Dr. Turner, making it clear that her conclusions rested solely on the information that had been presented to her, prepared a report supporting the suffocation hypothesis.
That's the worst part here.
Dr Turner should have just given verbal agreement that the theory is plausible given the facts she's been given... then stopped here. Actually writing an actual report without actually seeing the proper reports and initial autopsy is taking a step into fabricating evidence (even unwillingly). She green-lit a re-trial, years after the facts without having seen the body or read the original documents, purely based on a stubborn bored cop's story. No expert should be willing to do so, which means her credibility is now tainted.
Of course not.
The republicans are super smart too because they can find election fraud without any evidence. How isn't that proof for both that the democrat cheated and that republicans are smarter?
Re: 'No fair, only we're allowed to break that deal!'
You know the quote: "I am altering the deal. Pray that I don't alter it any further."
Yes, that one.
It "belongs" to Disney now. I'm suspecting they bought the franchise just to acquire it. :D
You mean the one of which even republican vote watchers couldn't see an issue? The one where, when called upon in court, every last one of your people had to confess they had nothing but their own words for it?
If there is no evidence, then the democrats obviously hid it.
This only proves how good they were at stealing the election!
(/sarcasm)
The dissent points out it's not enough for race and gender to match the description.
That, exactly that, is the problem all too often.
There are way too many cases where "black skin" is the only identifying feature the cops need to arrest someone. They come in, sometimes literally guns blazing, and target the first black man they spot. Worse yet, they often ignore any other unmatched identifying features they were notified of. Size, clothes, approximate age, none of that matters because they found a black man in the general vicinity of the caller, so that's obviously the culprit... suspect... whatever.
Here, Officers Richardson and Jupin actively investigated the disturbance after detaining Irvin and Bates, delayed by their refusal to cooperate.
What do they mean by "refusal to cooperate"?
Just that they didn't immediately confess being guilty of... something?
They definitely didn't resist (you can be sure this would have had them arrested - resisting arrest is an all-time cop favorite even when they don't have a legitimate reason to arrest you in the first place), and they had no reason to give any information unless arrested. (5th amendment + saying anything to cops can get you in trouble, even when you're innocent. We discussed that a few days ago with a forfeiture case.)
Also, the problem is not even that the cops investigated something. That's actually a better behaviour compared to other cases where they simply shoot someone dead before asking questions. The problem is that they have the nervous reaction to point guns first, ask question later - sometimes never.
There was report of a gun (I'm not quite convinced there was one to begin with, but the police couldn't know better), so caution was warranted. But they can't hold some random people at gunpoint only because they have black skin as reported. (Surprise! Not sure this happens with white people. At worst, this might happen if they match more features than the color of their skin. At best, they stay polite until they have actual confirmation that the person is armed.) Accidents happen, and their training is definitely not on the "safety and caution" side of handling firearms. Given the number of death by cops in the US, they should definitely not draw their guns unless there is a clear reason, and even less point them at people. Rule 1 of gun handling is and has always been: "do not point a gun at something you don't intend to shoot." Then again... I'm pretty they follow the rule. Their intent has been demonstrated. Repeatedly.
Finally, for a country that holds the 2A in such high standards (among white-skinned far-righters at least), there is a quick negative reaction to seeing armed black men. As if there was a double standard. But that can't be. This would mean there is widespread racism in the US. Obviously, this can't be true. (/sarcasm)
I was already upset that a social worker thought it would be legal to deliberately frame someone, or at least that she could evade the responsibility of doing it... then I read that one judge in the panel thought she was right.
What kind of country is it where you find judges thinks that breaking the law is acceptable as long as nobody was convicted for doing it in the exact same way before?
Fortunately in this case, there was only one in a panel, but given that this is a Supreme Court precedent, there was at least one case where a majority of judges - at the highest level - thought that was a good legal precedent to establish. They didn't have such a clear-cut case in their hands at the time, but it still created a whole generation of government officials who believe that they can escape prosecution as long as they break the law in a slightly creative way.
