Asset forfeiture laws are based on the completely bizarre and nonsensical legal fiction that inanimate objects (assets or property) can commit crimes, and that the punishment of those inanimate objects for committing crimes is that ownership of those inanimate objects be transferred to the government.
This is just one of many equally insane "legal fictions" that one will find in the law. Others include: Cops tell the truth, prosecutors seek justice, judges are not biased, forensic evidence doesn't lie, expert witnesses are honest (and experts), eyewitness testimony is true . . . the list goes on.
No. It should be "one and done" with this kind of BS. That is the way it is for everyone not wearing a badge. Do bank robbers or any other felons get three strikes before prison and permanent felony record?
Since the FCC is the poster child for regulatory capture, this fining of a small, low cost telecom is probably being done at the behest of the more expensive, bigger telecoms.
We need to have some scenario, like, say the contempt of court concept, where "not answer questions = go to jail for the duration" comes into effect. People often only respond properly when the results of their actions have a direct and immediate effect on them personally.
Bottom line up front: Market value is a nebulous and fluid concept. And any particular appraised value may not accurately reflect market value.
Ethical considerations aside (and I think this example has all the earmarks of a thinly veiled bribe) it should be noted that real estate agents, real estate websites, and tax assessors have completely different considerations for setting a price or value on a property, and none of them may accurately reflect actual market value. Some may be higher than actual market value, and some may be lower, for a variety of reasons.
Real estate agents may set a price higher or lower depending on their personal situation: Do they want to make a quick sale? Would they rather wait in hopes of getting a higher commission? Do they want to inflate the total dollar amount of properties they have listed? There are likely other considerations, as well.
Real estate websites may have other priorities, since they may be putting prices on many more properties than an individual agent: Do they want to increase or decrease buyer interest in a given neighborhood? Are they getting paid to set prices a certain way? Do they want to favor some listings or agents and disfavor others? Again, there are likely other considerations, as well.
Taxing authorities have still other considerations: Is the property owner a friend of the assessor? How much money does the jurisdiction (or various taxing authorities) want to raise for the upcoming tax period? What is the millage rate? Are millage rate changes voted on, versus appraisal changes simply made by the assessor? How much of an increase in appraised value does the assessor think he / she can get away with without triggering an appeal by the property owner? And on and on. . . .
Even the actual selling price only reflects the market value at a particular time for a specific (not necessarily a comparable) property, and for the actual buyer and seller involved.
Since the intent of copyright law and patent law is largely to spur discourse and innovation by making them economically feasible, I would argue that that the duration of copyrights and patents should currently be less than they were when the laws were first passed. In the case of U.S. copyrights, the original duration was 14 years. In the case of U.S. patents, the original duration was variable, up to a maximum of 14 years.
My reasoning is twofold:
1) When these laws with their respective time limits were first created, the process of bringing a written work or a manufactured device from the concept stage to the profitable market stage was much longer, more difficult, and more expensive than it is today. In the late 1700’s these processes could take weeks, months, or even many years to accomplish. Today, these processes can take mere minutes. An example might be writing a document, and then electronically publishing it on the Internet. Often the processes take considerably longer, but nowhere as long as the comparable process would have taken over 200 years ago.
2) The market for both items subject to copyright and items subject to patent is very much greater today than it was in the late 1700’s. This is due to both larger populations (domestic and international) that can afford to but the products, and the greater ease of getting a product to these larger markets. Back then a creator might have anticipated selling hundreds or thousands of the item, today hundreds of millions are not out of the question.
Because of these two factors which have changed substantially since copyright and patent laws were first created in this country, the profit necessary to motivate people to create can generally be realized in a much shorter period of time. Therefore the duration of copyrights and patents should similarly be much shorter than those envisioned when the laws were created.
In short: Sometimes laws need to be appropriately adapted to the times. Death to Mickey Mouse Acts and similar!
I hope this idea attracts a lot of attention and a lot of participants.
