If you're in the USA or plan to visit someday, I would recommend you speak with your attorney before making such commitments.
Also, we are not a company. We are an independent community owned project. Our code is free speech and I will burn the world down to defend that right.
Truly I dare someone to try to take me to court over this. Would be great publicity for our coercion resistant approach.
They might as well try to mandate code changes to a blockchain and mandate the whole world host them.
Don’t make a target of yourself, there are countless ways for a government to make your life miserable.
Users need to see that the people in positions of influence in FOSS projects they trust are not afraid of this bullshit.
I -hope- someone is stupid enough to take a case like this to court so we can establish some much needed case law here. These overreaches deserve to be contested.
Wait, which constitutionally protected right is that? I'm an attorney and constitutional scholar and am particularly interested in what right you believe is being violated here.
So too will these other silly laws go I expect.
Absolute worst case we’ll do sneakernet. More likely we’ll just distribute via overlay networks.
Some of us are crazy enough to be full on free speech martyrs, believe it or not.
We need to all loudly and publicly say "Fuck off, I will defend my rights if needed", so they understand how expensive the fight is going to be.
Fear is power. Do not give your enemies power.
You keep saying that, but that's not the realistic outcome. The realistic outcome isn't an injunction forcing you to add code. It'd be to force you to pull it out of circulation.
There are more effective ways protest this law than posting punk-rhetoric on a nerd forum for a project that will likely fly under the governments radar anyway.
Posting rhetoric on an anonymous message board is not making a stand. If and when they’re doxxed by US media outlets, and slapped with life-changing court orders, with their work and families directly affected by their decisions; then they’re making a stand. But until that point, their words are as meaningless as their view of this law.
Eg I can confidently say I’m not going to comply with this law either. But you have no reason to assume that will make any difference nor that I wouldn’t fold the moment I’m put under the slightest amount of pressure.
If people really wanted to make a stand then they’d be drumming up support in real life, not anonymously. They’d be speaking to government representatives. They’d be raising financial support for lobbying change.
I’m old enough to have lived through multiple iterations of unpleasant laws being passed and each time a movement against it has been online-only, that protest has achieved nothing. So I know the real reason this maintainer is speaking as boldly as they are is because they know the government hasn’t heard of them nor their distro. Ie it’s a “making a stand” by doing exactly nothing. But it will also achieve exactly nothing too.
This law is stupid and I gleefully and openly mock it and those that think it is enforceable under my well known public identity.
No one should take these unenforceable overreaches seriously. People will be jailed for not putting age verification code in software as soon as they will for piracy, or owning a 3D printer without gun-detecting spyware. It is a fear tactic with no ability to enforce.
My message here should be pretty clear: Open source international community owned operating systems can just completely refuse to comply and nothing will happen to them.
In China at least, the blank paper protests were successful in making the government loosen up its extreme “zero-COVID” policies (welding shut the gates of apartment buildings, sealing off cities, etc).
The "blank paper protests" might have been effective at persuading the Chinese government to undo some measures, but that government is no less authoritarian and repressive than it ever was.
Mockery was very successful in maintaining morale among oppressed groups in both Nazi and Soviet Europe, as well as in many Latin American dictatorships, in times when armed rebellion wasn’t a realistic option. It was also effective during the Yugoslav Wars (Otpor) and the Vietnam War (inside the US).
If mockery weren’t an effective weapon, political cartoons and political satire (and establishment attacks on them) wouldn’t exist.
Of course not. I'm simply refuting your assertion that "mockery is...the best weapon against authoritarianism."
> If mockery weren’t an effective weapon, political cartoons and political satire (and establishment attacks on them) wouldn’t exist.
Mockery can be effective in inspiring others to topple authoritarian regimes or amass public support for doing so. But it is rarely, in and of itself, the weapon that does it. It's better thought of as a catalyst.
I'll also remind you that we still live in a democracy, not an authoritarian regime, despite whatever characterizations people make about our leaders (and some certainly might lean toward authoritarian if the Constitution allowed them to). The most effective means of change in a democracy are persuading voters and politicians. Mockery can help here, to the extent it engenders the sympathies of the larger population. That doesn't seem likely, though, given the content I've seen in this thread.