It's time they got discouraged of that notion. It's way past that time actually.
Remarkably enough, they do.
Google has tons of flaws, but they indeed reject a ton of invalid take-down requests.
Problem is like any of these issues (copyright, trademark, moderation), it's a problem of scale. No matter how much you try, you will fail a lot in a spectacular fashion because we talk about billions of requests to validate. And that's because the incentives are all geared towards taking down when in doubt. No actual due process is required or even encouraged. So, in a hurry, some obviously wrong requests are going to go through anyway.
The unborn are a convenient group of people to advocate for.
There was a quote about God in a similar spirit, and how he is convenient to use when you are a political figure. I'll paraphrase since I don't remember the original.
You can make promises in his name.
You can make threats in his name.
You can ask for money in his name.
You can tell the poor and the needy that they will be rewarded for their hardships in the next life so they don't need to rebel in this one. You can tell the rich that they can be forgiven anything for a small amount of earthly valuables.
You can adopt just about any position, as morally high or low as it can be, and find a religious quote to support it. (personal note: this Includes explicit support for slavery.)
And since religious people in general don't care about the actual content of their supposed holy writings (in particular the part about not invoking the name of God in vain, amusingly enough), they will drink your words as if they came directly from God... because saying you speak for the invisible man in the sky is apparently enough to make you trustworthy no matter how vile your actual actions are.
So you can do anything in the name of God, and you won't have to do anything to uphold those threats or promises because God is supposed to. And since your rewards will be granted after you die, nobody can challenge you for being let down.
It is the ultimate scam.
Of course, only as long as people believe in their fantasy religions over real-life facts.
I mentioned that there are concerns about this, and I would address them if needed. However, this case doesn't raise them as much as they would in cases with smaller companies.
As for "other than“it’s big”", not much. Just that they're big enough that a letter from a random congress member isn't enough to really stress them. If she decides to move to the next level and actually apply legal pressure, then I'd definitely have a problem.
Also, my main problem is also mentioned in my previous message: if you don't let the Congress ask questions because it imposes undue burden on private entities, then how are they supposed to understand the current processes that they've implemented, how (in)efficient they are and how reproduceable they are.
I'm already not impressed with their willingness to educate themselves, let's not give them an excuse to not even try.
Doesn't matter.
People go nuts over anything these days anyway. Even things as stupid as a tan suit.
So a senator wants to ask questions, this is fine by me. As long as she doesn't forcefully compels answers, it's just free speech, even with an official letterhead.
I would be more concerned if she was writing to a small company that doesn't have the backbone to give a middle finger to the congress, but Facebook / Meta is tough enough to recognize that this letter has no legal authority. There are concerns with this, I can agree with this, but in absolute I don't have a problem with someone making a simple request for information.
If you close this avenue, then the government can no longer do anything but make wild assumptions about everything... I can't imagine this being a good thing either.
Re: 'Wasteful spending like... giving it to Comcast and co?'
Learning lessons from history to avoid repeating mistakes...
Insanity is repeating the same thing and expecting different results...
We don't lack quotes to explain what not to do.
And still they persist.
Actually, I'm going to partially disagree with Mike here.
Klobuchar has all the right to ask questions. As any other citizen would.
I don't think there is any first amendment issue in asking questions.
In the case of the Congress asking questions, that can be a step into understanding a problem and possibly taking constitutional steps to fix it.
Of course, that's assuming that Facebook has the right to reply with a big "no comment"... or anything less polite.
Also, that's assuming she has no intention to create unconstitutional laws to solve the issue at hand. This last point has sadly been shown wrong by past attempts to "correct" misinformation.
I'll still agree with Mike in his conclusion because we've seen past efforts to deal with misinformation: stop trampling the 1A and try to direct your efforts towards more constitutional solutions.
Re: A reminder of how to handle interactions with police officer
[...] the driver brought this all upon himself.
Blaming the victim is normally a horrible attitude.
