Both the source quoted above, and the article on The Blaze where I first saw this story, say that the police issued a warrant. That's not the way it's supposed to work. Warrants are supposed to be issued by judges, and only if the judge finds that the police have shown him probable cause.
Is this an error in the two articles, or is there something unconstitutional going on here?
For what it's worth, I would want Amazon to comply if the warrant actually did come from a judge and is not so broad or vague as to be unconstitutional in one of those ways.
If those are really the laws, search engines will have to divide themselves into two groups: one that enforces the RTBF (and cannot be viewed from Brazil), and a second that allows messages to stay in its database indefinitely (and cannot be viewed from Europe or South Korea).
I think I will stick to search engines in the second group, since they will be more useful to the person searching (especially when doing historical research, a right I would like to preserve and which conflicts with the RTBF).
I also expect that situations like this one will increase the usefulness of VPNs and bring them more subscribers, until governments figure out that the net community is smarter and more agile than they can ever be.
Amen. Please stop using the word "piracy" as a synonym for "copyright infringement". Whether you consider infringement to be a serious crime or something that ought to be allowed, it is certainly not comparable to a violent crime such as piracy. Infringers do not kill people.
All the ruling really said is that the FCC cannot preempt a state's right to forbid cities in that state from providing municipal broadband services, because city governments belong to the state they're in. I agree with that.
It did not strike down the rest of FCC's efforts to preempt state and local protectionist laws and foster more competition in the industry.
That's where I'm coming from, too. And the centralized power I worry about in this context is the 8 (or so) communications-industry multinationals who control most of the free world's radio, TV (both free and paid), movies and music, phone service, Internet, and even (what's left of) book and newspaper publishing. These are names like AT&T, Comcast/NBC Universal/Univision, CBS/Columbia, Disney/ABC, Verizon/AOL, Google Fiber, and Deutsche Telekom/T-Mobile.
You can expect all these industries to get more and more regulated because those companies have already captured the regulators and can use it to keep new competition out. Indeed, we may soon need some alternative, such as a resurrected FidoNet, to continue exchanging traffic once the giants decide that you and I should no longer be allowed to compete with them as content providers.
So long as there are unmoderated or lightly moderated platforms, doxxing will exist. Whatever solution emerges will have to be much broader than Twitter or even the Internet. I predict it will boil down to some combination of (1) people learning to better protect the data that makes them vulnerable, and (2) discrimination laws that stop employers or landlords from kicking you out for reasons that are none of their business. (Which will only be enforceable by requiring authorities to sign off on every firing and every eviction, as they already do in some places.)
As far as SWATting, that is a much more serious problem and the authorities need to deal with it directly -- both by making false police reports a felony if someone gets hurt, and by changing police ROE so that SWAT teams don't rush out, blast everyone in sight, and ask questions later just because of one phone call. This dovetails with the broader problem that too many local governments have SWAT teams and are too willing to use them in cases that don't justify the use of deadly force.
There are good Twitter substitutes now that don't silence or ban anybody. One is http://sealion.club/ . Let's move there en masse and leave Twatter to the SJWs.
He or someone else could repeat his performance - get up on stage in Canada for an unrelated matter, instead go on a long rant calling Jews a disease and praising Hitler for genocide, double down on the claims to reporters after - and they won't be charged.
I doubt that prediction. Laws like this are what cops use to give a hard time to people they disagree with. If you can afford a good lawyer you'll probably beat the rap - but by then you'll have lost your job, marriage, kids, home, and retirement savings, with no way to get any of them back.
This is a good example of why loser-pays is needed, and needs to be good against government.
Up to about 1970, everyone knew that the safest car was "a Sherman tank" -- the car with the most solid frame possible, such as a Volvo of that era, so that if you and someone else collided, your car would probably leave the scene undamaged, and of course so would you.
Then the government started forcing fuel-economy requirements, and with them came stupid ideas such as "crumple zones." Crumple zones don't really protect the people inside the car that crumples. The real explanation is that NHTSA had decided, in secret, that it was a bad idea to let any driver have a vehicle so solid that he can be confident a collision won't cost him anything. So ever since, they've been forcing us to accept cars made mostly of plastic and other crap instead of solid, heavy metal.
It's time that the public began to fight back by retrofitting cars to be safe again after we buy them, or by keeping old cars in commission or both. Especially if it will also allow us to avoid having black boxes logging our actions for government to snoop on.
It's absolutely rightful for a driver who has the right of way to be capable of bullying those who might violate it.
