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3 posts tagged law
How does a traffic cop ticket a driverless car? - opinion - 24 December 2012 - New Scientist
EVER since the 1930s, self-driving cars have been just 20 years away. Many of those earlier visions, however, depended on changes to physical infrastructure that never came about - like special roads embedded with magnets. Fast forward to today, and many of the modern concepts for such vehicles are intended to work with existing technologies. These supercomputers-on-wheels use a variety of onboard sensors - and, in some cases, stored maps or communications from other vehicles - to assist or even replace human drivers under specific conditions. And they have the potential to adapt to changes in existing infrastructure rather than requiring it to alter for them. Infrastructure, however, is more than just roads, pavements, signs and signals. In a broad sense, it also includes the laws that govern motor vehicles: driver licensing requirements, rules of the road and principles of product liability, to name but a few. One major question remains though. Will tomorrow’s cars and trucks have to adapt to today’s legal infrastructure, or will that infrastructure adapt to them?
Supreme Court justices are to meet privately Friday to weigh whether they will hear a major genetic-privacy case testing whether authorities may take DNA samples from anybody arrested for a serious crime. The case has wide-ranging implications, as at least 21 states and the federal government have regulations requiring suspects to give a DNA sample upon arrest. In all the states with such laws, DNA saliva samples are cataloged in state and federal crime-fighting databases. The issue confronts the government’s interest in solving crime, balanced against the constitutional rights of those arrested to be free from government intrusion. The case before the justices concerns a decision in April of Maryland’s top court, which said it was a breach of the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure to take DNA samples from suspects who have not been convicted. The Maryland Court of Appeals, that state’s highest court, said that arrestees have a “weighty and reasonable expectation of privacy against warrantless, suspicionless searches” and that expectation is not outweighed by the state’s “purported interest in assuring proper identification” of a suspect. (via Supreme Court Weighing Genetic Privacy | Threat Level | Wired.com)
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We strongly support private property rights in space. And we believe in the power of private enterprise and are convinced that only entrepreneurship can lower the cost of doing business enough to fuel a space-based economy. On these important points we agree with Rand Simberg.But we disagree completely on the path America should take to achieve space property rights.The basic idea is nothing new. In his book Unreal Estate: The Men Who Sold the Moon, Virgiliu Pop tracked hundreds of outer-space property rights claims over thousands of years, from individuals, kings, and countries, under various theories of law. All have failed the test of time. (via How the U.S. Can Lead the Way to Extraterrestrial Land Deals | Wired Science | Wired.com)
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