This is the people entrusted with making sure the rest of us abide by laws abandoning their duty to be law-abiding themselves.
This is what a majority of elected, appointed, and hired "public servants" do as standard operating procedure (SOP). Exceptions to this rule are rare, indeed, and are usually purged, themselves (recent, high profile case-in-point: Justin Amash).
Not just Southeast Asia. Look no further than the US, and everyone who voted for either Trump / Pence or Biden / Harris, all four of whom had solid histories of authoritarianism.
The widespread popular support for authoritarianism, and even totalitarianism, is some very scary stuff.
To both social media and the LAPD (and anyone else who asks). There is too much surveillance and spying that we cannot avoid. There is really no excuse for not avoiding the instances that we can avoid.
all they're doing is burning bridges and gutting any chance that companies and individuals will be willing to help them when they come asking in the future, making their jobs all the harder if not outright impossible when that day comes.
While I suppose there might be some drawbacks to this result, I think that it would be a net positive, and probably a large one, at that.
Mistrial is almost always too lenient, particularly when it comes to clear, intentional prosecutorial misconduct.
dismissal with prejudice, sanctions and Bar disciplinary referrals.
These should be standard procedure, and maybe add some big fines, too, so the taxpayers would have reason to be mad at the prosecutor(s), and might be motivated to find a new one.
This is where Biden's failure to appoint a permanent FCC boss and third Democratic Commissioner enters the picture. Without a voting majority the agency can't pass any reform that's even remotely controversial, and the telecom industry will lobby hard to, as usual, keep this broken status quo intact.
At this point, the FCC making noises about trying to reform the bought-and-paid-for FCC is just a distraction from kicking the status quo can down the road.
Exactly! in places where judges are elected (either to the position or to retain the position) attack ads painting them as "soft on crime are still the order of the day.
At least this judge had the backbone to make this decision, which was clearly needed, given the contents of the opening arguments. Hell, the DOJ lead off with pure mistrial material.
I'm sure you could come up with many more examples of data loss, but of the six examples listed (the Sidekick example was duplicated on both links), all are rather old, and only three were complete loss of data due to accident / incompetence:
Disney / Pixar - <1999 - accident / incompetence
Sidekick - 2009 - accident / incompetence
DreamHost - 2007 - accident / incompetence
NARA - 2009 - theft / It appears that only one copy was lost, data existed elsewhere
AMAG Pharma - <2015 - It appears that only one copy was lost, data restored from backup or other source
UK Prison system - 2008 - It appears that only one copy was lost, data existed elsewhere
I mentioned the examples were old because in years past making backups was more costly and time-consuming than it is today. Storage was more expensive and data transfer rates were slower. In the time frames of the incidents linked to, terabyte drives and gigabit/sec devices were not quite the commodity items they are today. These may be small points, but they can make a difference
Another, much larger and more important, point: in the above examples, there is a possibility that corruption and / or criminal intent was involved. After all, business rivals could have a motive for causing a competitor to lose data or experience some other kind of setback. In the case of the Dallas PD, given what we know of police departments in general, and given what we know about the likely contents of the data that they keep, I would suggest that there is a strong probability that corruption and / or criminal intent was involved. Murderers can be highly motivated to cause the "loss" of evidence of their guilt, and I doubt that they would consider bribes, blackmail, or similar to be beneath them.
So, yeah, accidents happen and incompetence exists. But in this case I think an investigation should start with the assumption that this data loss is probably not the result of either one.
This is another one of those situations where one should look long and hard before applying Hanlon's Razor. It is difficult to see how this could truly be accidental, and just the result of incompetence or ignorance. The concepts of backups and copy-verify-delete are just too basic, and too easy.
It would be interesting to see just what data was lost, and what the results are, ie who winds up not getting prosecuted for what crimes as a result of this, but I am not going to hold my breath waiting for this information to surface. Whoever benefits from this data loss (and their accomplices) should, of course, be the prime suspects in "arranging" for it to happen.
But since it is the PD, it is more likely that "just fire the IT guy and sweep the rest under the rug" will be the outcome.
If the NSO Group were located in a different country, or perhaps were of a different religion, they would surely have been designated terrorists themselves by now. In any case, it still seems like the NSO Group might be more deserving of a drone strike than other recent recipients.
Not that anyone should hit them with a drone strike, just that they might be considered more deserving.
Re: Re: 'Honestly the dog is usually much more well trained...'