Now, if we could only have a similar concept where governments at all levels could sign up agreeing to get the hell out of the way of private solutions, stop being obstructionist with unnecessary and time-wasting licensing and other required approvals, and let science instead of politics rule the day.
I know this is just crazy talk, but a guy can dream, can't he?
a cooperative, global shift in media literacy and critical thinking -- combined with mass collaboration between governments, platforms, academics, and users
No matter how many times you tell them, and no matter how much evidence you provide, it appears that some people still are heavily invested in denying reality.
Hmm, does this comment go here, or under the article about hospitals firing people for talking about PPE shortages, or under the Jon Cusack article, or under the Navy article, or . . . .
Law Enforcement Accountability and Reasons versus Excuses
The Sheriff or the evidence management or IT personnel will likely come up with many reasons why the video evidence was lost. These reasons might be simple mistakes, poor evidence handling practices, insufficient training, hardware malfunctions . . . the list goes on. But these are just reasons, they are not valid excuses. A valid excuse might be something like the local storage facility, the off-site storage facility, and all five of the cloud service provider’s widely distributed mirrored data storage facilities were simultaneously hit by lightning and then completely destroyed by the resulting fires. Anything short of this, or something very similar, is not a valid excuse.
Absent a valid excuse, heads must roll. And by that I mean that the Sheriff, the evidence handling personnel, the IT personnel, and anyone else involved in the loss of the evidence must be fired and have their law enforcement credentials permanently revoked. They must be prohibited from obtaining any other law enforcement credentials for any other jurisdiction in the nation, be it local, state, or federal. Additionally they must be permanently prohibited from holding any government position, be it elected, appointed, hired, or subcontracted, and this prohibition must also apply to any jurisdiction in the nation.
The last point, that they must be prohibited from any position in any company that does work (subcontract, sub-sub-contract, or whatever) for any government entity or jurisdiction is particularly important. Without that type of provision we would end up in a situation where governments would wind up dissolving their “in-house” law enforcement agencies and simply hire outside private companies to do the work. These companies would be largely staffed with former “in-house” law enforcement personnel, and they could be expected to be seriously disgruntled, vengeful, vindictive, corrupt, incompetent, and violent. And these private law enforcement contractors would be much more expensive and much less accountable (if you can imagine that) than the “in-house” government law enforcement agencies that we have today. A few examples where this problem already exists are private military contractors, private prison contractors, red light camera companies, and toll enforcement companies.
Without the prohibition of terminated law enforcement personnel working for private subcontractors we would wind up with “privatization” of law enforcement. This “privatization” would take us back to the dangerous situations that government police agencies were created to eliminate. Think Pinkertons and other similar outfits that were hired specifically to stamp out labor unions, to keep other “undesirables” in their place, and to enforce “laws” in a way that pleased the people doing the hiring.
Unless and until we have this kind of real accountability we will never see the end of the current atrocious state of law enforcement that we have today.
Of course, as has been previously mentioned, the deputy who would have been incriminated by the video evidence that disappeared should be tried on all counts, with the missing evidence presumed to exactly corroborate the victim’s accounts. The deputy should then be imprisoned, and upon release be subject to the same permanent restrictions as outlined above.
And, in the interest of fairness, this same “heads must roll” doctrine should apply equally to any government goblin that violates the public trust.
Under the circumstances they should take the plaintiffs at their word and move forward with these cases. Assume that the video evidence would have corroborated plaintiff's arguments and damned those of the police department. They must not be allowed to get away with this.
Yes, this. Unfortunately we are a very long way from making this happen. We have courts that mumble something about "suspicious and oddly convenient" and then go back to sleep. And we have legislators (and the rest of the "powers that be") who aggressively ignore the existence of these problems.
Yeah, it has been a largely fascist state in many ways for quite a while. It is just that now the fascist aspects are growing more quickly and becoming more apparent, and, at least for some people, the facade / veneer / mask / delusion of a "free country" is beginning to wear off.
Thanks for the info. I did not know that SLAGIATT was a known / listed Internet abbreviation / acronym / acrostic / slang, or whatever. I don't keep up with this stuff as well as I might.
