that the Institute “failed to show that there is an imminent threat to the life or physical safety of an individual.” Yeah, not an individual, but to fucking everyone.
Maybe with their request to satisfy the "imminent threat to the life or physical safety of an individual" they could attach a list containing the names of all ~330million US citizens? And for added punch they could attach a list of all of those who have already died as examples of who has already experienced an "actual and realised" threat to the life of individuals due to this pandemic.
I am ashamed to say that in my darkest moments I fleetingly wish that some of these arseholes who have downplayed if not outright denied the coronavirus pandemic, and actively interefered with measures to deal with it, would get COVID-19 and have to be put in ICU - sometimes even worse.
But I quickly suppress that thinking as inhumane and not worthy of myself, or anyone, with deep shame, as it is not something I would wish on anyone when thinking rationally.
However, I feel no shame at all in wishing that businesses such as these metaphorically 'catch' coronavirus and die a grisly, painful, death.
Interpol is not a law enforcement agency. In no country in the world does it have the power of arrest, the power to enforce any law.
It is a support agency for law enforcement agencies, in the same way as a laboratory conducting forensic tests would be for the police. Or an educational institution offering forensic courses. Would you call a local lab contracted to test blood for the police a "Law enforcement agency"?
The biggest users do not sell the results. The biggest users are law firms, financial institutions, and so on who are using the PACER system in their legal/financial practices.
Law firms researching case law relevant for the suits they are involved in (whether representing plaintiffs or defendants). For writing contracts, advising clients, and so on. They don't on-sell the PACER documents directly, they use it in providing their legal services.
The same for financial institutions, in molding their policies, strategies etc (i.e. what they think they can get away with in the almost un-restrained pursuit of profits, CDOs, etc.).
The retailer does, absolutely, have influence over what they sell.
They don't have to sell that cheap Chinese charger that is likely to explode. They choose to sell that cheap Chinese charger. By the retailer then claiming (via the text description on the side of the box) that it is a USB 2.1A 5V charger, and since by law the store cannot lie (i.e. false advertising is illegal), I accepted that the store was following the law - advertising the correct capabilities of the product - so purchased that item that the law says must meet merchantability requirements and perform as advertised.
They have a duty of care to their customer (the consumer) to ensure that what they are selling is fit for the purpose that the retailer claims it is fit for. Just like the wholesaler has the same duty of care to the retailer, and the distributor to the wholesaler, and the manufacturer to the distributor.
Take this example.
Say a manufacturer makes range of bolts. The manufacturer doesn't know what a consumer 3 sales levels removed from it is going to do with it. So the only guarantee they can make is a general "this bolt meets these specifications (size, strength, rust resistance, etc.)."
That manufacturers range of bolts makes its way down to the retailer, a hardware store. A customer goes into the hardware store and says "I'm making a cubby house/fort for the kids out of some overlapping corrugated iron, that is in an outdoor weather-exposed position, what bolts should I use to fix the corrugated iron together". The staff in the hardware store advise the customer on what screw is suitable that:
1) is strong enough (assuming a certain density of attachment points, every 5cm vs 50cm would call for different strengths);
2) won't react chemically with the materials involved,weakening the attachment points;
3) won't rust (at least not within a couple decades) when exposed to rain and salty air since we are in a coastal region.
Therefore the customer of the retailer, the hardware store, is buying the product based on the retailers recommendation for something that will fit their needs. Is it really reasonable to hold the manufacturer of the bolt to account if it actually rusts in 18 months, causing the fort to fall apart, possibly injuring someone, because what the retailer sold the customer wasn't the outdoor rust-resistant bolt from the manufacturers bolt line but the indoor-only rust-prone-if-exposed (e.g. for mounting an indoor TV to an indoor wall-bracket) bolt?
The same is true for all products. Whether I ask a salesperson for an opinion, or rely on the representations made in store - i.e. posted advertising on the walls, the demo video playing on TV, or the product description/specifications written on the side of the box (or on the product description on the webpage if buying online).
So what happens if some drink or candy vendor or something screws up and makes people sick? Every drug store, convenience store etc in Europe gets sued?
Yes.
The seller is responsible to the purchaser of the product. Therefore the final leg in the chain (retailer) is responsible to the consumer for the product.
When I go into a store to buy a product, I am not giving my money to some far off manufacturer. I am not being advised/receiving representations from the manufacturer on the product in the store. The in-store advertising and/or store staff are the ones making representations to me about the product, and they are the ones taking my money for the product.
