How is Christmas&#39; status as a federal holiday legal? It seems the United States federal government's establishment of Christmas, a religious holiday, as a federal holiday would be illegal under the establishment clause of the First Amendment. How is it legal? Or is it case of no one has bothered to change it yet?
It is perfectly legal and, many would argue, reasonable to have secular reasons to do something that happen to align with religious reasons. In other words, just because there's a religious reason to do something doesn't invalidate secular reasons to do the same thing. The New York Times had an article in 2013 that explained the origin of the federal holidays in 1870: Congress acknowledged that Jan. 1 is "commonly called New Year's Day" and Dec. 25 is "commonly called Christmas Day." and further on in the article: If you read the language of the [1870] bill, it's clear that Congress chose dates commonly celebrated as holidays by the American people, not for religious reasons but because of a history of recognition and celebration on those dates. The federal holidays make sense from an efficiency perspective. If a significant number of federal employees will be taking those days off for celebratory purposes then it doesn't make sense to open federal offices if there's not enough staff. Federal holidays only apply to federal employees and the District of Columbia. There's no requirement that your private employer, state employer or you recognize those holidays.
Yes The US constitution is in the public domain. Anyone may publish a version of it, including an altered version. No US law forbidding publication of an altered version would itself be constitutional -- the First Amendment would prevent such a law. However, if an altered version were sold under such conditions that a customer might reasonably believe it to be an unaltered version, that might be false advertising, or perhaps fraud, because the seller would be deceiving the customer as to what the product is.
There is no federal prohibition against sexual discrimination in public accomodations. Colorado has an applicable state law, which covers "any place of business engaged in any sales to the public", where "It is a discriminatory practice and unlawful ...to refuse, withhold from, or deny to an individual or a group, because of ...sexual orientation...the full and equal enjoyment of the goods...". No provision exempts lemonade stands. Churches etc. are specifically exempted: "'Place of public accommodation' shall not include a church, synagogue, mosque, or other place that is principally used for religious purposes". Sex discrimination is allowed "if such restriction has a bona fide relationship to the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of such place of public accommodation", an argument that can't reasonably be made in the described case. It is also not obvious that running a lemonade stand is a business (the courts will not admit unsubstantiated Wiki assertions as evidence). It would be relevant to wonder what constitutes a "business" under Colorado law. E.g. is a business license required? In Colorado (US) law, it has not been definitively decided whether there can be a religious exception to the anti-discrimination law. Masterpiece Cakeshop was decided without answering that (the state showed clear religious intolerance in its handling of the case). We do not know how a similar case will be decided: Arlene's Flowers was handed back to the state court with the instruction "do it again" (with nothing more than a mention of Masterpiece Cakeshop). The court cannot establish certain beliefs and practices as "valid religions" (Establishment Clause); the proxy expression that is used is "deeply held belief", which includes atheism. The relationship of the issue to the First Amendment is uncertain.
How come this is viable? Because it’s legal. What if people use their service to commit crimes? What if people use a Ford in a bank holdup? Or a Glock in a murder? Or the US Postal Service in a Nigerian letter scam? If the goods or services are legal and not provided for an obviously illegal purpose, nothing happens.
In the UK and USA (and I imagine other jurisdictions) there have been laws that explicitly provide for orders obliging entities to (A) provide access or information and (B) keep the order secret. For example, in the USA the Stored Communications Act, Fair Credit Reporting Act and Right to Financial Privacy Act authorise the FBI to issue National Security Letters (Wikipedia, EFF, EPIC, Lawfare). These are an administrative subpoena, without prior approval from a judge, for meta-information (e.g. phone numbers dialed or email recipients addressed but not the content) of communications relevant to national security investigations. They typically contain a non-disclosure requirement prohibiting the recipient of the NSL from disclosing its existence or the FBI's demands. There have been challenges on First Amendment grounds to the non-disclosure aspect but, so far as I'm aware, they have all ultimately failed. Some of their non-disclosure requirements may eventually expire under other laws. In response, so-called 'warrant canaries' (Wikipedia) have been developed (and gone a bit further than the original idea) - these are intended to allow entities to relatively passively warn of such an order having been received if not the detail of the order. However, they can be legally risky in that they might be seen by a court as trying to circumvent the non-disclosure requirement and therefore breaking it.
Taking the US as an example, the Constitution states Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Congress or a state government hasn't prohibited you from comparing platforms. Another private entity has. And, that's fine. You're free to launch the app as a separate website, or print out the flyers and hand them to people on the bus, or publish your own monthly magazine comparing various platforms, so you still have freedom of speech and of the press. As an example, if you write a letter about how great the government of North Korea is to the letters department at Stamp Collectors Magazine, and they don't publish it, have they violated your human rights? The app store restriction may be quite dumb. After all, the built-in web browser allows the reading of the exact same news. But there's no law against being dumb.
First off, the people of Finland say that Santa lives in Korvatunturi, which would mean he is subject to Finnish jurisdiction. But if he were born, resided and worked at the North Pole, as the original question states, this spot is in international waters, and under the Convention on the High Seas that would be terra nullius. Therefore no nation can claim sovereignty over his home (we must also assume he is not on a plane or ship flying the flag of some nation: article 11 allows the detention of a ship on the high seas only under order of authorities of the flag state). That might immunize him from civil forfeiture of his home, but there is more to jurisdiction than where your home is. Under Article 14, all states "shall co-operate to the fullest possible extent in the repression of piracy on the high seas or in any other place outside the jurisdiction of any State". Article 15 says what "piracy" is, which could be interpreted as referring to crimes against persons and property (but not possession of marijuana). Eritrea is not a signatory to this treaty, so they might claim legal jurisdiction, though enforcement of the claim could be challenging. The US has technically not ratified this treaty either, but we mostly observe it. Klaus could also be subject to US law (for example) in specific cases. The high seas are in the "special maritime jurisdiction" and the US can claim jurisdiction for offenses against a national of the US. Other states may have similar laws. A person whose IP had been copied can sue in their home country, so the lack of a North Pole jurisdiction would not protect Claus. B&amp;E is prosecuted where the offense happens; he would be free of business license laws; when he enters US airspace, he is subject to FAA regulations, and would be required to have a visa and passport to enter the US. In fact, most of the alleged crimes take place within the jurisdiction of a state.
Both Congress and the state legislatures are expressly forbidden by the Constitution from passing bills of attainder. That means neither can ever pass a law that names an individual and says "they are suspended." It is so important that it's one of the very few restrictions on government that the original Constitution (before any amendments) prohibited in bot state and federal governments. (Also, a "bill" is not a law. It's what a legislature is considering making a law.)