We actually live in an authoritarian or “managed” democracy, where technocratic leadership increasingly ignores or even openly mocks the demands and needs of the people. Insider trading and blatant market manipulation is rampant, technocrats are constantly devising new methods to surveill and suppress public dissent, and regime supporters (regardless of which “color” party is in power) dismiss legitimate concerns and gaslight the public. In some countries they’re even trying to ban political parties who promise to address popular issues. There’s a reason that dangerous ideologies and popular anger are rising, and it’s not the Internet—there are material realities underlying these complaints, and they aren’t being taken seriously.
Our last line of “legitimate” defense is the courts. Thank God for the courts! But they are gradually being compromised as well, and even the Supreme Court is willing to sidestep important decisions if they would be too controversial. Besides, legislation cannot be written from the bench. And so the noose gradually tightens around our necks.
Mockery seems very appropriate, as a way of undermining legitimacy and gathering support. Perhaps the regime can be coerced into serious reforms before it is too late. Or perhaps the old guard will be replaced with reformers as they finally shuffle off. Recent elections seem to indicate that the public won’t stand for the status quo.
Ultimately, though, it's your call--do what you want.
Mockery is a great medium for spreading a message. But words don’t make change by themselves. Ergo mockery is not an effective a weapon for change.
What mockery does do, and online petitions too, is placate lazy but opinionated citizens into thinking they’re part of a movement while they can sit in their comfy chair and do a grant total of nothing to actually further their ideologies.
Some of us with mockery, and hopefully some with legal and political talent behind the scenes.
I am just a mascot pointing and laughing at a stupid unenforceable law with scary intentions. The real fight is likely to be fought by legal professionals, not me, and that is fine.
My job will be to keep shipping changes that protect user privacy and security because that is what my skillset is for.
One comment was, and that was your most inflammatory. Those tend to attract the most attention. The trick now is to expand that brief popularity on HN (which is a very narrow audience) to the general populace.
Everyone on HN agrees this law is stupid, myself included. What we are refuting is that big words on an anonymous forum count as any form of protest. Because they don’t.
If it were that easy then I could cure cancer just be willing it via message boards. Or end the Iran war just by complaining about it online. Unfortunately actual change requires actual effort.
You can’t even change our opinion on this very small point and you have our attention and we are likely otherwise likeminded. So to argue that your words will have any effect to laws passed by completely different personally types who don’t even frequent HN is beyond absurd.
Any of our original forefathers would recognize today's American federal government as an overreach from their indended form of government.
The only reason we aren't seeing a Boston Tea Party 2.0 over the recent string of coordinated assaults against our inalienable human rights is because surveillance capitalism is already coarsely achieving its goals of suppressing any civic participation which exists between the spectrum of ineffective political protest to the most desperate, radical action.
Some of those among us simply cannot drink this koolaid. A quote from MLK, Jr:
I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.
Have you been to prison? I've been incarcerated before already after having my rights violated. Let's not go there. Make less assumptions.
It would be a fine or a few days of jail until bail is posted, at worst. And then a media shit show where the public is certain to side with the developer who is having their rights violated to discourage this from ever happening again.
The public even got the back of weev for his bullshit arrest. Weev, one of the shittiest people to ever live. But rights are rights.
Anyway, the nature of a slippery slope like this one is that the punishments will get worse over time as the government further vilifies those who push against things like this and encryption backdoors.
That's not the point. The point is that people who don't face a real possibility of being convicted and imprisoned are the ones who make the most noise about how they're willing to accept imprisonment (or, worse, are cheering on others to be imprisoned as some sort of Cyberpunk Martyr).
As I said elsewhere - it's easy to be an Internet Tough Guy when you (think you) have little to lose.
Instead of positioning yourself adversarially and making unfounded and unwarranted claims about others, it would be more productive to engage in good faith and seek to lend a hand.
You've already made flat-out incorrect assumptions about me, indirect or not. Calibrate yourself.
You've gone off the rails. You're not the hero saving the world that you make yourself out to be. Get over yourself.
I'm done with this thread.
Jesus H. Christ.
Your current negativity is not welcome, if you are an attorney then please conduct yourself with more professionalism. If you want to seek to understand, great, but now you are being aggressive and negative and making a host of unfounded assumptions.
Edit: Poor taste to edit out your original comment with no acknowledgement. That was inappropriate and you know it, which is why you've now changed your comment.
And where code is speech, is a distribution speech? There's a lot of places for this to go sideways on you personally.
