Sheriff Uses Craigslist To Arrest Prostitutes... Blames Craigslist

from the cognitive-dissonance? dept

Reader cKarlGo points us to a story in Florida of local police arresting 28 women and six men on prostitution-related charges, after finding them all on Craigslist. They then used phone and email to negotiate with the women in order to confirm that they were selling sexual acts. Afterwards, they made the arrests. But here's the kicker: the sheriff is still blaming Craigslist:

"How can Craigslist allow this kind of content on their (Web) site and then state "We're not involved in any kind of criminal conduct,""

Well, it's actually quite simple. I would imagine that, right now, somewhere in Sheriff Grady Judd's jurisdiction, there are other prostitutes walking the streets. By Judd's own logic, I should be asking why Polk County is involved in criminal conduct. After all, it's happening in his jurisdiction. It's just that it's happening on the street. Or it might be on Craigslist. But it's neither the fault of the street nor Craigslist -- which is nothing more than a virtual street.

But, more to the point, why isn't Sheriff Judd also blaming the telephone company and his internet provider? After all, Judd used three tools to find and communicate with these prostitutes: Craigslist, email and the telephone. The phone company allowed the prostitutes to make phone calls. Internet providers allowed the prostitutes to email. By Judd's logic they're "involved in criminal activity."

In the meantime, what kind of thought process does it take to use a tool to help you crack down on prostitution, and then blame it for the prostitution? How hard is it for Sheriff Judd to recognize that Craigslist is an incredibly useful tool for his staff to find and arrest prostitutes. You would think that having just used the tool for that very purpose he might realize that it's a great tool for catching prostitutes. So why is he blaming it?

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Newspaper Proudly Announces It Will Only Cover Political Candidates Who Buy Ads

from the fair-and-balanced dept

There's been a lot of talk lately about claims that blogs are somehow posting stories without revealing if companies are paying for them, and even the FTC has announced plans to come out with guidelines to stop such behavior. But, of course, that assumes that it's only "blogs" that do this sort of thing, and not the mainstream press. And, to be honest, I can't think of a dumber thing for a blog to do, because if evidence of such a thing ever came out, it would destroy that blog's credibility. Yet, apparently, some in the newspaper business have no problems overtly and proudly advertising such things. A whole bunch of folks have submitted the story of a weekly newspaper in Key West Florida that alerted local political candidates that if they want coverage, they need to buy ads:

"As far as candidate forums and debates, we'll cover those when we can, but if candidates want their campaign covered, they have to pay to play.... I gotta pay the bills."

While a bit shocking in its honesty, it also should raise pretty serious questions about the credibility of the publication, which promises "fair reporting and fair representation." Though, given that it looks like the Conch Color website was designed in 1996 (yes, it has a clip art animated spinning globe -- and I'm almost surprised there's no animated "under construction" gifs), perhaps its credibility was already in question.

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Questions Raised As To Why Connected Nation Selected In Florida Despite Costing More Than Double

from the doesn't-look-good... dept

We've already discussed how Washington DC darling Connected Nation appears more and more like a telco sponsored boondoggle to control gov't mapping mandates and collect gov't money, without having to give up real data on broadband access. But, for some reason, politicians just seem to love Connected Nation (CN). Last time I was in DC, it was all anyone was talking about concerning broadband policy. However, there are more and more questions being raised now. Apparently, Connected Nation got a big win in Florida recently, despite the fact that its bid for mapping was more than double the next runner up, ISC. Connect Florida -- a brand new "affiliate" of Connected Nation, bid $7.1 million. ISC, which is actually based in Florida and has worked with Florida gov't agencies in the past, bid $2.8 million. ISC used references for its actual work on the ground in Florida, including "the Florida Department of Health, the Florida Department of Transportation, the Florida Department of Agriculture and two local businesses, including an Economic Development Council. The ISC application also listed 11 contracts the company has with Florida state agencies." Connect Florida, on the other hand, named out-of-state references who were involved in other Connected Nation projects, raising questions about Connect Florida's understanding of the Florida market. So how did Connect Florida win?

According to sources, one of the five judges gave ISC the win, with an eight-point differential over CN. Two other judges gave CN a two-point win. One other judge gave CN a 15-point win over ISC. Yet in another curiosity, one judge gave CN a 51-point win. That judge was Bill Price, currently the broadband stimulus program manager for the state of Florida, a position he has held for the past three months. According to his profile on the Linked-In social networking site, Price was vice president for business development for BellSouth Business.

Remember how Connected Nation is really closely connected to the telcos? And a former telco exec who only recently got the state gov't job suddenly happens to rate it up massively over the second place competitor? Doesn't that at least raise some ethics questions? Perhaps there's more to it, and perhaps there are good reasons why Connect Florida is better than ISC. But it sure does seem like Florida owes the public an explanation of what those good reasons might be.

