Okay, this is really dumb. What is it about state attorneys general making totally bullshit claims? It seems to happen with fairly consistent frequency. The latest is that four state AGs (from Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma and Nevada) have filed a lawsuit to stop the IANA transition. If you don't recall, we've written about this a bunch. A bunch of people are up in arms over something they don't seem to understand. The IANA transition is a good thing. It's not the US government handing over the internet to Russia and China as you may have heard. It's the Commerce Department severing an almost entirely symbolic link between it and a very specific internet governance capability concerning top level domains. And it's important to complete the transition because other countries (including Russia and China) keep pointing to this symbolic link as a reason for why they should have more say in internet governance. Getting rid of the link keeps the internet functioning as it has for decades -- and takes away a weapon from Russia and China. More importantly, going back on the transition now actually gives even more ammo to Russia and China, allowing them to point to unilateral actions by the US gov't to block a process that everyone had agreed upon earlier.

Anyway, to the actual lawsuit. It's dumb. It's really dumb. If you live in Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma or Nevada, you should be embarrassed for your Attorneys General. Elect better ones next time, please. First of all, they have no standing whatsoever to file this lawsuit. The IANA/top level domain system is not those states. They have no claim here other than "HEY LOOK! POLITICAL FOOTBALL THAT WE CAN GRANDSTAND OVER!" That does not give them standing. The best they can come up with for claiming standing is... uh... "hey, we have some websites." No, really.

Plaintiffs operate multiple websites, including those that use the .gov and .com generic top level domains, to conduct their business and communicate with their citizens.

Yeah. That's not enough to get standing here, buckos. Also, in filing a lawsuit they don't allege any actual harms. That's kind of a big no no when filing a lawsuit. Instead, they sorta maybe kinda speculate that maybe possibly their could (sorta, maybe) be some (possible, maybe, not really) harm in the theoretical future. Maybe.

Second, the entire crux of the lawsuit is that the authoritative root zone file and the internet domain name system itself are somehow "property" of the federal government, and that this transition is, in effect, the giving away of government property without an act of Congress, violating the Property Clause of the Constitution. Except, as we just discussed recently, the Government Accountability Office studied this issue earlier this month and came to the conclusion that "nope, it's not property." In case you missed it then:

It is unlikely that either the authoritative root zone file—the public “address book” for the top level of the Internet domain name system—or the Internet domain name system as a whole, is U.S. Government property under Article IV. We did not identify any Government-held copyrights, patents, licenses, or other traditional intellectual property interests in either the root zone file or the domain name system. It also is doubtful that either would be considered property under common law principles, because no entity appears to have a right to their exclusive possession or use.

Others have walked through some of the other charges and find them all totally lacking. A judge is set to review this request for an injunction later today, and you never know how any individual judge might rule. So it's entirely possible that this will muck up the timing of the transition, but long term, this filing is not just a joke, but it's an embarrassment and a waste of taxpayer money in those four states.

Really. What the hell? Does law enforcement just perceive the Fourth Amendment as damage and route around it?

Detective Harold Zech and Lawrence Spathelf didn’t have probable cause to search the homes of Albert McCullough and Dakeem Booker, so they made their own. They phoned in “anonymous” tips to McCullough’s and Booker’s parole officers, who searched their [homes] and found some heroin.

It's not as though the Fourth Amendment is that difficult to comply with, especially considering law enforcement can avail themselves of all of the following to avoid having to obtain a warrant:

- Good faith exception

- Exigent circumstances

- Motor vehicle exception

- Plain view

- Plain hearing

- Plain smell

- Consent

And yet here we are, seeing two cops masquerading as the most reliable and honest of anonymous tipsters. You know, except for the part where they covered up the fact that they were cops.

The bust was fun while it lasted. 963 bags of heroin, two handguns, and a couple of perps. None of that matters now because the Fourth Amendment was just too much of a hassle.

