Similarly, bad incentives yield bad results, and all the corollaries of this, such as:
Poor incentives => Poor results
Warped incentives => Warped results
Good incentives for bad behavior => Much bad behavior
No disincentives for bad behavior => Much bad behavior
and so on. . . .
It turns out that Pavlov really was onto something.
Re: The judges are totally in on the Fascist Police State thing.
Yeah, it's hard to see how anyone could objectively look at all of the atrocities that Techdirt and others report on and not come to the conclusion that we live in an authoritarian police state and that all branches of government are active, willing, and even enthusiastic participants. The rare-as-hens-teeth exceptions only serve to highlight the rule.
Of course, a big part of the problem is the statist mainstream media. They rarely report any of these atrocities, and when they do, they are usually buried so far down nobody ever reads them.
The NSA has long since lost any public trust it may once have had. Should we really believe the NSA when it says it has stopped the bulk collection of phone and other communication data? Particularly after they have spent enormous sums building data-centers and computer systems specifically to hold and process that bulk data that they had been collecting and were clearly planning to continue collecting?
Or should we think that they are just going to be more covert going forward, and perform evidence laundering, aka "parallel construction," with the data collected (that is, if and when they ever find another possibly criminal needle in that huge evidence haystack)?
"...Finally, the state argued . . . investigators should be awarded "good faith" for not knowing any better. "
Unfortunately, this argument is standard practice for law enforcement. They go so far as to purposely not provide officers with relevant education and training to try to help bolster this BS. Often, the courts go along with it.
As someone else mentioned, there is no down-side for the cops. They get to run this cool "op," watch a bunch of fun video, and when it all turns to crap, they just go on to their next violation of citizens rights. Without real accountability, such as prison, permanent loss of LE certification, etc, there will be no end to such abominations.
With law enforcement's current status as standing army for the government, real accountability is not likely.
This fishing expedition for "human trafficking" would appear the fall under the "fun" category of preferred law enforcement activities. This is just a bunch of voyeuristic cops watching massage parlor activity. It seems that while "human trafficking" makes for splashy headlines and much pearl-clutching, it is actually quite rare in the US. Not that it doesn't happen at all, but in an open-to-the-public massage parlor? Not likely!
Even for some other activities that allegedly occurred at some point on a remote, inaccessible, privately owned island, the term "human trafficking" is probably much more emotionally inflammatory than accurate.
Excellent point about "Titles of Nobility" = immunity to various aspects of the law!
This is a concept that needs to get spread around! We have an entire government class that basically falls into that category, and it needs to stop. "Officer," "Detective," "District Attorney," "County Supervisor," "State Assemblyman," "Representative," "Senator," Secretary," "Director," "President" . . . ad infinitum . . . have all essentially become Titles of Nobility.
The Supreme Court's deference to law enforcement officers has allowed qualified immunity to become the justice-destroying monster it is today. It could start reeling in the long leash it's given cops over the past 50 years by taking up any number of appeals sent its way by plaintiffs following appellate rejection. But it doesn't. It appears to be more interested in reversing lower decisions finding for plaintiffs whose rights have been violated than establishing precedent that might result in fewer rights violations in the future.
Yeah, when the Supreme Court is clearly on the side of an increasingly violent and increasingly authoritarian government, I would agree that it is a problem. But when both factions of the government that created that problem work together to effectively prohibit any political opposition, I am not sure there is a good solution to that problem.
Yes. While the Interstate Commerce clause has got to be the most expansively abused clause of the Constitution, the 9th Amendment has got to be one of the most aggressively ignored parts of the Constitution, although it is one of the most important and most broadly applicable.
What is legal (or Constitutionally permitted) and what is right, or moral, are often very different. This situation provides a good example. Several of the Amendments in the Bill of Rights are special cases of a more general right to privacy. That this more general right to privacy was not mentioned particularly in the Bill of Rights, or elsewhere in the Constitution, cannot be construed to mean that it does not exist.
Because if it is not fun or profitable, cops don't want to do it. And to them, shooting people with very little chance of significant repercussions is fun. It spices up their day. It may even give them a chance to claim to be some kind of hero. Arresting someone without violence is just not fun. It is boring.
