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Comment by ruste | Hacker News Reader

At what point has New York violated his civil liberties through sheer red tape? Is this something the ACLU would pick up?

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The ACLU selectively deploys their limited resources only on cases which they believe can have a lasting national impact on constitutional interpretation.

... and on promoting neoliberal ‘resistance’ cause célèbre, which varies with finances, leadership, and who happens to be holding political office. Surely positioning this licensing issue as such could almost instantly command the full weight and authority of that org.

If the ACLU were regularly taking cases like this, I'd stop giving the ACLU money.

This seems like a problem for the private sector to solve. He should contact his local Chamber of Commerce - it's supposed to look out for business interests, after all, and for any given municipality, seems to have most of the town's politicians in its pocketbook.

IANAL, but my impression the 14th amendment seems to be one of the things that gets misinvoked all the time (along with RICO), so I'm going to guess "no".

I don't see anything in the 14th that would apply here. NYC has the right to regulate business, so they aren't depriving him of a right. A business license isn't "property", and they aren't seizing any assets. And I would guess that they aren't discriminating against him in particular; they're probably equally inept with everyone.

Likely never, at least in this manner. NYC has the right to regulate business as they see fit. I'm not aware of any laws that would require the city to issue the license or even to respond, unless they're discriminating against him in some way. I don't get the impression that's the case here.

A statement from the ACLU condemning NYs lack of action might get him the publicity to kick the city into action, though.

> I'm not aware of any laws that would require the city to issue the license or even to respond

He purchased a license and sent him a response as a receipt. They have an obligation to send him his license or respond or both. That is quite clear. The NYC government doesn't have the right to discretionarily refuse to fulfill the services their residents directly pay them for.

But the ACLU doesn't generally get involved in trying to battle bureaucratic incompetence. If the bureaucracy was being used to mask racism or other prejudicial policies the ACLU might be interested, but in this case it just looks like real incompetence.

> But the ACLU

Sure. The ACLU probably won't get involved, but the reason is not that the guy has no case. He clearly has a case.

They violated his rights when they required a license. Licensure is when the state sells you back your rights.

That's a weird thing to invoke.

closer to being the sort of thing that the institute for justice would take.

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