Appeals Court To Cops: There's Nothing Inherently Suspicious About Running From The Police

from the here's-the-payoff-for-abusing-the-public's-trust-repeatedly dept

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has just handed down a refresher [PDF] on a few legal issues, most notably what is or isn't "reasonable" when it comes to suspicion. Police officers thought an anonymous tip about a man carrying a gun and someone running away from them created enough suspicion to chase down Daniel Brown, stop him at gunpoint, and search him for contraband.

Contraband was found, leading to Brown's motion to suppress. The lower court said this combination -- an anonymous report of a gun and Brown's decision to run when he saw the police cruiser -- was reasonable enough. Not so, says the Ninth Circuit, pointing out the obvious fact that a person carrying a gun can't be inherently suspicious in a state where carrying a gun in public is permitted.

In Washington State, it is presumptively lawful to carry a gun. It is true that carrying a concealed pistol without a license is a misdemeanor offense in Washington. See RCW §§ 9.41.050(1)(a) (“[A] person shall not carry a pistol concealed on his or her person without a license to carry a concealed pistol . . . .”), 9.41.810 (explaining that any violation of the subchapter is a misdemeanor “except as otherwise provided”). However, the failure to carry the license is simply a civil infraction.

There was no reason for officers to assume Brown's gun was unlicensed. Since carrying a gun in Washington is "presumptively legal," the officers would have needed more info than they had to perform a stop to just to ask Brown for his carry license. The anonymous tip officers received said only that a YWCA resident had approached the desk and said they'd seen a man with a gun. No further information was given by the tipster.

Faced with the weakness of the tip and the presumptive legality of gun ownership, the police then argued Brown might have been illegally "displaying" his gun to "cause alarm." But the court denies this argument -- first raised on appeal -- as being no better than assuming Brown's mere gun possession was enough to justify a stop.

Faced with this reality, the government now argues that the officers suspected that the manner in which Brown was carrying his gun was unlawful: it is “unlawful for any person to carry, exhibit, display, or draw any firearm . . . in a manner, under circumstances, . . . that warrants alarm for the safety of other persons.” RCW § 9.41.270. Never mind that nothing in the record could support such a finding. No evidence shows that the resident was alarmed at the time she reported seeing the gun. There is no report that she yelled, screamed, ran, was upset, or otherwise acted as though she was distressed. Instead, the 911 call reported only that the resident “walked in” and stated “that guy has a gun.”

Finally, the government argued that Brown's decision to flee when he saw police officers was inherently suspicious. Again, the court says this is wrong. While fleeing officers can be suggestive of wrongdoing, it is only one factor and it's one heavily influenced by the deteriorated relationships many law enforcement agencies have with the communities they serve. The Ninth Circuit quotes Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who put this in his dissent from the Court's 2000 decision in Illinois v. Wardlow:

Among some citizens, particularly minorities and those residing in high crime areas, there is also the possibility that the fleeing person is entirely innocent, but, with or without justification, believes that contact with the police can itself be dangerous, apart from any criminal activity associated with the officer’s sudden presence.

The Appeals Court adds to this, saying not much has improved since Justice Stevens authored his dissent:

In the almost twenty years since Justice Stevens wrote his concurrence in Wardlow, the coverage of racial disparities in policing has increased, amplifying awareness of these issues. [...] Although such data cannot replace the “commonsense judgments and inferences about human behavior” underlying the reasonable suspicion analysis, Wardlow, 528 U.S. at 125, it can inform the inferences to be drawn from an individual who decides to step away, run, or flee from police without a clear reason to do otherwise. See id. at 133 (“Moreover, these concerns and fears are known to the police officers themselves, and are validated by law enforcement investigations into their own practices.” (footnote omitted)).

Attached to this paragraph is a footnote quoting the DOJ's investigation of the Seattle Police Department -- the one involved in the arrest at the center of this case. The 2011 report found the Seattle PD routinely deployed "unnecessary and excessive force" and engaged in "racially discriminatory policing."