You and I know that attitude is sick, but that is one reason you and I are not cops.
a person's career choice into an immutable characteristic
Just as a career choice is not am immutable characteristic, and therefor not deserving of special legal protection, religion is also a choice, not an immutable characteristic, and therefor also not deserving of special legal protection. This change needs to be made in many areas, including "hate" crimes, employment discrimination, tax-exempt status, etc.
Apple has hostages, too. Apple just goes about the hostage-taking process a bit differently. As has already been mentioned, LibreOffice / Linux works just fine, for free people, and for free.
It has hostages. Everyone, escape while you still can. If more people don't jump on the Linux bandwagon, and soon, Microsoft's incorporation of a Linux subsystem into Windows will wind up swallowing Linux completely, and there will be no escape.
I wonder, did the Supreme Court rule against Michigan because they recognise this kind of theft is morally wrong three times over, or because they suspected there'd be riots if they didn't?
Apparently that is what it takes these days to make the government wake up from it's fat-cat nap and even notice anything is going on. Of course, it is still more likely to try to scratch your eyes out rather than do what it should have been doing in the first place.
The ACLU has become highly selective when it comes to which civil liberties it will help defend. When was the last time it defended a violation of 2A rights (which happen continuously in virtually every jurisdiction in the US)? Even with 1A free speech cases, they will typically only defend "approved" points of view. The days of the ACLU defending Klan free speech or similar are long gone.
(and there are lots of them, possibly even most of them, and they have been like this for decades, just maybe not quite so well publicized) is it any wonder the country is in such a sorry state?
stand for a lot of cool, high moral ground stuff. How much of it was real, how much was just good intentions, and how much was plain old nationalist BS is a topic that can be debated at length.
But the government has increasingly been dropping any pretenses, and flat out stating (almost) that we are just another tin-pot dictator, authoritarian, corrupt, oligarchical, police state "banana republic," just like the countries we used to call out for that kind of behavior. The main difference is that we have nukes, killer drones, cruise missiles, aircraft carriers, a global surveillance network, etc, which makes us much more dangerous than most of the other countries like that.
It is a very bad direction to be taking, and, as Mike points out, it is sure to come back and bite us in the collective butt, probably sooner rather than later.
The wireless industry SS7 flaw? US cellular location data scandals? The rampant lack of any privacy or security standards in the internet of things? The need for election security funding?
Throw in the constant attacks on encryption, too.
The government can work all these things to it's benefit. Most of them help make spying on Americans trivially easy. And with extremely poor election security, either faction can cry "Foul!" The current corrupt government has no reason to even try to fix these things. The upcoming election will undoubtedly be interesting, in a scary as shit kind of way. According to AG Barr's waffling, a postponement is not out of the question. Postponements can easily morph into cancellations.
On the post: Appeals Court Says Address Mistakes On Warrants Are Mostly Harmless, Not Worth Getting Excited About
Re: Bad cases make bad precedent
Similarly, bad incentives yield bad results, and all the corollaries of this, such as:
Poor incentives => Poor results
Warped incentives => Warped results
Good incentives for bad behavior => Much bad behavior
No disincentives for bad behavior => Much bad behavior
and so on. . . .
It turns out that Pavlov really was onto something.
On the post: Appeals Court Says Address Mistakes On Warrants Are Mostly Harmless, Not Worth Getting Excited About
Re: Re: The judges are totally in on the Fascist Police State th
Juvenal had it pegged about 1500 years ago.
On the post: Appeals Court Says Address Mistakes On Warrants Are Mostly Harmless, Not Worth Getting Excited About
Re: The judges are totally in on the Fascist Police State thing.
Yeah, it's hard to see how anyone could objectively look at all of the atrocities that Techdirt and others report on and not come to the conclusion that we live in an authoritarian police state and that all branches of government are active, willing, and even enthusiastic participants. The rare-as-hens-teeth exceptions only serve to highlight the rule.
