Category: Ignorant or unreasonable

faithInHumanity–;

Everyone Go Crazy: Prepare To Blame The Internet For Murder-Inducing Ghost Stories

Prosecutors say two 12-year-old southeastern Wisconsin girls stabbed their 12-year-old friend nearly to death in the woods to please a mythological creature they learned about online. One of the girls told a detective they were trying to become “proxies” of Slender Man, a mythological demon-like character they learned about on creepypasta.wikia.com, a website about horror stories and legends. They planned to run away to the demon’s forest mansion after the slaying, the complaint said.

Link (Techdirt)

Of course they will get away with it…

… there hasn’t been “separation of power” in the US in a very long time.

EFF Tells Court That The NSA Knowingly And Illegally Destroyed Evidence In Key Case Over Bulk Surveillance

The filing lists out the history of the government repeatedly destroying relevant information, despite the preservation orders from the court, and despite clear language noting that the government had to preserve exactly this kind of data. The DOJ’s argument that it thought the data under FISA-approved programs didn’t count seems especially weak, given that the DOJ itself was part of trying to hide that those programs even existed. As the EFF filing notes, the argument seems preposterous in context. For example, at one point, the DOJ claims that it thought EFF didn’t mean FISC-approved programs because it talked about “warrantless” surveillance. However, as EFF notes, even FISC-approved programs are still warrantless, because a FISC order is not a warrant. 

Link (Techdirt)

You have to love a country where corruption is institutionalized

Congressman Bob Latta (R-OH) today introduced legislation to ensure the Internet remains open and free from government interference by limiting the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) authority to regulate broadband under Title II of the Communications Act.

So Bob Latta wants to ensure the internet stays free by removing the last bits of regulations that stop the big telcos from abusing their monopoly-like situation.

Why?

Oh, no, there’s no reason to wonder. We already know. Latta is bankrolled by the big broadband companies with AT&T, NCTA, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, American Cable Assocation and Centurylink among his top campaign supporters. Because, of course they are.

Link (Techdirt)

Well, this fits perfectly with the “ignorant” theme…

Genital mutilation of child ordered by Third World court

 The Sharia court ordered that the father can have the little girl’s vagina mutilated, but to make matters worse, the Sharia Judge ruled that the mother was not allowed to even lead the little girl to believe that she was not in favor of having her daughter’s genitals mutilated.

Link (The Legal Satyricon)

“Of course” video games are to blame

The link, Pollard explains, is that these kids played Call of Duty and also killed themselves. Therefore, according to Pollard, there is reason to believe one is causal. According to a source of mine, a Mr. Lo Gic, this kind of thinking indicates the coroner may have some wires crossed in his head. Otherwise, he’d have to explain why four suicides of children that played a game that has sold over a 100 million copies is anything we should be noting at all. Those children may all have drank orange juice, as well, because that’s what kids do. 

Link (Techdirt)

You might be a terrorist

… according to the statistics.

You may recall the Feds’ contending with straight faces in 2004 that if “a little old lady in Switzerland gave money to a charity for an Afghan orphanage, and the money was passed to al Qaeda,” she met the definition of “enemy combatant.” Five years later, a federal Fusion Center decreed that “if you’re an anti-abortion activist, or if you display political paraphernalia supporting a third-party candidate or [Ron Paul], if you possess subversive literature, you very well might be a member of a domestic paramilitary group.”

Link (Techdirt)

Stop & Frisk in Miami Gardens

In the summer of 2010, a young black man was stopped and questioned by police on the streets of Miami Gardens, Florida. According to the report filled out by the officer, he was “wearing gray sweatpants, a red hoodie and black gloves” giving the police “just cause” to question him. In the report, he was labeled a “suspicious person.”

He was an 11-year-old boy on his way to football practice.

A Fusion investigation has found that he was just one of 56,922 people who were stopped and questioned by Miami Gardens Police Department (MGPD) between 2008 and 2013. That’s the equivalent of more than half of the city’s population.

Not one of them was arrested.

Link (fusion.net)

Europe just banished free speech on the internet

(…) an absolutely insane ruling that came out of the European Court of Human Rights last fall, in the case of Delfi AS v. Estonia, which basically said that any website that allows comments can be liable for those comments. In fact, it found that even when sites took down comments (automatically!) following complaints, they can still be liable, because they should have blocked those comments from going up in the first place. Bizarrely, the court basically says the site should have known that the article in question might lead to negative reactions, and therefor should have blocked comments:

Link (Techdirt)