Then again, given how the police works in the USA in general, and with asset forfeiture in particular, that's not exactly blaming the victim, it's just a cold hard fact. Letting the cops know you have a large amount of cash on hand is, sadly, an invitation to having the cash seized.
Even though it is not a crime, the cops knowing that you have a large amount of cash in your car is all the "probable cause" they need to seize it. Everything else is pretextual and they will hold you as long as possible to build a more legal excuse.
In this example, returning the money shouldn't be the last of it. The cops on the scene who seized the money leaving the man basically stranded (they admitted on camera that they thought the man was clean) and the DEA agent who encouraged it (he was told the man seemed clean) should be sued. And a legislative effort should be made to strike asset forfeiture out of the books ASAP.
Not holding my breath for either of these to happen though.
However, barring both of those things, it will happen again. And again. Because the DEA and the local police have all the financial incentive to do it. Since there are tons of cops hungry for the opportunity to trip on their own power and this is one huge permanent opportunity, the very least would be to penalize those who abuse it, but that barely ever happens too.
Sadly, you can't afford to talk honestly and openly with cops. No joking, no friendly banter. You must always assume that cops are not your friend and reply to their questions politely but minimally. So your conclusion is right here: stick to the minimum: "I want to remain silent as per the fifth amendment" (stupid as it is, you have to be explicit about the 5A... there was a precedent that "I want to remain silent" isn't enough to invoke your 5A right because... well... you might have some other reason not to speak) and "Am I free to leave?" (at which point they can't prolong the stop without an actual cause, otherwise they can't hold you long enough for a K9 or DEA agent to arrive on scene). It's unfriendly, borderline rude in other circumstances, but it's become the only way to safely interact with cops. Also, you should record it all, just in case their body-cam "malfunctions".
In most free countries, this would be near-paranoid behaviour. In the US, it's so necessary that at least one court had to explicitly recognize that "running from the police" is enough of a reasonable behaviour that it does not constitute probable cause.
Every time I see a report on asset forfeiture, I wonder what kind of fascist country allows the seizure of property without cause or conviction. And then the answer hits: ah right, the United States of America. Because there seems to be no constitutional principle that prevents seizure of property without cause. Which would be placed conveniently between the third and fifth amendments. Just saying.
Then again, to the cops' defense, the driver they interrogated told them he has lots of money and allowed them to look for it. If that's not an invitation to being robbed, what is it? (/sarcasm)
We recommend HHS, DOJ, and DHS address the gaps and issues relating to the intersection between pornography, human trafficking, and child sexual exploitation. [...] It is time that the federal government also take deliberate action to acknowledge the direct links between pornography and human trafficking and address it as a threat to society....
Isn't that the same kind of people (maybe even some of the very same) who don't want the HHS and CDC to study the slightly more obvious link between guns and health?
Pretty sure gun shots are deadlier than... well... other shots. (pun averted)
On the post: Appeals Court Denies Immunity To Bored Cop Who Decided To Turn A Natural Death Into A Murder
That's the worst part here.
Dr Turner should have just given verbal agreement that the theory is plausible given the facts she's been given... then stopped here. Actually writing an actual report without actually seeing the proper reports and initial autopsy is taking a step into fabricating evidence (even unwillingly). She green-lit a re-trial, years after the facts without having seen the body or read the original documents, purely based on a stubborn bored cop's story. No expert should be willing to do so, which means her credibility is now tainted.
On the post: Federal Court Tells Proud Boys Defendants That Raiding The Capitol Building Isn't Covered By The First Amendment
Re: Re: Re: Re: Say What?
Of course not.
The republicans are super smart too because they can find election fraud without any evidence. How isn't that proof for both that the democrat cheated and that republicans are smarter?
On the post: It's Great That Winnie The Pooh Is In The Public Domain; But He Should Have Been Free In 1982 (Or Earlier)
Re: 'No fair, only we're allowed to break that deal!'
You know the quote: "I am altering the deal. Pray that I don't alter it any further."
Yes, that one.