But lets all wait for nothing at all to happen. Then confidence can grow over time that this is unenforceable in any effective way.
They should go back to trying to police piracy via bittorrent (lol).
Although I have no doubt that courts would ultimately side with you, the chance of becoming even a transient focus of a frustrated AG or congressperson looking to pin blame on "Out of touch and recalcitrant techies, the very ones who created this problem," is chilling. It's meant to be chilling, but it often works because he reality of what you'd go through on the way to eventual victory isn't trivial. Maybe you're willing to go through the courts (public opinion and otherwise), but if so the first thing any attorney you employ will beg you to do is stop talking the way you are.
tl;dr I think taking a stand is great, I support that, I think doing it now is a good idea. I don't think you should talk about it in public though, especially not in a literal, "Come and get me" way.
"never show fear" and "never engage intelligence" are two different things. Understand what people will do in response to your actions, and act accordingly to achieve the outcomes you want. Please by all means fight the law, and do so intelligently in a way that will actually help.
There's a reason why lawyers generally advise their clients to remain silent.
Most people prioritize their finances (and non-imprisonment) over their rights, and attorneys will optimize for that expressed preference. GP has clearly indicated his priorities are different. That has nothing to do with intelligence. Someone having a different set of values than you does not constitute unintelligence on his part.
If the actual priority here is advocacy, with no real desire to litigate, then I'd buy that.
His comments on this thread itself which establish intent to not comply with the law?
All power to him for going with his morals but he’s making unforced errors and should instead be contacting one of the several activist legal firms that would at least give him advice on how to protect himself and not follow through with this law if not outright pro bono legal defense.
I am not even an owner of the project, I founded the project, but am now just one of many volunteer contributors. Are they going to mandate wikipedia volunteers alter pages to state guidelines as well?
We must not be afraid of stuff like this. It is blatant overreach I do not expect would stand legal challenge.
I am simply saying I would refuse to write code I do not want to write. I am honestly surprised people think this is such a scary thing to say.
The point of saying this publicly is not in order to harm or help my own defense of a court order from another state I will probably get.
It is to signal to legislators that if they decide to take this fight, it will be done with people not afraid to do it all in public to establish public trust. It is not even okay that people -think- it is possible for our FOSS projects to be altered or backdoored by any random state officials.
What next, asking Torvalds to add KYC to the kernel?
The technical design of the project just makes it so no one can force changes on the distro unwanted by the maintainer team regardless of any courtroom outcomes.
Like, what if someone made a law that said Bitcoin nodes must KYC? They could make the law I guess, and the international network operators would just laugh at it.
I expect in response one of the maintainers outside US jurisdiction of their own volition publishes via bittorrent, tor hidden services, and embedding blobs in public blockchains with no help from me.
Then the problem the legislators sought to solve just got a lot worse, while calling a lot of attention to how little power they actually have to control decentralized FOSS software projects.
Of course another point of the project is building the entire thing from source code with deterministic results only takes a few hours. For many, this would be faster than downloading artifacts.
It is not needed for maintainers to publish binaries at all. Publishing signatures on the expected hashes would suffice at worst.
Nobody here is saying that anyone is going to swoop in and physically prevent this software from being distributed on the internet.
> Then the problem the legislators sought to solve just got a lot worse, while calling a lot of attention to how little power they actually have to control decentralized FOSS software projects.
The legislators who passed this don't give a shit about that. Their intended target of this legislation is mainstream devices and mainstream users.
The correct response from the Linux community is to say "fuck off", and get back to making their distros more secure, more private, and easier to use.
I don’t think noncompliance of a container image is much of a “fuck you” since I don’t think lawmakers have ever heard of you nor would they really care about your compliance anyway.
This bill is primarily about kids using smartphones.
Anyway. Kids are an excuse to get it passed. It is about testing the waters of how much control can be exerted by government on end user devices, and we need all maintainers to hold the line.
You have precisely zero additional speech rights as a FOSS project than any other organization has. If "free speech" was a valid defense for you, then Meta would be doing the same.
> The technical design of the project just makes it so no one can force changes on the distro unwanted by the maintainer team regardless of any courtroom outcomes.
Being unable to comply is not a valid legal defense.
> Like, what if someone made a law that said Bitcoin nodes must KYC? They could make the law I guess, and the international network operators would just laugh at it.