The "Drug War" has been the most active and most destructive front in the larger war on our rights. The 20 year undeclared war in Afghanistan is being called "America's Longest War" all over the news. It does not even hold a candle to America's many-generations-long war on the rights of Americans.
And it will accept these cameras begrudgingly, ensuring they're turned off any time agents perform a "custodial interview" or engage in anything it considers to be national security related.
As is noted in the "custodial interview" link above, the FBI in particular has no credibility. The fact that the courts still treat their word as gospel demonstrates that the courts have no credibility, either.
BWCs have had very little positive effect on local or state policing. Again, they are little more than a PR stunt and an extra cost to taxpayers. There is really no reason for anyone to think they will have any significant positive effect at the Federal level.
Section 230's Best Feature: Killing Dumb Cases Before They Waste Everyone's Time And Money
The title says it all. As noted, Section 230 was nothing new, in terms of rights or responsibilities. It did make it much cheaper / easier to defend meritless attacks on those existing rights.
Tim points out a couple of the particularly bad aspects of facial recognition technology use in this article: that it is unvetted (he's being polite, since actually it is known to be very unreliable) and that it's use by Federal agencies is often via the proxies of state or local law enforcement agencies.
These aspects are particularly bad, since unreliable tech can only make a bad law enforcement system worse, and the Federal / local "partnerships" are very effective in thwarting what little accountability may exist in either realm.
But there are other bad aspects of the tech, as well. It is known to have significant racial / ethnic "issues." Facial recognition AI essentially says "Those [insert non-white racial / ethnic group here] all look alike to me." This has horrible implications for a criminal legal system that is already biased against non-white racial and ethnic minorities. Now the cops can just blame it on the "computer," again thwarting what little accountability may exist.
Another big problem with the facial recognition AI is the base rate fallacy, which is a somewhat complex and completely non-intuitive concept in probability. It basically means that even some system with an ostensibly high accuracy rate can still be wrong very often. This is completely unacceptable in a law enforcement situation, where people's rights, freedom, and even lives, are on the line. It is also easily and completely avoidable: just don't use the crappy facial recognition AI.
It is good that this GAO report came out. It would be better if it were used to stamp out the malignancy of facial recognition AI everywhere it is being used.
It seems that Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis are in an epic battle to see who can be the biggest horse's ass in this performative authoritarian shit-show.
The shame of it all is that so many people are buying into their nonsense instead of writing it off as the natural fertilizer that it is.
I quite intentionally did not refer to any specific medications, treatments, or other medical procedures, advice, or recommendations that either the WHO or the CDC may have addressed in the recent or distant past.
You did that. And in doing so, missed my point entirely.
I referred to the "checkered histories" of both agencies (and I believe I was being rather polite, there) which stretch back decades, in both cases, and to the dubious wisdom of suggesting that people follow the advice of any agencies with such questionable track records.
While I completely agree with Masnick that moderation is impossible at scale, and I do not think Youtube should issue a strike or take down these videos, the above could legitimately be considered questionable advice. The history of both agencies is checkered, at best.
On the post: Texas' Unconstitutional Social Media Censorship Bill Challenged In Court, Just As Texas Joins The Legal Fight For Florida's Unconstitutional Social Media Bill
Redefining everything
Moving your mouth while slowly exhaling thereby making sounds to communicate audible information is now conduct, not speech!
1984 was not subtitled A Beginner's Guide to Dystopia.
On the post: Minnesota Troopers Decided Being Sued For Excessive Force Was The Perfect Time To Delete Emails And Text Messages
SOP
This is what a majority of elected, appointed, and hired "public servants" do as standard operating procedure (SOP). Exceptions to this rule are rare, indeed, and are usually purged, themselves (recent, high profile case-in-point: Justin Amash).
On the post: The LAPD Is Asking City Residents To Hand Over Social Media Account Info To Feed To Its Unsupervised Monitoring Software
Re: Re: Re: Why not?
Not just Southeast Asia. Look no further than the US, and everyone who voted for either Trump / Pence or Biden / Harris, all four of whom had solid histories of authoritarianism.
The widespread popular support for authoritarianism, and even totalitarianism, is some very scary stuff.
On the post: The LAPD Is Asking City Residents To Hand Over Social Media Account Info To Feed To Its Unsupervised Monitoring Software
Re:
There is no such thing as a "private" Facebook page, or group, or whatever.
