The Death of Property Rights in America (Part II)

Part I is here--referring to the utter perversion of the already immoral laws allowing eminent domain seizures. Here, we have eminent domain seizures of ideas! I was kind of aware of this phenomenon, the military being what it is, but I always thought the inventor at least got paid! I found the story in Wired News, by means of a blog entry by Dale Amon at Samizdata.

When Philip French invented the Crater Coupler, a watertight coupler that uses no nut threads or bolted flanges, little did he and his partners suspect that it'd be used by the feds to tap into undersea fiberoptic cables for clandestine monitoring. Mr French's Coupler makes this underwater wiretap much simpler.

The problem: when the government's contractor paid Mr French, et al no royalties at all and they sued, the feds bottled the whole thing up under the veil of National Security, allowing nothing to be released for use in court. French, et al got zip. Actually, Mr French did settle for $30k, a tiny fraction of what the Coupler is worth.

The feds get another way to monitor our communications without our knowledge or consent, and the principle of our right to property gets another big hit.

Remember, VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENT!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California