Of course, a big part of the problem is the statist mainstream media. They rarely report any of these atrocities, and when they do, they are usually buried so far down nobody ever reads them.
On the post: Ninth Circuit Says NSA's Bulk Phone Records Collection Was Illegal, Most Likely Unconstitutional
Should we believe the NSA?
The NSA has long since lost any public trust it may once have had. Should we really believe the NSA when it says it has stopped the bulk collection of phone and other communication data? Particularly after they have spent enormous sums building data-centers and computer systems specifically to hold and process that bulk data that they had been collecting and were clearly planning to continue collecting?
Or should we think that they are just going to be more covert going forward, and perform evidence laundering, aka "parallel construction," with the data collected (that is, if and when they ever find another possibly criminal needle in that huge evidence haystack)?
On the post: Court Tosses Surreptitious Video Recordings Holding Together Sketchy 'Human Trafficking' Investigation
Re: Re: Bait and Switch
Unfortunately, this argument is standard practice for law enforcement. They go so far as to purposely not provide officers with relevant education and training to try to help bolster this BS. Often, the courts go along with it.
As someone else mentioned, there is no down-side for the cops. They get to run this cool "op," watch a bunch of fun video, and when it all turns to crap, they just go on to their next violation of citizens rights. Without real accountability, such as prison, permanent loss of LE certification, etc, there will be no end to such abominations.
With law enforcement's current status as standing army for the government, real accountability is not likely.
On the post: Court Tosses Surreptitious Video Recordings Holding Together Sketchy 'Human Trafficking' Investigation
Law enforcement for fun and profit
This fishing expedition for "human trafficking" would appear the fall under the "fun" category of preferred law enforcement activities. This is just a bunch of voyeuristic cops watching massage parlor activity. It seems that while "human trafficking" makes for splashy headlines and much pearl-clutching, it is actually quite rare in the US. Not that it doesn't happen at all, but in an open-to-the-public massage parlor? Not likely!
Even for some other activities that allegedly occurred at some point on a remote, inaccessible, privately owned island, the term "human trafficking" is probably much more emotionally inflammatory than accurate.
On the post: When It Comes To Qualified Immunity, Where Your Rights Were Violated Matters More Than The Fact Your Rights Were Violated
Re: The Constitution itself
Excellent point about "Titles of Nobility" = immunity to various aspects of the law!
This is a concept that needs to get spread around! We have an entire government class that basically falls into that category, and it needs to stop. "Officer," "Detective," "District Attorney," "County Supervisor," "State Assemblyman," "Representative," "Senator," Secretary," "Director," "President" . . . ad infinitum . . . have all essentially become Titles of Nobility.
On the post: When It Comes To Qualified Immunity, Where Your Rights Were Violated Matters More Than The Fact Your Rights Were Violated
That's a problem.
Yeah, when the Supreme Court is clearly on the side of an increasingly violent and increasingly authoritarian government, I would agree that it is a problem. But when both factions of the government that created that problem work together to effectively prohibit any political opposition, I am not sure there is a good solution to that problem.
On the post: Clearview Hires Prominent First Amendment Lawyer To Argue For Its Right To Sell Scraped Data To Cops
Re: Re: tldr; Clearview still sucks.
Yes. While the Interstate Commerce clause has got to be the most expansively abused clause of the Constitution, the 9th Amendment has got to be one of the most aggressively ignored parts of the Constitution, although it is one of the most important and most broadly applicable.
On the post: Clearview Hires Prominent First Amendment Lawyer To Argue For Its Right To Sell Scraped Data To Cops
tldr; Clearview still sucks.
What is legal (or Constitutionally permitted) and what is right, or moral, are often very different. This situation provides a good example. Several of the Amendments in the Bill of Rights are special cases of a more general right to privacy. That this more general right to privacy was not mentioned particularly in the Bill of Rights, or elsewhere in the Constitution, cannot be construed to mean that it does not exist.
On the post: Georgia Governor Passes Law Granting Cops Protected Status For 'Bias-Based' Crimes
Re: Watched brooks vid.