However, this also means that the (in the traditional product distribution model) wholesaler is responsible to the retailer, and the distributor is responsible to the wholesaler, and the manufacturer is responsible to the distributor:
consumer <- retailer <- wholesaler <- distributor <- (any other parties in the chain, e.g. maybe an importer) <- manufacturer.
So in this case, a consumer would get compensation from the retailer, who would then get compensation from the wholesaler and so on up the chain.
Retailer(s) are in a much better position, both financially and knowledge-wise, to seek recompense from the wholesaler than I am as a consumer. And likewise, wholesalers are in a better position than the retailer to go back to the distributor, and so on at each level.
If a distributor who does $100m of business with a manufacturer complains about a product, it is in a better position relative to me, a consumer who bought a $10 item from a store (who paid $5 to the wholesaler, who paid $4 to the distributor, who paid $3 to the manufacturer). Of course, this is one of the reasons class-action lawsuits came into being, to help remedy this imbalance of power.
But the thing is, if you have the accountability chain, consumer <- retailer <- wholesaler etc., then you don't need a class action lawsuit against a manufacturer by consumers to get their money back. The consumer can go into the retail outlet they purchased the item from and demand from them the refund, who then get theirs from the wholesaler, again up through the chain.
In these models, Steam is the retailer, or Amazon, or Newegg etc.
And, if it is a wide-ranging customer safety issue, as in your example of medication that is making people sick, or faulty safety equipment in cars (e.g. tata airbag recalls), then this is where the government steps in and takes legal action on everyone's behalf against the manufacturer, forcing the manufacturer to 'pre-emptively' deal with the issues, to force it from the top down before the distributors sue them, before they get sued by the wholesalers before they get sued by the retailers who had to handle customers product refund complaints.
Somewhat surprisingly, the AFP did not prevent John Lyons, the executive editor of ABC News, from live-tweeting the entire raid.
This isn't surprising.
Unless an arrest warrant accompanies a search warrant, the only thing the police can do is prevent interference with the search itself. You are free to leave, to say go to work, or to contact your solicitor, or to contact anyone else. You are free to observe and record the actions of the police going about the search as long as you aren't interfering - in the biased opinion of the police doing the searching that is. Therefore there is nothing they could do, legally, to prevent the live tweeting. It was just a matter of time before someone did this. So it's more the form, live-tweeting, rather than the concept - reporting on what the police have done during a search. Most people who have a search warrant served on them probably don't want to advertise the fact that they are in that situation, as they would want to hope to avoid the embarrassment. Being a news organisations offices, though, is a different matter. It makes it a big story for them.
I can see the problem with sanctioning a credit bureau for thinking that an 8 million euro cost satisfies the definition of "disproportionate effort."
I think to get a better understanding of whether it is disproportionate or not we'd need to know the revenue of the company involved. Here we are only given an absolute figure, not the 'proportion' that this figure represents of the companies revenue, on which to base a 'disproportionate' scenario on. You can't determing that with only the one number. I mean, if its a 1 million/year company, then it is disproportionate. However, if it is a 100 million euro/year company, then a one-off 8 million euro charge I would not view as disproportionate.
First up, I think this cop should have been done for 2nd degree murder, what he did is inexcusable.
That being said, I disagree with the author's take on the NYT article. Based purely on the quotes included on Techdirt of the NYT article, I'm not sure what level of reading comprehension the author assumes of readers to make the claims made.
Specifically, the author says:
If this is the only writeup someone sees regarding this incident, they're going to come away with a lot of wrong impressions.
First, Bessner fired his Taser from his moving patrol car at Damon Grimes. Both vehicles were traveling at 35 mph when this happened.
The text quoted in this article, while making no reference to the actual speed, does imply that both vehicles were moving:
State police officers followed in a patrol car to get him to pull over. When he did not immediately do so, the officer in the passenger seat of the patrol car pulled out his Taser and stunned Damon.
That text states that both vehicles are moving - what other conclusion can be drawn from following in a patrol car to get him to pull over and him not doing so and then the officer firing his Taser from the passenger seat? The only conclusion that can be drawn from that is that both vehicles are moving. Any assumptions made that both vehicles were not in motion would indicate a poor understanding of the English language, or very lazy reading.
Further, the author writes:
Earbuds were recovered from the scene, bringing into the question the assumed fact that Grimes knew he was being pursued by the troopers.
Again, from the quote included in this article, no statement or implication was made that the poor kid "knew" he was being followed. It did not mention state of mind or knowledge, literally just that "he did not immediately do so [pull over]", with no mention of why, just the fact that he didn't. If the reader takes from that a statement that the kid "knew" he was being followed, then they are inserting their own assumptions that otherwise don't exist in the article.