This sort of dishonesty has happened often enough that there's a term for it.

[T]he law is clear that police cannot use parole agents as an arm of law enforcement to initiate a search to get around the stricter probable cause standard they must meet, Mr. Sheppard and other attorneys said. Multiple appellate courts ruled that practice, known as a “stalking horse,” illegal.

The two horses called in tips twice, resulting in searches of two residences. Despite costing them a nice drug bust and successful prosecution, both the DA (Shane Scanlon) and the Chief of Police (Carl Graziano) are defending not only the faux tipsters' actions, but their work as law enforcement officers as well.

“Do I think in any way, shape or form this was an effort to be dishonest or an intentional act? I don’t,” Mr. Scanlon said. “I think it was an attempt to comply with the stalking horse law that was just done wrong."

Hmm. "I tried to comply with the speed limit but did it wrong." "I tried to comply with restrictions on the distribution of Schedule 1 substances but somehow screwed it up. Am I free to go?"

Yes, the officers did exactly the opposite of what the law forbids. That is indeed "wrong." But to shrug off the deliberate nature of their actions is asinine. The pair never identified themselves as law enforcement officers which means they knew they were violating something, even if they were unclear on the legal specifics. There was no "effort to comply." Just dishonesty and the hope that the ends would justify the means, as the police chief inadvertently implies in his defense of his employee.

“His goals and intentions, along with all other members of the Scranton Police Department, is to remove violent criminals and drug traffickers from the streets of Scranton while at the same time staying within the lines of current case laws and acceptable procedures,” Chief Graziano said in an email.

There was no "staying in the lines" here. Just two officers wandering outside of the confines of the law to expedite a process that likely could have been handled in accordance with the Fourth Amendment. It may have required more time and effort, but certainly wasn't an impossibility.

Citizens may not be pleased that two drug dealers will go unpunished. But they should be equally displeased the two officers who undid these convictions haven't even suffered the brief indignity of a paid vacation for their actions. As civil rights attorney Barry Dyller points out, this tells other law enforcement officers that there are zero consequences for bending the rules.

“The commonwealth and DA have a duty not merely to convict, but a duty to seek justice,” Mr. Dyller said. “If there is no consequence for those officers, it’s a signal to other officers it’s not the end of the world if you cut corners. ... For every time someone is caught, there has to be 100 times when they are not.”

Then there's this depressing statement from the DA, which clearly shows how much faith and deference his office extends to law enforcement.

Mr. Scanlon said as far as he knows, Mr. Booker’s and Mr. McCullough’s cases are the only two where this has happened. He acknowledged he has not done any research to determine if there are other cases.

Chances are, Scanlon still has yet to do any research. Why go looking for information that might disprove your bold, unresearched statements? Why give the other side that much more ammo when defending the accused? Better to stay on this side of the blue line and avoid biting the hand that feeds you criminal cases.

The endless battle against videogame piracy is mostly composed of Pyrrhic victories and self-sabotage. The suckers who actually paid for the software tend to receive most of the abuse while pirates not only avail themselves of hefty discounts, but games uncrippled by mechanisms meant to defeat them.

PC gamers who have gotten their hands on a copy of Forza Horizon 3, an open-world racing game, are finding that the game's DRM is turning their high-speed thrill rides into far less entertaining slideshows.

According to a post on the official Forza Motorsport subreddit, a user by the name of dkhavilo discovered that his CPU performance was being heavily consumed by something called EFS while playing the VIP Access version of Forza Horizon 3. EFS, otherwise known as Encrypting File System, manually forces Forza Horizon 3 to constantly de-crypt relevant files during normal gameplay – a mammoth task for a driving game based around exploring an open world environment at breakneck speeds. The game is simply too big and too complicated for the DRM software to keep up, even on platforms featuring a Solid State Drive compared to the traditional Hard Drive storage systems, and as a result Forza Horizon 3 runs like shit for all but the most ridiculously powerful home computers.