It "belongs" to Disney now. I'm suspecting they bought the franchise just to acquire it. :D
On the post: Federal Court Tells Proud Boys Defendants That Raiding The Capitol Building Isn't Covered By The First Amendment
Re: Re: Say What?
If there is no evidence, then the democrats obviously hid it.
This only proves how good they were at stealing the election!
(/sarcasm)
On the post: Federal Court Tells Proud Boys Defendants That Raiding The Capitol Building Isn't Covered By The First Amendment
Re: When you have no good argument, flail like mad
I know. Shocking, right?
Here I thought everything was covered by the First Amendment, up to and including shooting someone on Fifth Avenue.
On the post: Boston Police Department Used Forfeiture Funds To Hide Purchase Of Surveillance Tech From City Reps
Apparently, someone decided to illustrate most brilliantly that two wrongs don't make a right.
Then again, they do make a far-right.
On the post: Eighth Circuit (Again) Says There's Nothing Wrong With Detaining Innocent Minors At Gunpoint
That, exactly that, is the problem all too often.
There are way too many cases where "black skin" is the only identifying feature the cops need to arrest someone. They come in, sometimes literally guns blazing, and target the first black man they spot. Worse yet, they often ignore any other unmatched identifying features they were notified of. Size, clothes, approximate age, none of that matters because they found a black man in the general vicinity of the caller, so that's obviously the culprit... suspect... whatever.
What do they mean by "refusal to cooperate"?
Just that they didn't immediately confess being guilty of... something?
They definitely didn't resist (you can be sure this would have had them arrested - resisting arrest is an all-time cop favorite even when they don't have a legitimate reason to arrest you in the first place), and they had no reason to give any information unless arrested. (5th amendment + saying anything to cops can get you in trouble, even when you're innocent. We discussed that a few days ago with a forfeiture case.)
Also, the problem is not even that the cops investigated something. That's actually a better behaviour compared to other cases where they simply shoot someone dead before asking questions. The problem is that they have the nervous reaction to point guns first, ask question later - sometimes never.
There was report of a gun (I'm not quite convinced there was one to begin with, but the police couldn't know better), so caution was warranted. But they can't hold some random people at gunpoint only because they have black skin as reported. (Surprise! Not sure this happens with white people. At worst, this might happen if they match more features than the color of their skin. At best, they stay polite until they have actual confirmation that the person is armed.) Accidents happen, and their training is definitely not on the "safety and caution" side of handling firearms. Given the number of death by cops in the US, they should definitely not draw their guns unless there is a clear reason, and even less point them at people. Rule 1 of gun handling is and has always been: "do not point a gun at something you don't intend to shoot." Then again... I'm pretty they follow the rule. Their intent has been demonstrated. Repeatedly.
Finally, for a country that holds the 2A in such high standards (among white-skinned far-righters at least), there is a quick negative reaction to seeing armed black men. As if there was a double standard. But that can't be. This would mean there is widespread racism in the US. Obviously, this can't be true. (/sarcasm)
On the post: Tenth Circuit Denies Qualified Immunity To Social Worker Who Fabricated A Mother's Confession Of Child Abuse
My thoughts exactly.
I was already upset that a social worker thought it would be legal to deliberately frame someone, or at least that she could evade the responsibility of doing it... then I read that one judge in the panel thought she was right.
What kind of country is it where you find judges thinks that breaking the law is acceptable as long as nobody was convicted for doing it in the exact same way before?
Fortunately in this case, there was only one in a panel, but given that this is a Supreme Court precedent, there was at least one case where a majority of judges - at the highest level - thought that was a good legal precedent to establish. They didn't have such a clear-cut case in their hands at the time, but it still created a whole generation of government officials who believe that they can escape prosecution as long as they break the law in a slightly creative way.
It's time they got discouraged of that notion. It's way past that time actually.
On the post: Google Blocked An Article About Police From The Intercept... Because The Title Included A Phrase That Was Also A Movie Title
Remarkably enough, they do.
Google has tons of flaws, but they indeed reject a ton of invalid take-down requests.