This is the law in various places under various mechanisms. It is handled by putting people in prison or taking people's assets.
Sure it is. Lawyers even have a pithy Latin maxim about it: lex non cogit ad impossibilia.
But how would you remove an international distro from "the marketplace" if it's free and not operating a business?
Some oddball Linux distro really has no relevance to the larger picture that lawmakers are trying to accomplish though. The vast majority of kids are using iphone/android/mac/chromebook/windows. Basically zero are using esoteric container images to access TikTok.
The ability to receive specifically unsolicited DMs from adult strangers?
Opting in to behavioral tracking?
This bill doesn't block social media for kids... I expect their response to be simply that they keep using social media on their phone the way they already do.
If there's a law that says "Anyone who distributes X must also Y" and you can't figure out a way to continue distributing X while also doing Y, the way you comply with the law is that you stop distributing X.
With LLM's anyone will be able to disengage such "default wars" in popular software, so there isn't really any border control when LLM's form a large surface area of the border.
That's precisely what I discussed: the case where this person fully complies and ceases distribution (but the distro doesn't cease being distributed by others).
Don't make the mistake of logically getting caught up on the idea of laws "preventing crime". They never have, and they never will. The deter crime by providing for penalties when someone breaks the law.
A file hosted on foreign server might functionally be a system to "distribute" that file, but it is doubtful if a US state could prevent it from existing.
They could theoretically order US ISP's to cease providing access to said file, but that's a rabbit hole I'm not sure that Illinois or any other state really wants to go down.
Major OS providers, including major Linux distributions, are all within reasonable reach of Illinois law.
It’s probably less relevant if you’re a hobbyist working on Hannah Montana Linux on the other side of the planet.
Corporations do whatever seems most profitable. We can't base our understanding of constitutional rights on whether Meta decides to defend them.
Prior to that, export controls prevented PGP source code from being exported from the US. Advocates printed it in books and exported those, which helped clarify the issue.
Bernstein was a math student who made his own encryption software. The government tried to make him register as an arms dealer, and he sued in 1996, with the backing of the EFF. The result was a landmark decision that established source code as free speech and basically destroyed export controls on cryptography.
In 2016, Apple cited the decision when the government tried to hack a suspect's phone, saying they couldn't be compelled to "speak" by writing code.
In that very same case, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said:
"We emphasize the narrowness of our First Amendment holding. We do not hold that all software is expressive. Much of it surely is not. Nor need we resolve whether the challenged regulations constitute content-based restrictions, subject to the strictest constitutional scrutiny, or whether they are, instead, content-neutral restrictions meriting less exacting scrutiny. We hold merely that because the prepublication licensing regime challenged here applies directly to scientific expression, vests boundless discretion in government officials, and lacks adequate procedural safeguards, it constitutes an impermissible prior restraint on speech."
But the inquiry doesn't stop there. First Amendment jurisprudence doesn't stop at asking the question "is this speech?". That's just a threshold question. If the answer is "no," then the case is analyzed one way. If the answer is "yes," then the case analyzed a different way. Think of it like a decision step in a flowchart.
Code being treated as speech doesn't automatically mean that software developers can do whatever they want, just like it doesn't mean that people who write, draw, make music, etc. can do whatever they want. It's not the magic unassailable defense you claim it to be. Courts will apply a balancing test to determine whether the Government's interest in prohibiting the speech outweighs the Constitutional interest in protecting it. The answer comes out different ways depending on the facts and the law, which is complicated.
For example, it's unlawful to make and distribute CSAM. It's unlawful to defame someone. It's unlawful to defraud someone. It's unlawful to violate others' copyrights. You have to label food and medicine a certain way. These are all forms of speech, but the courts have held that none of these restrictions (or requirements) violate the First Amendment. And I don't think we'd all be cheering someone on and claiming "code is speech" for someone who writes ransomware or software whose sole purpose is to drain your bank accounts or shut down power plants.
And the bar for compelling any particular speech is generally quite high. Apple could not be compelled to put a backdoor in an iPhone, even though the suspect was the San Bernardino shooter, and this did not result in Apple losing their ability to sell iPhones. The courts may well hold that you can't compel a Linux distro to implement a particular feature either.
Another possible definition, one you may have meant, is that there's a set of "invalid defenses" that could not possibly work, and the remainder are "valid" even if they might not prevail.
