The Department of Justice has been keeping an eye on the Portland (OR) Police Bureau (PPB) for nearly a decade now, finding that officers routinely engage in excessive force, especially when dealing with residents suffering from mental illness. A consent decree was put in place in 2014. Since then, the Portland PD has violated the […]
Merge your creativity with science as you build exciting circuits using Circuit Scribe’s conductive ink pen, sweet magnetic modules, and plain old printer paper. By placing the paper over a steel sheet, included in every kit, your paper becomes the base for blinking lights, beeping buzzers, and whirling motors. Circuit Scribe’s DIY kit gives you everything you […]
Not only have corporate efforts to monopolize repair resulted in a flood of proposed state and federal laws, the idea was also included in the Biden Administration’s recent executive order on monopoly power and competition. Said order urged the FTC to tighten up its rules on repair monopolization efforts, whether it’s ham-fisted DRM, or making […]
There’s no business like cop business. When business is bad — like it can be following a high-profile murder by one of your officers — cops double down. They complain there’s too much scrutiny. They attack and punish people for engaging in First Amendment-protected activities. They engage in the very violence being protested against. And […]
We’ve been talking quite a bit lately about consolidation within the video game industry. As is often the case in times of economic strife, the pandemic has led to large entities in the gaming industry gobbling up smaller entities. Microsoft acquired Zenimax. Then Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard King for a wild amount of money. Soon […]
Last fall we had a whole series of blog posts explaining just how dangerous Rep. Jerry Nadler’s SHOP SAFE bill would be. It’s one of those bills that if you just hear what it’s about — stopping the sale of counterfeit goods online — sounds good. But only if you don’t understand how basically anything […]
Qualified immunity has been heavily criticized for what it allows law enforcement officers to get away with. The Supreme Court-created doctrine excuses officers from civil rights lawsuits even when it’s been shown rights were violated… so long as the rights violation hasn’t been previously ruled a rights violation by other courts with jurisdiction over the […]
We’ve already noted how several of the business decisions to shut down integral parts of the Internet to “punish Putin” aren’t really punishing Putin, but the Russian public. For example Cogent’s decision to sever Russia from the rest of the Internet is something that Putin generally wants given his longstanding desire to forge a sort […]
Last month, the NY Times published a really great article by (the always innovative) tech reporter Kashmir Hill, in which she tested out a bunch of those location tracking tools by hiding them (with permission) on her husband, Trevor Timm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. It was a great and eye-opening […]
The Complete 2022 Linux Training Bundle has 12 courses to help you master Linux. You’ll start with the basics and move on to security techniques, shell scripting, command line, and more. The bundle is on sale for $69. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from […]
Tennessee has long been home to a truly astounding amount of First Amendment violations, some of which were enabled by courts’ willingness to entertain far too many bogus defamation lawsuits. And Daniel Horwitz has been a constant thorn in these courts’ sides, securing wins for clients facing bogus lawsuits. Fortunately, the legislature recently improved the […]
Fun fact: about 2,950,000 new subscribers signed up for broadband last year, and roughly 95 percent of them signed up with the biggest cable companies (primarily Comcast and Charter). These two cable giants’ market share continues to grow not really because they’re good — but because they’re the only option countless Americans have if they […]
A decade ago, we discussed how the pressure brought against Russia to more greatly enforce copyright laws was a mistake. A mistake mostly because of how Russia would choose to enforce those laws, namely by applying them only against critics of the state or undesirables, whether actual infringement was occurring or not. While Russia’s misuse […]
Remember NetzDG? This is the German content moderation law that has been a complete disaster from day one. It puts all sorts of requirements on social media companies to remove undesirable content in a very short period of time. Other countries, like Turkey, have used it as inspiration to pass their own laws to censor […]
It took a little longer than usual, but we’ve finally announced the winners of the fourth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1926! In this episode, Mike and I are joined by Randy Lubin (our partner in running the jam) to discuss the winners in all six categories, as well as some of […]
Well, it took us a little longer than usual, but we’re finally ready to announce the winners of our fourth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1926! We asked designers to create games based on works published in 1926 (plus some earlier sound recordings, due to the complexities of copyright law) that entered […]
There are multiple places government agencies can go to acquire location data. The Supreme Court’s Carpenter decision put a damper on warrantless demands, but the private sector has rushed to fill this hole in the law enforcement market by selling access to data pulled from apps that don’t (currently) require a warrant to access. But […]
The 2022 SQL Freedom Course is for anyone who’s having difficulty writing SQL queries using the traditional ‘code-based’ method prevalent everywhere. Imagine being able to create SQL queries without writing any code. You simply interact with your data and the software builds the code for you in the background. It’s a system that follows a […]
Dear inevitable Google GDPR “right to erasure” specialist: Please skip three paragraphs down to learn why you should not remove this story or tag from search results, and that doing so would violate the limits placed on the right to erasure in the GDPR. Dear Thomas Goolnik: stop trying to hide information on how you […]
We’ve noted for several years how the “race to 5G” was largely just hype by telecoms and hardware vendors eager to sell more gear and justify high U.S. mobile data prices. While 5G does provide faster, more resilient, and lower latency networks, it’s more of an evolution than a revolution. But that’s not what telecom […]
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