We’re big believers in using HTTPS to secure websites (even if HTTPS certificates have their problems — it’s still better than the alternative). But there are pitfalls in setting up your certificate correctly as newly announced presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz apparently discovered this morning. Because along with his campaign launch speech (which was widely mocked by the Liberty University students who were forced to attend), he put up a website for donations. And that website didn’t default to HTTPS and also listed nigerian-prince.com as an alternate domain on the security certificate, as first noted by the Twitter feed@PwnAllTheThings:
A few hours after this was first noticed, the Cruz campaign appears to have removed nigerian-prince.com from its certificate, but it still raises some questions about just who he has hired to build his websites. I guess that’s what happens when even the technologists in your own partyopenly mock Ted Cruz’s ignorance when it comes to technology issues like net neutrality.
Category: Human stupidity
The Irrationality of Alcoholics Anonymous
Its faith-based 12-step program dominates treatment in the United States. But researchers have debunked central tenets of AA doctrine and found dozens of other treatments more effective.
Portland Police Bravely Defend Public From Homeless Woman Looking To Charge Her Cell Phone
Police: they have a job that demands respect, even if those doing the job occassionally do not. We talk a great deal here at Techdirt about some of the frightening uses of military grade equipment by local law enforcement agencies, about what sometimes seems like a neverending list of civil rightsabuses, and so on. Still, as I said, I respect the job. It’s my respect for that job that leads me to think that the Portland cops who arrested a homeless woman for charging her phone on a public outlet need a greater understanding of what it is exactly that police in this stupid country are supposed to do.
Now, if you’re thinking to yourself, “There’s no way police in Portland arrested a person just for plugging her cell phone charger into a public outfit,” well, you’re correct; they arrested two people for that in one trip.
In this case, the theft was first reported by Portland Patrol Inc., and two Portland police officers followed up to issue the woman and her co-defendant, a homeless man who was also charging his cellphone at the planter box outlet, citations to appear in court for third-degree theft of services — a Class C misdemeanor. According to the Electrical Research Institute, it costs about 25 cents a year to charge the average mobile phone. If the phone in this scenario had gone from zero charge to full charge, the cost would have amounted to mere fractions of a penny.
“Jackie,” (who did not want her real name used), says she was shocked when four uniformed officers all agreed her actions warranted not only their response, but also charges and a court summons.
Texas Lawmaker Wants To Make It Illegal To Film Cops From Less Than 25 Feet Away
Now that it’s pretty much settled that the public has the right to record the police*, legislators are now moving to peel back this begrudgingly “granted” First Amendment protection.
*Exceptions, of course. Far, far too many of them.
Filed by Dallas State Representative Jason Villalba (R), the bill prohibits anyone in public within 25 feet of police to record them. The buffer is even greater at 100 feet, for anyone recording video who is also carrying a gun. Only accredited news organizations, like KENS5, would be allowed to record without the buffer zone.
Guess who gets to decide whether any unaccredited videographers are “too close” to the action? That’s right. It’ll be the person deploying handcuffs or demanding the camera be shut off/relinquished. It will all be in the eye of the uniformed beholder who’s just going to eyeball the distance between him and the unaffiliated bodies of public accountability, and if it’s close, just go ahead and call it a crime. A crime with some rather hefty penalties, considering it involves recording public figures in public areas.
Anyone caught filming within the 25-foot radius could be prosecuted for a Class B misdemeanor, punishable by up to 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine. For gun-carriers who step within 100 feet, it would be a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail and a $4,000 fine.
What’s Scarier: Terrorism, or Governments Blocking Websites in its Name?
The French Interior Ministry on Monday ordered that five websites be blocked on the grounds that they promote or advocate terrorism. “I do not want to see sites that could lead people to take up arms on the Internet,” proclaimed Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.
When the block functions properly, visitors to those banned sites, rather than accessing the content of the sites they chose to visit, will be automatically redirected to the Interior Ministry website. There, they will be greeted by a graphic of a large red hand, and text informing them that they were attempting to access a site that causes or promotes terrorism: “you are being redirected to this official website since your computer was about to connect with a page that provokes terrorist acts or condones terrorism publicly.”
No judge reviews the Interior Ministry’s decisions. The minister first requests that the website owner voluntarily remove the content he deems transgressive; upon disobedience, the minister unilaterally issues the order to Internet service providers for the sites to be blocked. This censorship power is vested pursuant to a law recently enacted in France empowering the interior minister to block websites.Forcibly taking down websites deemed to be supportive of terrorism, or criminalizing speech deemed to “advocate” terrorism, is a major trend in both Europe and the West generally. Last month in Brussels, the European Union’s counter-terrorism coordinator issued a memo proclaiming that “Europe is facing an unprecedented, diverse and serious terrorist threat,” and argued that increased state control over the Internet is crucial to combating it.
Nobody, Including Tom Cotton, Knows What Tom Cotton Is Saying About “Corruption of the Blood”
Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) is in the news this month. For reasons that passeth understanding he’s been offered up as a spokesperson for the 47 Republicans who wrote a letter to Iran.1 Today I noticed a number of links to 2013 reports asserting that Sen. Tom Cotton offered an amendment to a bill that would allow imprisonment without due process of the relatives of the targets or Iranian sanctions. The Huffington Post’s Zach Carter may be Patient Zero on this idea:
WASHINGTON — Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Wednesday offered legislative language that would “automatically” punish family members of people who violate U.S. sanctions against Iran, levying sentences of up to 20 years in prison.
. . .
Article III of the Constitution explicitly bans Congress from punishing treason based on “corruption of blood” — meaning that relatives of those convicted of treason cannot be punished based only on a familial tie.
