Well, here’s something unexpected. Apparently Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch has a new book coming out this week called “Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law.” And, one of the examples in the book is about the ridiculous criminal case against Aaron Swartz and his eventual tragic decision to take his own life while facing the possibility of decades in prison for the “crime” of downloading too many research papers while on a college campus that had an unlimited subscription to those research papers.

At the time, we wrote about the travesty of the case and the tragedy of how it all ended.

But it’s still somewhat surprising to find out that the case has been wedged in Gorsuch’s mind as an example of prosecutorial overreach and over-criminalization.

David French has an interview with Gorsuch about the book in the NY Times, and the Swartz case is the first example Gorsuch brings up:

French: This was an interesting element of the book to me and something that people who are not familiar with your jurisprudence might not know — it’s that you’ve long been a champion of the rights of criminal defendants. It struck me that some of the stories here in the book, of the way in which the complexity of criminal law has impacted people, are among the most potent in making the point. Is there a particular story about the abuse of criminal law that stands out to you as you’re reflecting back on the work?

Gorsuch: I would say Aaron Swartz’s story in the book might be one example. Here’s a young man, a young internet entrepreneur, who has a passion for public access to materials that he thinks should be in the public domain. And he downloads a bunch of old articles from JSTOR.

His lawyer says it included articles from the 1942 edition of the Journal of Botany. Now, he probably shouldn’t have done that, OK?

But JSTOR and he negotiated a solution, and they were happy. And state officials first brought criminal charges but then dropped them. Federal prosecutors nonetheless charged him with several felonies. And when he refused to plea bargain — they offered him four to six months in prison, and he didn’t think that was right — he wanted to go to trial.

What did they do?

They added a whole bunch of additional charges, which exposed him to decades in federal prison. And faced with that, he lost his money, all of his money, paying for lawyers’ fees, as everybody does when they encounter our legal system. And ultimately, he killed himself shortly before trial. And that’s part of what our system has become, that when we now have, I believe, if I remember correctly from the book, more people now serving life sentences in our prison system than we had serving any prison sentence in 1970. And today — one more little item I point out — one out of 47 Americans is subject to some form of correctional supervision (as of 2020).

I disagree with Gorsuch on many, many things. On the two big internet cases from this last term, Gorsuch joined the Lalaland takes of Justices Alito and Thomas (in both the Moody and the Murthy case Gorsuch was a third vote besides Alito and Thomas towards nonsense). So, it seems a bit shocking for Gorsuch to be somewhat on the side of Swartz, who would have eviscerated Gorsuch’s position in both of those cases.

Of course, Gorsuch is also wrong that Swartz “probably shouldn’t have done that.” MIT had a site license that enabled anyone on campus to download as many articles from JSTOR as they wanted. It didn’t say “unless you download too many.”

But, at least he recognizes how ridiculous the criminal lawsuit that Swartz faced a dozen years ago is. For well over a decade, we’ve been highlighting how dangerous the CFAA is as a law. It is so easily abused by prosecutors that it’s been dubbed “the law that sticks.” It sticks because when there is no real criminal prosecution under other laws, prosecutors will often cook up a CFAA violation, as they did with Aaron. And it remains ridiculous that, to this day, nothing has ever been done to prevent another Aaron Swartz-type scenario from happening again.

Perhaps, with Gorsuch bringing it up again in his book and in this interview, it can renew some of the interest that showed up in the months following Aaron’s untimely death to make real changes to the laws that caused it. Having a Justice like Gorsuch calling out the terrible and ridiculous situation the CFAA caused seems like a good reason for Congress to revisit that law, rather than cooking up new nonsense like KOSA.

As anyone who has traveled by plane in the last decade can attest, one of the few—perhaps only—things that make modern commercial flying tolerable is a strong onboard libation. For those lucky enough to travel internationally, the booze is sometimes even free. But could this last vestige of mile-high sanity be snatched from us like a water bottle at an airport security checkpoint? 

Newly released research argues that it should be. The study, published in Thorax by researchers from the Institute of Aerospace Medicine in Germany, concludes that in-flight alcohol can increase the risk of heart attack. While the topline conclusion sounds concerning and compelling, the research itself is less so. 

The researchers used a sampling of a mere 48 people between 18 and 40 years of age, half of whom slept in a sleep lab that mirrored normal on-ground conditions while the other half slept in a lab that simulated high-altitude cabin pressure. On the first night of the test, everyone was instructed to go to bed. On the second night, each group was given the assignment of drinking booze and then passing out. (How one qualifies to become a test subject for a study of this kind is unclear at the time of this writing). The researchers then monitored each group's heart rate and sleep patterns.