Note, in a two sensor system, comparing sensors only indicates that one is faulty when they disagree, therefore manual selection becomes imperative.
No. If you have 2 sensors and they disagree with each other, all the pilot knows is that one of them is faulty. They do not know which one, therefore the ability to manually select one of them is pointless.
In this case, if you know a sensor is faulty, the procedure is to shutdown MCAS entirely, at which point the existemce of the AoA sensors becomes irrelevant as no flight systems are now dependant on them.
MCAS is not a system necessary to fly the 737 MAX. It is a system that is intended to make the MAX fly like earlier 737 models so that new type certification training is not necesary. If an airline was willing to conduct flight training for the MAX as if it was a new aircraft, they could do away with MCAS entirely. Therefore once a pilot knows something is wrong with MCAS or its input systems (AoA sensors) AND they know the system even exists, the procedure is to just turn the wretched thing off.
So worthless that businesses and companies get so desperate to get them removed that they hire reputation management firms who impersonate judges and commit mail fraud and get Notaries to break the law to get them taken down?
On the post: Knight First Amendment Institute Sues The CDC For Failing To Provide Details Of Its Media Gag Order
Maybe with their request to satisfy the "imminent threat to the life or physical safety of an individual" they could attach a list containing the names of all ~330million US citizens? And for added punch they could attach a list of all of those who have already died as examples of who has already experienced an "actual and realised" threat to the life of individuals due to this pandemic.
On the post: Red Light Camera Company Says It's Dying Of Coronavirus
I am ashamed to say that in my darkest moments I fleetingly wish that some of these arseholes who have downplayed if not outright denied the coronavirus pandemic, and actively interefered with measures to deal with it, would get COVID-19 and have to be put in ICU - sometimes even worse.
But I quickly suppress that thinking as inhumane and not worthy of myself, or anyone, with deep shame, as it is not something I would wish on anyone when thinking rationally.
However, I feel no shame at all in wishing that businesses such as these metaphorically 'catch' coronavirus and die a grisly, painful, death.
On the post: Twitter Moves To Quash Fishing Expedition Subpoena For Info On Devin Nunes Cow By Devin Nunes' Lawyer In Unrelated Case
Bar referral?
Surely this has got to be grounds for referring Biss to the Bar for malpractice?
On the post: Techdirt 2019: The Stats.
So the article about how difficult (impossible) content moderation at scale is, got the most third-party content?
On the post: California Sheriff's Dept. Manages To Piss Off Local Prosecutor By Consistently Mishandling Evidence
Or, more likely it should be: [This page left intentionally blank]
On the post: Interpol Confirms, Denies It's Against Strong Encryption
Law enforcement agency it isn't.
Good article, but one highly pedantic quibble:
Interpol is not a law enforcement agency. In no country in the world does it have the power of arrest, the power to enforce any law.
It is a support agency for law enforcement agencies, in the same way as a laboratory conducting forensic tests would be for the police. Or an educational institution offering forensic courses. Would you call a local lab contracted to test blood for the police a "Law enforcement agency"?
On the post: US Courts Rep Ignores Everything About The Internet, Says PACER Access Can Never Be Free Because It Costs Money To Operate
Re: The downside
The biggest users do not sell the results. The biggest users are law firms, financial institutions, and so on who are using the PACER system in their legal/financial practices.
Law firms researching case law relevant for the suits they are involved in (whether representing plaintiffs or defendants). For writing contracts, advising clients, and so on. They don't on-sell the PACER documents directly, they use it in providing their legal services.
The same for financial institutions, in molding their policies, strategies etc (i.e. what they think they can get away with in the almost un-restrained pursuit of profits, CDOs, etc.).
On the post: French Court Declares That Steam Gamers Actually Do Own What They Bought
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Harm
The retailer does, absolutely, have influence over what they sell.
They don't have to sell that cheap Chinese charger that is likely to explode. They choose to sell that cheap Chinese charger. By the retailer then claiming (via the text description on the side of the box) that it is a USB 2.1A 5V charger, and since by law the store cannot lie (i.e. false advertising is illegal), I accepted that the store was following the law - advertising the correct capabilities of the product - so purchased that item that the law says must meet merchantability requirements and perform as advertised.
They have a duty of care to their customer (the consumer) to ensure that what they are selling is fit for the purpose that the retailer claims it is fit for. Just like the wholesaler has the same duty of care to the retailer, and the distributor to the wholesaler, and the manufacturer to the distributor.