But I like it! Especially the short form SLAG. It is very appropriate and descriptive! Thanks!
(Just to avoid any Poe's Law confusion, this is not sarcasm)
It's far less likely the NSA's longstanding BFF blocks similar requests from U.S. intelligence agencies.
I am no expert on the details of the various phone or Internet systems, but the way I understand it is that the NSA and other US intelligence agencies probably don't even need to make such requests because the NSA, AT&T, and much of the Internet / phone system backbone are largely indistinguishable.
I have said that many consider the Constitution to be a quaint anachronism. Same goes for the idea that false advertising is wrong or should be illegal.
On the post: Your Tax Dollars At Work: Cops Arguing They Thought A Small Envelope Might Have Contained A Weapon
Re: Illegal substances
Asset forfeiture laws are based on the completely bizarre and nonsensical legal fiction that inanimate objects (assets or property) can commit crimes, and that the punishment of those inanimate objects for committing crimes is that ownership of those inanimate objects be transferred to the government.
This is just one of many equally insane "legal fictions" that one will find in the law. Others include: Cops tell the truth, prosecutors seek justice, judges are not biased, forensic evidence doesn't lie, expert witnesses are honest (and experts), eyewitness testimony is true . . . the list goes on.
On the post: Your Tax Dollars At Work: Cops Arguing They Thought A Small Envelope Might Have Contained A Weapon
Re: Re:
No. It should be "one and done" with this kind of BS. That is the way it is for everyone not wearing a badge. Do bank robbers or any other felons get three strikes before prison and permanent felony record?
On the post: Tracfone Made Up "Fictitious" Users To Defraud Taxpayers, FCC
Since the FCC is the poster child for regulatory capture, this fining of a small, low cost telecom is probably being done at the behest of the more expensive, bigger telecoms.
On the post: Defense Department Oversight Thwarted By Defense Department Officials Who Refused To Talk About Trump's Communications
We need to have some scenario, like, say the contempt of court concept, where "not answer questions = go to jail for the duration" comes into effect. People often only respond properly when the results of their actions have a direct and immediate effect on them personally.
On the post: Is There Any Form Of Corruption Senator Burr Didn't Engage In?
Appraised Values v Market Value
Bottom line up front: Market value is a nebulous and fluid concept. And any particular appraised value may not accurately reflect market value.
Ethical considerations aside (and I think this example has all the earmarks of a thinly veiled bribe) it should be noted that real estate agents, real estate websites, and tax assessors have completely different considerations for setting a price or value on a property, and none of them may accurately reflect actual market value. Some may be higher than actual market value, and some may be lower, for a variety of reasons.
Real estate agents may set a price higher or lower depending on their personal situation: Do they want to make a quick sale? Would they rather wait in hopes of getting a higher commission? Do they want to inflate the total dollar amount of properties they have listed? There are likely other considerations, as well.
Real estate websites may have other priorities, since they may be putting prices on many more properties than an individual agent: Do they want to increase or decrease buyer interest in a given neighborhood? Are they getting paid to set prices a certain way? Do they want to favor some listings or agents and disfavor others? Again, there are likely other considerations, as well.
Taxing authorities have still other considerations: Is the property owner a friend of the assessor? How much money does the jurisdiction (or various taxing authorities) want to raise for the upcoming tax period? What is the millage rate? Are millage rate changes voted on, versus appraisal changes simply made by the assessor? How much of an increase in appraised value does the assessor think he / she can get away with without triggering an appeal by the property owner? And on and on. . . .
Even the actual selling price only reflects the market value at a particular time for a specific (not necessarily a comparable) property, and for the actual buyer and seller involved.
On the post: Ninth Circuit Says Man Can't Sue Officers Who Destroyed His Home To Capture An Unarmed Homeless Man
Old Farce -> New Reality
Over 40 years ago in The Gauntlet it was way over-the-top farcical parody. Now it is the way things are.
