On Mon, 12 Jan 1998, Tim May wrote: [...]
Clinton is asking Congress to ban research into human cloning. [...] No, Clinton is asking for Congress to *ban* such research, regardless of where the funding came from. "Clone a cell, go to jail." [...] Though I'm not a constitutional expert, this would seem to me to be a violation of various rights. A First Amendment right to speak and publish as one wishes for one, a Fourth Amendment right against search and seizure
Actually, not at all. There is no ban on publishing information on cloning, "just" a ban on the activity. Hence the first amendment is not implicated. If it were the case the every action (as opposed to speech/publication) were protected by the 1st Am. then every statute making robbery a crime would be unconstitutional too. Similarly, the 4th Am. is not implicated. The right to be secure against UNREASONABLE search and seizure is not violated when and if congress passes a law defining a new crime, or you are arrested for committing it.
and to be secure in one's papers, and probably more general rights that have long-held that government agents cannot tell people what books they
again, note that the ban is on CLONING, not THINKING OR WRITING OR READING about cloning. It's not the same thing.
may read, what thinking they may do, and whom they may asssociate with (if the Civil Rights Act is viewed as the unconstitutional anomaly it is).
This is an aside, but the CRA is in no way anomalous given the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. It is only "anomalous" if one sticks to the Constitution as written in the 18th century... and ignores the articles written in that same century that clearly contemplate amendments.... [...]
But a ban on cloning research would not be a matter of "national security," only of ethics and religious beliefs. Whatever the arguments for banning unapproved research into CBW and nuclear weapons, banning cloning research is an entirely different set of issues.
Arguably, many of the legal bans in force today are due to ethics, e.g.: * bans on suicide * bans on plural marriage * bans on certain abortions * bans on ingestion of some substances The courts in their infinite wisdom have not found these to be unconstitutional laws.
Any implications for crypto? If Congress can successfully make certain types of science illegal, felonizing the search for truth, why not a ban on
Again, this misunderstands somewhat: the ban is on EXPERIMENTS (which are indeed part of the search for truth), but not writing, reading thinking
certain types of mathematics research?
Not directly, IMHO. A. Michael Froomkin +1 (305) 284-4285; +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax) Associate Professor of Law U. Miami School of Law froomkin@law.miami.edu P.O. Box 248087 http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/ Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA It's warm here.