For those curious but don’t want to bother opening the link:
- It was in North Carolina
- The engineer was critiquing NC infrastructure
- A NC agency said he needed a permit to criticize their infrastructure
- The judge correctly determined that it was a violation of our first amendment rights
Damn, and here I was really excited for the Forbidden Math lecture, like exposing why dividing by zero is actually a government coverup and how imaginary numbers are actually real but from a shadow dimension.
The title is a bit misleading. The state went after him because he doesn’t have an engineering license in the state. I used to be a P&C insurance agent and one of the things that we were cautioned about was using our expertise in insurance outside of our job duties. There is a degree of liability there that you don’t really want to be taking on. While on the job, you are covered by professional liability insurance if you make a mistake that causes harm to clients. Outside of your job though, the company you work for has no obligation to protect you as you aren’t acting as an agent of that company on your own time. In this case, itd be a bit of a stretch to equate the two in that there isn’t really a scenario where him talking about the infrastructure causes the state harm as far as a court would be concerned but I can kind of see where the case might have even gotten to court in the first place rather than dismissed off the bat as frivolous by the judge.