Take this example.
Say a manufacturer makes range of bolts. The manufacturer doesn't know what a consumer 3 sales levels removed from it is going to do with it. So the only guarantee they can make is a general "this bolt meets these specifications (size, strength, rust resistance, etc.)."
That manufacturers range of bolts makes its way down to the retailer, a hardware store. A customer goes into the hardware store and says "I'm making a cubby house/fort for the kids out of some overlapping corrugated iron, that is in an outdoor weather-exposed position, what bolts should I use to fix the corrugated iron together". The staff in the hardware store advise the customer on what screw is suitable that:
1) is strong enough (assuming a certain density of attachment points, every 5cm vs 50cm would call for different strengths);
2) won't react chemically with the materials involved,weakening the attachment points;
3) won't rust (at least not within a couple decades) when exposed to rain and salty air since we are in a coastal region.
Therefore the customer of the retailer, the hardware store, is buying the product based on the retailers recommendation for something that will fit their needs. Is it really reasonable to hold the manufacturer of the bolt to account if it actually rusts in 18 months, causing the fort to fall apart, possibly injuring someone, because what the retailer sold the customer wasn't the outdoor rust-resistant bolt from the manufacturers bolt line but the indoor-only rust-prone-if-exposed (e.g. for mounting an indoor TV to an indoor wall-bracket) bolt?
The same is true for all products. Whether I ask a salesperson for an opinion, or rely on the representations made in store - i.e. posted advertising on the walls, the demo video playing on TV, or the product description/specifications written on the side of the box (or on the product description on the webpage if buying online).
On the post: French Court Declares That Steam Gamers Actually Do Own What They Bought
Re: Re: Harm
Yes.
The seller is responsible to the purchaser of the product. Therefore the final leg in the chain (retailer) is responsible to the consumer for the product.
When I go into a store to buy a product, I am not giving my money to some far off manufacturer. I am not being advised/receiving representations from the manufacturer on the product in the store. The in-store advertising and/or store staff are the ones making representations to me about the product, and they are the ones taking my money for the product.
However, this also means that the (in the traditional product distribution model) wholesaler is responsible to the retailer, and the distributor is responsible to the wholesaler, and the manufacturer is responsible to the distributor:
consumer <- retailer <- wholesaler <- distributor <- (any other parties in the chain, e.g. maybe an importer) <- manufacturer.
So in this case, a consumer would get compensation from the retailer, who would then get compensation from the wholesaler and so on up the chain.
Retailer(s) are in a much better position, both financially and knowledge-wise, to seek recompense from the wholesaler than I am as a consumer. And likewise, wholesalers are in a better position than the retailer to go back to the distributor, and so on at each level.
If a distributor who does $100m of business with a manufacturer complains about a product, it is in a better position relative to me, a consumer who bought a $10 item from a store (who paid $5 to the wholesaler, who paid $4 to the distributor, who paid $3 to the manufacturer). Of course, this is one of the reasons class-action lawsuits came into being, to help remedy this imbalance of power.
But the thing is, if you have the accountability chain, consumer <- retailer <- wholesaler etc., then you don't need a class action lawsuit against a manufacturer by consumers to get their money back. The consumer can go into the retail outlet they purchased the item from and demand from them the refund, who then get theirs from the wholesaler, again up through the chain.
In these models, Steam is the retailer, or Amazon, or Newegg etc.
And, if it is a wide-ranging customer safety issue, as in your example of medication that is making people sick, or faulty safety equipment in cars (e.g. tata airbag recalls), then this is where the government steps in and takes legal action on everyone's behalf against the manufacturer, forcing the manufacturer to 'pre-emptively' deal with the issues, to force it from the top down before the distributors sue them, before they get sued by the wholesalers before they get sued by the retailers who had to handle customers product refund complaints.
On the post: Chuck Yeager Sues Airbus For Mentioning That Chuck Yeager Broke The Sound Barrier
Re: Re: Re: FOREIGN CORPORATION Airbus does NOT have "1st Amendm
That also would take time and effort, to set the curricula and the exam, and then follow them.
He probably got his mum to write a note instead
"My little Johnny is a lawyer, signed mum".
On the post: Court Determines That This Duck Doesn't Look Enough Like Another Duck To Be Infringing
Only when worn at night, or in a dark room.
On the post: Australian Federal Police Raid Even More Journalists Over Leaked Documents
This isn't surprising.