Problem is like any of these issues (copyright, trademark, moderation), it's a problem of scale. No matter how much you try, you will fail a lot in a spectacular fashion because we talk about billions of requests to validate. And that's because the incentives are all geared towards taking down when in doubt. No actual due process is required or even encouraged. So, in a hurry, some obviously wrong requests are going to go through anyway.
On the post: ICE Is So Toxic That The DHS's Investigative Wing Is Asking To Be Completely Separated From It
Wasn't it supposed to be a moat full of alligators and snakes?
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of 2021 At Techdirt
There was a quote about God in a similar spirit, and how he is convenient to use when you are a political figure. I'll paraphrase since I don't remember the original.
You can make promises in his name.
You can make threats in his name.
You can ask for money in his name.
You can tell the poor and the needy that they will be rewarded for their hardships in the next life so they don't need to rebel in this one. You can tell the rich that they can be forgiven anything for a small amount of earthly valuables.
You can adopt just about any position, as morally high or low as it can be, and find a religious quote to support it. (personal note: this Includes explicit support for slavery.)
And since religious people in general don't care about the actual content of their supposed holy writings (in particular the part about not invoking the name of God in vain, amusingly enough), they will drink your words as if they came directly from God... because saying you speak for the invisible man in the sky is apparently enough to make you trustworthy no matter how vile your actual actions are.
So you can do anything in the name of God, and you won't have to do anything to uphold those threats or promises because God is supposed to. And since your rewards will be granted after you die, nobody can challenge you for being let down.
It is the ultimate scam.
Of course, only as long as people believe in their fantasy religions over real-life facts.
On the post: Oversight Board Overturning Instagram Takedown Of Ayahuasca Post Demonstrates The Impossibility Of Content Moderation
Relevant xkcd:
https://xkcd.com/1425/
On the post: Klobuchar's Silly Letter To Facebook Raises 1st Amendment Issues And Only Gives Ammo To Misinfo Peddlers That Facebook Is A State Actor
Re:
I mentioned that there are concerns about this, and I would address them if needed. However, this case doesn't raise them as much as they would in cases with smaller companies.
As for "other than“it’s big”", not much. Just that they're big enough that a letter from a random congress member isn't enough to really stress them. If she decides to move to the next level and actually apply legal pressure, then I'd definitely have a problem.
Also, my main problem is also mentioned in my previous message: if you don't let the Congress ask questions because it imposes undue burden on private entities, then how are they supposed to understand the current processes that they've implemented, how (in)efficient they are and how reproduceable they are.
I'm already not impressed with their willingness to educate themselves, let's not give them an excuse to not even try.
On the post: Klobuchar's Silly Letter To Facebook Raises 1st Amendment Issues And Only Gives Ammo To Misinfo Peddlers That Facebook Is A State Actor
Doesn't matter.
People go nuts over anything these days anyway. Even things as stupid as a tan suit.
So a senator wants to ask questions, this is fine by me. As long as she doesn't forcefully compels answers, it's just free speech, even with an official letterhead.
I would be more concerned if she was writing to a small company that doesn't have the backbone to give a middle finger to the congress, but Facebook / Meta is tough enough to recognize that this letter has no legal authority. There are concerns with this, I can agree with this, but in absolute I don't have a problem with someone making a simple request for information.
If you close this avenue, then the government can no longer do anything but make wild assumptions about everything... I can't imagine this being a good thing either.
On the post: House Republicans Don't Want Infrastructure Money Going Toward Broadband Competition
Re: Re: 'Wasteful spending like... giving it to Comcast and co?'
Then again, I realize, for republicans and a good chunk of corporate-backed democrats, this is not a mistake, it's the feature.
On the post: House Republicans Don't Want Infrastructure Money Going Toward Broadband Competition
Re: 'Wasteful spending like... giving it to Comcast and co?'
Learning lessons from history to avoid repeating mistakes...
Insanity is repeating the same thing and expecting different results...
