No matter how expensive law enforcement is, it can always get more expensive. Most agencies demand outsized portions of local budgets. That’s just the ground floor. Cops want more money and less accountability. Perpetually. The cost of keeping bad cops on the payroll is far, far more than their paychecks. Bad cops generate lawsuits, which […]
It’s been seven years since Congress last introduced a federal anti-SLAPP law (and that was six years after the previous attempt). So here we are, and once again we’ve finally got a federal anti-SLAPP law introduced in Congress, this time by Rep. Jamie Raskin, who recently held a hearing focusing on SLAPP lawsuit attacks against […]
You might recall that Elon Musk claims that he hates taxpayer subsidies. They should all be “deleted.” Except for the subsidies given to his companies, apparently. You might recall that Musk’s Starlink gamed the Trump FCC Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) to grab $886 million in taxpayer dollars. It was a deal consumer groups noted […]
The “Constitution-free zone” — the area within 100 miles of any border crossing, port of entry, or international airport — now apparently covers the entire country in perpetuity. Border agencies — mainly Customs and Border Protection (CBP) — have steadily increased the number of device searches they do every year. Sometimes the search is limited […]
Go anywhere and stay connected with 4G LTE (unlocked, must provide own SIM) on the refurbished Galaxy Tab A (8.4″”, 2020). With a long-lasting battery, you can stream your favorite music, shows, and movies for over 10 hours on a single charge. Whether you’re traveling, unwinding, or enjoying a quick break, Galaxy Tab A’s compact, […]
A story made the rounds recently about how Airbnb effectively banned Bethany Hallam for life. Hallam, an Allegheny County, Pennsylvania councilperson received a notification from Airbnb that a third party it used for background checks had noted a “criminal records match” in doing a background check, and she would not be able to use Airbnb […]
During the COVID crisis, the FCC launched the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB program), which gives lower income Americans a $50 ($75 for those in tribal lands) discount off of their broadband bill. Under the program, the government gave money to ISPs, which then doled out discounts to users if they qualified. But (and I’m sure […]
This week, our winners on the insightful side are a pair of responses to the fearmongering CS professor who insisted that California’s protect-the-kids code is nothing to worry about. In first place, it’s an anonymous comment about misleading claims regarding Instagram and body image issues in teen girls: Why do those worried about body image […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2017, Comcast sued Vermont to try to get out of having to expand its broadband network, while it was also continuing to insist its sneaky, misleading fees were a form of transparency. Charles Harder lost a defamation lawsuit against The Deal, while the infamous Monkey Selfie case reached a […]
Racism is a human problem. When that problem wears badges, carries guns, and has the power to deprive people of life and liberty, it’s a much more serious problem. Many US law enforcement agencies have racist roots, agencies formed for the purpose of catching escaped slaves to return them to their white owners. Not every […]
As far as I can tell, in the area the 5th Circuit appeals court has jurisdiction, websites no longer have any 1st Amendment editorial rights. That’s the result of what appears to me to be the single dumbest court ruling I’ve seen in a long, long time, and I know we’ve seen some crazy rulings […]
At some point in the last five years, people in positions of media influence and power unilaterally decided that NYU marketing professor Scott Galloway was supposed to be everywhere, constantly, pontificating about absolutely everything, constantly. As a result, you now can’t go fifteen minutes without Galloway, who makes an estimated $5 million annually in speaking […]
Tuesday, former Twitter cybersecurity executive Pieter “Mudge” Zatko testified in front of a congressional committee regarding his whistleblower complaint[1][2][3] against Twitter. Though I’m a techie, I thought I’d write up some comments from the business angle. It’s difficult getting an unbiased viewpoint of the actual issues. The press sides with whistleblowers. The cybersecurity community sides […]
On Thursday, the White House hosted the United We Stand summit, to bring together people to take action against what they refer to as “hate-fueled violence.” This seems like a good idea for a summit, at a time when so much of politics is focused on grievances and culture wars that seem to inevitably lead […]
codeSpark’s mission is to help all kids learn to code by igniting their curiosity in computer science and turning programming into play. The app is designed to teach kids 4 to 9 the foundations of computer science through puzzles, coding challenges, and creative tools. It’s a great way for your kid to learn how to […]
When a proposed new law is sold as “protecting kids online,” regulators and commenters often accept the sponsors’ claims uncritically (because… kids). This is unfortunate because those bills can harbor ill-advised policy ideas. The California Age-Appropriate Design Code (AADC / AB2273, just signed by Gov. Newsom) is an example of such a bill. Despite its purported […]
We’ve already noted how Netflix’s password sharing crackdown is a dumb cash grab. The company already cordons users off into pay tiers based on a number of different criteria, including how many simultaneous streams a single account can already use at one time. And it just got done imposing a major price hike on most […]
One of the cornerstones of trademark law in most countries is that you cannot trademark descriptive terms or words. The reason for this should be obvious. If I start a search engine and want to trademark my company name, calling it “Google” differentiates me from the rest of the market. But if I named my […]
Well, this is unfortunate. We’ve already highlighted the many, many problems with the Online Safety Bill in the UK, which will be a massive attack on free speech, in that (among many other problems) it seeks to force websites to remove content even if it’s “lawful,” meaning that they will massively overcensor. As I’ve pointed […]
This isn’t a surprise, but it’s still frustrating. Gavin Newsom, who wants to be President some day, and thus couldn’t risk misleading headlines that he didn’t “protect the children,” has now signed AB 2273 into law (this follows on yesterday’s decision to sign the bad, but slightly less destructive, AB 587 into law). At this […]
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