The court goes on to say this isn't just a problem with the Seattle PD, but law enforcement in general, which gives plenty of people all the reason they need to dodge interactions with law enforcement.

Given that racial dynamics in our society—along with a simple desire not to interact with police—offer an “innocent” explanation of flight, when every other fact posited by the government weighs so weakly in support of reasonable suspicion, we are particularly hesitant to allow flight to carry the day in authorizing a stop.

The public isn't obligated to stop just because an officer says, "Stop." In this case, the officers said nothing until Brown was already running. Lots of people have zero interest in talking to the police. Some don't want the hassle. Most don't enjoy the experience. And some suspect they'll probably end up arrested or dead, even if they haven't done anything wrong. If law enforcement doesn't like the way this decision breaks, it really can't blame anyone else for the public's reaction to the unexpected presence of officers. Even the tipster said she didn't want to talk to an officer because, according to the YWCA rep speaking to the dispatcher, she "[does not] like the police." Running from cops isn't inherently suspicious. Far too often, running from cops just makes sense.

Filed Under: 9th circuit, daniel brown, police, probable cause, reasonable, running from the police

We're Apparently Scanning Our TVs For Viruses Now

from the internet-of-broken-things dept

We've noted for many years that (like so many "internet of things" devices) modern smart televisions have the security protection equivalent of damp cardboard. Not only are they often easily hacked (something intelligence agencies are super excited about since it gives them audio access to targets), but the companies that make them have been busted repeatedly for hoovering up user usage data (and even audio from your living room), and then failing to adequately secure it.

This week, Samsung took a bit of heat for urging the company's TV customers to, for the first time, occasionally run an antivirus scan on their television sets. The Tweet was online online briefly before Samsung deleted it, apparently realizing it only advertised the fact that you shouldn't be getting viruses on your TV set in the first place:

That's amusing for several reasons. One, because customers wouldn't be getting viruses on their television sets if these products had even the most basic security protections, something TV vendors have failed at for years. Two, because it highlights how many modern televisions have become insanely complicated. Not because consumers necessarily want them to be insanely complicated, but because most TV vendors want you using their embedded streaming platforms and as opposed to a third-party streaming device (like Roku, Chromecast, or a game console).

And of course they want you using their streaming platforms because they want to monetize your viewing and other profitable data. As a Vizio executive recently acknowledged, this can help subsidize the cost of cheaper TV sets. That creates a dilemma whereby the consumer is forced to pay a premium if they want a TV set that simply displays a god-damned image and doesn't hoover up their personal data:

The problem is if you've shopped for a TV lately, it's effectively impossible to find a "dumb" television that simply passes on signal from other devices. As in: they're simply not available at any meaningful scale, even if you were willing to pay a significant premium for them. Many people certainly are; most embedded TV OS platforms are kind of terrible, and users would rather buy a new streaming box (Roku, Chromecast, Apple TV) every few years than be forced to buy an entirely new TV set because the embedded streaming hardware becomes outdated (something TV vendors clearly would benefit from).

While some set vendors might argue that dumb televisions don't exist because there's no market demand for them, the fact is they haven't even bothered to try. And they haven't bothered to try because they're fixated on accelerating the TV upgrade cycle and collecting and selling your personal usage data to a universe of partners. Which again, might not be quite as bad if these companies had done a good job actually securing and encrypting this data, or designing television OS' that didn't feel like they were barfed up from the bowels of 1992 GUI design hell.

It's all kind of a silly circle dysfunction but pretty standard operating procedure in the internet of broken things era, where an endless list of companies now sell over-hyped internet-connected appliances, gleefully collect and monetize your data, but can't be bothered to adequately secure that data or provide consumers with clear options to avoid data collection entirely.

