
Despite campaign promises to take a machete to lawmakers’ pet projects, President Barack Obama is quietly caving to funding nearly 8,000 of them this year, drawing a stern rebuke Monday from his Republican challenger in last fall’s election. …
Obama is hardly the first president to promise to make Congress change its pork-barreling ways, and he certainly won’t be the last. But he is the first to retreat so quickly, after only six weeks in the White House.
Of course, using wasteful spending to buy votes is the essence of the Democrats’ electoral strategy, so no one should be surprised that Obama has, once again, walked away from his campaign promise. Change? Forget about it!
Stock Market Crashing: Think for yourself. People who come to this site simply to paste articles written by others, followed by gratuitous and pointless insults contribute nothing. The so-called “smart people” you describe are anything but. The stock market is crashing for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that it was severely inflated to begin with. And I’m still waiting for an explanation from your “smart people” concerning the methodology utilized to value securitized mortgages and rate them for investors. I won’t hold my breath. There is a great deal of liquidity out there, but when did you ever meet a banker (or investment banker) with courage, as opposed to recklessness? The market will stop dropping when all those “smart people” use some of that liquidity to invest again. Fear of government policy in that regard is a convenient, but nebulous excuse to do nothing. Everyone is simply waiting around for someone else to make the first move. Investors act like lemmings, regardless of which way the market is heading at any given time. Then again, if you are genuinely fearful about the risks involved in earning money through other people’s labor, just open a Christmas Club account (that’s right-they’re back) and get an actual job.
Mikey, I hear Obama is calling you looking for another donation to his cause…
mespo, a lot of people understand why Obama got to be President of the Law Review at Harvard and it was not at all because of his abilities was it…at least have the guts to step up and be honest about ONE THING today. YOU KNOW why he got that job.
Exactly mojo, if you dont agree with the pat downs, by all means dont go to the game.
Wow! The Von Troll family is out in force. The RNC money must really be flowing to have this many trolls at work trying to stop frutiful discourse on the most important issue of our day. I guess if Republicans will lie about a train from Disney Land to Vegas, they will lie about anything. Troll people, I hope your are getting your payments in cash. If not, you better cash those checks in a hurry. We all know how bad the Republican neocons are with money!
My smarter cousin: If you must use my name, at least capitalize it properly. With respect to your comment on Pres. Obama’s presidency of the Harvard Law Review, your suggestion that everyone knows the REAL REASON for that honor betrays your actual concerns. It also explains why you do not use your own name in your posts. The anonymity of the hood has given way to the anonymity of the internet for many people, a new form of cowardice for a new century.
Hey Chris, Mojo, I don’t agree with 3/4ths of the entire justice system, what should I do… leave?? Don’t see anymore trials? Stop paying my taxes?
This was the land of the free, ey?
Just the other week there was a thread about allowing guns in church for Christ’s sake. I’d prefer an armed sports fan over an armed believer any day!
This week they’re patting you down at the game, next week they’re patting you down at the video store, but people that intend to kill, are still gonna kill, you know, patting people down is not gonna change $h!t, get a grip…
Market crash
1, March 2, 2009 at 11:38 pm
OBAMA ‘READY TO DROP MISSILE SHIELD PROTECTION FOR EUROPE FOR RUSSIAN HELP ON IRAN’
Thank you, Mr. President. This has been a useless boondoggle and money drain since Reagan and just as big a flop as his economic policies. This was a pipe dream born out of the Cold War era whose potential usefullness died with the USSR. The soul-less GOP’s deal with the devil (defense industry) kept it alive as their way of paying them off the large campaign contributors.
Jericho and Mojo,
Aren’t the Niners run by private individuals or a private company? Not to give people (or businesses) the right to decide what to do with their own property, but shouldn’t that company be able to say “no guns on our premises?”
The case isn’t about if they should\can ban guns, but how far they can go to find the banned guns. I’ll let the legal minds weigh in on if pat downs constitute an invasion of privacy or not.
I appreciate what has been said above minus the von troll manure.
The “National Football League’s limited pat down policy” goes too far.
It’s rooted in fear. Some of the policy’s history is described here:
http://www.nassm.com/files/conf_abstracts/2008-265.pdf
How does this get resolved at the national level? Or every municipal court where this is challenged will have to judge too?
It’s been said above that a ticket holder could just vote with their dollars and decide not to participate. That’s true. But the waiting list can be a couple of years to purchase season tickets.
It smacks of concentrating power, that tool Bush propagated on our lives.
Jericho,
Go to a Raiders game and then tell me you think it would be a good idea for them to be able to bring guns into the stadium.
Good point Gyges
What would be the difference in getting patted down at a football game, and getting patted down before you go into a club.
I was at a niners game last year where there were three fights that I saw, not to mention what I didn’t see. I have been to many raider games, and have never been to one where I didn’t see at least one fight. Why would it not be a good idea to make sure individuals are not coming into the games with weapons, especially since there is alcohol being served.