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Facing Five Years In Prison For Posting A Photo On MySpace Wearing Gang Colors

from the seems-a-bit-harsh dept

Dealing with gang activity is certainly a priority in areas beset by gang violence, but does that mean we throw out certain First Amendment rights? Last year, Florida passed a new anti-gang law that banned using electronic communications "for the purpose of benefiting, promoting, or furthering the interests of a criminal gang" and that included "advertis[ing] his or her presence in the community" via an online image or video. Apparently, authorities in Florida have now arrested 15 people under this law based on their MySpace profiles, including one 14-year-old who "posted pictures of himself dressed in gang colors and displaying gang hand signals." For this, all of those arrested now face up to 5 years in prison. Some are already protesting the constitutionality of this law. It certainly seems like a limit on free expression.

Even recognizing the problems with gang violence, it seems a bit extreme to arrest people and threaten them with jailtime just for posting such photos on their profiles. Why not use that information to track and monitor certain gang members to try to stop actual illegal gang activity? Here are kids advertising to anyone (including the police) that they're in a gang, which should make it easier for the police to follow them and use that info to deal with real gang activity.

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Florida Red Light Camera Law Doesn't Care Who's Driving: Car Owner Fined

from the as-long-as-the-city-gets-paid,-who-cares? dept

There are an awful lot of problems with red light cameras -- starting with the fact that they don't actually decrease accidents or make the roads any safer. Most evidence suggests the only thing they're really good for is increasing the revenue for a city -- which is why a bunch of cities have broken the laws over the years and shortened the length of the yellow light to "catch" more red light runners -- while also actively ignoring any actual data around the cameras. Reader Gabriel Tane points us to a newly proposed law in Florida for red light cameras that, on top of everything else, would automatically fine the owner of the car even if he or she wasn't driving. It's difficult to see how this is reasonable... unless of course this law has nothing to do with making drivers safer, and is, instead, a way to raise extra money for a city.

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Guy Tries To Pay $1.50 In Missed Sales Tax, Gets Threatened With Fines, Criminal Charges

from the no-good-deed-goes-unpunished dept

The Agitator points us to quite a ridiculous story coming out of Florida. An incredibly law-abiding citizen almost got seriously punished for going above and beyond to live up to the law. Apparently he bought some things for personal use at a local hardware store -- and then noticed that the store forgot to charge him sales tax on the $23 bill. It was probably because the guy also works for an organization that is tax exempt, and the store just assumed he was buying on that account. Now, most people would think "cool" and move on. But, not this guy. He felt obliged to send in $1.50 and an explanation to Florida's Dept. of Revenue.

You would think that Florida would be thrilled to find such an incredibly honest person. Instead, it sent him an angry letter fining him $50 for failing to file a business tax return. He wrote back, explaining the situation again, noting that it wasn't a business, and he was just making up for the forgotten sales tax charge. The state's response? A demand for $650 in business taxes and a threat of criminal charges. It was only after a local TV news channel contacted the state on the guy's behalf that Florida admitted its mistake. Isn't bureaucracy great?

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Student Sues School For Suspending Her Over Facebook Group

from the free-speech-or-cyberbullying dept

Last year, we pointed out that teachers are increasingly complaining that students are cyberbullying not each other... but the teachers themselves. Of course, in a lot of cases these seem overblown. Yet, that hasn't stopped some teachers from arguing that cyberbullying should be a criminal offense. Yet, when teachers overreact and consider just about any criticism "cyberbullying" you're going to run into problems. Take, for example, the case of Katherine Evans. As a high school student who didn't much like her English teacher, she created a Facebook group called "Ms. Sarah Phelps is the worst teacher I've ever met!" That doesn't seem like cyberbullying. That seems like garden variety student-bitching-about-teacher. Even worse, Evans' fellow students told her it was a stupid group, and expressed support for the teacher, such that Evans decided to take down the group herself

But, the school apparently felt this was a big problem, claiming that this was cyberbullying harassment and "disruptive behavior." It suspended Evans for three days and pulled her out of various advanced placement classes. Now, Evans is suing the school for violating her free speech rights. As the Wired article notes, there have been lawsuits about free speech in school in the past, but the internet makes the issues a bit different here. Either way, it's quite difficult to see how the school can claim that such a group is actually cyberbullying, and punishing the girl for venting hardly seems like a reasonable response (especially for an issue that was dealt with by other students in a reasonable manner). What is this world coming to when people can't take the slightest criticism and insist that it's somehow "cyberbullying" that requires punishment or discipline?

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Sequoia's Optical Scan Vote Counting Machines Giving Different Results Every Time

from the well-that's-reassuring dept

Remember the election mess in Palm Beach, Florida from last month? The one where votes seemed to be randomly disappearing, and each recount came up with different results? Originally the blame was put on the fact that different scanning machines from e-voting firm Sequoia, would somehow count the votes differently. That seemed scary enough, and Sequoia protested, insisting that it was all human error. However, when human errors happen every time the machines are used, it's time to suggest that the real problem is with the machines.

Wired is running a long, and somewhat scary, report about the ongoing situation in Palm Beach, where every time the votes are counted, a different vote count comes out. A test was set up by the local newspaper to scan a sampling of ballots, and every time the results of those tests were different -- sometimes in extreme ways. Quite often, the machines seemed to count perfectly marked ballots as invalid, while at other times it accepted votes from invalid ballots. In other words, the machines basically don't work. And we're relying on them in many areas for the election coming up in a month. Isn't that comforting?

