[JoeF]

Vinod Khosla, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems:
“No property right is more fundamental than the right to exclude.”
Start: Google
Khosla "Martin's Beach"
Or maybe begin with NYT article HERE
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Supreme Court is pondering whether to hear an involved case.
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What is the meaning of a potential "right to access"?
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Right to navigate the skies in the United States by U.S. citizens comes up against a similarity case. How are the citizens going to access the sky? We walk and the sky is above us; I jump up and I am in the sky and no longer on some ground. Access to the sky seems to be all over the place, but almost nowhere, it seems to some people.

What if Supreme Court deeply wounds the California Coast Act of 1976? Someone or corporation or government owns every piece of land in the U.S., I assume here. If every owner of land says, "Joe, be off my land." Then I am supposed to get off their land. If all said, "Joe, never return to my land." Then I could probably be arrested for trespassing if I returned to that particular land.

Does Joe own access rights to "public lands" where if he walked and jumped into the air he'd be in the sky where he could then exercise the right to navigate the sky of the United States?
Are the public roads of the United States places that Joe could be and then jump into the sky? The right to navigate the sky does not spell out how Joe is going to navigate the sky; Joe has to figure out how he is going to do that moving-in-the-sky thing. If Joe stays up in the sky and lives there, then landing would not be a question; but if he intends on coming back down, then he had better not touch any land where the owner told him not to return; Joe will need to find some landing place where the owner won't mind so much; maybe Joe could land on land that he partially owns by virtue of being a citizen. Does right to be in sky mean that there must be provided someplace to return to terra firma? Do birds and flying insects have more rights than humans? In any case, I feel Vinod Khosla is touching a matter that might affect the future of recreational hang gliding. I get a funny feeling that Khosla and Torrey Pines concessionaire have something in common.

[Rick Masters]

Joe, there is always hope.


                                    "Now we close the door and suck the air out."

"The vacuum balloon concept opens the way to a whole new era of man's control over his environment. For the first time, it could make true mastery of the third dimension of space possible. It may be that our future civilization will change radically, from a groundbased one to an air-based one, with the bulk of the population living above the land, or the sea. Expansion into the third dimension would make elbowroom for everyone. Through a vast network of Skyducts, producing energy, water and food, and providing easy transport and communications from essentially automatic equipment, most of man's needs would be met, giving him the room and the leisure to suit himself."
http://aoi.com.au/Originals/VacuumBalloon.pdf

[magentabluesky]

The subject of the history of the United States sovereignty is interesting to follow.

The Factory System Link

Under the 1790 act, the “Factory System” was established in 1791. With the Factory System, the Federal Government attempted to control the Indian fur trade as a means of “civilizing” the Indians in order to acquire Indian hunting grounds.

Link

The factory system was never intended to make a profit; policy dictated sound fiscal management to effectively cover expenses. Above all, the system was to win the good will of the Native Americans and to secure their economic dependence on American trade goods.

There are parallels to the USHPA’s rating and insurance programs to control the free flight flying in the United States to the Factory System. As Rousseau would say of those proclaiming ownership, “'This is mine,' and found people simple enough to believe him.”

The Westerner (1940) trailer

'The devil's rope': How barbed wire changed America
By Tim Harford Link

Locke argued that we all own our own labour. And if you mix your labour with the land that nature provides - for example, by ploughing the soil - then you've blended something you definitely own with something that nobody owns. By working the land, you've come to own it.

Nonsense, said Jean-Jacques Rousseau, an 18th Century philosopher from Geneva who protested against the evils of enclosure.

In his Discourse on Inequality, he lamented "the first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying, 'This is mine,' and found people simple enough to believe him." This man, said Rousseau, "was the real founder of civil society".

John C. Cooper addresses the history of airspace sovereignty prior to 1948 pointing out there was not a need to define the issue and make a sovereignty claim until humans were indeed occupying and using the airspace.

Journal of Air Law and Commerce Volume 15
1948
State Sovereignty vs. Federal Sovereignty of Navigable Airspace
John C. Cooper

PDF Link

Remember John C. Cooper’s treatise was ten years prior to the Aviation Act of 1958 where the U.S. Congress boldly claimed the airspace over the United States as federal public domain for the people.

And so the claim of sovereignty continues into space:

The Vertical Limit of State Sovereignty

PDF Link

In this case State is referring to countries.

With regard to Vinod Khosla, some very rich ruthless business magnates at some point in their lives realize they would like to leave a noble legacy. That was the case with John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

Philanthropy and the National Parks Link

There is always a tool:

Eminent domain and right of ways Link

I love your thoughts, Joe.