Bush Supreme Court Nominee Former Microsoft Lawyer

DaveM writes "Bush's most recent Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers, successfully argued that people who were sold defective software by Microsoft weren't "injured," and couldn't participate in a class action against the company. The case involved unstable compression features in MS DOS 6.0, which were corrected by a $9.95 update, MS DOS 6.2. Plaintiffs wanted Microsoft to offer the updates for free, but eventually lost to Miers' arguments."

Indictments at the Gates

[Doc Ruby]

How long before people connect the "Gates" [lxer.com]? From the "Preston, Gates" firm connecting Abramoff [wikipedia.org] to the rest of the Republican indictment gang, to the "Gates" whose giant monopoly was released from liability by the Republicans?

Re:Indictments at the Gates

[ad0gg]

Why do people forget that BSA isn't just Microsoft. Apple, IBM,Dell and every other major software producer is a board member. Preston, Gates was lobbyiest for the BSA, i love how they connect it to Microsoft though.

Re:Indictments at the Gates

[cioxx]

You do know that she was a registered Democrat when she tried that case, right?

You know who else is a registered Democrat?

That's right. Zell "Liberalism is a disease" Miller.

Don't read too deep into party affiliation. Many Southern Democrats only share the "D" with their progressive counterparts in the Northeast and along the coasts, and not much else.

Re:Indictments at the Gates

[Captain Sarcastic]

Sometimes party registration is a local thing.

Consider Kansas. It's a primarily Republican state. Outside of a few counties, almost all of the state offices go to members of the Republican party.

This usually means that, during primary season, the Democrats try to find someone that is willing to fight a battle where they are most likely out-recognized and out-spent by the existing Republican contender, unless the Republican has done something egregious. It's extremely rare for the Democrats to run more than one person for a seat during the primaries.

In Kansas (and in other states), the Republican primaries are closed primaries - the only people who can vote in them are party members (the Democrat primaries are open to anyone not voting Republican). As a result, some people who see no other way to get their voice heard become "paper Republicans." This lets them have some say in who is running in November, and can at least try to trim off some of the extremists at the primary level.

And sometimes it even works...

Re:Indictments at the Gates

[falconwolf]

She is nominated for one purpose and one purpose only - to pack the Supreme Court with pro-Bush justices so that when he is indicted by the Plame outing prosecutor for criminal conspiracy, he will have some people on the bench to keep him from being sent to prison.

Neither Bush nor any other president needs to pack the Spureme Court in case he's indicted and convicted, it's within then president Cheney's power to pardon him much as Ford did for Nixon. Now I'm not saying there isn't a "reason" for Bush to

Nice flaming headline.

[hanshotfirst]

No bias here, oh no.

CRISIS! DANGER!

A former mail clerk in GWB's oil company once used Microsoft Windows to play minesweeper. Now that mail clerk is the Janitor at Google! Does this mean Google is evil?

Re:Nice flaming headline.

[saintp]

Uh, how is that a flame? It's a fact. Bush's latest nominee used to be a lawyer for Microsoft. Whoopty-doo. How would you prefer they put it? "Bush court nominee hugs fuzzy bunnies, gives flags to orphans"?

Re:Nice flaming headline.

[stupidfoo]

"Bush bans oil! All cars must run on skittles and drive on rainbows"

Re:Nice flaming headline.

[Mr Guy]

I'm guessing a lot. Have you ever seen a preschooler after their second pack?

Re:Nice flaming headline.

[hesiod]

> Uh, how is that a flame? It's a fact. Bush's latest nominee used to be a lawyer for Microsoft.

Just because someone can argue a point for someone (remember that was her JOB to give MS's argument, not her own preference) it does not automatically mean they believe it to be correct.

Re:Nice flaming headline.

[monkeydo]

It's like people expect lawyers to have scruples or something.

Yeah, lawyers who zealously represent their cllients even when they personally disagree are like those scumbag doctors who'll treat just about anyone. I mean, wouldn't the world be a better place if Christian doctors refused to treat homosexuals, and liberal doctors refused to treat Republicans? Of course not. And just like medical care, the legal system only works if everyone has the best counsel available to them.

Re:Nice flaming headline.

[Whafro]

Many top-tier firms, including the one for which I am currently employed, require all associates to perform a percentage of billable hours on a pro-bono basis. In my case, it is at least sixty hours per attorney per year, or three percent of billable hours. That is approximately equal to a week's work.

Re:Nice flaming headline.

[Zordak]

right now is that there are about 4 or 5 Justices who like to obey their consciences regardless of what the Constitution says.

Just to help out those who aren't terribly informed on court politics, those five justices are as follows:

If you are a Republican: Breyer, Ginsburg, Souter, Stevens and Kennedy.

If you are a Democrat: Roberts (formerly Rhenquist), Thomas, Scalia, sometimes O'Connor and Kennedy. Both sides hate Kennedy. Since Miers is a Bush appointee she is by definition an activist to Democrats and will not get the benefit of O'Connor's "sometimes."

If you are conservative, your non-activist Hero is Scalia, who believes that constitutions and statutes should be interpreted according to the words written in light of their meaning at the time they were written.

If you are a liberal, your non-activist Hero is Ginsburg because that tight bun is just so dang SEXY!!!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Nice flaming headline.