Filed Under: computer security, iot, security, smart tvs, viruses
Companies: samsung

Prenda Mastermind Gets 14 Years In Prison, Told To Pay Back Just $1.5 Million

from the welcome-to-the-big-leagues dept

The process may have taken forever, but Paul "welcome to the big leagues" Hansmeier, who was the apparent mastermind behind the Prenda copyright trolling scam has finally been sentenced to 14 years in prison, and told to repay $1.5 million to 704 victims of his scam. We've been covering the actions of Hansmeier and his partner in crime, John Steele, going back many, many years now. None of us have the time to recount all of the many scams they've pulled, but they took copyright trolling to new lows. They tried using Florida's "pure bill of discovery" rules to try to abuse the system to get names to shakedown based on IP addresses. They sent totally unqualified and unprepared "associates" into courts to try to hide their own involvement in cases, they abused the CFAA by pretending movies they uploaded themselves were "hacked" in an attempt to get around restrictions on copyright trolling, they got someone they threatened to sue to basically take a dive in order to get access to other people to shake down (and then they went after that guy anyway). Oh, and then there was the whole thing about setting up their own fake movie production house, creating their own porn films to upload themselves, and then pretending in court that they were not the owners of the company in questions. And we don't even have much time to get into the time Steele tried to forge the signature of his housekeeper to pretend he was the actual officer of one of those fake shell companies.

Over and over and over again, Hansmeier and Steele played every possible game with a single focus in mind: getting names of people to send threatening shakedown letters to. And, apparently, they took in about $6 million over the years -- though a bunch of civil cases have forced them to cough up plenty of that before the criminal charges came down.

And there is no indication that Hansmeier had any regrets about all of this. Even after his arrest, he (and his wife) engaged in an analogous scheme of ADA trolling, looking for small businesses who might technically violate the ADA, and demanding cash from them to avoid a lawsuit. Hansmeier is facing an investigation over that as well.

Oh, and then there was the whole bankruptcy fraud thing. Seriously, the list goes on and on and on and everytime you think you remember it all, you're reminded of some other really sketchy thing Hansmeier and Steele did.

So it should probably come as little surprise that the judge in the case was not impressed, and even said he considered giving him even more time in jail:

"It is almost incalculable how much your abuse of trust has harmed the administration of justice," [Judge Joan] Ericksen said during the sentencing hearing in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis.

[....] Ericksen said she considered going beyond sentencing guidelines but decided instead to impose the maximum of that range, followed by two years of supervised release. She ordered Hansmeier to pay restitution, calling it a conservative toll for his crimes. While the amount of money is significant, she said, "that's not even a major part of the harm" he'd done with his scheme.

"The major harm here is what happens when a lawyer acts as a wrecking ball," Ericksen said.

She did actually sentence him to longer than the DOJ requested, but only said he has to pay back $1.5 million, as that's the amount they apparently received after they started posting torrent files themselves in order to track down people to shake down.

John Steele's sentencing is still to come, though, unlike Hansmeier, Steele actually started cooperating much earlier, meaning it's likely that he'll get a somewhat shorter sentence.

As I said years ago, Steele and Hansmeier remind me of some people I've met over the years who basically seem to think that they can talk their way out of anything, and thus lie and scam with impunity, and when caught, just keep thinking they can talk their way out of that as well. In this case, it finally caught up to them.

Filed Under: cfaa, copyright, copyright trolling, fraud, jail, paul hansmeier
Companies: prenda, prenda law

Huawei Now Using Patent Claims To Demand $1 Billion From Verizon, As The US Tries To Chase Huawei Out Of The US Market

from the patent-trade-wars dept

This one combines a few stories that we've covered a lot over the years, showing how they're intersecting. For some time now we've been covering the US's evidence-free attacks on Huawei, the Chinese telco equipment giant. Basically, for years, there have been stories insisting that Huawei is too closely linked to the Chinese government, leading to fear mongering stories saying that the company should be effectively barred from the US. However, multiple attempts to find security flaws in Huawei's products have failed to show any kind of backdoors, and the fact that US-based Huawei competitors often seem to be making the loudest noises about the Chinese giant should raise some eyebrows.