On the post: Happy Birthday, Statute of Anne
Since the intent of copyright law and patent law is largely to spur discourse and innovation by making them economically feasible, I would argue that that the duration of copyrights and patents should currently be less than they were when the laws were first passed. In the case of U.S. copyrights, the original duration was 14 years. In the case of U.S. patents, the original duration was variable, up to a maximum of 14 years.
My reasoning is twofold:
1) When these laws with their respective time limits were first created, the process of bringing a written work or a manufactured device from the concept stage to the profitable market stage was much longer, more difficult, and more expensive than it is today. In the late 1700’s these processes could take weeks, months, or even many years to accomplish. Today, these processes can take mere minutes. An example might be writing a document, and then electronically publishing it on the Internet. Often the processes take considerably longer, but nowhere as long as the comparable process would have taken over 200 years ago.
2) The market for both items subject to copyright and items subject to patent is very much greater today than it was in the late 1700’s. This is due to both larger populations (domestic and international) that can afford to but the products, and the greater ease of getting a product to these larger markets. Back then a creator might have anticipated selling hundreds or thousands of the item, today hundreds of millions are not out of the question.
Because of these two factors which have changed substantially since copyright and patent laws were first created in this country, the profit necessary to motivate people to create can generally be realized in a much shorter period of time. Therefore the duration of copyrights and patents should similarly be much shorter than those envisioned when the laws were created.
In short: Sometimes laws need to be appropriately adapted to the times. Death to Mickey Mouse Acts and similar!
On the post: FTC The Latest To Discover 'Smart' Locks Are Dumb, Easily Compromised
When it comes to IoT, "Just Say No!"
And we need to hope that the mentioned severe privacy scandal occurs before a severe death or serious injury scandal.
On the post: Opening Up Information In A Pandemic, Rather Than Locking It Down: The Open COVID Pledge Is Important
Great Idea!
I hope this idea attracts a lot of attention and a lot of participants.
Now, if we could only have a similar concept where governments at all levels could sign up agreeing to get the hell out of the way of private solutions, stop being obstructionist with unnecessary and time-wasting licensing and other required approvals, and let science instead of politics rule the day.
I know this is just crazy talk, but a guy can dream, can't he?
On the post: It Will Take A Hell Of A Lot More Than Whatsapp Tweaks To Fix Our Global Disinformation Problem
OK, quick, everyone, hold your breath!
On the post: Content Moderation Is Impossible: Facebook's Attempts To Block Mask Gouging Took Down DIY Face Mask Instructions
No matter how many times you tell them, and no matter how much evidence you provide, it appears that some people still are heavily invested in denying reality.
Hmm, does this comment go here, or under the article about hospitals firing people for talking about PPE shortages, or under the Jon Cusack article, or under the Navy article, or . . . .
On the post: Sheriff's Office That Employed A Deputy Facing 9 Lawsuits And 44 Criminal Charges Says It Has Lost All Of His Dashcam Footage
Law Enforcement Accountability and Reasons versus Excuses
The Sheriff or the evidence management or IT personnel will likely come up with many reasons why the video evidence was lost. These reasons might be simple mistakes, poor evidence handling practices, insufficient training, hardware malfunctions . . . the list goes on. But these are just reasons, they are not valid excuses. A valid excuse might be something like the local storage facility, the off-site storage facility, and all five of the cloud service provider’s widely distributed mirrored data storage facilities were simultaneously hit by lightning and then completely destroyed by the resulting fires. Anything short of this, or something very similar, is not a valid excuse.
Absent a valid excuse, heads must roll. And by that I mean that the Sheriff, the evidence handling personnel, the IT personnel, and anyone else involved in the loss of the evidence must be fired and have their law enforcement credentials permanently revoked. They must be prohibited from obtaining any other law enforcement credentials for any other jurisdiction in the nation, be it local, state, or federal. Additionally they must be permanently prohibited from holding any government position, be it elected, appointed, hired, or subcontracted, and this prohibition must also apply to any jurisdiction in the nation.