The results showed that those who consumed alcohol and slept in the high-altitude simulation experienced the most heightened heart rates and the lowest oxygen-blood levels while sleeping. The researchers conclude that those with existing cardiac and pulmonary conditions could be in danger—as well as those with sleep apnea and other respiratory ailments—but even healthy individuals were at risk.

"Even in young and healthy individuals, the combination of alcohol intake with sleeping under hypobaric conditions poses a considerable strain on the cardiac system and might lead to exacerbation of symptoms in patients with cardiac or pulmonary diseases," the researchers state. "Our findings strongly suggest that the inflight consumption of alcoholic beverages should be restricted."

One might be tempted to brush this off as merely the work of a few teetotalers from across the pond, but as students of the temperance movement know well, prohibitionary brush fires can start with the smallest of sparks. In fact, the in-flight booze ban movement has already begun to catch on in America. 

During the COVID pandemic, reports of unruly and intoxicated airplane passengers getting into physical altercations with flight attendants led several airlines to suspend their on-board alcohol service entirely. Despite this built-in market reaction—after all, no airline wants to be the arena for a drunken brawl in the clouds—numerous federal lawmakers inevitably joined the booze ban chorus.

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D–Ore.) called for a ban on to-go alcohol from airport bars in 2021 after he allegedly watched a fellow passenger order three shots of alcohol in a to-go cup from an airport bar and then board the plane. Sen. Ed Markey (D–Mass.), citing reports that anti-mask passengers were the ones creating the on-board ruckuses, went on record in support of banning the hard stuff at least temporarily.

The study claiming to show heart and other health risks will likely further embolden the no-alcohol-on-planes crowd. Lost in all of this is the reality that, as Rep. DeFazio's anecdote shows, many of the unruly passengers that caught media headlines involved those who were already intoxicated upon boarding the plane or brought their own alcohol on board.

Under Federal Aviation Administration regulations, it is already illegal for consumers to imbibe alcohol they bring onto a plane: "No person may drink any alcoholic beverage aboard an aircraft unless the certificate holder operating the aircraft has served that beverage to him." The rule goes on to state that airlines cannot permit already intoxicated passengers to board their planes or serve them more alcohol onboard. 

Therefore, a complete ban on in-flight alcohol would simply be another example of the government implementing more rules to address behavior that is largely already illegal. It also would clearly incentivize more passengers to sneak their own alcohol on board—something that already happened when airlines suspended alcohol service during the pandemic. It doesn't take a libertarian to understand that if you ban a legal product—like in-flight alcohol service—you will inevitably create a more robust black-market workaround. 

A better approach would be to allow airlines to continue selling and serving in-flight alcohol. Like servers at a bar, flight attendants can monitor how much alcohol each passenger has consumed, instead of supercharging an uncontrollable airborne BYOB free-for-all. As for potential health concerns, passengers should be empowered to make their own decisions based on knowing themselves best. Most people already do this in situations such as avoiding air travel after scuba diving or major surgery, and there is no reason they can't do the same in determining whether to drink before or during a flight.

Some clever travelers have pointed out that the above-mentioned FAA regulation merely says that a person cannot drink alcohol on an airplane unless it is served by airplane staff. This technically suggests that you can bring your own alcohol on board—as long as it's in a mini bottle—and simply ask your flight attendant to serve it. At least a few airlines appear to be open to this.  

Now might be the time to find one such airline, book a flight, and enjoy this Prohibition-era 12-Mile Limit cocktail in defiant—but technically still legal—protest:

Prohibition-Era 12-Mile Limit Cocktail

Ingredients:

• ½ oz rye whiskey
• ½ oz cognac
• ½ oz rum
• ½ oz grenadine (real grenadine, not red syrup)
• ½ oz lemon juice 
• Lemon wedges (for garnish)
• Ice

Instructions:

1. Obtain two mini bottles of liquor, each under the 3.4 oz TSA liquid carry-on limit.
2. Fill one mini bottle with ½ oz rye whiskey and ½ oz cognac, topped off with your favorite rum.
3. Fill the second mini bottle with ½ oz grenadine and ½ oz lemon juice. Store this bottle in the fridge until leaving for the airport.
4. Bring both mini bottles on board with you in your carry-on.
5. Ask your flight attendant to pour the contents of the liquor-filled bottle over a cup of ice.
6. Add the grenadine and lemon juice mixture to the cup.
7. Garnish with lemon wedges.
8. Stir with the provided plastic stirring stick.
9. Sit back, relax, and enjoy your cocktail (while you still can).