The other story we've covered a lot is around China and patents. For years and years, US companies (and policymakers) would go on and on about how Chinese companies didn't respect US patents, and demanding that China "must respect our IP." As we've highlighted for years, the Chinese government realized a decade or so ago that since the US kept trying to apply diplomatic pressure to "respect patents," China realized it could just start using patents as an economic weapon. The number of patents granted in China started to shoot up, and (surprise surprise) suddenly in legal disputes, Chinese companies were using patents to block American competitors. And the US couldn't really complain since it was the US that demanded China "respect patents" so much.

Just a few weeks ago, we noted that China was gearing up to respond to Donald Trump's ignorant trade war by using patents against US companies.

Put it all together, and it should be no surprise at all that Huawei is now demanding $1 billion from Verizon for patent infringement.

Verizon is reportedly using equipment through other companies that relies on Huawei patents covering core networking gear, internet of things technology and wireline infrastructure. Verizon and Huawei representatives met last week in New York to talk about whether the gear could infringe on Huawei patents, Reuters said.

"These issues are larger than just Verizon," a Verizon spokesman told Reuters. "Given the broader geopolitical context, any issue involving Huawei has implications for our entire industry and also raises national and international concerns."

The US government walked right into this. For years it's been demonizing Huawei without evidence, while at the same time demanding that China respect patents. So, of course, it opened itself right up to Huawei now claiming patent infringement against US companies. Even better, it's over third party gear. US policymakers can't seem to think more than a single move ahead, because it was fairly obvious how all of this would play out years ago, and yet they walked right into it.

Filed Under: china, patents, surveillance, telco equipment, trade war
Companies: huawei, verizon

Comcast Forgets To Delete Evidence It's Using Evil Fansubs In Its Streaming Service

from the oops dept

The war on fan-made subtitles waged by the entertainment industry has been going on for a long, long time. While fansubs could, and probably should, be viewed as a potential boon to the entertainment industry, allowing those in far-flung lands to suddenly enjoy its products, fansubs have instead been painted as an aid to pirated content overseas or, in some cases, as copyright infringement themselves, given that they essentially copy parts of the content scripts.

If nothing else is clear as a result of this introduction, it should be that major industry players absolutely hate fansubs.

... Except when they can make use of them, apparently, as Comcast-owned Swiss broadcaster Sky had been found using fansubs in its streaming service in the dumbest way possible.

Subscribers of the local Sky platform who watch the last episode of the hit series Chernobyl, with English subtitles enabled, see the following message appearing around the five-minute mark.

“- Synced and corrected by VitoSilans – www.Addic7ed.com.”

Addic7ed.com is a fansub site. Asked for comment, reps for the site said they didn't care at all that Sky was using their work. Instead, they claim to have started the site to get content out to more people so that specific language wasn't a barrier to enjoyment. Still, it must have been at least slightly jarring to see Sky essentially forget to strip out Addic7ed's signature for its own work. Using someone else's work as one's own by way of copying it is about as close an analogy to copyright infringement as one could get.

Sky, meanwhile, ain't talking.

Sky Switzerland hasn’t responded to our request for comment at the time of publication. Whether the Addic7ed credit was left in intentionally is highly doubtful though. It seems more likely that someone forgot to remove it.

In any case, the mention hasn’t gone unnoticed either. At least one person has alerted Sky via Twitter, but the company didn’t respond there either.

It's the hypocrisy here that's worth highlighting, because the industry regularly rails against fansub sites and here is a member of that industry using them in its own product.

Filed Under: copyright, fansubs, streaming
Companies: comcast, sky

Daily Deal: True Wireless Fitness Bluetooth Headphones

from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept

Listen to your favorite music or podcasts for longer, with fewer distractions thanks to these True Wireless Bluetooth Fitness Headphones. These are some of the smallest and most lightweight earphones on the market. They're ergonomically designed to sit comfortably in and around your ear so you can jog, hit the gym, or do your daily commute without having to worry about them falling out. They're on sale for $45.

Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

Filed Under: daily deal

Once More With Feeling: There Is No Legal Distinction Between A 'Platform' And A 'Publisher'

from the stop-pushing-this-nonsense dept

Alexis Madrigal, over at the Atlantic has a mostly interesting piece recounting the history of how the big internet companies started calling themselves platforms. The history is actually pretty fascinating:

There was a time when there were no “platforms” as we now know them. That time was, oh, about 2007. For decades, computing (video games included) had had this term “platform.” As the 2000s began, Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle proposed “the web as a platform,” primarily focusing on the ability of different services to connect to one another.

The venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, then the CEO of the also-ran social network Ning, blasted anyone who wanted to extend the definition. “A ‘platform’ is a system that can be programmed and therefore customized by outside developers,” he wrote. “The key term in the definition of platform is ‘programmed.’ If you can program it, then it’s a platform. If you can’t, then it’s not.” My colleague Ian Bogost, who co-created an MIT book series called Platform Studies, agreed, as did most people in the technical community. Platforms were about being able to run code in someone else’s system.

This was Facebook’s original definition of its product, Facebook Platform, which allowed outside developers to build widgets and games, and extend the core service. In the years before 2016, nearly all of Mark Zuckerberg’s public references to Facebook as a platform were technical, about connecting with developers.

Amusingly, this actually reminded me of articles I had written over a decade ago, talking up why Google and Facebook needed to become a new kind of internet platform -- which I meant in the same manner as Madrigal describes above and which most people talking about "platforms" meant in the mid-aughts. It meant a system on which others could develop new applications and services. I have to admit that I don't know quite how and when the world switched to calling general internet services "platforms" instead, and I'm just as guilty of doing so as others.

I have two quick thoughts on why this may have happened before I get back to Madrigal's piece. First, many of the discussions around these big internet companies didn't really have a good descriptive term. When talking about the law, things like Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act refer to them as "interactive computer services" which is awkward. And the DMCA refers to them as "service providers," which is quite confusing, because "internet service provider" has an existing (and somewhat different) meaning, as the company who provides you internet access. Ideally, those company should be called "internet access providers" (IAPs) rather than ISPs, but what's done is done. And, then of course, there's the equally awkward term "intermediary," which just confuses the hell out of most non-lawyers (and some lawyers). So "platform" came out in the wash as the most useful, least awkward option.

And if Madrigal's piece had just stuck with that interesting historical shift, and maybe dug into things like I did in the previous paragraph, that might be really compelling. Unfortunately, Madrigal goes a step or two further -- and one that goes right up to the line (though it doesn't totally cross it) of suggesting that there's some legal significance to calling oneself a platform. This is something we've seen too many reporters do of late, spreading a false impression that internet "platforms" somehow get magic protections that internet "publishers" don't get.

As we've explained there is literally no distinction here. Usually people are making this argument with regards to CDA 230's protections, but as we've discussed in great detail that law makes no distinction between a "platform" and a "publisher." Instead, it applies to all "interactive computer services" including any publisher, so long as they host 3rd party content. Madrigal's piece doesn't call out CDA 230 the way others have, but, unfortunately, his piece absolutely can be read in a misleading way to suggest that there is some magical legal distinction here that matters. Specifically this part:

This new rhetorical device wasn’t just for press releases, but also for ginning up business and creating a legal architecture.

Uh, what "legal architecture"? Again, CDA 230, the key law in this area, makes no special distinction for "platforms." There was no need for a "rhetorical device" to consider yourself protected (and there still isn't). Nothing in calling oneself a platform set up any legal architecture, no matter how many ignorant people on Twitter claim it is so. Unfortunately, someone who has already heard that false claim is likely to read Madrigal's piece as a confirmation of that incorrect bit of info.