The last point, that they must be prohibited from any position in any company that does work (subcontract, sub-sub-contract, or whatever) for any government entity or jurisdiction is particularly important. Without that type of provision we would end up in a situation where governments would wind up dissolving their “in-house” law enforcement agencies and simply hire outside private companies to do the work. These companies would be largely staffed with former “in-house” law enforcement personnel, and they could be expected to be seriously disgruntled, vengeful, vindictive, corrupt, incompetent, and violent. And these private law enforcement contractors would be much more expensive and much less accountable (if you can imagine that) than the “in-house” government law enforcement agencies that we have today. A few examples where this problem already exists are private military contractors, private prison contractors, red light camera companies, and toll enforcement companies.
Without the prohibition of terminated law enforcement personnel working for private subcontractors we would wind up with “privatization” of law enforcement. This “privatization” would take us back to the dangerous situations that government police agencies were created to eliminate. Think Pinkertons and other similar outfits that were hired specifically to stamp out labor unions, to keep other “undesirables” in their place, and to enforce “laws” in a way that pleased the people doing the hiring.
Unless and until we have this kind of real accountability we will never see the end of the current atrocious state of law enforcement that we have today.
Of course, as has been previously mentioned, the deputy who would have been incriminated by the video evidence that disappeared should be tried on all counts, with the missing evidence presumed to exactly corroborate the victim’s accounts. The deputy should then be imprisoned, and upon release be subject to the same permanent restrictions as outlined above.
And, in the interest of fairness, this same “heads must roll” doctrine should apply equally to any government goblin that violates the public trust.
On the post: Sheriff's Office That Employed A Deputy Facing 9 Lawsuits And 44 Criminal Charges Says It Has Lost All Of His Dashcam Footage
Re:
Yes, this. Unfortunately we are a very long way from making this happen. We have courts that mumble something about "suspicious and oddly convenient" and then go back to sleep. And we have legislators (and the rest of the "powers that be") who aggressively ignore the existence of these problems.
On the post: New Inspector General's Report Finds Even More Problems With The FBI's FISA Surveillance Applications
Re: Forward to the Past
Yeah, it has been a largely fascist state in many ways for quite a while. It is just that now the fascist aspects are growing more quickly and becoming more apparent, and, at least for some people, the facade / veneer / mask / delusion of a "free country" is beginning to wear off.
On the post: Judge Benchslaps Cops And Courts For Turning Law Enforcement Lies Into 'Objectively Reasonable' Mistakes
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
True dat! Thanks for fixing that for me.
On the post: Court To Cops: No Expectation Of Privacy In A 'Beer-Drinking, Nap-Taking Hideout'
Re: Re: Re:
Thanks for the info. I did not know that SLAGIATT was a known / listed Internet abbreviation / acronym / acrostic / slang, or whatever. I don't keep up with this stuff as well as I might.
But I like it! Especially the short form SLAG. It is very appropriate and descriptive! Thanks!
(Just to avoid any Poe's Law confusion, this is not sarcasm)
On the post: Judge Benchslaps Cops And Courts For Turning Law Enforcement Lies Into 'Objectively Reasonable' Mistakes
This is some good stuff! It is so refreshing when a court gets it right. But this also caught my eye:
Radley Balko has some good info about some of the problems with this whole concept here.
On the post: New Inspector General's Report Finds Even More Problems With The FBI's FISA Surveillance Applications
Re: It's what I heard, which might be different from what they s
They do this intentionally. They could record interviews, but they choose not to. Incriminating recollections beat the truth every time.
On the post: Saudi Arabia Exploiting Wireless SS7 Flaw to Track Targets In The United States
I am no expert on the details of the various phone or Internet systems, but the way I understand it is that the NSA and other US intelligence agencies probably don't even need to make such requests because the NSA, AT&T, and much of the Internet / phone system backbone are largely indistinguishable.
On the post: Teleconferencing Company Zoom Pitching End-To-End Encryption That Really Isn't End-To-End
Re: Where's the law when you need it?
I have said that many consider the Constitution to be a quaint anachronism. Same goes for the idea that false advertising is wrong or should be illegal.
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