On the post: The LAPD Is Asking City Residents To Hand Over Social Media Account Info To Feed To Its Unsupervised Monitoring Software
Just say "No!"
To both social media and the LAPD (and anyone else who asks). There is too much surveillance and spying that we cannot avoid. There is really no excuse for not avoiding the instances that we can avoid.
On the post: Mistrial Declared In Backpage Founders' Trial; After DOJ Ignores Judge's Rules Regarding What It Could Present
Re: Re: Re: Re:
While I suppose there might be some drawbacks to this result, I think that it would be a net positive, and probably a large one, at that.
On the post: Mistrial Declared In Backpage Founders' Trial; After DOJ Ignores Judge's Rules Regarding What It Could Present
Re: Mistrial is too lenient
Mistrial is almost always too lenient, particularly when it comes to clear, intentional prosecutorial misconduct.
These should be standard procedure, and maybe add some big fines, too, so the taxpayers would have reason to be mad at the prosecutor(s), and might be motivated to find a new one.
On the post: FCC Will Take A Closer Look At ISP/Landlord Broadband Monopolies
Trying to regulate regulatory capture
At this point, the FCC making noises about trying to reform the bought-and-paid-for FCC is just a distraction from kicking the status quo can down the road.
On the post: Mistrial Declared In Backpage Founders' Trial; After DOJ Ignores Judge's Rules Regarding What It Could Present
Re: Re:
Exactly! in places where judges are elected (either to the position or to retain the position) attack ads painting them as "soft on crime are still the order of the day.
At least this judge had the backbone to make this decision, which was clearly needed, given the contents of the opening arguments. Hell, the DOJ lead off with pure mistrial material.
On the post: Dallas PD Hid Massive Data Deletion For Months From City Officials, District Attorney's Office
Re: Re: Accident?
I'm sure you could come up with many more examples of data loss, but of the six examples listed (the Sidekick example was duplicated on both links), all are rather old, and only three were complete loss of data due to accident / incompetence:
Disney / Pixar - <1999 - accident / incompetence
Sidekick - 2009 - accident / incompetence
DreamHost - 2007 - accident / incompetence
NARA - 2009 - theft / It appears that only one copy was lost, data existed elsewhere
AMAG Pharma - <2015 - It appears that only one copy was lost, data restored from backup or other source
UK Prison system - 2008 - It appears that only one copy was lost, data existed elsewhere
I mentioned the examples were old because in years past making backups was more costly and time-consuming than it is today. Storage was more expensive and data transfer rates were slower. In the time frames of the incidents linked to, terabyte drives and gigabit/sec devices were not quite the commodity items they are today. These may be small points, but they can make a difference
Another, much larger and more important, point: in the above examples, there is a possibility that corruption and / or criminal intent was involved. After all, business rivals could have a motive for causing a competitor to lose data or experience some other kind of setback. In the case of the Dallas PD, given what we know of police departments in general, and given what we know about the likely contents of the data that they keep, I would suggest that there is a strong probability that corruption and / or criminal intent was involved. Murderers can be highly motivated to cause the "loss" of evidence of their guilt, and I doubt that they would consider bribes, blackmail, or similar to be beneath them.
So, yeah, accidents happen and incompetence exists. But in this case I think an investigation should start with the assumption that this data loss is probably not the result of either one.
On the post: Dallas PD Hid Massive Data Deletion For Months From City Officials, District Attorney's Office
Accident?
This is another one of those situations where one should look long and hard before applying Hanlon's Razor. It is difficult to see how this could truly be accidental, and just the result of incompetence or ignorance. The concepts of backups and copy-verify-delete are just too basic, and too easy.
It would be interesting to see just what data was lost, and what the results are, ie who winds up not getting prosecuted for what crimes as a result of this, but I am not going to hold my breath waiting for this information to surface. Whoever benefits from this data loss (and their accomplices) should, of course, be the prime suspects in "arranging" for it to happen.
But since it is the PD, it is more likely that "just fire the IT guy and sweep the rest under the rug" will be the outcome.
On the post: Apple Patches Up Devices In Response To The Exposure Of Yet Another NSO Group Exploit
More hipocrisy
If the NSO Group were located in a different country, or perhaps were of a different religion, they would surely have been designated terrorists themselves by now. In any case, it still seems like the NSO Group might be more deserving of a drone strike than other recent recipients.
Not that anyone should hit them with a drone strike, just that they might be considered more deserving.
