Can the Federal Government outlaw sex? Other than good sense, what would stop (if anything) the US Congress from passing a law making all sex illegal? Obviously this is a hypothetical. But it's only somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I am curious about the boundaries on the government power in this area.
No. The constitution protects the right of consenting adults to have sex in private &quot;without the intervention of the government.&quot; Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 578 (U.S. 2003).
You have misread the DMLP page. In Pennsylvania, it is illegal to record a conversation if you are a party and if the other party does not consent. The fact that federal law doesn't ban something doesn't mean that states can't ban it. There is generally a presumption that when both the feds and the states can legitimately regulate something, the feds weren't trying to preempt all state laws on the topic. While people often say "federal law takes precedence over state law," the normal rule is that both laws apply; the federal law only blocks the state law if the feds wanted to block said state laws. So far as I can tell, the federal law has never been held to preempt two-party consent laws; the point of the federal law was to restrict recording, not extend it. It's like how federal law doesn't prohibit taking hostages inside the US to coerce a private company into doing what you want (anti-terrorism laws might, I guess, but the federal hostage-taking law doesn't); while the federal law excludes most hostage-taking in the US, that doesn't mean that it's legal to take hostages. Congress sometimes wants to establish nationwide standards for something, but the presumption is that they didn't.
Unless there is a law or regulation against it, it is legal. However in a big government it can be practically impossible to determine whether something is legal. For example, nobody even knows how many criminal statutes have been promulgated by the U.S. federal government. And that's nothing compared to the volume of executive regulation and judicial case-law that determines whether something is illegal. I.e., in practice determining that something is legal is a bit like proving a negative. Furthermore, if you look long enough some argue that you can probably find some law under which almost any action could be considered illegal. Note also that even if it is not against the law, it could be proscribed by contract (read your Terms and Conditions!), and breach of contract is in general &ndash; but with an astonishing number of exceptions! &ndash; illegal.
Technically, there is no such thing as an unconstitutional law. There are laws which have been passed, but whose unconstitutionality has not been discovered yet. But once a law is legally deemed to be unconstitutional, it stops being a law. The constitution is a recipe for running the government. If Congress enacts legislature which it has no authority to enact, the courts have the authority to discover this and reveal it in an opinion.
So, as I understand the decision, it's a little more subtle than that. By default, states have sovereign immunity and can't be sued without their consent. Congress can remove ("abrogate") this immunity by law in some circumstances. They tried to do so for copyright infringement cases with the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act of 1990. However, in the present case of Allen v. Cooper, the Supreme Court held that this part of the CRCA is unconstitutional. The idea is that under the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress can abrogate state immunity when it's necessary to ensure people's right to due process, but only in a "congruent and proportional" way. Now if a state unintentionally or negligently infringes someone's copyright, that does not violate the person's right to due process, but an intentional infringement might. At the time the CRCA was passed, when Congress went looking for instances where states infringed on copyrights, they found several cases of unintentional or negligent infringement, and just a couple where they may have infringed intentionally. SCOTUS argued that to respond to this by completely abrogating state immunity in all copyright cases was disproportionate, and therefore unconstitutional. But the Court suggests in the opinion that Congress could pass a different law to abrogate immunity in copyright cases, if it were narrower. For instance, a law that only stripped immunity in cases of intentional infringement would likely be constitutional, especially if there were evidence that intentional infringement was happening enough to be a significant problem. So I think the answer is that as of right now, a state could deliberately infringe someone's copyright (e.g. by pirating software) and be immune from suit. However, Congress has the power to "fix" this, and most likely will, especially if there seems to be egregious abuse. (By the way, the decision contains an impressive quantity of pirate jokes. I guess since it's not only about copyright infringement (aka "piracy"), but actually alleges infringement of a video about a sunken pirate ship, the justices just couldn't resist.) Your "eminent domain" idea is separate from this. Seizing copies of the software wouldn't give the state the right to use them, as the software itself would still be copyrighted. The state would have to seize the copyright, and I don't know whether that is possible - it's not necessarily property in that sense. But if they did so, then they wouldn't be infringing the copyright at all (since the state itself would now own the copyright) and this case would be irrelevant. On the other hand, when a state uses eminent domain to seize property, they must as you say pay fair market value for it, and that means the market value before they seized it. So the value of the copyright in such a case wouldn't be "nothing" - it would be more like the amount a competitor would have had to pay the software maker to buy all the rights to that product. Likewise, if the state seizes your lovely house and bulldozes it to build a toxic waste dump, they owe you what someone would have paid for the house, not the value of a dump that nobody wants.
