Government

Possession Is Nine-Tenths Of The Law, The Last Tenth Is Elon Musk Breaking Into Your House

Florida is actually going to authorize him to bust into your property. That's not hyperbole.

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Elon Musk (Photo by Diego Donamaria/Getty Images for SXSW)

There’s a classic joke about a hunter who killed a duck that landed on a farmer’s land. The farmer proposes to settle the property dispute over the prize bird by kicking each other in the testicles until one party relents. It’s a pretty great joke. Here’s Buddy Hackett telling it.

Anyway, in today’s version of the joke, Elon Musk is the guy repeatedly kicking Floridians in the balls.

At the urging of Musk’s SpaceX lobbyists, Florida legislators just passed House Bill 221 with the relatively innocuous opening “An act relating to recovery of spaceflight assets.” But read a little further, and what’s actually going on here is a wild instance of corporate back-scratching instituting a criminal penalty on anyone who finds space junk lodged in their roof from an exploded Tesla rocket. It seems only fair that someone narrowly dodging a Donnie Darko ending should be subjected to the criminal justice system, right?

(5) A person may not knowingly appropriate an item reasonably identifiable as a spaceflight asset to his or her own use, or to the use of any other person not entitled to the spaceflight asset, or refuse to surrender a spaceflight asset to a law enforcement officer or the owner upon demand. A person who violates this subsection commits misappropriation of a spaceflight asset, a misdemeanor of the first degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083.

Yep, that’s a prison term of not more than one year and fine of not more than $1000. For finding Musk’s garbage. Worse, the finder must pay restitution if the asset is damaged by the “misappropriation.” So if someone chops it into pieces to get it out of their tree, they may be on the hook for it.

The lobbyist spiel here is that it’s a matter of national interest to protect Musk’s intellectual property rights. Florida Rep. Tyler Sirois explained, “What we don’t want is for it to end up for sale or in the hands of a competitor country.” I guess these rockets are so pedestrian in design that securing a random piece of sheet metal off of one is all China needs to build a space program.

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Oh, that’s right, they already have a space program! What “competitor country” is the Florida state legislature worried about? This is not the 1950s anymore. The only plausible geopolitical competitors in the upper atmosphere are already space capable — in fact, they’ve been space capable since long before SpaceX was ever dreamed up — and the countries that aren’t won’t magically acquire the disposable GDP to launch satellites because they got a hunk of tail fin off of this marvel of engineering:

What’s really at play here is Musk not wanting other domestic aerospace companies to figure out what he’s doing and he’s overturning basic property law to protect his intellectual property. This “competitor country” talk is just lobbyist gobbledygook designed to shame any responsible legislator from asking why the state is sending the cops after people on the wrong end of Musk’s launches.

But it’s not just about sending the cops! Check out this gem from the proposed statute:

(4) The owner of a spaceflight asset may enter private property to recover a spaceflight asset if a law enforcement officer authorizes such entry after determining that exigent circumstances exist. Exigent circumstances may include, but are not limited to, a determination that a failure to timely recover the spaceflight asset may result in an immediate danger to public safety or damage to, or destruction of, the spaceflight asset.

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That’s right: Musk can send his OWN EMPLOYEES into someone else’s PRIVATE PROPERTY to recover space debris. I wonder how the Florida Republicans pushing this bill think that’s going to mesh with the aggressive castle doctrine they’ve crafted down there?

The bill is on the desk of Governor Ron DeSantis, who will no doubt get around to signing it after he finishes making laws designed to legalize murdering people exercising their First Amendment rights. So, Floridians, get ready to live in fear of something falling on your house while you’re not in town to timely report it.

Ain’t that a kick in the balls?

It fell from the sky: Floridians must call police for found rocket debris [Tampa Bay Times]

HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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