[Anonymous Coward]

Argh. Bush is not religious. He just labels himself as such because it works for him politically. I am "religious" and I can't stand the man. He is fake and simply a puppet for the GOP. I am also a Southerner and his "Good Ole' Boy" (simple and honest, my ass) routine is just as fake, simply something that works for him politically.

Re:Nice flaming headline.

[eqkivaro]

i agree. religion is a tool. all presidents are "religious" because that's the only way they'll be elected. JFK had enough trouble because he picked the wrong religion.

The difference between republicans and dems on the issue of religion is that republicans are willing to use religion to justify taking away people's rights (the abortion issue), are willing to destroy science curriculums in public schools (evolution and "intelligent design" issues), and they don't seem to understand the concept of seperat

Re:Nice flaming headline.

[glesga_kiss]

You are talking complete tripe. You claim that Bush cares about others, but he started an entirely unneccesary war for the profits of his investors. 26,000 civilans are dead and a country is in civil war. No WMD, no terrorists, no open-arms and no easy win. All of this was predicted, fuck your own history has almost the exact same thing in it with Vietnam. A war unwanted by those you were "saving". Nothing that has happened in Iraq is a surprise to those who study history. Nothing. We were warning about this three years ago.

Even if 9-11 was 100% down to Saddam, are you saying it's valid to exchange 26,000 Arab lives to "prevent" a fluke incident that killed 3,000? Cares about others? What the hell are you smoking? And the 26,000 is 100% civilian. No one is even counting the deaths of those who take up arms. Say double that number perhaps, unless you want to admit that the civilian losses to war losses are less than 2:1, right?

He's either evil or stupid. Take your pick. I personally don't think he's dumb, just not very proficient at public speaking.

he does seem to regard the well-being of people -- or at least the "opinion" of the American public.

Well, duh. Post Katrina, if he hadn't shown intense interest he'd be out of a job right now. He cares about your opinion only because he has to. "Approval ratings lowest ever" was the news story that made him "care".

Oh, and don't even attept the "bi-partisan" bullshit, I'm not even from the USA so that system of avoiding debate won't work here. He is the worst president in years and he has done immeasuable harm to America. People will be flying planes into buildings for the next 50 years thanks to the hatred he stirred up. And I don't believe that was an accident, Rummy etc have been quoted as saying they'd like to incite violence in order to root them out. Caring? Are we talking about the same people? They care about no one but their investors.

You sir, are scum. You are defending a murderer. An armed robber of the highest order.

Re:Nice flaming headline.

[Qzukk]

Lies, damn lies, and statistics, all rolled up in one.

First off, the poverty rate: Look at page 18 of this pdf. [census.gov] The highlights of increasing poverty for 2003-2004 are telling, but the "damned lies" comes in when you look at the government's own graph at the bottom of the page. After a peak in 1993 or so, the official poverty rate declined until you reach 2000, where it began climbing again. While it's tempting to claim the .com boom caused all of this, I would suspect that 1) the people clawing their way

Re:Nice flaming headline.

[soft_guy]

if he wasn't Christian, the liberals would not have a problem with the guy

I suspect you are trolling. Regardless, all of the presidents we have had at least in the 20th/21st century have been Christians.

There was this guy you might remember who was President a while back called Jimmy Carter who was extremely liberal and a Christian.

Re:Nice flaming headline.

[b17bmbr]

you have described everyone in washington. what's your point? actually, isn't it odd that now differences of opinion mean someone's smallminded, stupid, and stubborn. in fact, let's examine this:

whatever your thoughts on the WoT, after 9/11, if he was all you say, would he really believe in promoting democracy and changing the medieval ways of the middle east or would he just say "kill em all, let God sort them out"?

which requires greater thought?

Re:Nice flaming headline.

[b17bmbr]

as for the kill em all option, if bush was such a warmongering monster, then he wouldn't have done in afghanistan and iraq what he's attempted.

does it really matter if it's unilateral? france (especially france), russia, and germany were all on the take (oil for food). the UN is a corrupt institution. should we really allow others to dictate our foreign policy.

as for the planning, yes, there were problems. however, track the military changes and cuts in teh 90's, and you'll find we were in a major downs

Re:Nice flaming headline.

[mrbcs]

More like he fools the religious right... the ones too lazy to pick up their Bible and read.

You'll know a tree by it's fruit.. that's one bad apple. I think the expression was What Would Jesus Do... not Who Would Jesus Bomb.

Bush may play the religious right like a cheap fiddle... but he's no Christian by his actions. (Yes I am a Christian and I do read the Bible and am sick of how popular this wolf in sheeps clothing is).

Re:Nice flaming headline.

[monkeydo]

Why is judge experience neccesarry? It wasn't vogue to appoint judges to the Supreme Court until recently. Prior to that, we had governors, congressman, lawyers, etc. In fact, many of the most respected justices came to the court with no judicial experience.

Re:Nice flaming headline.

[AviLazar]

We are not talking about just any court position. Obviously people start as a judge with zero experience - but for the HIGHEST seat in the land, yea some judge-court experience is necessary. It is completely different sitting on the bench then trying to curry favor with the bench.

Put it this way, I work closely with my boss. DOes that mean I am qualified to do my bosses job? No. She may have been a lawyer for years, but that does not mean she knows what to do as a judge.