That's an entirely different situation because Apple couldn't have complied with silence. A product compliance requirment doesn't typically count as compelled speech because you can comply with silence.
For instance, COPPA is a very similar law, and it is not compelled speech, because nobody is forcing you to write software that checks if users are 13 or older. You can comply with COPPA by simply not writing software that collects data from users that are under 13. You are not being compelled because you literally have the option not to do it.
That is exactly the same in this case.
Is that some sort of in joke? Meta loves more surveillance, more data and more info about their vassals^W users.
I'm sure their lobbyists were pushing hard to get this law passed.
Meta lobbied heavily for this. The fact that they have not decided to use free speech to fight the move that they are lobbying for is not an argument that free speech is irrelevant here.
This is not legal advice but a personal request: please do not get your legal advice from Hacker News. Get it from a lawyer.
> If "free speech" was a valid defense to any legal compliance laws that affect software, then any software company would raise this defense this rather than comply.
Whether other companies do the same depends on what they consider the most profitable path, including legal fees and risk.
They would sure be wasting a lot of resources and public goodwill with absolutely no positive outcome for their agenda. Which is why I do not think it will actually happen.
But if it does, it does. Not going to live my life in fear, I have more security and privacy tools to ship :)
* your project might not even qualify under the text of the law
* even if it did, the number of children using it to access social media is likely zero
But, none of this was about protecting kids. It never was.
They might not be able to break your private keys, but they can fine you or jail you for not complying.
"Der Proceß" [The Trial] by Franz Kafka is just a realistic description of the court system (Franz Kafka studied law).
I would refuse to even give the appearance of compliance in hope to motivate others to do the same.
Look to Universal Studios v. Corley for an example of code (speech) that is nonetheless not free, because the government has an interest and can regulate subject to intermediate scrutiny.
> Truly I dare someone to try to take me to court over this. Would be great publicity for our coercion resistant approach.
IANYL but that’s commendable. Ain’t a lot of people got a code to live by anymore. But it’s double the reason you should touch base with an attorney. Remember this: test cases have to know what they’re testing. If you want to move the law forward you have to break it correctly.
Also reach out to the EFF, who may be able to help/advise, especially if you genuinely want to fight this.
This is a terrible law. That doesn't mean it's not a law, and courts do not look kindly on people subject to their jurisdiction (which unfortunately often includes state laws to people in other states) who try to dodge the responsibility the court thinks they should have.
Believe it or not, there are plenty of people in the US willing to go to jail (or worse) for their beliefs. It’s kind of the founding mythology of the nation.
US history is full of people who successfully challenged violations of their rights and government overreach. Success isn’t guaranteed, sure. It never is. But cowering in fear because the tyrants might put you behind bars is downright un-American.
But when I play, I play to win. Openly thumbing one's nose at the courts and the state is rarely a winning strategy. The way to win is through the democratic process: persuading elected officials to take your side. That, in turn, requires persuading the public to take your side.
Successful civil rights activism took place in an environment where people were being arrested, beaten, and even killed for standing up for what is right. You could even argue that this created fertile ground for the success of the movement. Failures of justice create hardened activists and support networks, and eventually public support.
Going to the courts instead of the legislature is another strategy that often wins. This is how Bernstein ended export restrictions on cryptography, by suing the government on constitutional grounds rather than trying to persuade legislators.
2. Openly thumbing your nose at the law is not going to serve you well in court. What did Prof. Bernstein do when he was threatened with legal sanctions? He lawyered up and took his counsel's advice. His communications throughout the process remained factual and respectful even though his disagreement was clear. He did not go onto Hacker News and prejudice himself by saying things like "Illinois legislators can eat shit" and "I dare someone to try to take me to court over this." He was patient, let his lawyers do the talking, and did not get the judge pissed off at him.
Civil disobedience, as with the legislative and judicial processes, works through the power of persuasion. If you fail to persuade, your mission fails.
These processes involve emotional and imperfect people, not deterministic logical machines, and success ultimately requires making them happy (or at least not making enemies out of them). The system might not work, but you have to work the system.
I am an active FOSS maintainer who wishes to protect the privacy, security, and sovereignty of users of community owned operating systems. My goal is to signal to them that we find these types of laws so completely ridiculous and unenforceable, that they should worry less about maintainers injecting state malware into their operating systems. Also it is to signal to other maintainers they will not be alone in resisting this.