Unless an arrest warrant accompanies a search warrant, the only thing the police can do is prevent interference with the search itself. You are free to leave, to say go to work, or to contact your solicitor, or to contact anyone else. You are free to observe and record the actions of the police going about the search as long as you aren't interfering - in the biased opinion of the police doing the searching that is. Therefore there is nothing they could do, legally, to prevent the live tweeting. It was just a matter of time before someone did this. So it's more the form, live-tweeting, rather than the concept - reporting on what the police have done during a search. Most people who have a search warrant served on them probably don't want to advertise the fact that they are in that situation, as they would want to hope to avoid the embarrassment. Being a news organisations offices, though, is a different matter. It makes it a big story for them.
On the post: GDPR Penalties Prove Why Compliance Isn't Enough—And Why Companies Need Clarity
Re: Re: from the not-helping-your-case dept.
I think to get a better understanding of whether it is disproportionate or not we'd need to know the revenue of the company involved. Here we are only given an absolute figure, not the 'proportion' that this figure represents of the companies revenue, on which to base a 'disproportionate' scenario on. You can't determing that with only the one number. I mean, if its a 1 million/year company, then it is disproportionate. However, if it is a 100 million euro/year company, then a one-off 8 million euro charge I would not view as disproportionate.
On the post: Ex-State Trooper Convicted Of Involuntary Manslaughter For Tasing A Teen Riding An ATV At 35 MPH
Reading comprehension difficulties?
First up, I think this cop should have been done for 2nd degree murder, what he did is inexcusable.
That being said, I disagree with the author's take on the NYT article. Based purely on the quotes included on Techdirt of the NYT article, I'm not sure what level of reading comprehension the author assumes of readers to make the claims made.
Specifically, the author says:
The text quoted in this article, while making no reference to the actual speed, does imply that both vehicles were moving:
That text states that both vehicles are moving - what other conclusion can be drawn from following in a patrol car to get him to pull over and him not doing so and then the officer firing his Taser from the passenger seat? The only conclusion that can be drawn from that is that both vehicles are moving. Any assumptions made that both vehicles were not in motion would indicate a poor understanding of the English language, or very lazy reading.
Further, the author writes:
Again, from the quote included in this article, no statement or implication was made that the poor kid "knew" he was being followed. It did not mention state of mind or knowledge, literally just that "he did not immediately do so [pull over]", with no mention of why, just the fact that he didn't. If the reader takes from that a statement that the kid "knew" he was being followed, then they are inserting their own assumptions that otherwise don't exist in the article.
On the post: Shoddy Software Is Eating The World, And People Are Dying As A Result
Re: Re: Re: Re:
No. If you have 2 sensors and they disagree with each other, all the pilot knows is that one of them is faulty. They do not know which one, therefore the ability to manually select one of them is pointless.
In this case, if you know a sensor is faulty, the procedure is to shutdown MCAS entirely, at which point the existemce of the AoA sensors becomes irrelevant as no flight systems are now dependant on them.
MCAS is not a system necessary to fly the 737 MAX. It is a system that is intended to make the MAX fly like earlier 737 models so that new type certification training is not necesary. If an airline was willing to conduct flight training for the MAX as if it was a new aircraft, they could do away with MCAS entirely. Therefore once a pilot knows something is wrong with MCAS or its input systems (AoA sensors) AND they know the system even exists, the procedure is to just turn the wretched thing off.
On the post: The DOJ Isn't Buying T-Mobile's Nonsensical Merger Benefit Claims
Where 'conditions' means: bribery, kickbacks, post-DOJ cushy jobs, quid-pro-quo deals, and other similar offers.
On the post: Australian Prosecutors Trying To Throw Reporters In Jail For Accurately Reporting On Cardinal George Pell's Conviction
Re: Lock em up
This is not a defamation case, it is a contempt of court case.
On the post: Australia Threatening Over 100 Journalists For Accurately Reporting On Cardinal Pell's Sex Abuse Trial
Re:
Technological contempt is more like it.
On the post: Pissed Consumer Exposes New York Luxury Car Dealer's Use Of Bogus Notarized Letters To Remove Critical Reviews [UPDATE]
Re: Re: Re:
So worthless that businesses and companies get so desperate to get them removed that they hire reputation management firms who impersonate judges and commit mail fraud and get Notaries to break the law to get them taken down?
On the post: California AG Says Journalist Broke The Law By Obtaining A List Of Convicted Officers Via A Public Records Request
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: That can't be right...
That is not acceptable.
With their position of power, the police are required to be better than the average populace. Otherwise, whats the point of them?
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