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Jack Thompson Disbarred; Claims Florida Lawyers Are Out To Get Him

from the will-he-still-get-on-TV? dept

It's been quite a while since we last wrote about Jack Thompson, the rather infamous lawyer who blames all sorts of violent crimes on video games and has repeatedly sued video game makers in an effort to shift blame from actual violent criminals to the makers of the video games they play. Thompson was also a regular guest on various TV news shows talking about video games and violence, where he would insist repeatedly (against plenty of evidence to the contrary) that video games cause people to kill. He was also famous for filing bogus lawsuits against critics and has been told by judges repeatedly that he needs to actually follow the law.

Well, it appears that all that may be over, as Jack Thompson has now been disbarred, effective 30 days from today. Of course, Thompson isn't one to let a little thing like being disbarred stop him. He's responded at length and is appealing the disbarment (even though he's not actually allowed to file the appeal -- he did so anyway). Still, all this makes you wonder if the various TV news shows that always had him on as a guest will (a) report on his disbarment or (b) still use him as a guest in future stories about video games and violence.

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Florida Judge Won't Let The RIAA Off The Hook

from the pissed-off-judge dept

If you follow the various RIAA lawsuits, you'll notice the pattern. The RIAA bullies and bullies and bullies people, trying to get them to settle. They almost never want to go to court -- and if someone fights back -- especially to the point of filing countersuits, the RIAA looks to get out of the case as quickly as possible. Step one, of course, is trying to get the countersuits dismissed. Apparently, it tried to do that last year when a defendant in Tampa countersued the RIAA. The judge, however, wouldn't let the RIAA off the hook and refused to dismiss most of the counterclaims. Amazingly, in a very similar case in front of the same judge, with the defendant again countersuing -- the RIAA asked the court to dismiss the countersuits, claiming the earlier decision was in error. Generally speaking, it's probably not a great idea to tell the judge that a ruling he made a few months back in a nearly identical case was a mistake. After receiving the motion to dismiss the countersuit Tuesday evening, the judge turned it down first thing Wednesday morning. The judge's order itself is short and sweet, saying that the RIAA showed no evidence as to why the original ruling was incorrect and so it sees no reason to treat this countersuit any differently than the last one. Of course, just like last time, the RIAA doesn't want this to go to court, and will likely try to settle up as quickly as possible.

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Judge Slams Florida Authorities For Bogus Toll Fines

from the it's-all-about-the-money dept

It's not just with red light cameras that local authorities are squeezing extra money out of drivers, Consumerist points us to the news that a judge in Florida has tossed out thousands of bogus toll citations, slamming both the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority and Florida Turnpike Authority for failing to deal with the fines properly. It appears that some of the fines resulted from malfunctioning toll transponders. The judge noted that this should have been easy for the traffic authorities to correct, but instead they made it a bureaucratic nightmare for those unfairly and incorrectly accused of running tolls. The judge has even gone so far as to bar the two Authorities from issuing any new citations to drivers who have prepaid or credit-card accounts -- to the point that he's instructed the court clerks in both places to refuse to accept any new citations without affidavits swearing that the offenders have no money in their accounts.

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GAO Says E-Voting Machines Not The Problem In Florida; E-Voting Experts Not So Sure

from the needs-more-testing dept

In the ongoing saga of the lost votes of Sarasota County Florida in the 2006 election, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has now come out with a report suggesting that the e- voting machines were not to blame. This comes after another report last year also said the machines weren't to blame. However, that report came under some criticism as it only involved security folks looking at the source code, rather than actually getting to test the software on an e-voting machine itself. Similarly, this new GAO report is coming under some criticism as both David Dill and Ed Felten are questioning the methodology of the GAO's tests -- which do sound rather limited. Felten points out that ES&S (makers of the machines used in Sarasota) are likely to proclaim this a vindication. However, there are still plenty of additional questions -- and, most importantly, the very fact that it's been so difficult to verify how the voting turned out shows just how problematic these machines can be in managing a democratic election that the populace can trust to be both fair and accurate.

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Bad Week For E-Voting Machines; Florida Follows California In Issuing Report About Security Holes

from the anyone-else? dept

E-voting firms aren't having a particularly good week. Just days after research commissioned by the state of California showed vulnerabilities in many e-voting systems, a study commissioned by the state of Florida found serious security issues with Diebold's optical scan technology. While the article suggests that this is one of the first times the security has been questioned on optical scan machines (where there is still a paper trail, but these machines are used for counting the votes), there have actually been numerous studies pointing out the problems with Diebold's optical scanners, and how they can easily be hacked. Of course, what's amusing here is that some of the first tests that found the problems with Diebold's optical scanners were done two years ago by a "rogue" elections official in Florida. Of course, back then, the state of Florida didn't launch an immediate investigation. The state hung the elections official, Ion Sancho, out to dry, as the e-voting companies cracked jokes about the vulnerability and teamed up to conspire against him. So, now, years later, we find out that the security vulnerabilities he pointed out then are actually there is anyone apologizing? Doesn't sound like it. In fact, it sounds like Florida politicians are downplaying the security problems with these machines.

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