So, let's be clear, once again and state that there is no special legal distinction for "platforms," and it makes no difference in the world if an internet company refers to itself as a platform, or a publisher (or, for that matter, an instigator, an enabler, a middleman, a gatekeeper, a forum, or anything). All that matters is do they meet the legal definition of an interactive computer service (which, if they're online, the answer is generally "yes"), and (to be protected under CDA 230) whether there's a legal question about whether or not they're to be held liable for third party content.

Some people may want the law changed. And they may think that "internet platforms" should require some specific rules and regulations -- including silly, unenforceable ideas like "being neutral," -- but that's got nothing to do with the law today, and any suggestion that it does is simply incorrect.

Filed Under: cda 230, intermediary, neutrality, platform, publishers, section 230
Companies: facebook, google

Shockingly, Cable TV and Broadband Customer Satisfaction Is Still The Worst In America

from the ill-communication dept

Every few years or so, giant cable and broadband companies like Comcast will proclaim that they've finally seen the light, and will be spending time shoring up their terrible customer service. Like a few years ago, when Comcast proclaimed it had hired a "Customer Experience VP" who would finally make addressing the company's historically terrible customer service a top priority. CEO Brian Roberts also can be found at least once a year claiming that the company is going to finally address the problem by hiring better people, improving support systems, and generally revisiting the company's policies.

But year after year, big cable and broadband companies fail to deliver. Case in point: the latest American Consumer Satisfaction Index was recently released, and ISPs and cable providers continue to see the worst customer satisfaction scores in America. These companies are so bad at what they do, they're routinely bested by even everybody's favorite punching bag: the IRS. When it comes to broadband service on a scale of 100, both Comcast and Charter (Spectrum) continue to see the worst scores in an already terrible sector:

"Internet Service Providers didn’t fare any better than cable companies with the overall industry ratings at the same 62. The only three ISPs with rankings above the average are Verizon FiOS (70), AT&T Internet (69) and Altice (63). At the bottom of the rankings are Frontier (55), MediaCom (56), and Windstream (57). The big cable companies don’t fare well as ISPs – Charter (59) and Comcast (61)."

Things are equally bad on the cable TV front, where despite the rise of competition from streaming providers, incumbent cable ops still can't seem to figure out this whole "treating customers with respect" thing. While most hated industries (airlines) rank in the 70s and more popular brands (Amazon) reach the 80s, cable TV remains struggling in the 50s and 60s:

In the TV sector, the emergence of streaming video has offered consumers some reprieve. Streaming providers like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon routinely rate much higher in customer satisfaction because they give consumers what they've been screaming for for years: lower prices and more flexible channel bundles. Ultimately, cable operators will be forced to actually compete on price, but they're apparently waiting until countless millions of their paying customers have fled to greener pastures before actually seriously overhauling their business models. Still, competition in the TV space is rising either way.

The broadband space is less promising. With no meaningful regulatory oversight and little competition, there's really no incentive to improve customer service or offer a better product in most markets. The focus remains on growth for growth's sake (megamergers) and scale, without scaling customer service in symmetry. The end result should be fairly obvious, given the broadband sector ranks worse than a long list of widely despised sectors like the airline, banking, and insurance industries. That kind of accomplishment requires some serious, sustained elbow grease and the kind of monopoly myopia money simply can't buy.

Filed Under: broadband, cable tv, customer satisfaction
Companies: at&t, charter, comcast, frontier, spectrum, verizon, windstream

Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the "the-discourse" dept

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is PaulT responding to a comment that offered a partial defense of ICE with a reminder about human rights:

"On the other hand, they are breaking the law and know that"

For a lot of immigrants, this is the better choice. Break the law or face certain death/rape/starvation? You'd be a lawbreaker too.

"They are also not US Citizens with the guaranteed protection of the Constitution"

If you think that you need the protection of the US constitution to get basic human rights, that says more about you than the people in the cells.

In second place, we've got That One Guy who pushed back a bit on one of our recent examples of content moderation fails:

Of all the times not to include the 'If you can't read/see the tweet it says' bit...