On the post: Forfeiture Case Shows Cops Don't Even Need Drug Dogs To Alert To Engage In A Warrantless Search
Re: Re: 'Honestly the dog is usually much more well trained...'
The "Drug War" has been the most active and most destructive front in the larger war on our rights. The 20 year undeclared war in Afghanistan is being called "America's Longest War" all over the news. It does not even hold a candle to America's many-generations-long war on the rights of Americans.
On the post: DOJ Says Federal Agents Will Start Wearing Body Cameras
More performative BS
As is noted in the "custodial interview" link above, the FBI in particular has no credibility. The fact that the courts still treat their word as gospel demonstrates that the courts have no credibility, either.
BWCs have had very little positive effect on local or state policing. Again, they are little more than a PR stunt and an extra cost to taxpayers. There is really no reason for anyone to think they will have any significant positive effect at the Federal level.
On the post: Malwarebytes Conclusion Shows Section 230's Best Feature: Killing Dumb Cases Before They Waste Everyone's Time And Money
The whole point
The title says it all. As noted, Section 230 was nothing new, in terms of rights or responsibilities. It did make it much cheaper / easier to defend meritless attacks on those existing rights.
We need more of the same in other areas.
On the post: GAO's Second Report On Facial Recognition Tech Provides More Details On Federal Use Of Clearview's Unvetted AI
Bad in several ways
Tim points out a couple of the particularly bad aspects of facial recognition technology use in this article: that it is unvetted (he's being polite, since actually it is known to be very unreliable) and that it's use by Federal agencies is often via the proxies of state or local law enforcement agencies.
These aspects are particularly bad, since unreliable tech can only make a bad law enforcement system worse, and the Federal / local "partnerships" are very effective in thwarting what little accountability may exist in either realm.
But there are other bad aspects of the tech, as well. It is known to have significant racial / ethnic "issues." Facial recognition AI essentially says "Those [insert non-white racial / ethnic group here] all look alike to me." This has horrible implications for a criminal legal system that is already biased against non-white racial and ethnic minorities. Now the cops can just blame it on the "computer," again thwarting what little accountability may exist.
Another big problem with the facial recognition AI is the base rate fallacy, which is a somewhat complex and completely non-intuitive concept in probability. It basically means that even some system with an ostensibly high accuracy rate can still be wrong very often. This is completely unacceptable in a law enforcement situation, where people's rights, freedom, and even lives, are on the line. It is also easily and completely avoidable: just don't use the crappy facial recognition AI.
It is good that this GAO report came out. It would be better if it were used to stamp out the malignancy of facial recognition AI everywhere it is being used.
On the post: Police Department Caught Falsifying Evidence Logs Used In Trial Of PD Employee Who Was Caught Falsifying Evidence Logs
smoke . . . fire
I know that Miami Beach is different from Miami, and the dates do not coincide directly, but the physical / temporal proximity deserves this mention:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/miami-police-chief-ok-hand-gesture
this slime was slithered into the position of Miami Police Chief under the cover of night, and all of South Florida is the worse for it.
On the post: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Announces On Twitter The Livestreaming On Facebook Of His Signing Of A Bill That Removes 1st Amendment Rights For Both
In the center ring . . .
It seems that Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis are in an epic battle to see who can be the biggest horse's ass in this performative authoritarian shit-show.
The shame of it all is that so many people are buying into their nonsense instead of writing it off as the natural fertilizer that it is.
On the post: Impossibility Of Content Moderation: Scientist Debunking Vaccine Myths Gets A YouTube Strike For Medical Misinfo
Re: Re: Re: Just making a point
I quite intentionally did not refer to any specific medications, treatments, or other medical procedures, advice, or recommendations that either the WHO or the CDC may have addressed in the recent or distant past.
You did that. And in doing so, missed my point entirely.
I referred to the "checkered histories" of both agencies (and I believe I was being rather polite, there) which stretch back decades, in both cases, and to the dubious wisdom of suggesting that people follow the advice of any agencies with such questionable track records.
On the post: Impossibility Of Content Moderation: Scientist Debunking Vaccine Myths Gets A YouTube Strike For Medical Misinfo
Just making a point
While I completely agree with Masnick that moderation is impossible at scale, and I do not think Youtube should issue a strike or take down these videos, the above could legitimately be considered questionable advice. The history of both agencies is checkered, at best.
Next >>