Because if it is not fun or profitable, cops don't want to do it. And to them, shooting people with very little chance of significant repercussions is fun. It spices up their day. It may even give them a chance to claim to be some kind of hero. Arresting someone without violence is just not fun. It is boring.
You and I know that attitude is sick, but that is one reason you and I are not cops.
On the post: Michigan Supreme Court: Selling A $24,000 House (And Keeping The Proceeds) Over An $8.41 Debt Is Unlawful
Re: Re:
It doesn't matter what you have on your phone. The cops can turn anything into evidence to be used against you.
And, of course, there's that whole principle thing, too.
On the post: Georgia Governor Passes Law Granting Cops Protected Status For 'Bias-Based' Crimes
No religion, too
Just as a career choice is not am immutable characteristic, and therefor not deserving of special legal protection, religion is also a choice, not an immutable characteristic, and therefor also not deserving of special legal protection. This change needs to be made in many areas, including "hate" crimes, employment discrimination, tax-exempt status, etc.
On the post: Scientists Forced To Change Names Of Human Genes Because Of Microsoft's Failure To Patch Excel
Re: Re: Microsoft does not have customers.
Apple has hostages, too. Apple just goes about the hostage-taking process a bit differently. As has already been mentioned, LibreOffice / Linux works just fine, for free people, and for free.
On the post: Scientists Forced To Change Names Of Human Genes Because Of Microsoft's Failure To Patch Excel
Microsoft does not have customers.
It has hostages. Everyone, escape while you still can. If more people don't jump on the Linux bandwagon, and soon, Microsoft's incorporation of a Linux subsystem into Windows will wind up swallowing Linux completely, and there will be no escape.
On the post: Michigan Supreme Court: Selling A $24,000 House (And Keeping The Proceeds) Over An $8.41 Debt Is Unlawful
Re:
Apparently that is what it takes these days to make the government wake up from it's fat-cat nap and even notice anything is going on. Of course, it is still more likely to try to scratch your eyes out rather than do what it should have been doing in the first place.
On the post: San Diego Police Officers Are Using An Old Sedition Law To Punish People For Swearing Around Cops
Re: Re: Make it happen, it will be fun to watch
The ACLU has become highly selective when it comes to which civil liberties it will help defend. When was the last time it defended a violation of 2A rights (which happen continuously in virtually every jurisdiction in the US)? Even with 1A free speech cases, they will typically only defend "approved" points of view. The days of the ACLU defending Klan free speech or similar are long gone.
On the post: Georgia School District Inadvertently Begins Teaching Lessons In First Amendment Protections After Viral Photo
With schools like this
(and there are lots of them, possibly even most of them, and they have been like this for decades, just maybe not quite so well publicized) is it any wonder the country is in such a sorry state?
On the post: State Department Announces That Great Firewall For The US; Blocks Chinese Apps & Equipment
The United States used to . . .
stand for a lot of cool, high moral ground stuff. How much of it was real, how much was just good intentions, and how much was plain old nationalist BS is a topic that can be debated at length.
But the government has increasingly been dropping any pretenses, and flat out stating (almost) that we are just another tin-pot dictator, authoritarian, corrupt, oligarchical, police state "banana republic," just like the countries we used to call out for that kind of behavior. The main difference is that we have nukes, killer drones, cruise missiles, aircraft carriers, a global surveillance network, etc, which makes us much more dangerous than most of the other countries like that.
It is a very bad direction to be taking, and, as Mike points out, it is sure to come back and bite us in the collective butt, probably sooner rather than later.
On the post: Banning TikTok Will Accomplish Nothing. Fix Our Broader Security & Privacy Problems Instead.
The broader security and privacy problems
Throw in the constant attacks on encryption, too.
The government can work all these things to it's benefit. Most of them help make spying on Americans trivially easy. And with extremely poor election security, either faction can cry "Foul!" The current corrupt government has no reason to even try to fix these things. The upcoming election will undoubtedly be interesting, in a scary as shit kind of way. According to AG Barr's waffling, a postponement is not out of the question. Postponements can easily morph into cancellations.
And these buffoons are whining about TikTok?
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