If you were holding onto the faint hope that federal election campaigns were ever going to be anything but “buy your way into office” spending sprees, you may as well kiss it goodbye. The Federal Election Committee’s head has just admitted her agency is completely powerless to do the one thing it’s supposed to be doing.
The leader of the Federal Election Commission, the agency charged with regulating the way political money is raised and spent, says she has largely given up hope of reining in abuses in the 2016 presidential campaign, which could generate a record $10 billion in spending.
“The likelihood of the laws being enforced is slim,” Ann M. Ravel, the chairwoman, said in an interview. “I never want to give up, but I’m not under any illusions. People think the F.E.C. is dysfunctional. It’s worse than dysfunctional.”
It’s not often you hear a public official openly state that the agency under her control can’t do its job. Usually, excuses are made, bucks are passed and talking points spun to give the illusion that agencies are not only capable of performing their duties, but could be oh-so-much-better if they weren’t hobbled by everything but themselves. This is refreshing — if ultimately depressing — honesty.
3D Printer Creator Withholding Long-Delayed Shipments To Early Backers Over Supposed ‘Defamatory’ Comments
There are a lot of ways to deal with unhappy Kickstarter backers. Being generally unresponsive to complaints isn’t a good idea. Withholding already-delayed shipments and blaming it on allegedly defamatory comments definitely isn’t.
Cobblebot promised shipments to its earliest backers by October 2014. It’s now April 2015 and some have yet to see the 3D printers they’ve paid for. Worse, other backers of other products by Cobblebot have already received theirs. (Cobblebot started another Kickstarter project shortly after this one was funded, as well as using IndieGogo to raise additional funds.) It’s the earliest backers — at least those who have been critical of numerous shipping delays — who are still waiting for their paid-for printers to be shipped.
Whatever the real reason behind these delayed shipments, Cobblebot has chosen to portray this as a (highly dubious) legal issue.
One customer, who goes by the handle of JeffRandall on the Cobbleverse forum, recently contacted the company via email with the following message:
“Can you please tell me what the status is for my final shipment. I paid the final invoice over a week ago and I am one of the 99 super early bird backers [these backers had an expected delivery date which passed 6 months ago!]. The message from you was that the package had been prepared, yet it hasn’t shipped in over a week.”
Jeff received the following, rather alarming reply shortly after:
“Hello Jeffrey,
Sorry for the delay and an explanation is necessary. Your account was placed on hold by our legal department. Under Texas law, it is unlawful to engage in defamation of another’s character and reputation. The law presumes certain categories of statements are defamatory per se, including statements that (1) unambiguously charge a crime, dishonesty, fraud, rascality, or general depravity or (2) that are falsehoods that injure one in his office, business, profession, or occupation. Main v. Royall, 348 S.W.3d 318, 390.
Several of your recent posts on various internet forums were being reviewed by the legal department for inclusion in our fourth round of upcoming legal actions being filed to protect our company’s reputation from the illegal act of defamation.
All the above being said, we did receive a hold release from the legal department today and will proceed with the shipping of your package. What does it mean when the legal department releases a hold? It normally means one of two things: 1) The legal department has decided the reviewed statement(s) were not defamation under Texas law; or 2) They have decided to issue a warning (Cease & Desist letter) to provide the opportunity to stop defaming the company’s reputation.
Keep in mind that the support department does not have access to the legal department’s records, so we don’t know anything for certain. We are just attempting to explain the type of hold that we saw placed on your account and what that type of hold means.
In any case, the hold has been released and we will move forward with the shipping of your final package.
Thanks for supporting Cobblebot and have a wonderful day!Cobblebot Team”
Hollywood Urged Cameron to Keep DVD Ripping Illegal
To most consumers it’s common sense that they can make a backup copy of media they own, but in the UK this was illegal until late last year.
After consulting various stakeholders the Government decided that it would be in the best interests of consumers to legalize copying for personal use.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, not all copyright holders were in favor of the legal changes. In fact, emails published from the Sony Pictures Entertainment hack reveal that Hollywood wanted to stop the plans by urging UK Prime Minister David Cameron to keep Hollywood’s interests in mind.