The post Oh God, What If Congress Bans Drinking on Airplanes? appeared first on Reason.com.

Shooting fireworks out of a helicopter sounds fun. Shooting fireworks out of a helicopter at a Lamborghini sports car sounds really fun, especially if everyone on the helicopter and everyone in the Lamborghini consents. Alex Choi, a YouTube and Instagram vlogger in California, produced a video of him and his crew doing just that. But he forgot to ask one important group for permission: the federal government.

Earlier this week, the feds indicted Choi for "causing the placement of explosive or incendiary device on an aircraft," a crime with a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. The indictment also revealed that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had revoked the license from Choi's helicopter pilot in January 2024 for flying less than 500 feet from people, failing to display the helicopter's registration number, and creating "a hazard to persons or property" without the necessary FAA waivers.

By all accounts, the only danger was to people directly involved in the video, which has since been removed from Choi's YouTube and Instagram accounts. (Clips of the stunt are still available elsewhere.) Choi and his crew filmed the stunt at El Mirage dry lake bed, an off-roading recreation area miles away from any town. The indictment quotes Choi talking about his "crazy stupid ideas" and one of his crew members saying that the fireworks are "so loud; it's actually terrifying," which only makes the video sound cooler.

The FAA moved very quickly when it caught wind of the stunt. Choi posted the video on the Fourth of July last year. On July 18, an FAA inspector interviewed the person who transported cars for Choi. A few days later, the FAA tracked down the helicopter pilot and a Bureau of Land Management agent went out to the dry lake to photograph Choi's tire tracks. Since the lake bed is federal land, the indictment notes, Choi should have gotten federal permission.

Soon after the FAA interrogations began, Choi texted an associate that the FAA inspector "has a personal issue with my helicopter pilot friend and every time i do a shoot with him, tries to get more information about him so he can go after him," according to the indictment.

The Department of Transportation's Office of Inspector General then decided to charge Choi with a crime. The law against taking an explosive on board an aircraft clearly seems to be aimed at would-be bombers, but the feds argue that it applies to firing explosives out of an aircraft as well.

The case against Choi parallels the case of Austin Haughwout almost a decade ago. In 2015, when consumer drone technology was still in its infancy, the teenage Haughwout filmed himself flying a drone with a pistol attached and firing into the woods. The 14-second video, titled "Flying Gun," caused a national media panic about the danger of armed drones. Haughwout also posted a video of himself roasting meat with a drone-mounted flamethrower. 

The FAA subpoenaed Haughwout and his father because the videos showed potentially unsafe piloting of an aircraft. The Haughwout family fought the subpoena in court, arguing that drones are not "aircraft" within the FAA's jurisdiction. (Their lawyer compared the situation to the FAA regulating baseballs, paper airplanes, or birthday balloons.) A district court ruled in favor of the subpoena, and although Haughwout was not charged with an aviation crime, the case became a key precedent for the FAA's ability to regulate drones.

Since then, the FAA has scoured social media for potential drone violations. Earlier this year, a federal court banned Philadelphia YouTuber Michael DiCiurcio from flying drones and fined him $182,000 for violating FAA rules. DiCiurcio had gotten famous for making slapstick videos of himself fighting birds, buzzing fishermen, and crashing into himself with his drone, all while narrating in a thick South Philly accent.

Last year, aviation vlogger Joe Costanza had a friend follow his small Piper Cub airplane down a private runway with a drone. When Costanza posted the video to a Facebook group—and joked that "the pilot knew that the drone was there because I was flying both at the same time"—he was contacted by an FAA inspector. In the end, the FAA did not press any charges, but Constanza took to YouTube to complain about the investigation.

"You know, no matter how stupid the complaint is or how out of the ordinary it is, we have to investigate every single complaint that comes out way," the inspector said, according to Constanza.

The post California YouTuber Faces 10 Years for Having Too Much Fun With Fireworks appeared first on Reason.com.

Congress has passed a five-year, $105 billion Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization bill that will make it easier to install new air traffic control technology, and make it harder for small-time travel agents to earn a living, but otherwise leaves aviation regulation more-or-less unchanged.

"This could have been much worse," says Marc Scribner, a transportation researcher at the Reason Foundation (which publishes this website). "It's not a great bill, but from what we could reasonably expect in the first reauthorization bill after COVID, it's hard to see Congress doing anything all that dramatic."