Bad Strategy: Announcing The Target Of Your Robbery On Facebook Before Giving It A Go
Andrew Hennells, 32, posted a comment on his profile which read: “Doing. Tesco. Over” at 19:25 GMT on 13 February. Just 15 minutes later, after he had held up the King’s Lynn store, police caught Hennells with a knife and £410.
Court Tosses Child Molestation Charges After Prosecutor Falsifies Confession Transcript
Kern County, California, is apparently no place to seek justice. The Kern County Sheriff’s Department is infamous for its handling of residents — both inside and outside the jail it controls. During a four-month stretch in 2013, the Sheriff’s Department was involved with three in-custody deaths. In two of the three cases, deputies applied a ton of force to arrestees, resulting in de facto death penalties for the crimes they allegedly committed.
The Kern County DA’s office is seemingly no better, although its members aren’t as likely to take such a hands-on approach. Instead, they’d be more apt to falsify confession transcriptions, like assistant DA Robert Murray did.
Kern County prosecutor Robert Murray added two lines of transcript to “evidence” that the defendant confessed to an even more egregious offense than that with which he had been charged—the already hideous offense of molesting a child. With the two sentences that state’s attorney Murray perjuriously added, Murray was able to threaten charges that carried a term of life in prison.
Here’s what Murray added to the transcript:
(Detective): “You’re so guilty you child molester.”
(Defendant): “I know. I’m just glad she’s not pregnant like her mother.”
Murray added this to the English translation of the confession transcription, but not to the Spanish version — the language used for the entire interrogation. He then handed this off to the defense, just as it was advising the defendant to consider a plea deal. It wasn’t until the defense requested the original recordings that Murray finally admitted adding statements the defendant never made — nine days after he turned his edited version over to the defendant.
Here’s Murray’s defense of his actions:
It was only after defense attorney Ernest Hinman confronted Murray about the altered version. Murray said he meant it only as a joke to be kept between the two men [Hinman and Murray].
Haha. Life and liberty are hilarious. It’s only someone’s life in the balance. No better place to deploy a little prosecutorial wit than in the transcript of a police interrogation.
Project G650
This story has gone viral on twitter this morning for all the wrong reasons. Celebrity pastor Creflo Dollar, worth a reported 27 million dollars, is crowdfunding a new private jet worth a reported 65 million dollars. Dubbed Project G650, the pastor is requesting his followers donate to the project “in order to continue to spread the word of god across the globe”.
The mission of Project G650 is to acquire a Gulfstream G650 airplane so that Pastors Creflo and [wife] Taffi and World Changers Church International can continue to blanket the globe with the Gospel of grace. … We are believing for 200,000 people to give contributions of 300 US dollars or more to make this a reality—and allow us to retire the aircraft that served us well for many years.
This isn’t really that shocking as I assume stuff like this happens all the time. Its the nature of the (celebrity evangelical megachurch) business. Still, 65 million dollars could feed a lot of folks, or put shoes on their feet.
![This story has gone viral on twitter this morning for all the wrong reasons. Celebrity pastor Creflo Dollar, worth a reported 27 million dollars, is crowdfunding a new private jet worth a reported 65 million dollars. Dubbed Project G650, the pastor is requesting his followers donate to the project “in order to continue to spread the word of god across the globe”. The mission of Project G650 is to acquire a Gulfstream G650 airplane so that Pastors Creflo and [wife] Taffi and World Changers Church International can continue to blanket the globe with the Gospel of grace. … We are believing for 200,000 people to give contributions of 300 US dollars or more to make this a reality—and allow us to retire the aircraft that served us well for many years.This isn’t really that shocking as I assume stuff like this happens all the time. Its the nature of the (celebrity evangelical megachurch) business. Still, 65 million dollars could feed a lot of folks, or put shoes on their feet.](http://40.media.tumblr.com/61d41fe5e40d9fe4264376aaa0d15be6/tumblr_nl5qfiCuQs1rugltbo1_1280.jpg)
Dutch Court Sets Aside National Data Retention Law
Back in January, we wrote about a legal challenge to the Netherlands’ data retention law by a group of civil rights organizations. This was because the Dutch government had decided to ignore the important ruling by Europe’s highest court, the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU), that blanket data retention was “invalid.” Now, a court in The Hague has ruled the government was wrong to do so:
Dutch providers are no longer required to retain internet and phone traffic data. The telecommunications data retention law, that was fought in court by various privacy groups and small ISPs, is invalid.
That was ruled by the court of The Hague on Wednesday. The data retention law violated the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, specifically regarding the right to protection of private life and protection of personal data.
As that report from Nu.nl, translated by Matthijs R. Koot on his blog, makes clear, the court’s judgment affects all kinds of telecoms — both Internet and phone traffic data — and all communication providers. This is the judge’s reasoning:
The judge finds that the collected data are too easily accessible for crimes that are not serious. The plaintiffs stated that, technically, theft of a bicycle could lead to access to data, although the government stated this does not happen.
“Fact of the matter is that the possibility exists and that no safeguards exist to limit access to the data to what is strictly necessary to fight (only) serious crime”, according to the judge.
The court also finds it to be incorrect that no prior court approval is needed to access the data.
The judge’s ruling is only “provisonally enforeable”, and the Dutch government may appeal against it. But even if it does, it has a larger problem with its policy in this area. Although it claims a new data retention bill will be compatible with the CJEU ruling, the Netherlands’ Data Protection Authority has already said that it is still too intrusive for a number of reasons. Clearly, the European debate over what is a reasonable and proportionate level of data retention — if any — has a long way to go yet, both in the Netherlands and elsewhere.