Let's also remember that w

Re: Lack of experience

[markhb]

The lack of bench experience has been well-discussed in the traditional media since yesterday. In coming to the Court without such experience, she would follow a path well-traveled by such men as:

• Byron White [wikipedia.org]
• CJ Earl Warren [wikipedia.org]
• William O. Douglas (the longest-serving Justice in SCOTUS history)
• Louis Brandeis [wikipedia.org]
• CJ John Marshall [wikipedia.org]

... and, of course,

• William Rehnquist [wikipedia.org] (who was appointed as an Associate Justice by Nixon before elevation to CJ).

... So, of course, she must be immediately disqualified.

Re: Lack of experience

[AviLazar]

... So, of course, she must be immediately disqualified.

And I made this statement where? Thanks for coming out.

Oh, and just because it has been done in the past, does not make it the best possible course to take. Yea, she may potentially be a great justice, that does not mean she is the best - and taht does not mean she is qualified right now to enter this position. Could she learn it, yea if she got this position she has the rest of her life to learn how to do the job....but then, there are the fi

Stop expecting Slashdot to be unbiased

[allanc]

And your mistake is assuming that it's pretending to be. It's a common mistake for some reason. Slashdot doesn't claim to be journalism, they don't claim to be original, and they don't claim to be unbiased.

I don't know where people manage to get the impression that a site run by a guy calling himself "Commander Taco" should be held to the same journalistic standards as CNN.

The Slashdot editors post stories that they'd want to read as Slashdot readers. Since the editors are heavily anti-Microsoft, pro-Apple,

What do you expect?

[Viper Daimao]

What was she supposed to argue? "My client is guilty."?

Re:What do you expect?

[GreyPoopon]

What was she supposed to argue? "My client is guilty."?

And more importantly, if you read through other news articles about her, you'll see that many of her arguments are highly based on logic. In the mentioned Microsoft case, her argument was against the "class" that was chosen for the lawsuit. The plaintiffs chose everyone who bought DOS 6.0 as for the class, arguing that they had been harmed and shouldn't have to pay $10 for an upgrade. However, not everybody who bought the product was using, or intended to use the compression features, so it was difficult to justify including all of them in the class. Therefore, the class was decertified. The suit was dismissed and dropped because the lawyer representing the plaintiffs didn't want to bother with actually getting a more reasonable class determined for the suit.

Re:What do you expect?

[tomhudson]

It was dishonest "logic".

You'll see that many of her arguments are highly based on logic. In the mentioned Microsoft case, her argument was against the "class" that was chosen for the lawsuit. The plaintiffs chose everyone who bought DOS 6.0 as for the class, arguing that they had been harmed and shouldn't have to pay $10 for an upgrade. However, not everybody who bought the product was using, or intended to use the compression features, so it was difficult to justify including all of them in the class. Th

Re:What do you expect?

[Forbman]

Funny, though, here's a different case.

My (former) 1991 MR-2T had a recall issued on the steering wheel because it was alleged that it was too stiff. Although it hadn't happened yet, it was feared that in a crash, an unrestrained driver's head could be seriously injured when his head hit the wheel (despite the airbag). It actually hadn't happened at that point.

There are several recalls issued on different cars because of engineering defects that may not have actually manifested themselves at the time of the

Re:What do you expect?

[tomhudson]

and if you aren't using and have no intention of using an optional feature then you are not harmed directly, only potentially harmed.

Guess you weren't around during the DOS 6 marketing campaign. It wasn't a marginal feature - it was the #1 reason people were buying DOS 6. Hard disk space was measured in megabytes, not gigabytes. An 80 gig hd cost $400 back then. You couldn't even buy a 1-gig hd.

So, when the highly-promoted "look you can double your disk space with our latest and greatest" DOS 6 turns u

Re:Poor analogy

[tomhudson]

If Microsoft was being sued over a bug that affected a core feature of the OS, that too would equally applied to everyone who purchased the system.

It (disk compression) was heavily advertised, and was the #1 reason to upgrade. Remember the tiny hard disks (40-100 meg) back then?

But since the bug was limited to a feature that only a small group of people used

... because reports quickly surfaced that it corrupted data. Everyone I know used it, and everyone experienced corruption, and downgraded back to DO

Re:What do you expect?

[tomhudson]

At the time they wre first implanted, we didn't know as much about the problems caused by silicone leaking into the body as we do now. They were supposed to be as safe as saline. They're not. It's a real problem, and not just for women. Think of it - guy marries a woman, and finds out she needs a double mastectomy and is facing a lifetime of joint pain because her plastic boobies ruptured. Everyone is a loser.

Re:What do you expect?

[magarity]

Microsoft SHOULD have offered updates for free if they screwed something up

Yours is the first post I've come across to actually address the case in question and coincidentally the first to obviously not have read what the case was about. So I will respond:

It wasn't a question of what MS should have done about upgrades or refunds or whatever. It was a question of whether everyone who bought DOS 6 with the buggy compression could sue or whether only people who had lost data because of said

Re:What do you expect?

[ifwm]

None of which has anything to do with how this lady should have argued her case.

Her client hired her, she is required (yes REQUIRED) to do her best in the handling of the case, and since she won, I'd say she did a great job.