No. It is an often repeated misconception that "Freedom of Speech" means that no one can restrict speech ever. This is not the case. Let us look at the US Consitution's First Admendment, which contains the "Freedom of Speech" clause: Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press... (Emphasis mine) As one can see, the First Amendment only restricts government actions. (It also stops other branches of government from restricting speech, because those branches are innately weak with very few powers granted to them by the constitution; the majority of executive or judicial branches powers are granted to them by a law passed by Congress, and Congress cannot give a power to another party that they do not possess). A Home Owner Association (HOA) is not a government or government agency; it is a private organization (and it is not the same as the "private management company" that manages the condominium, which is probably in the employ of the HOA; which also means that emailing the manager is not emailing the HOA board). Their power stems from a contract, one that your friend signed when they bought the property (one of the conditions agreed to is that a member who sells or gifts their HOA-member property can only do so to someone who also agrees to the contract). That said, HOAs can be horribly abusive and many states have laws that restrict what kinds of rules and penalties can be applied by an HOA. But that is not a constitutional matter (at either the Federal or State level), nor a question of "Freedom of Speech", but rather a limitation on the kinds of behaviors that can be enforced by contract.
I think that there won't be any trouble from Germany, but the US could be a problem if the girl reports the case to authorities. In that case, further details would depend on the state in question. As far as Germany is concerned, there are two sections in the penal code that could be relevant here: § 176 StGB - Sexual abuse of children § 182 StGB - Sexual abuse of juveniles To make things more complicated, we would also have to take into account juvenile penal law and whether Germany would have jurisdiction in the first place. 1) Jurisdiction: I'm not sure whether this case would fall into German jurisdiction under § 3 StGB as the case could be deemed to be committed in the US. However, in that case, Germany could still assume jurisdiction under § 5 item 8 StGB. 2) Since our guy was only 18, it would be at the discretion of the court to decide whether juvenile criminal law or regular criminal law is to be applied. In the former case, the sentence would be lower (if there is a sentence at all). But then we still have to figure out whether our guy broke a law in the first place. So first of all, let's take a look at § 176 StGB: “Section 176 Sexual abuse of children (1) Whoever performs sexual acts on a person under 14 years of age (child) or has the child perform sexual acts on them incurs a penalty of imprisonment for a term of between six months and 10 years. (2) Whoever causes a child to perform sexual acts on a third person or has a third person perform sexual acts on the child incurs the same penalty. (3) In especially serious cases, the penalty is imprisonment for a term of at least one year. (4) Whoever 1. performs sexual acts in the presence of a child, 2. causes the child to perform sexual acts, unless the act is subject to a penalty under subsection (1) or subsection (2), 3. influences a child by way of material (section 11 (3)) or information and communication technologies a) in order to cause the child to perform sexual acts on or in the presence of the offender or a third person or to have the offender or a third person perform sexual acts on the child or b) in order to commit an offence under section 184b (1) no. 3 or under section 184b (3) or 4. influences a child by showing pornographic images or depictions, by playing pornographic audio recordings, making pornographic content available by way of information and communication technologies or pornographic speech incurs a penalty of imprisonment for a term of between three months and five years. (5) Whoever offers or promises to supply a child for an offence under subsections (1) to (4) or who arranges with another to commit such an offence incurs a penalty of imprisonment for a term of between three months and five years. (6) The attempt is punishable; this does not apply to offences under subsection (4) nos. 3 and 4 and subsection (5).” Since the girl is 15 years old, this section is probably not relevant. However, to know for sure, we would need to know her exact age when contact started. If she was only 13 years and 11 months and contact lasted 1 year and 2 months, then § 176 might be relevant after all. That takes us to § 182. “Section 182 