The first email mentioning the issue was sent January last year. Here, Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton was informed that MPAA boss Chris Dodd wanted him to give Cameron a call.
“Essentially, Dodd thinks (and we agree) it would be helpful for you to call Prime Minister Cameron if you are willing in order to ensure our position is fully considered,” the email from Sony’s Keith Weaver reads.
According to Weaver it was still uncertain whether Hollywood’s concerns would be properly heard in Parliament.
“This is because prior interactions with the U.K. government over the last few months have left us with no certainty that our concerns will be addressed in the proposal that will be presented to Parliament for an up or down vote in February,” he explained.
MPAA Funds Pro-Copyright Scholars to Influence Politics
Last year the MPAA started a new grants program inviting academics to pitch their research proposals.
Researchers are being offered a $20,000 grant for projects that address various piracy related topics, including the impact of copyright law and the effectiveness of notice and takedown regimes.
Last month marked the silent start of a new round of grant applications for the fall of 2015.
There’s no public announcement but MPAA boss Chris Dodd previously said there’s a need for better and unbiased copyright related research to find out how recent developments are affecting the film industry.
“We need more and better research regarding the evolving role of copyright in society. The academic community can provide unbiased observations, data analysis, historical context and important revelations about how these changes are impacting the film industry…,” Dodd noted.
While Dodd’s comments about unbiased research are admirable, there also appears to be a hidden agenda which until now hasn’t seen the light of day.
In an email leaked in the Sony hack MPAA General Counsel Steven Fabrizio explains to the member studios that they’re soliciting pro-copyright papers. The April 2014 email further reveals that the MPAA hopes to identify pro-copyright scholars who can be used to influence future copyright policies.
“As you know, as one component of our Academic Outreach program, the MPAA is launching a global research grant program both to solicit pro-copyright academic research papers and to identify pro-copyright scholars who we can cultivate for further public advocacy,” Fabrizio writes.
Needless to say, soliciting pro-copyright papers and spotting pro-copyright scholars for public advocacy doesn’t sound very unbiased.
The Battle of Baltimore shows us why UDC is the “elite” school in DC
In the wake of the Michael Brown verdict and the Ferguson uprising, a number of “elite” law schools decided that their students could get a deferral on exams if they were “emotionally” unable to proceed. (source)
This reinforces the impression that the so-called elite law schools are simply places where students are pre-selected and then coddled. As a graduate of one of these schools (Georgetown), I’ll confirm that the quality of the education is clearly secondary to the “brand name.” I did a year as a visiting student at the University of Florida, which is a little lower ranked – and got way better education there.
Of course, I only got into Georgetown as a fluke. I actually got piss drunk with a member of the admissions committee one night in September of 1997, at the Irish Times. He asked me what I did before law school. I said “my last job was working on oil tankers and freighters.” He said “ohhh, I remember you! We thought it would be very interesting to see how the other students would react to someone with your background.” I held back from punching him in the face. But, at least I knew what the fuck I was doing there. Yep, I was an affirmative action admission – I guess they saved one seat for foul mouthed sailor working class shitbags.
And then I figured out that it was impossible to get less than a C. Even then, you really had to work at it — like by falling asleep in class, snoring, not studying for the exam, and getting two right out of 10 questions. That was C performance.
“Driving Drunk Woo!” – Don’t do that
Florida Man, I have a wife for you.
While she was driving drunk, on the way to an intersection where she would ultimately crash into a car and kill her passenger, a Florida Woman texted to her ex-boyfriend “Driving drunk woo!”
I don’t do criminal law, so take this advice for what it is worth — but, if you are going to drive drunk, don’t also text “driving drunk woo” from your phone while doing it. Or don’t drive drunk. Or just don’t be fucking stupid.
But that’s a lot to ask, I know.
What are the Lyrics to Louie Louie? The FBI figured it out, finally….
Would you believe that the FBI conducted a two year investigation into whether someone should go to jail for “Louie Louie.”? Yeah, the song. A threat to national security and order!