You obviously don't understand how the law works at all.

Well...

[theantipop]

I can't say it's a great thing for America to have so many Republican justices, but I don't see how anyone can get wrapped up on this point? So she was good at her job. Is that something that we need to villify?

Republican Justices?

[Medievalist]

Once appointed, Supreme Court Justices are pretty much free to rise above the (nearly invisible) Republican/Democrat split if they so choose.

Individual Justices do tend to be either authoritarian or libertarian, and either punishment-oriented or goal-oriented, though; some people incorrectly assign these values to the parties (just because GWB is a punishment-oriented authoritarian doesn't mean those are the values of the people who are registered republicans).

If it makes you feel better, Harriet Miers has been reported to be a Gore supporter by the mainstream media.

Re:Well...

[moviepig.com]

...So she was good at her job. Is that something that we need to vilify?

(No, apart from the fact that everything is something we need to vilify...)

Moreover... who hasn't occasionally lamented that only Politicians seek office? Have you never wished that, say, a President could be "drafted" from a President pool, comprising (like a jury pool) people who are qualified and willing but not seeking? Well, at first glance, this latest Bench-warmer pick may approximate that.

Re:Well...

[PaxTech]

The difference is that Democrats think Republicans are evil, and Republicans think Democrats are stupid.

Re:Well...

[Martin Blank]

You're right, she was never a judge. As far as I can tell, neither were:

• William Rehnquist
• Lewis Powell
• Abe Fortas
• Arthur Goldberg
• Byron White
• Earl Warren
• Tom Clark
• Harold Burton
• Robert Jackson
• James Byrnes
• Frank Murphy
• William Douglas
• Felix Frankfurter
• Stanley Reed (who also did not have a law degree)
• Hugo Black
• Owen Roberts
• Harlan Stone
• Pierce Butler
• George Sutherland
• Louis Brandeis
• James McReynolds
• Joseph Lamar
• Charles Evans Hughes
• William Moody

That's just for those appointed in the 20th century. Note that this is not author

So she did her job...

[Animaether]

...and she did it well. Well enough to win a case that at least on grounds of common sense (which typically doesn't apply to legal rulings) she should've lost.

Are 'we' going to fault her for that ?

You know, here's a news flash...

[hivemind_mvgc]

Most lawyers argue a case because they're paid to argue the case, not because they have some personal convictions involved in the case.

Microsoft pays well.

I fail to see any relevance to this story, beyond the usual anti-Microsoft rabble rousing.

Re:You know, here's a news flash...

[B'Trey]

She's being nominated to the Supreme Court, where she will influence the direction of court cases in the US for likely the next few decades. She has never been a judge, so we have no history of judgements on which to evaluate her. If we don't use her previous work as a lawyer as a basis of judgement, exactly how should we judge her? Or should we simply confirm her as a Supremen Court Justice and hope for the best?

Re:You know, here's a news flash...

[dAzED1]

Reinquist, among many others, had never been a judge before serving on SCOTUS.

Re:You know, here's a news flash...

[dAzED1]

why yes...yes, I can.

There have now been 108 Justices in the history of the US. Of those, 44 had no prior judicial experience. That's a healthy 41%.

In fact, the 2 of the last 3 Justices that were appointed, prior to Roberts, had no previous judicial experience. Those would be Clarence Thomas (Reagan appointee, 1991), and Steven Breyer (Clinton appointee, 1994).

Kennedy appointed Justices Byron White and Arthur Goldberg, neither of which had any prior experience. I mention them because Kennedy could do no

Re:You know, here's a news flash...

[julesh]

If we don't use her previous work as a lawyer as a basis of judgement, exactly how should we judge her? Or should we simply confirm her as a Supremen Court Justice and hope for the best?

My suggestion would be to not appoint her until she has shown a record of some kind that will be useful in determining whether she is appropriate. Of course, I'm not an elected representative of the US people, so I have no choice in the matter. Probably what Bush is hoping is that as there is little useful past history tha

Re:You know, here's a news flash...

[julesh]

Yes, but the point to consider is that lawyers (particularly corporate ones) really don't have much choice about the cases they take. They take the one that's presented and do the best job they can to argue it in favour of their client, or they get fired. That's basically the job description.

Now, if she had, for instance, breached client confidentiality, or had a history of losing important cases, or something like that, it might be relevant for determining how she would perform as a judge. However, I do

Re:You know, here's a news flash...

[at_slashdot]

As someone pointed out she didn't work as a judge so we cannot evaluate her by a history of judgements. However, we can evaluate her by the choices she made: Did she defend poor people, did she defend somebody who was attacked by a corporate bully? I mean there are cases and cases, I think it matters for example if you choose to defend Microsoft or you choose to represent the people that use Microsoft products.(Of course that's only a personal opinion and preference and it doesn't have any legal weight)

I guess my sig is very appropriate for this situation. Life is about choices, you show who you are by the choices you make.

Re:You know, here's a news flash...

[ifwm]

"Did she defend poor people"

Why yes, as a matter of fact she did. She did pro bono work for Catholic Charities. I am assuming that it involved "poor people" as you so elegantly put it.

Personally, I prefer my Judges have a well rounded idea of the Law, rather than some idealistic fantasy.

