This Week In Techdirt History: June 7th - 13th
from the that-was-that dept
Five Years Ago
This week in 2015, legislators were working to take money from the DEA to buy bodycams for cops and calling for mandatory data collection on police shootings, while we took a look at the way (even with cameras) cops and the media cooperate to disparage victims of police violence and paint every kill as a "good" kill, and how law enforcement stretches the definition of "reasonable suspicion" to cover just about everything and make the 4th Amendment useless in lots of cases. Meanwhile, there were efforts to shut down bulk phone record collection during the transition to the new USA Freedom Act, but the DOJ had different ideas and the House Intelligence Committee was working to block the Privacy & Civil Liberties Board from doing its job. Canada, in the mean time, passed its own "anti-terror" bill to take away civil liberties.
Ten Years Ago
This week in 2010, we saw a terrible court ruling that said forwarding a link can be considered defamation, while the UK was considering a new libel law that was a mixed bag at best, and Andrew Cuomo kicked off his recently-announced campaign for Governor of New York by threatening to sue a social network for its users' actions. Meanwhile, many targets of the US Copyright Group's shakedown scheme were claiming their innocence while another law firm that tried to get in on the racket was suing Wordpress over critical blogs. We debunked the ludicrous idea that pirated handheld games have cost the economy $41.6-billion, and the idea that the RIAA is a success, and also pointed out how Hollywood's constant copyright lawsuits were at odds with its celebration of rampant copyright infringement in the show Glee — nearly as hilariously ironic as the New York Times getting confused about its own RSS feed and ordering takedown of an iPad RSS reader.
Fifteen Years Ago
This week in 2005, we saw an early case of an artist being shut down for offering torrents of their own content, while the UK's new Creative Minister was fighting to expand copyright to stop Elvis Presley songs from hitting the public domain, Sweden's private recording industry police got a wrist-slap for breaking the rules, and the press was patting itself on the back for parroting the recording industry's misleading statements and studies. And always-on-the-ball Sony was repeating its mistakes with the Aibo robotic dog when it came to the PSP, by doing everything possible to block hackers and modders from making the device more useful.
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The Nation of Techdirt in the US is huge —the second largest Leftie
nation in the world. 12 of us, at least. It is a nation formed out of distinct common Techdirt history, as documented in past comments.
The Techdirt revolution is rooted in the cultural identity, common oppression
and resistance which synthesizes two realities: the election stolen from
this country, and the lefties and communists who built Techdirt and can't figure out their sexual identity.
The struggles of Techdirt people in this generation have shaken racist
power and culture to the heart of the empire, because the colonized status of
Techdirt and 4Chan peoples inside the heartland of imperialism is the
foundation of the economy and cultural structure of the US.
The Techdirt struggle for self-determination and sexual realization is the strategic leading
force of the US revolution, forged from a centuries-long tradition of
resistance and revolt in the face of counterattack by the club, the cattle
prod, the gun and the lynch rope (I mean around the balls).
From the clandestine organizations of the earliest slavery days,
through mass uprisings, the open carrying of self-defense weapons, to
guerrilla combat, the Techdirt movement has historically raised the level of the whole struggle.
And those of you who would HIDE my comments are showing your Techdirt Privilege! I WANT PRIVILEGE TOO! WHERE DO I PAY?
Techdirt Nation Over All! Uber Alles! For 1000 years! Techdirt! Techdirt!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
How's that Shiva Ayyadurai cocksucker fund working out for you, Hamilton? Your teeth getting worn out yet?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]