HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY Kirstjen Nielsen made a series of secretive visits to South Texas immigrant detention centers on Friday. One of the facilities the secretary visited, in Los Fresnos, houses parents whose children were taken from them under President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” family separation policy. Many of the detainees there are women, and many desperately wanted to speak with Nielsen. Instead, they were moved to a distant soccer field, where they shouted to Nielsen for help but were too far away for her to hear them.
Category: Human stupidity
Fifth Circuit Says No, You Fucking May Not Strip Search A Classful Of Female Students To Find $50 | Techdirt
During a sixth-grade choir class, an assistant principal allegedly ordered a mass, suspicionless strip search of the underwear of twenty-two preteen girls. All agree the search violated the girls’ constitutional rights under Texas and federal law. Even so, the district court dismissed the girls’ lawsuit against the school district for failure to state a claim. We reverse
Thrown Chairs, Resignations, And An Envelope Full Of Cash Follow Exposure Of 2-Man PD’s Acquisition Of $1 Million In Military Equipment | Techdirt
A lot has happened in the small community of Thetford since we last covered the two-person police department’s acquisition of $1 million in military gear through the 1033 program. It’s not all MRAPs and weapons, though. Apparently Police Chief Bob Kenny was grabbing anything that wasn’t nailed down, including a tractor, two Humvees, ATVs, a forklift, and any other supplies the federal government was agreeable to parting with.The PD ran out of room to park/store everything, so it began dumping equipment “off-site:” on the private property of agreeable landowners. Things began to unravel when the town supervisor started wondering why the police chief had decided to turn the town into an episode of “Hoarders.”The Genesee County Sheriff’s Department was called in to perform an audit but soon found it couldn’t do anything because there was apparently no paper trail. That appears to have been a case of the Thetford PD playing keepaway with documents, because the Sheriff’s Department decided to step things up in late April.
Stupid Patent of the Month: Alleged Cult Leader Wants to ‘Improve Performance’ | Techdirt
Today, we’re going to focus on Raniere’s U.S. Patent No. 9,421,447, a “method and apparatus for improving performance.” The patent simply adds trivial limitations to the basic functioning of a treadmill, like timing the user and recording certain parameters (speed, heart rate, or turnover rate.) Since most modern treadmills allow users to precisely measure performance on a variety of metrics, the patent is arguably broad enough that it could be used to sue treadmill manufacturers or sellers.Given Raniere’s litigation history, that’s not such a remote possibility. NXIVM has sued its critics for defamation—enough that the Albany Times-Union called NIXVM a “Litigation Machine.” And Raniere sued both AT&T and Microsoft for infringement of some patents relating to video conferencing. The latter suit ended very badly for Raniere, who was ordered to pay attorneys’ fees after he couldn’t prove that he still had ownership of the patents in question. So it’s worth taking a look at how Raniere got the ‘447 patent.
Source: Stupid Patent of the Month: Alleged Cult Leader Wants to ‘Improve Performance’ | Techdirt
“Inventor of email” appeals ruling that tossed his libel suit against Techdirt | Ars Technica
Lawyers representing the Massachusetts man who for years has made a highly-controversial claim that he invented email have filed their appeal in an ongoing lawsuit brought against the tech news site, Techdirt.The appeal to the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals comes more than a year after a federal judge dismissed the libel lawsuit brought by Shiva Ayyadurai, an entrepreneur who is now also running as a longshot candidate for the United States Senate.
Source: “Inventor of email” appeals ruling that tossed his libel suit against Techdirt | Ars Technica
Tesla Used An Artist’s Work Without Permission And Elon Musk Was Unsurprisingly An Ass About It
If you’ve ever done design work or art work or nearly any creative work for hire, at some point you’ve most likely encountered some asshole who wants to use your work for free in exchange for “exposure.” It now appears that Elon Musk is one of those assholes, stealing an image of a farting unicorn from an artist.
Source: Tesla Used An Artist’s Work Without Permission And Elon Musk Was Unsurprisingly An Ass About It
French Political Party Voting For Mandatory Copyright Filters Is Furious That Its YouTube Channel Deleted By Filter | Techdirt
Volkswagen Claims Ownership of an Entire Group of Insects | Electronic Frontier Foundation
Using word searches to find infringement is a bad way to go about things. It is likely why Volkswagen filed three takedown requests for art of beetles. Not Beetles with four wheels and headlights. Beetles with six legs and hard, shiny carapaces. For the record, Volkswagen holds no rights to literal bugs.
Source: Volkswagen Claims Ownership of an Entire Group of Insects | Electronic Frontier Foundation
Data Propria, run by Cambridge Analytica alumni, working on Trump 2020 campaign | Ars Technica
Data Propria, a brand-new “data and behavioral science company” run by former staff at Cambridge Analytica, has been “quietly working” for the president’s 2020 re-election campaign, according to the Associated Press.
Source: Data Propria, run by Cambridge Analytica alumni, working on Trump 2020 campaign | Ars Technica
Unbreakable smart lock devastated to discover screwdrivers exist • The Register
Security researcher Vangelis Stykas published a blog post on Friday outlining that Tapplock API endpoints have literally no security checks beyond checking whether there was a valid token.So if you create a Tapplock account and gain a login, you will be able – again – to open every single Tapplock out there.
Source: Unbreakable smart lock devastated to discover screwdrivers exist • The Register