"I think it matters for example if you choose to defend Microsoft or you choose to represent the people that use Microsoft products"

Well, since she was an EMPLOYEE at a firm that represented MS, I think it doesn't matter o

Re:You know, here's a news flash...

[killjoe]

"Is it not considered "moral" to give a defendant the full consideration of the law? Is it not moral to perform your job to the best of your ability? Is it not moral to uphold the Constitution, despite the fact that you may dislike who the Constitution favors in this particular instance?"

As an attorney you can make choices about who you represent. You can make choices about the law firm you work for. YOu can make choices about which cases to take.

"I would find it very hard to call someone moral who abandons

In other news...

[Reality Master 101]

Lawyers argue for what their clients pay them to argue.

Exactly what is the story here? Both sides had lawyers. Are you going to tell me that all the lawyers on the other side are shining knights of glory?

Key phrase

[deanj]

Rather that turning this into a political farce, for someone that has an axe to grind with this new nominee, let's cut to the chase here, and look at the key phrase in that article:

"Microsoft believed that only people who actually lost data had a right to sue; that those merely with faulty software hadn't been injured."

I hate Microsoft as much of the next guy, but I don't see what's wrong with this. It's basically saying "If you lost data, you can sue. If you didn't, you can't".

Sounds like the people that wanted to sue Microsoft, but didn't have anything go wrong for them, got caught.

Besides, there are plenty of other defects in Microsoft software they probably could have sued for instead.

Re:Key phrase

[Speare]

I hate Chevrolet as much of the next guy, but I don't see what's wrong with this. It's basically saying "If you lost a child in a horrific crash due to a known brake failure problem in that line of cars, you can sue. If you didn't, you can't."

Re:Key phrase

[SimilarityEngine]

But it goes further, to say: if you have defective brakes, you are not entitled to a free replacement - even if those brakes are shown to have caused serious accidents.

Re:Key phrase

[Speare]

I'll entertain your idiocy for a moment. If the original equipment stereo killed your child thanks to an electrical problem, instead of a brake failure, this would make the analogy so much clearer? Any tangible product with known dangerous problems should be recalled, repaired, replaced or refunded, whether it has actually caused each owner damage or not. Why is this different for software?

Big Law Firm - MS has Bucks

[justanyone]

I'm not ready to disqualify a supreme court nominee based on their having had as a client one of the richest corporations on the planet. She was head of the largest law firm in (Texas? Dallas?) and thus had available lawyers to devote to a case; Microsoft had money to pay them; that's normal.

I would object to this nominee based on her:
* committing unethical acts while representing them;
* arguing a totally untenable or specious position or otherwise demonstrating gross incompetence;
* obviously agreeing with her client in her private speech (indicating a personal position, not a professional representation of her client's position), where that client's position was representative of unethical behavior or attitudes, etc.;
* use of legal arguments based far outside of conventional legal mainstream thought (the Bork-Wacko factor).

It seems to me we should pay attention to ethics, competence, and political leanings that don't represent the broadly accepted norm, or if she's in the past said she will legislate from the bench (which I highly doubt given her lack of being a judge previously).

oh god

[nomadic]

What stupidity. There are a bunch of reasons to criticize her: no judicial experience or constitutional scholarship; hell, she's just a Bush flunky. The fact that she was hired as an advocate for Microsoft isn't one of them. I mean, get some goddamn perspective.

Re:oh god

[ari_j]

Why is lack of judicial experience (or, for that matter, whatever measure you use to determine a person's "constitutional scholarship") a reason to criticize her? I can think of at [wikipedia.org] least [wikipedia.org] a few [wikipedia.org] prior examples of this working out.

There are plenty of valid criticisms of Miers, but that's no more one of them than is her work as an attorney for Microsoft.

Re:oh god

[ari_j]

Thank you, Findlaw. :) Here is a list of Supreme Court justices with no prior judicial experience [findlaw.com].

Both sides

[skydude_20]

Miers argued for Microsoft and the new chief justice John Roberts argued for the states against Microsoft, so at least we know the discussions between the two will be lively behind the scenes of the courtroom.

Um...

[Quiet_Desperation]

I'm no fan of Bush and could give a flip about Meirs, but isn't this reaching a bit? If this is the worst anyone can come up with... or were you just looking for a tech angle?

I was hoping he would nominate Janice Rogers Brown, a black female conservative Christian libertarian and daughter of a sharecropper, if only for the fun in watching the media and politicians desperately try to pigeon hole her. Thousands and thousands of exploding heads guaranteed with that one. Oh well...

Re:Um...

[Eslyjah]

Brown would make a fantastic Supreme Court Justice, and not because she's a minority of a minority of a minority. She would be outstanding because she is a true scholar, and because she has been at the forefront of articulating conservative-libertarian judicial philosophy.

Miers is bad, not because of this stupid tech angle and not because she's never been a judge, but a) because she has no demonstrable scholarly credentials whatsoever, and b) her nomination sends a message to bright young conservative lawy

Not very telling

[Pedrito]

Lawyers are hired to win cases. Lawyers frequently champion causes they don't personally support. It's their job to win their clients' cases. The job of a lawyer is not to be impartial or fair minded. You can't fault her for doing her job.