Sexual abuse of juveniles (1) Whoever abuses a person under 18 years of age by taking advantage of a predicament by 1. performing sexual acts on that person or having said person perform sexual acts on them or 2. causing the person to perform sexual acts on a third person or to have sexual acts performed on them by a third person incurs a penalty of imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or a fine. (2) A person over 18 years of age who abuses a person under 18 years of age by performing sexual acts on that person or having that person perform sexual acts on them for a consideration incurs the same penalty. (3) A person over 21 years of age who abuses a person under 16 years of age by 1. performing sexual acts on that person or having that person perform sexual acts on them or 2. causing that person to perform sexual acts on a third person or to have a third person perform sexual acts on that person, and thereby exploits the victim’s lack of capacity for sexual self-determination, incurs a penalty of imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years or a fine. (4) The attempt is punishable. (5) In the cases under subsection (3), the offence is prosecuted only upon request, unless the prosecuting authority deems there to be a special public interest in prosecution which calls for ex officio intervention. (6) In the cases under subsections (1) to (3), the court may dispense with imposing a penalty pursuant to these provisions if, having regard to the conduct of the person against whom the offence was committed, the wrongfulness of the act is minor.” § 182 para. 1 StGB applies only to cases where the offender takes advantage of a predicament. I seriously doubt there's a predicament involved here. § 182 para. 2 StGB only applies for sexual acts for consideration, i. e. when money is being paid. Since apparantly there was no payment involved in this case, no problem here and we can go on to para. 3. § 182 para. 3 StGB only applies to cases where the victim lacks the capacity for self-determination and the offender is at least 21 years old. Neither is the case here. Summary: As far as Germany is concerned, there's no trouble to be expected under § 182 StGB. § 176 StGB might cause problems but only if the girl was under 14 when contact began. (You stated that she's 15. This could mean that she just turned 15 but was 13 years and 11 months when contact began.) As far as German law is concerned, it looks like our guy was overly cautious and there was no need to cut contact. From the US perspective, however, things will probably be different. I'm not familiar with US law but we would probably need to know the state in question.
Article 1 Section 8 appears to answer your question - only the Federal Government has the power to regulate the value of currency. Unilaterally forbidding the use of pennies as currency would be a regulation of their value (from 1 cent to 0 cents). A state government might be allowed to refuse pennies for the purpose of paying for a service in advance like a private business can, but like a private business are required to accept them as legal tender for the purpose of repaying debts, judgements, etc. Responding to the edited post, I'm inclined to say that the proposed plan is still "regulating" currency, in the same way that only the Federal government is the only entity authorized to destroy worn out currency (which it obtains by fair exchange). As Nate Eldredge points out, this may also violate the Commerce Clause of the same section, both in terms of interstate transactions and in terms of the exchange of currency between persons of different states and the implementing state. However, if it was implemented as suggested in comments, where businesses were required to exchange whatever pennies they receive with the state government for an equal amount of other currency, it might not run afoul of either of these clauses. This is probably a question the Supreme Court would have to decide, since a lot of hypothetical factors could come into play. At first glance, there doesn't appear to be any factual difference between a state holding pennies in storage indefinitely and the state holding any other currency in storage indefinitely, which they are allowed to do so long as they don't violate any part of USC Title 18, Chapter 17 (e.g., melt the pennies for the copper). On the other hand, the Federal Government could argue that the storage of pennies for the purpose of removing them from circulation is a form of currency regulation even if the action would otherwise be legal, or that the state's actions are impactful enough to affect interstate commerce even though they only directly impact commerce in the state and therefore Congress could pass a law outlawing the practice.