The present domain name system are not controlled by the US government, but by a non-profit foundation, ICANN.
The proposed change would be to move it under the United Nations and its ITU, thereby enabling nasty, censoring governments like Red China and Saudi Arabia to get control.
This must not happen.
Anyone reading Techdirt should not need to be told this.
Either the Fourth Amendment, which clearly bans these kinds of surveillance, still has teeth, or no law of any kind on the subject is worth the paper it's written on.
There used to be legal principles, champerty and maintenance, that forbade third parties from financing lawsuits. But the courts have pretty much abandoned those two principles, and I think they were right -- it's simply too unfair to allow one side of a lawsuit, but not the other, to seek outside help.
What Techdirt and other media can constructively do is to seek to unmask such donors, as early as possible, so that if they are (or own) companies, the public can respond by giving them more or less business.
(untitled comment)
What good is "net neutrality" if we don't enforce it against practices like this?
Re: WWAD - What Would Alexa Do
Is this a goof in the article, or a real issue?
Is this an error in the two articles, or is there something unconstitutional going on here?
For what it's worth, I would want Amazon to comply if the warrant actually did come from a judge and is not so broad or vague as to be unconstitutional in one of those ways.
Re: Catch-22 lives!
I think I will stick to search engines in the second group, since they will be more useful to the person searching (especially when doing historical research, a right I would like to preserve and which conflicts with the RTBF).
I also expect that situations like this one will increase the usefulness of VPNs and bring them more subscribers, until governments figure out that the net community is smarter and more agile than they can ever be.
Re: Piracy
(untitled comment)
It seems to me that Techdirt's staff is reading this decision too broadly.
It did not strike down the rest of FCC's efforts to preempt state and local protectionist laws and foster more competition in the industry.
At least Twitter has some competition now.
Re: Centralization of Power
You can expect all these industries to get more and more regulated because those companies have already captured the regulators and can use it to keep new competition out. Indeed, we may soon need some alternative, such as a resurrected FidoNet, to continue exchanging traffic once the giants decide that you and I should no longer be allowed to compete with them as content providers.
Here's a photo for you, French cops -- go for it!
Re: What about doxxing?
As far as SWATting, that is a much more serious problem and the authorities need to deal with it directly -- both by making false police reports a felony if someone gets hurt, and by changing police ROE so that SWAT teams don't rush out, blast everyone in sight, and ask questions later just because of one phone call. This dovetails with the broader problem that too many local governments have SWAT teams and are too willing to use them in cases that don't justify the use of deadly force.
(untitled comment)
Re: Re: Of course not...
I doubt that prediction. Laws like this are what cops use to give a hard time to people they disagree with. If you can afford a good lawyer you'll probably beat the rap - but by then you'll have lost your job, marriage, kids, home, and retirement savings, with no way to get any of them back.
This is a good example of why loser-pays is needed, and needs to be good against government.
Re:
The problem is that Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms can be overridden merely by including a "notwithstanding" clause in any bill.
I would like to see the US offer this comic political asylum.
Existing federal safety standards already impose this kind of thing on drivers.
Then the government started forcing fuel-economy requirements, and with them came stupid ideas such as "crumple zones." Crumple zones don't really protect the people inside the car that crumples. The real explanation is that NHTSA had decided, in secret, that it was a bad idea to let any driver have a vehicle so solid that he can be confident a collision won't cost him anything. So ever since, they've been forcing us to accept cars made mostly of plastic and other crap instead of solid, heavy metal.
It's time that the public began to fight back by retrofitting cars to be safe again after we buy them, or by keeping old cars in commission or both. Especially if it will also allow us to avoid having black boxes logging our actions for government to snoop on.
It's absolutely rightful for a driver who has the right of way to be capable of bullying those who might violate it.
Re: Re: Are you really that much of an idiot.
This is misguided.
The proposed change would be to move it under the United Nations and its ITU, thereby enabling nasty, censoring governments like Red China and Saudi Arabia to get control.
This must not happen.
Anyone reading Techdirt should not need to be told this.
It's silly for either side to even try to enact statutes on this topic.
How far does this principle reach?
There used to be legal principles, champerty and maintenance, that forbade third parties from financing lawsuits. But the courts have pretty much abandoned those two principles, and I think they were right -- it's simply too unfair to allow one side of a lawsuit, but not the other, to seek outside help.
What Techdirt and other media can constructively do is to seek to unmask such donors, as early as possible, so that if they are (or own) companies, the public can respond by giving them more or less business.
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