We don't lack quotes to explain what not to do.
And still they persist.
On the post: Klobuchar's Silly Letter To Facebook Raises 1st Amendment Issues And Only Gives Ammo To Misinfo Peddlers That Facebook Is A State Actor
Actually, I'm going to partially disagree with Mike here.
Klobuchar has all the right to ask questions. As any other citizen would.
I don't think there is any first amendment issue in asking questions.
In the case of the Congress asking questions, that can be a step into understanding a problem and possibly taking constitutional steps to fix it.
Of course, that's assuming that Facebook has the right to reply with a big "no comment"... or anything less polite.
Also, that's assuming she has no intention to create unconstitutional laws to solve the issue at hand. This last point has sadly been shown wrong by past attempts to "correct" misinformation.
I'll still agree with Mike in his conclusion because we've seen past efforts to deal with misinformation: stop trampling the 1A and try to direct your efforts towards more constitutional solutions.
On the post: DEA Gives Former Marine Back $86,900 Cops Took From Him During A Nevada Traffic Stop Caught On Body Cam
Re: A reminder of how to handle interactions with police officer
Blaming the victim is normally a horrible attitude.
Then again, given how the police works in the USA in general, and with asset forfeiture in particular, that's not exactly blaming the victim, it's just a cold hard fact. Letting the cops know you have a large amount of cash on hand is, sadly, an invitation to having the cash seized.
Even though it is not a crime, the cops knowing that you have a large amount of cash in your car is all the "probable cause" they need to seize it. Everything else is pretextual and they will hold you as long as possible to build a more legal excuse.
In this example, returning the money shouldn't be the last of it. The cops on the scene who seized the money leaving the man basically stranded (they admitted on camera that they thought the man was clean) and the DEA agent who encouraged it (he was told the man seemed clean) should be sued. And a legislative effort should be made to strike asset forfeiture out of the books ASAP.
Not holding my breath for either of these to happen though.
However, barring both of those things, it will happen again. And again. Because the DEA and the local police have all the financial incentive to do it. Since there are tons of cops hungry for the opportunity to trip on their own power and this is one huge permanent opportunity, the very least would be to penalize those who abuse it, but that barely ever happens too.
Sadly, you can't afford to talk honestly and openly with cops. No joking, no friendly banter. You must always assume that cops are not your friend and reply to their questions politely but minimally. So your conclusion is right here: stick to the minimum: "I want to remain silent as per the fifth amendment" (stupid as it is, you have to be explicit about the 5A... there was a precedent that "I want to remain silent" isn't enough to invoke your 5A right because... well... you might have some other reason not to speak) and "Am I free to leave?" (at which point they can't prolong the stop without an actual cause, otherwise they can't hold you long enough for a K9 or DEA agent to arrive on scene). It's unfriendly, borderline rude in other circumstances, but it's become the only way to safely interact with cops. Also, you should record it all, just in case their body-cam "malfunctions".
In most free countries, this would be near-paranoid behaviour. In the US, it's so necessary that at least one court had to explicitly recognize that "running from the police" is enough of a reasonable behaviour that it does not constitute probable cause.
On the post: DEA Gives Former Marine Back $86,900 Cops Took From Him During A Nevada Traffic Stop Caught On Body Cam
Every time I see a report on asset forfeiture, I wonder what kind of fascist country allows the seizure of property without cause or conviction. And then the answer hits: ah right, the United States of America. Because there seems to be no constitutional principle that prevents seizure of property without cause. Which would be placed conveniently between the third and fifth amendments. Just saying.
Then again, to the cops' defense, the driver they interrogated told them he has lots of money and allowed them to look for it. If that's not an invitation to being robbed, what is it? (/sarcasm)
On the post: State Department Report Repeats Talking Points From Group Who Wants To Ban All Porn
Isn't that the same kind of people (maybe even some of the very same) who don't want the HHS and CDC to study the slightly more obvious link between guns and health?
Pretty sure gun shots are deadlier than... well... other shots. (pun averted)
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