The House voted 387–26 in approval of the bill, days after the Senate passed it on a vote of 88–4, reports The New York Times.

During COVID, Congress appropriated a massive amount of money for airlines and airports. The major commercial airlines received $54 billion in bailouts across three separate aid bills. The massive infrastructure bill passed in 2021 also gave airports $25 billion to build and maintain their facilities.

As the Congressional Research Service notes, these direct taxpayer airport subsidies were a departure from the standard practice of funding aviation infrastructure with "user taxes and fees."

The bailouts and subsidies were based on the assumption that there would be a prolonged slump in demand for air travel, threatening the ability of airlines and airports to support themselves off ticket revenue and user fees.

As it happens, the airline industry has bounced back pretty quickly. Airline profits were way up last year. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoint data show travel volumes are surpassing pre-pandemic levels.

With this year's reauthorization bill, Congress was attempting to "get its bearings" by largely preserving the status quo, says Scribner. The most positive change is the bill's easing of regulations on remote air traffic control technology, he says.

A growing trend in Europe is to move air traffic controllers into remote air traffic control centers, which use infrared cameras and other digital technology to monitor flights. This improves controllers' ability to monitor air traffic in cloudy or bad weather.

The centers are also much cheaper to build, making it financially feasible to install this digital control technology at smaller airports that can't currently justify the cost of building a traditional, windowed control tower.

Because they don't need to be at the actual airports, these remote air traffic control centers could be set up to monitor traffic at multiple airfields at once.

In Europe, remote air traffic control technology is tested at the airports where it's going to be deployed. However, the FAA requires that this technology go through a yearslong vetting process at an FAA facility in New Jersey. That adds significant time and cost to its deployment.

The new FAA bill requires the agency to figure out how to test this technology outside that New Jersey facility. That will hopefully get the FAA to "take the hint" and start letting this technology be vetted at airports themselves, says Scribner.

The biggest critics of the new FAA bill are smaller travel agents, who say the fine details of some of the bill's "consumer protections" could put them out of business.

In April 2024, the Biden administration finalized regulations requiring that airlines issue automatic cash refunds to customers who'd had their flights canceled. If their tickets were purchased through a travel agent, the travel agent is responsible for providing the refund.

The trouble is that airlines are not required to immediately refund the travel agent for canceled flights, setting up situations where a travel agent might have to automatically dispense refunds out of their own pocket before they've been compensated by the airline. For a small travel agency refunding blocks of tickets at once, those costs could be ruinous.

Travel agents had been hoping the FAA bill would fix this issue. Instead, it's codified the existing rules into law.

"Travel agencies are not positioned to float the kind of financial obligations that policymakers are strapping on their backs," said Zane Kerby, president and CEO of the American Society of Travel Advisors, in a statement. "In the end, the consumer suffers, as travel advisors will be less inclined to book airfare, leaving the flyer without an advocate when travel plans go south."

The FAA reauthorization is also littered with missed opportunities.

It does not take up longstanding reform proposals to spin off air traffic control operations into an independent government entity or private nonprofit—an arrangement common in most other developed countries.

Proponents of an independent air traffic control entity say it would allow for quicker deployment of new technology and solve the conflict of interest created by the FAA both regulating and operating air traffic control.

The bill doesn't make any progress on privatizing airports. It doesn't give airports more flexibility to raise passenger facility charges that fund airport facilities. It doesn't touch onerous flight hour requirements that are contributing to a growing pilot shortage.

The FAA and most federal aviation programs have to be reauthorized every five years. The last reauthorization bill was passed in 2018. Congress has been making do with short-term extender bills since 2023.

The most recent short-term extension will expire Friday. President Joe Biden is expected to sign the bill into law before then.

The post Congress' FAA Reauthorization Is Good for Remote Towers, Bad for Travel Agents appeared first on Reason.com.

United Airlines received its first Airbus A321neo airplanes in December, and it has already had to ground them. But United wants you to know there were no safety issues—rather, it has to do with a 1990 Federal Aviation Administration rule requiring "No Smoking" signs to be operated by the flight crew, even though smoking on airplanes has been banned for decades. The A321neo has software that keeps the "No Smoking" sign turned on continuously during flights. In 2020, United got an exemption to that rule for all of its planes that keep the sign on continuously. But that exemption only applies to the aircraft it listed at the time. United has since applied for an exemption for the Airbus A321neo, and it says the FAA has agreed to let the airline fly those aircraft while it evaluates the application.

The post Brickbat: Grounded Already appeared first on Reason.com.