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Court Tells Cops That Legally Owned Guns Are Evidence Of Nothing, Order Return Of Seized Money

3 years 6 months ago
The opportunistic actions of drug warriors has often been encouraged by courts, which have been willing to grant considerable leeway to law enforcement, even when their articulated suspicion is contradictory or could be read to cover nearly 100% of the American public. (And when that fails, there’s always the ever-popular “odor of marijuana” claim which […]
Tim Cushing

Intel Wants To Add Unproven ‘Emotion Detection’ AI To Distance Learning Tech

3 years 6 months ago
Last week, Zoom announced its plans to add emotion detecting tech to its virtual meeting platform, something it apparently felt would facilitate the art of the deal. Here’s Kate Kaye, breaking the news for Protocol. Virtual sales meetings have made it tougher than ever for salespeople to read the room. So, some well funded tech […]
Tim Cushing

Devin Nunes Loses Yet Again In His Quixotic, Censorial SLAPP Cases

3 years 6 months ago
For a while there in 2019, it seemed like a month couldn’t go by without (then) Rep. Devin Nunes suing some critic or another (including, somewhat infamously, a satirical cow). After kicking it off by suing mocking livestock, he quickly moved on to suing news organizations. A big one was suing CNN, a favored punching […]
Mike Masnick

John Oliver Explains How Cops Lie To People To Rob Them Of Their Freedom

3 years 6 months ago
God help you if you lie to a cop. We’re not even talking about court, where everyone swears to tell the whole truth, etc. before being subjected to testilying by law enforcement officers. We’re talking about the questioning that happens after law enforcement decides someone is a person of interest. Cops are terrible at solving […]
Tim Cushing

Daily Deal: Charge And Fold 3-in-1 Docking Station

3 years 6 months ago
Charge all your devices in one place with this sleek and compact, 3-in-1 wireless charging station. Pop your phone, smart watch, and wireless earbuds on the designated spots and charge them all at once without worrying about cords or needing multiple chargers. You can even fold it up and take it with you wherever you […]
Daily Deal

Netflix Pivots From Innovator To Turf Protector As Executives Whine About Password Sharing

3 years 6 months ago
Maybe it’s a weird personal flaw or something, but one of the most fascinating things in business to me is watching one-time pesky disruptors inevitably pivot into powerful turf protectors. As well as all the executive finger-pointing, shenanigans, and denialism that process usually entails. Take, for example, Netflix. After being disruptive and shaking up streaming […]
Karl Bode

TSA Now Looking To Make It Impossible For People Wrongly Added To Terrorist Watchlist To Travel On The Ground

3 years 6 months ago
Apparently, it’s not enough to prevent hundreds or thousands of people with “no known affiliation” with terrorist groups from flying — a list that includes children who have yet to enter kindergarten. Even though the TSA long ago admitted (albeit, not publicly) the threat to airline flights was almost nonexistent, it still needs to look […]
Tim Cushing

Honda Just Declared War On 3D Printer Makers Community

3 years 6 months ago
It’s been a bit since we’ve talked about 3D printing, which I mostly took to mean that the world realized that there was no massive threat here and that we all collectively decided to make this a non-controversy. Early on there was some noise made about larger companies viewing the ability for the public to […]
Dark Helmet

Telecom Lobby Targets Senators Manchin, Kelly, And Cortez Masto In Bid To Scuttle Sohn FCC Nomination

3 years 6 months ago
We just got done noting how the telecom industry has been pushing misleading editorials in Arizona to derail the nomination of popular and well-qualified telecom and telecom reformer Gigi Sohn to the FCC. The editorials are full of false claims that Sohn has a terrible track record on media diversity, shoveled by organizations with longstanding […]
Karl Bode

Techdirt Podcast Episode 318: The Real Beneficiaries Of Section 230

3 years 6 months ago
So much of the debate about Section 230 is based on an incorrect understanding of its procedural benefits, and the completely false idea that it’s a special gift to “big tech”. A new paper (which we wrote about yesterday) by Elizabeth Banker from the Chamber of Progress dives deep into the real benefits and beneficiaries […]
Leigh Beadon

It Can Always Get Dumber: Ron DeSantis Moves To Eliminate The Ridiculous Disney Exemption To His Unconstitutional Social Media Bill Because He’s Mad At Disney

3 years 6 months ago
It can always get dumber. As you’ll recall, last year Florida man governor Ron DeSantis, as part of his big push to become the new populist leader of ignorant people, pushed for a law to force social media websites to host political content they didn’t want to host. He convinced the subservient Florida Legislature to […]
Mike Masnick

NY Times Uses Anti-SLAPP Law To Sue Guy Who SLAPPed It

3 years 6 months ago
In early 2020, Peter Brimelow, the founder of the incredibly sketchy site VDARE, sued the NY Times for calling him an “open white nationalist” among other similar things. Brimelow and VDARE have only spent two decades or so pushing for “ethno nationalism,” that “America is not a melting pot,” and that we need to “preserve […]
Mike Masnick

Daily Deal: The Complete 2022 Agile And DevOps Training Bundle

3 years 6 months ago
The Complete 2022 Agile and DevOps Training Bundle has 7 courses on Agile Scrum, and DevOps certification exam prep. You’ll learn about the Agile and Scrum methodologies of project management that are an integral part of ensuring your entire team knows what to expect from start to finish, keeps everyone on deadlines, and gets you […]
Daily Deal

Gab CEO Ironically Pines For Net Neutrality

3 years 6 months ago
ISPs, looking to undermine, FCC authority managed to frame the whole net neutrality debate as “partisan” as to sow dissent, prevent consensus, block reform, and justify the 2017 repeal. But the idea was never really partisan. Despite headlines and DC rhetoric, a massive bipartisan majority of Americans actually supported the rules. Why? Because net neutrality […]
Karl Bode

New Study Shows Section 230 Protects Small Companies Much More Than Big Ones

3 years 6 months ago
We’ve tried to make this point many times before. A few months back I wrote a detailed post in response to a famed economist who kept insisting that repealing Section 230 would hurt Facebook, that the reality is the opposite. If you understand the mechanisms by which Section 230 actually works, the key is that […]
Mike Masnick

Cops Are Still Playing Copyrighted Music To Thwart Citizens Recording Their Actions

3 years 6 months ago
Cops may have only the vaguest grasp on the laws they use to initiate stops, but they sure as hell understand copyright law. With algorithms doing the heavy lifting to prevent copyright infringement, cops have deployed a new tactic in hopes of preventing accountability activists from livestreaming or uploading their interactions with officers. When the […]
Tim Cushing