The 'offending' tweet in question:

'If gay people are a mistake, they're a mistake I've made hundreds of millions of times, which proves I'm incompetent and shouldn't be relied upon for anything.'

"And it's not difficult to see how a random content moderation employee would skim a tweet like the one flagged above, not recognize the context, the fact that it's an attempt at satire, and flag it as a problem."

No, it really is hard to see how someone could read that and not realize it was satire/humor. The only way it could have been more obvious is if they opened it with 'THIS IS SATIRE' in bold.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with an anonymous comment that expands on the first place winner above, since that left out other important point:

Even if it were, the Constitution is mostly a series of statements about what the government must, can, and cannot do. Rarely does citizenship enter into it.

The portions of the Bill of Rights that say that the government cannot do what they're currently doing (the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Amendments, from what I can see) do not qualify their statements: 5 protects a "person," 6 protects "the accused," 7 and 8 merely state what the Government is not allowed to do under any circumstances.

Next, we've got a comment from Cory Doctorow, who dropped by to underline his call for interoperability in tech:

Not forced interop...adversarial interop

To be clear, I'm not (merely) advocating for forced interop (that is, some kind of API mandate), I'm ALSO advocating for an absolute legal defense for "adversarial interop" that would apply to claims under patent, anti-circumvention, tortious interference, EULA/CFAA violations, etc:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is Anonymous Anonymous Coward, who aimed to resolve the question of whether Democrats or Republicans are correct in their hatred of CDA 230:

They're both wrong

Independents blame CDA 230 for causing Republicans and Democrats.

In second place, we've got radix who is understandably less than sanguine about Google's new Stadia service:

10 Google half-asses a new service
20 Few people use it
30 Google cancels the service that few people were using
40 goto 10

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with Stephen T. Stone's simple reaction to Tom Brady's trademark shenanigans:

Now I see why Donald Trump likes the guy: They’re both morons.

And finally, we've head to our post about the court that decided planning to get a warrant was as good as having one. One commenter suggested maybe this "planning to" thing could work as a defense in court too, but this anonymous commenter had a better idea:

Don't even let the situation get that far.

'I swear, officer. I was planning on slowing down before I got in range of your radar.'

That's all for this week, folks!

This Week In Techdirt History: June 9th - 15th

from the then-and-now dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, James Clapper finally admitted that the number of documents Ed Snowden took was probably a lot less than the much-bandied 1.7-million figure, while various former intelligence officials were not happy about Clapper's gag order on talking to the press. A new report examined the reactions to the Snowden leaks from governments around the world, and we noted one big positive result was companies being less ready to help the NSA. But agency defenders were still telling lots of lies, Mike Rogers was calling Google unpatriotic for opposing spying on its users, and we awaited a key vote in congress that would reveal how much it valued people's privacy.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, the Swedish Pirate Party surprised everyone by winning a seat in the EU parliament for Christian Engstrom, who used the attention to explain the party (and its name) to an often-confused press. Amidst the push for fashion copyright some smart designers were realizing it would be a bad thing, Bad Science's Ben Goldacre tore apart a bogus study about file sharing, and a UK ISP boss was trying to explain to the industry that it needs to give up on trying to stop all piracy. In France, the consitutional council gutted the recently-passed three strikes program, video game companies were still whining about used game sales, and we saw the beginning of another notoriously silly copyright dust-up when an Australian music publisher claimed Down Under by Men At Work was a copy of the children's song Kookaburra.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, people were cluing into the huge learning benefits for kids who use computers — and the fact that over-obsession with "internet risks" can undermine these benefits. We took a look at how being prevented from using a cellphone sparks extreme anger in some, but is embraced as a nice break by others. Television was trying to figure out how to embrace and/or compete with broadband, while the RIAA was complaining that digital broadcasts would make radio too high-quality, and that would be bad. And after a brief flurry of trading with some people shelling out hundreds of dollars for the hyped new email service, Gmail invites flooded the market and tanked the price.

Filed Under: history, look back