With those goals in mind I am happy to tell any legislators pushing this sort of thing, to eat shit.
Neither is Prof. Bernstein. The observation is not oriented to lawyers or politicians; it is oriented towards how to succeed when judges and politicians make the rules.
And, since you seem to be making assumptions about what people you know nothing about could or could not hypothetically handle, maybe look a bit closer at my history. I have survived WAY harder shit than sitting in an air conditioned box with 3 squares a day for doing what I thought was right, so even if the threat of jail was credible, it would not deter me.
It is the bluster of people that think I even could be jailed for something like this that I am most amused by.
Truly it is fascinating and a bit sad how much fear there is in this thread over upsetting some state level officials.
Anyone should be free to research, discuss, and try to understand the law for themselves. Lawyers do not own the law.
But if actually pulled into a courtroom, sure, get a lawyer.
This isn't mere research and discussion; it's suggesting an outcome (i.e., "you're safe[r]"). That crosses a line into advice.
> But if actually pulled into a courtroom, sure, get a lawyer.
By the time you get pulled into a courtroom, it is often far too late. The time to talk to an attorney is well before that, when you’re contemplating action. That is the main point I’ve been trying to make, and it seems you just don’t want to pay heed.
Yes, you've said multiple times that you're not afraid of the consequences, but you'll forgive me if I don't believe you. History is replete with people who regretted their actions once prosecutorial actions were commenced and punishments meted out. Defending oneself is expensive, and convictions impact not just the guilty but also their career and family.
Ultimately, it's your life and you have to live with the decisions you make. (And, possibly, your family, should you have one.) Your bluster and actions may not harm you in this specific instance because you’re involved with a project too small to attract a prosecutor’s attention, but it doesn’t make my caution any less valid. It may not persuade you, personally, but hopefully others who read this will get the message.
They will be successful at forcing corporate operating systems like MacOS, Windows, and maybe RedHat, but they have no power to compel code being added to independent international volunteer maintained open source operating systems maintained.
For projects with no legal entity like Stagex, arch, alpine, etc... we do not have to comply and there is no legal mechanism that exists to make us. Who would you even target? All maintainers have equal power, and cannot make changes alone. Especially not changes we do not want, for free.
I think the legislators should PR age verification code to all open source operating systems on their own dime, so we can ridicule them mercilessly before closing them as WONTFIX.
Oh, this I've got to see. Show us the receipts.
Look at my companies I work with via Distrust, and my resume. Most use stagex for their security critical operations, though I am unable to say which ones specifically. NDAs and all that. You could figure out a few of them if you looked.
I can tell you many many fortune 500 companies are relying on stagex for security critical use cases, and most are probably not even aware of it as they consume projects that wrap or build on stagex.
These two narratives materially conflict with each other.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/niche
In this case the market is "security critical operations."
A prosecutor might be motivated by and could cite the "tens of billions of dollars" quote.
Building compelling narratives is one of the key skills a prosecutor (or any other lawyer) brings to bear in order to win cases.
> Calling stagex a "niche Linux OS" suggests that hardly anyone uses it.
The guidelines say what's on topic here is "anything that good hackers would find interesting," and the free speech protections of source code definitely qualify.
If only that were true. I've seen people take the law into their own hands far too often, among other bad decisions based on Internet conversations.
I'm going to repeat this exhortation every time I see someone armchair lawyering.
"Don't give legal advice" != "never discuss the law."
We live in a democracy. Every citizen is ultimately responsible for deciding what the law should be. It follows that we should talk about what the law currently is.
Correct. You crossed the boundary between discussing it and giving advice. I already explained how above:
> This isn't mere research and discussion; it's suggesting an outcome (i.e., "you're safe[r]"). That crosses a line into advice.
I did not bring it up in other threads because you weren't doing that then.
If you still don’t understand the problem, consult your own lawyer.
BTW, in nearly every state, it is unlawful to practice law without a license.
I think my comment makes clear that I don't even know what district the guy lives in. It simply discusses what the law is in the sixth district.
It doesn't matter whether you're targeting it at an individual or a group.
> It simply discusses what the law is in the sixth district.
That may have been your intent, but that is not what happened.
At this point, I think you're choosing not to get it despite the feedback. So I'm done with this discussion.
Glad you're done at last.