What concerns me more is that she has no experience being a judge so there's nothing really to base a judgement of how impartial or fair minded she would be as judge. You can't really know how she'll interpret the law until she's judged cases.

This goes back, in my opinion, to Bush hiring completely unqualified people for important positions, like Mike Brown at FEMA, only the consequences of this choice will reach much further into the future.

Short Version

[neoshroom]

Short Version:

1. MS DOS 6.0 has bad compression software that doesn't work and can destroy your data.
2. Microsoft is sued because people bought something, didn't get what they thought they did and are forced to pay more to just get what they should have already had.
3. Supreme court nominee argues based on the technicality that the mere presense of the fault isn't enough to count as an "injury" but you need to actually have destroy data and since the suit wasn't brought forth on that basis, calls for dismissal.
4. Microsoft wins. Lawyers win. People loose.

So remember, if a contractor ever builds your house out of paper mache instead of bricks like he promised, sue only AFTER it collapses.

What could we add to his headline?

[ifwm]

Let's see

"Bush nominee Former microsoft lawyer..." Who once knew someone who represented SCO, while allowing her son to be friends with a kid whose parents had heard about Intelligent Design.

Oh, and she knows someone that thinks Linux isn't ready for the desktop.

So What

[Greyfox]

Has she ever suggested that it might be OK to wire up a guy's testicles to a car battery to get answers out of him, so long as he's not a USA citizen? Working for Microsoft isn't where this administration has set the bar. Shocking people's testicles is where this administration has set the bar. I just want a justice that won't have everyone's testicles wired up and ready to go 20 years from now! Who cares about the fetusses? Who cares about prior Microsoft experience? The testicles are where it's at!

When will Atlas shrug?

[Progman3K]

Isn't the idea to fill the supreme court with people who have a proven record of fighting in the interest of the people?

How does she qualify? Because she saved a corporation lots of money?

I hate to sound biased, but if that is here claim in deserving this job, then it truly IS a sad day for the American people.

Bad rap for the disk compression

[lseltzer]

IIRC, there wasn't really a bug in the disk compression; the issue was lazy writes. Users who, for example, shut the system down precipitously, might have had written data lost, but the same is true of any modern OS. I think all 6.2 did in this regard was to shut off lazy writes by default.

You might remember that Infoworld ran a major page 1 review reporting that the compression had bugs that resulted in lost data, but in fact it was their faulty testing procedures that caused system resets without flushing the cache that was the cause of the lost data. Infoworld ran a page 1 correction not long thereafter, but that wouldn't stop trial lawyers from trying to form a class.

Unqualified for the job???

[dtjohnson]

The new nominee seems completely unqualified for the job, whatever her past lawyering cases were, Microsoft or no. She's never even decided a traffic ticket case. How can she possibly be qualified to decide cases which will set legal precedents for the next umpty-ump years? There is an enormous difference between being a lawyer and being a judge. Her only qualifications for the job seem to be 1) friend of Bush, 2) lawyer, and 3) a woman. I think a supreme court justice should have more qualifications than those.

Can we look at something important?

[ageoffri]

I've seen a lot of Microsoft bashing here and even more Republican bashing, but this has to take the cake. The Senate needs to look at issues that apply to the Constitution.

Does she respect the 2nd Amendment

If yes then she is a very good nominee for the Supreme Court.

Does she respect Wade vs. Roe?

If no then I would have a problem with her being appointed.

Since she wasn't a judge, I'd like to know how much she used precedence in arguing her cases.

If she is very traditional in her use of precedence then that is a very good sign regardless if you are Conservative or Liberal

Did she ever argue any Civil Rights cases?

This is the most complex question I have. Without knowing how she argued these sorts of cases and the details of the cases I can't even begin to say what would be good or bad

So I urge /.'ers to pull the rope down from the tree and give her a fair chance to be evaluated before you hang her for having been a lawyer on a Microsoft case.

Oh for crying out loud...

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Look, I know /. readership is overwhelming left-of-center, but to post an article about Bush's lawyer being "related to Microsoft" is kind of silly. At some point the Bush-bashing just becomes pointless partisanship. So she made an argument for Microsoft back in the DOS 6.2 days. She also used to be Democrat and contributed to Al Gore's campaign fund. Big deal. Is this what passes for "News for Nerds"?

mathematics degree

[PMuse]

One thing that differs about Miers from most of the court -- her undergraduate degree (mathematics).

The others are Roberts (liberal arts), *O'Connor (economics), *Rehnquist (political science), Breyer (liberal arts, math, science), Ginsburg (government), Kennedy (liberal arts, economics), Scalia (history), Souter (liberal arts), Stevens (english literature), Thomas (seminary, english).

What most of you are missing

[adturner]

I'm amazed at the ignorance on slashdot. I've lost count of how many people have said, "How can she qualified for SOCTUS if she's never been a judge?"

The simple fact is that she would not be the first justice to never have sit on the bench before. Most recently Chief Justice Rehnquist was never a judge before he served http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Rehnquist [wikipedia.org]. (Contrary to another poster, http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/122/hill/marshall.htm [gmu.edu] Thurgood Marshall was a judge before he served.)

Of course, as some of you have pointed out, for a lawyer, what matters not are these cases where the laywer is paid for their work. Everyone (even rich companies) have the right to a solid defense. And in this case I actually agree with the decision- M$ should only be liable for data corruption that actually occured, not which might someday occur.

