Comment by kemitchell | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kemitchell | Hacker News Reader

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I haven't researched the law here in a while, but my general impression the last time I did was that there isn't much in the way of legal requirements for signing things digitally beyond the federal ESIGN Act, general principles of state contract law, and the smattering of very particular kinds of transactions that require processes like notarization or recording. For everyday deals between the vast majority of people and companies, it really comes down to whether what the e-sign collects and saves will be available and convincing down the line, when there's a dispute.

When dealing with government entities, you may run into policies of those entities that require use of a pre-approved service. For example: https://www.sos.ca.gov/administration/regulations/current-re...

All that said, I have both implemented electronic signature in my own software and reliably recommended clients running sales ops just buy DocuSign. Familiarity and credibility can matter way more than legal or technical details...or not at all.

Remote online notary services (DocuSign is one) has a TON of legal and regulatory requirements, for obvious reasons.

https://www.nationalnotary.org/knowledge-center/remote-onlin...

Supreme Court said you can agree to things online awhile ago.

Nothing in the American legal system is that straightforward and simple, even less so among our Supreme Court. Things got even more confusing now that this year the Supreme Court has set a new precedent that they can now overturn their own rulings from decades earlier.

While I think that’s generally true that online signatures are acceptable in most circumstances, I’d be careful to blindly believe it as a blanket statement.

> this year the Supreme Court has set a new precedent that they can now overturn their own rulings from decades earlier

What happened this year specifically?

Dobbs was in June 2022, but that isn't even close to the first time that the Supreme Court overturned precedent from 50+ years prior -- Brown v Board largely overturned Plessy v Ferguson ("separate but equal") from nearly 60 years prior.

And, we've had plenty of Supreme Court precedents overruled since the 19th century. According to Congress: https://constitution.congress.gov/resources/decisions-overru...

(Most of those never rose to the level of landmark decisions, but Plessy certainly did.)

Roe v. Wade

That is covered by the comment you replied to

I would blame the congress more than the supreme court for Roe being overturned.

The legal precedent was made in the initial supreme court ruling, all someone needed to do in the legislature is codify it into law.

But no, laziness and re-electabilty on both sides, led to the ruling being overturned in the second examination of Roe.

Eliminating separate but equal was based on the evidence of how that statue was used.

Eliminating abortion protections was based on "we don't think the founders meant that" which is a form of consideration never before used.

This kind of test is effectively in the eye of the beholder. You can say whatever you want and disproving it requires Goldilocks evidence.

You can't talk about the case law the American system was based on even if it was adopted wholesale and unchanged. You can't talk about the intervening decades and how the legal system handled things.

You need to basically quote the founding fathers talking about a specific topic or the Supreme Court can say "no I disagree" and overrule you.

> Eliminating abortion protections was based on "we don't think the founders meant that" which is a form of consideration never before used.

Textualism and originalism have been in play for decades -- off the top of my head: 2008's DC v Heller basically codified today's broad interpretation of the second amendment's protections.

I don't personally agree with the decisions (among other things, the resulting patchwork application of laws has meant that your access to abortion is dependent on how strong your state's Democratic bent in the statehouse(s) is), but it's not novel to the past decade, even. The only new development from the past 5-10 years is the presence of 5 votes on the court willing to overturn Roe's long-standing precedent.

Wasn't DC v Heller ghost written by the same group as Dobbs? (not literally but guided in a similar fashion)

Of course it is similar it was a test bed to pull this.

At least DC v Heller could point to actual facts to back up it's interpretation. Dobbs just dances around the idea saying "we believe" a lot and super focusing on the Supremacy clause in a way not seen in... I couldn't even say how long ago it was that the SC said it couldn't restrict something in that way.

> Wasn't DC v Heller ghost written by the same group as Dobbs? (not literally but guided in a similar fashion)

What, the Federalist Society? In as far as the last three justices willing to overturn Roe were hand-selected by them, yes, but there was little doubt that any of them would vote to overturn Roe even before their confirmations.

> At least DC v Heller could point to actual facts to back up it's interpretation. Dobbs just dances around the idea saying "we believe" a lot and super focusing on the Supremacy clause in a way not seen in... I couldn't even say how long ago it was that the SC said it couldn't restrict something in that way.

On one hand, there's a difference between who authored those opinions (say what you will about Scalia, but his application of originalism didn't have as clear of a partisan bent). On the other, there was clearly an effort to thread the needle such that both Thomas (who wanted Dobbs to go so much further) and Roberts (who has started to think about his court's legacy and its public perception) were willing to sign onto said opinion.

I suspect we would have had the same style of opinions 5 years ago if it had been Ginsburg instead of Scalia who passed away in 2016.

Wasn't Originalism brought to Roberts decades ago by right leaning groups trying to push him towards more explicitly Conservative rulings?

I am not saying he is partisan but it is hard to say he is neutral when Originalism has been used as a hammer to eliminate Liberal ideas like "maybe we shouldn't regulate modern guns used to kill dozens like muskets" or "what right does the state have over what health care a woman chooses with regards to the most dangerous thing she will do in her life".

Yeah, originalism isn't particularly new.

I'm not saying Roberts is actually neutral, for what it's worth. He just doesn't want his court to be seen as particularly partisan. He and Kavanaugh are just the closest we have to the center of the current court.

Click wrap is binding.

Does this hold true in the rest of the world?

I am in Australia and the situation is largely the same.

Canada you can use what ever you want, and it also includes things like "doing activities". Like if you click an "approve" button that can be considered a signature.

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