The court, he wrote, has a "dismal record of protecting free speech in cases involving challenges to the institutional authority of the government when it is regulating the speech of its employees, its students and its prisoners, and when it is claiming national security justifications".
Unlike China, which has never spelled out whether it is claiming everything inside its U-shaped line islands, rocks, shoals, reefs, fish, oil, gas and water or just the islands, Mr Ma was clear that the claim was limited to islands and 3 to 12 nautical miles of their adjacent waters.
If in a future case, a religious "person" or institution should claim that according to its beliefs, notifying the government that it is claiming an exemption facilitates sin because so doing will cause the government to pick up the tab, that "person" will have no less right to its beliefs than Wheaton College and Little Sisters have to theirs.
The Spoleto gets its share of coups, and among those it is claiming this year is the first American staging of Philip Glass's "Kepler," which was heard on Thursday evening at the College of Charleston Sottile Theater.
Intel has decided to appeal the $1.45 billion fine leveled against it by the European Union for engaging in anticompetitive behavior, and it is claiming that the proceedings have violated its human right to due process.
It is claiming success, with 29,000 paying subscribers to its Orbyt features section.
