Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by couchand 2074 days ago
> judges trying to enact and enforce what they believe Congress' subjective intentions to be

Despite what some might have you believe, this is appropriate and well-accepted practice. Pretending not to know the policy intent is a dodge used by those who would rather undermine democratic will than engage in civic dialog.

2 comments

I wish an explicit intent section was a required part of an article in the code of law.
It sometimes is. And in fact, it was part of section 230(b).

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230

This may be true in general, but TFA contains a number of references to cases in which protections given by the courts to large media firms clearly exceed the law that Congress wrote. Neither is this some dusty law haunting us from centuries ago. It was written in direct response to the Stratton Oakmont case from a year prior to its passing, and the cases under discussion started immediately upon that passing. None of the lobbyists who wrote this bill are dead. If someone is curious what they meant, they can be made available for discussion, given an appropriate fee.