Bush Supreme Court Nominee Former Microsoft Lawyer 1036
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 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Indictments at the Gates (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Indictments at the Gates (Score:3, Informative)
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 (Score:4, Informative)
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 (Score:3, Interesting)
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. (Score:2, Insightful)
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. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nice flaming headline. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nice flaming headline. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Nice flaming headline. (Score:5, Insightful)
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. (Score:5, Insightful)
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. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Nice flaming headline. (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nice flaming headline. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nice flaming headline. (Score:3, Insightful)
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. (Score:4, Insightful)
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. (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Re:Nice flaming headline. (Score:5, Insightful)
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. (Score:3, Insightful)
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. (Score:3, Insightful)
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. (Score:5, Insightful)
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. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nice flaming headline. (Score:3, Insightful)
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 (Score:3, Informative)
Re: Lack of experience (Score:3, Insightful)
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 (Score:3, Insightful)
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? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What do you expect? (Score:5, Informative)
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? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What do you expect? (Score:3, Interesting)
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? (Score:3, Informative)
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 (Score:3, Insightful)
It (disk compression) was heavily advertised, and was the #1 reason to upgrade. Remember the tiny hard disks (40-100 meg) back then?
... 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? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What do you expect? (Score:3, Insightful)
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? (Score:4, Insightful)
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... (Score:3, Insightful)
Republican Justices? (Score:4, Insightful)
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... (Score:3, Insightful)
(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... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Well... (Score:3, Informative)
That's just for those appointed in the 20th century. Note that this is not author
So she did her job... (Score:5, Insightful)
Are 'we' going to fault her for that ?
You know, here's a news flash... (Score:5, Insightful)
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... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:You know, here's a news flash... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:You know, here's a news flash... (Score:3, Informative)
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... (Score:3, Insightful)
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... (Score:3, Insightful)
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... (Score:4, Insightful)
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... (Score:3, Informative)
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... (Score:3, Informative)
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... (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
"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 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Key phrase (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Key phrase (Score:3, Informative)
Big Law Firm - MS has Bucks (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:oh god (Score:3, Informative)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
Both sides (Score:5, Interesting)
Um... (Score:5, Insightful)
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... (Score:3, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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? (Score:3, Funny)
"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 (Score:3, Insightful)
When will Atlas shrug? (Score:3, Interesting)
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 (Score:3, Interesting)
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??? (Score:3, Interesting)
Can we look at something important? (Score:3, Interesting)
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... (Score:3, Insightful)
mathematics degree (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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.. (Score:3, Insightful)
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.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Given this new information. . . (Score:3, Insightful)
So... (Score:3, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
Bad news for Microsoft? she may recuse (Score:5, Insightful)
this whole microsoft... (Score:3, Informative)
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-
http://www.globalnewsmatrix.com/modules.php?name=
http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives
just some interesting links.
Re:Maybe she'll help out when they impeach Bush (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Maybe she'll help out when they impeach Bush (Score:3, Insightful)
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 (Score:3, Informative)
Largely on the basis
Re:Maybe she'll help out when they impeach Bush (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wrong process anyway (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wrong process anyway (Score:3, Funny)
um, ok.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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
-everphilski-
Re:um, ok.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wrong process anyway (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wrong process anyway (Score:5, Funny)
In soviet Russia supreme court selects you.
Re:Wrong process anyway (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wrong process anyway (Score:3, Insightful)
Constitutional process, checks and balances (Score:3, Insightful)
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 (Score:4, Interesting)
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 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I Was Injured (Score:3, Interesting)
I
Re:I Was Injured (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Capitalism (Score:3, Informative)
Re:If you were dumb enuff to use DOS ... (Score:3, Interesting)
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