What does matter is what pro bono work she's done. This is where you find out what issues are important to her and gives better insight on how she would rule and write her opinions. Apparently she has been actively involved with trying to get other laywers to do pro bono work, so either she has a stack load of cases we can examine or she's a hypocrite.

She Supports The Corporation/Government..

[nurb432]

Instead of the citizen. Could have guessed that one considering she was appointed by a politician..

Or could it be she was just defending her client? She was being PAID by microsoft, it doesnt mean she actually supported the decision. Attorneys are not paid to make moral judgements, they are paid to defend their client and try to win. ( and of course to make money for themselves.. )

Perhaps now her client is 'the people', and she will fight for us.

Re:She Supports The Corporation/Government..

[FreshFunk510]

I see your point but I don't accept it. If one cannot stand up for their morals when they live a modest life, how can you expect them to once they are wealthy and powerful?

Given this new information. . .

[jafac]

I hereby declare her to be an evil baby-eating witch, who must NOT gain any Democratic votes for confirmation.

So...

[th3space]

The most troubling thing about this is that she once represented Microsoft when she worked at a law firm? She represented Disney and a few other large corporations too, it's what lawyers are paid to do.

Have we perhaps overlooked the fact that she was appointed by then Texas Governor Bush to head up the oft-maligned Texas Lottery Commission and dispatched two commissioners who happned to be democrats, one of whom claimed to be instrumental in getting Bush discharged from the Air National Guard? How about the fact that when running for Dallas City Council, she considered herself to be a reformed pro-choicer (aka: anti-choice) due to a born again situation? Or the fact that she lobbied the ABA to change its stance from pro-choice to nuetral or pro-life, only to rebuffed? Then she was the one who claimed that the ABA rankings weren't valid measures of performance and standing when trying to identify nominees for the appelate court?

Don't be fooled here, she's a wolf in sheeps clothing...Dubbya's sleeping giant. He's trying to put through someone with no real paper trail so that he can establish his real legacy, shifting the opinion of the court to 'repair' the moral fiber of America. Being from Dallas, a city that she called home for a good long while, I've already heard a good deal from Texas republicans (which I, myself, used to be) about how she is more like Sandra Day O'Connor than people realize, and she'll fit that mold well, but I don't buy it. She won't play 'swing vote' in any form or fashion. I hope she gots blocked, and hard.

Can People Please Remember

[DarkOx]

Lawyers have a job, so do judges. A lawyers task is to argue any point, philosophy and set of facts and precedents that he/she thinks will favorably impact the outcome of the case for the client. They are essentially sales men. No sales person ever came to you and said "Hey I think this product is a pice of total crap personaly but anyway you should by one." No they keep the discussion focused on the virtue of the product. Working for Microsoft ment she had to convince those she was asked to speak with, be they judges, officials, customers or whoever, that Microsofts positions were sensible and legally correct, not that she personally felt that way. The fact she worked for Microsoft means only she was paid to do a job.

Bad news for Microsoft? she may recuse

[jbeaupre]

Justices generally recuse themselves from cases involving possible conficts of interest. Since she was Microsofts attorney, any case of theirs that reaches SCOTUS will likely trigger her recusing. So if she is pro-microsoft, even indirectly such as supporting the rights of large corporations, the balance of the court shifts against MS. On the other hand, if working with MS left a bad taste for corporations, having her off the case is a plus for MS.

this whole microsoft...

[KillShill]

thing is a red herring.

it has nothing to do with software.

she's the person who helped wipe bush's national guard records.

it's called cronyism. just about everyone in the current administration is there because of donating to the GOP or is a close friend of the bushs.

http://www.counterpunch.org/frank10042005.html [counterpunch.org]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/miers-l ed-law-firm-repeat_b_8277.html [huffingtonpost.com]

http://www.globalnewsmatrix.com/modules.php?name=N ews&file=article&sid=2835 [globalnewsmatrix.com]

http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/ 002383.html [pnionline.com]

just some interesting links.

Re:Maybe she'll help out when they impeach Bush

[schnikies79]

Of course, because you heard it on the news, it must be factual. I don't like the guy much either but I don't believe every bit of drivel to come down the pipe.

Re:Maybe she'll help out when they impeach Bush

[Travoltus]

Clinton was impeached for a blowjob.

Bush lied to the entire country and troops are dying, plus he's nominating his own personal lawyer with NO experience as a judge, to the Supreme Court. We seriously need an impeachment here.

(Hot dang, this place is thick with neo conservative mods!!)

Re:Maybe she'll help out when they impeach Bush

[jnaujok]

Because Bill Clinton was being sued for sexual harrassment. He had elicited sex in return for job favors. During the course of this trial, he was called to testify. Part of that testimony was to establish his history as a sexual predator and serial harrasser. During that testimony, the prosecuting attourney brought up "Jane Doe #4", an un-named (at the time) intern in the White House. He specifically asked if Mr. Clinton had had sexual encounters with this intern. He denied everything.

Largely on the basis

Re:Maybe she'll help out when they impeach Bush

[illumina+us]

"Against All Enemies" by Richard A. Clarke. Please read that book. You'll see how badly Bush wanted to go into Iraq IMMEDIATELY after 9/11.