Can you imagine what kind of blueballed hall monitor dipshit fuckhead decided that there should be an FBI investigation at all much less one that lasted for two years?
I can.
They’re the kind of people who now find themselves as administrators at colleges and law schools. They’re the kind of people who have decided that “that kind of thing” bothers them — even if the “thing” has changed (but not really by a lot). Although this letter was most certainly not written by Catharine MacKinnon, you can find her spirit in between the lines. (Will over-privileged bored white women always be the bane of liberty?) See also Catharine A. MacKinnon, Pornography, Civil Rights, and Speech, 20 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 1, 3 & n.2 (1985).
A threat to national security
A threat to national security
It should come as little surprise that the ball started rolling with the Indianapolis and Tampa FBI offices. Yep. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Two bastions of stupidity in 1964, and 50 years later, not much has changed. See, e.g., American Booksellers v. Hudnut, 771 F.2d 323 (7th Cir. 1985). In all fairness, Detroit really picked up the ball and ran with it too. So, lets hear it for a tradition of wasting time and money.
The punch line? Do you know the lyrics to “Louie Louie?”No, without using Wikipedia.
How many times have you drunkenly swayed back and forth screaming absolute nonsense, knowing full well that the only words you know to it are “Louie Lou-waaay,” “yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah” and “we gotta go?” Hell, I’ve even performed the song on stage, no fucking idea what the lyrics are. (Spolier alert, it isn’t “we gotta go”)
Well I feel better now.
Give us $25,000 to move to the desert and take shaky, blurry…
Give us $25,000 to move to the desert and take shaky, blurry cell phone footage of ourselves making a solar panel. We won’t fuck up like we did last time because “THIS TIME, we all have good jobs and we have flexible schedules too.”
Stop the war between privacy and security – EU data watchdog
Security and privacy are not mutually exclusive says Europe’s privacy watchdog – and people should stop saying they are.
The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), Giovanni Buttarelli, told a Brussels conference he was concerned that “the objective of cyber-security may be misused to justify measures which weaken protection of [data protection] rights.”
“Cyber-security must not become an excuse for disproportionate processing of personal data. Let’s not forget that when the European Court of Justice (ECJ) last year found the Data Retention Directive to be invalid, one of the reasons was concern about the inadequacy of the data security provisions in the directive,” he continued.
Although some commentators interpreted the ECJ ruling to mean that data must be stored within national borders, Buttarelli disagreed.
“Physical location is not the determining factor in security. Rather, it is degree of control, accountability and responsibility which data controllers demonstrate when processing personal information. They must take full responsibility for all the measures they implement, regardless of the technology they use. Responsibility must not vanish in the clouds,” said the newly appointed EDPS.
Negotiations on a new Data Protection Regulation are currently underway and Buttarelli says that accountability should not be sacrificed in the inevitable compromise.
“One tool for reinforcing accountability is the introduction of a general data breach notification obligation, which will force controllers take the necessary organisational and procedural measures,” he said, pinning his colours to at least one legislative mast.
US Marshal Shuts Down Citizen Recording By Grabbing Phone And Smashing It On The Ground
There’s a message being sent by this “tactical gear” and it says that these Marshals think they’re a military detachment and everyone around them not clearly labeled as law enforcement is the “enemy” — including anyone with a camera.
Now, it’s pretty well established that citizens have the right to film law enforcement officers while in public places. There are exceptions, of course, but none of those appear to be in play here.
What does appear to be in play is the mental exception far too many law enforcement officers feel they can deploy whenever they’d rather not be “watched.” According to an interview with Beatriz Paez, whose filming was “interrupted” by the US Marshal (and fortunately filmed by yet another person from across the street), the officers first turned their backs to her (which is fine) and then proceeded to keep moving towards her to block off her view.
When this more subtle intimidation failed to deter Paez, the US Marshal simply stormed up to her, grabbed her phone, smashed it to the ground and finally, kicked the shattered device back to her.
I guess she can be thankful he didn’t demand she hand over the phone as evidence. Although, if he had deployed that BS tactic, he’d just look stupid rather than abusive and potentially dangerous — a person armed to the teeth who can’t control his impulses.