Re:Wrong process anyway

[deanj]

They shoot the judges that used to be there, and install new judges.

Re:Wrong process anyway

[Reverend528]

I'd gladly let my tax dollars be used for that $9.95 update.

um, ok....

[everphilski]

He appoints nominees, the senate makes the final decision. If the senate doesn't like what they see, the democrats (the opposing party at the moment) can filabuster, or the senators will vote against her.

You need a single point to bring people into consideration. Otherwise what are they gonna do, have all 100 senators sit at a table and talk until they can find someone they all like? riiight, like that's gonna find someone quickly :P.

-everphilski-

Re:um, ok....

[Verteiron]

Don't worry, it will be. As soon as the majority decides that it doesn't want to wait out or deal with a filibuster, it will use what the press is terming "the nuclear option" and essentially ban filibustering (is that even a word?) when it comes to judicial nominations. Apparently they've already come close to doing this at least once.

Re:Wrong process anyway

[Fezzick]

Appointment of a supreme court judge by the president is absolutely essential; our forefathers specifically designed our federal goverment that way . This directly corresponds to the checks and balances between the three branches of goverment that every US student learned in social studies class (in this case, the executive over the judiciary).

Re:Wrong process anyway

[AvitarX]

Having the president appoint supreme court judges is wrong anyway. There should be a better process of selecting them. How's it done in other countries?


In soviet Russia supreme court selects you.

Re:Wrong process anyway

[leroybrown]

wouldn't it be, "In Soviet Russia, Supreme Court selects president"? oh, wait...

Re:Wrong process anyway

[ari_j]

How is it "wrong"? What standard are you using to evaluate the procedure? It is absolutely correct, according to the U.S. Constitution. Who cares how other countries do it? Other countries simply do not have the same court system we have, and whatever they do doesn't make sense - but even if similarities exist to the point that their way would make sense here, it still doesn't matter because the Constitution says it doesn't matter.

Constitutional process, checks and balances

[gatzke]

Have you ever taken a US history / constituion class?

It all goes back to check and balances for our three arms of the national government.

Why is it wrong to have the president appoint a SC justice with the advice and consent of the Legislative branch? Just because you hate W does not make the process "wrong". Billy boi Clinton appointed one of the most liberal SC justices ever and had her approved in a 96-4 vote in the Senate, with little to no bitching by the minority right (or was that majority right at

Re:Wrong process anyway

[KiltedKnight]

Miers Gave to GOP Candidates, Democrats [washingtonpost.com]

My guess is that Miers is not necessarily going to be as conservative as some people might think. In fact, she may turn out to be a bit more liberal than several prominent Republicans might like. Of course, like you said, you can never tell what a person is going to be like once they are confirmed and on the bench until they start deciding cases.

And to follow on with your comment about David Souter, a Reagan apointee, Anthony Kennedy, once voted on a case a certain way because he felt it was the "conservative" way to vote. Then, having been tasked with writing the majority opinion, he realized what he was writing wasn't what he truly felt, and ended up changing his vote and swinging the case in the other direction.

Ford never expected Justice Stevens to become as liberal as he is either.

Re:Wrong process anyway

[ari_j]

Thanks for the laugh about Wikipedia writing down your constitution for you. In US law, we have the American Law Institute writing down "restatements" of the law, which typically just restate the common law (although they sometimes try to innovate a bit by writing down what the law should be, those bastards) - such as the Restatement of Torts or the Restatement of Contracts. Wikipedia is becoming the Restatement of the English Constitution, eh? ;)

Re:I Was Injured

[Pxtl]

This isn't about BSOD. This is worse. I think I remember this feature - some sort of "disk doubler" feature. Disk Doubler might've been a competing product to the actual MS version. Either way, it was a system that would somehow make your disks have far more space. I don't know if it was a more efficient FAT, or just automatically unzipping and zipping files for you or what, but a lot of people used it until their drives magically vanished. At that point you needed a format to fix the problem, iirc.

I

Re:I Was Injured

[John Courtland]

I think it was called DriveSpace (DRVSPACE.EXE) and was a memory hog. I think it ate something like 30-40K of low mem. I don't even think you could put it into the UMB (I am possibly wrong on this as I didn't do too much experimenting with it, but without a lot of playing I couldn't get it up there), so it was a real waste of very valuable resources.

Re:Capitalism

[lgw]

Fascism is not government by corporation. That's a translation/cultural mistake. Mercantilism is government by business interest, historically to the extent of going to war to protect your foriegn markets from regulation by their own governments. If you're worried about the current trend continuing unchecked (a silly thin to worry about IMO), that's where we're heading. The Wikipedia article [slashdot.org] discusses hte economic theory, but like communism it's really both political and economic in practice. The moder

Re:If you were dumb enuff to use DOS ...

[Alex P Keaton in da]

Ok my friend, I may not agree with you, but I read your comment and saw your point, until There is probably enough 'bad' about Bush for the UN to put the son of a bitch in jail.
Are you trying to be funny? The UN putting an American in jail? Uh... never, ever gonna happen. And I am not talking about how the UN is corrupt, how despots are on the human rights commission-
There is no chance of the UN ever having the autority to put an American President in jail. None.
And for all your ranting about Bush- sayi