It just wasn't enough for the software to "phone home" upon boot up, or perform periodic checks in places where it might not inconvenience players as much -- like menu screens or online lobbies. Instead, it appears the EFS-based DRM is decrypting nearly every single asset the software uses during gameplay. Players with decent gaming computers are reporting frame rates as low as 10 FPS -- not exactly the sort of thing that helps convey a sense of speed.

This is happening to players who wanted to experience the game before its general release. $20 gets players "VIP" access… and a host of DRM issues. And that's just an add-on. The game is only available in bundled editions that run from $60-100. That's a lot to shell out for a game that thwarts pirates by becoming unplayable for paying customers.

The company has responded, but in less than useful fashion.

We are aware of in-game stuttering issues that have been reported by the community on certain configurations on PC. We have some performance improvements coming in the next update, but in the meantime if you're having problems we would recommend to try to allow the game to set the default video settings to see if it improves your experience.

So much for the advantages of PC gaming. Build a rig to your specifications and company reps tell you to use bog-standard settings to keep from being tripped up by anti-piracy and anti-hacking asset checks. If gamers wanted a one-size-fits-all gaming experience, they'd have settled for the console version. And there's no guarantee that will work. The problem has been linked to on-the-fly decryption of game assets, which isn't going to be solved in all cases by using default video settings.

There's a fix on the way but it's tough to see how the developers are going to get around built-in asset checks that run through Windows EFS. There's no easy "switch" to turn that off. While I understand developers are concerned about software piracy and cheaters/hackers ruining the online experience of honest players, there's simply nothing to be gained by irritating those who've spent perfectly functional money on deliberately-broken software.

For dozens of years, criminal prosecutions have relied on junk science. Forensic science, properly applied, can actually provide matches that identify suspects. But it's not properly applied. In the hands of the DOJ, forensic evidence examination is a closed loop. Outside scientists have been granted access to the DOJ's DNA work, but everything else -- from fingerprints to hair samples -- has been locked away in the government's database.

Still, the DOJ insists its science is solid, something it bases on confirmation bias. The matches determined in its forensic labs are "scientifically certain" because the DOJ's expert witnesses have said so in court. Not only are outside scientists locked out of examining evidence and forensic processes, but defense lawyers are as well.

The DOJ has finally decided to dial back its "scientific certainty" a bit by issuing guidance instructing its experts to not make this claim in court. This follows years of bogus matches being presented as sure things by forensic experts in court, leading to an unknown number of false convictions. This step back is a step forward for an agency that is mostly unwilling to admit to any mistakes or wrongdoing.

This small change is likely due to a damning report [PDF] issued by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) that asserts that the "scientifically certain" evidence prosecutors rely on is severely flawed.

The questions that DNA analysis had raised about the scientific validity of traditional forensic disciplines and testimony based on them led, naturally, to increased efforts to test empirically the reliability of the methods that those disciplines employed. Relevant studies that followed included:

• a 2002 FBI re-examination of microscopic hair comparisons the agency’s scientists had performed in criminal cases, in which DNA testing revealed that 11 percent of hair samples found to match microscopically actually came from different individuals;

• a 2004 National Research Council report, commissioned by the FBI, on bullet-lead evidence, which found that there was insufficient research and data to support drawing a definitive connection between two bullets based on compositional similarity of the lead they contain;

• a 2005 report of an international committee established by the FBI to review the use of latent fingerprint evidence in the case of a terrorist bombing in Spain, in which the committee found that “confirmation bias”—the inclination to confirm a suspicion based on other grounds—contributed to a misidentification and improper detention; and

• studies reported in 2009 and 2010 on bitemark evidence, which found that current procedures for comparing bitemarks are unable to reliably exclude or include a suspect as a potential biter.

Beyond these kinds of shortfalls with respect to “reliable methods” in forensic feature-comparison disciplines, reviews have found that expert witnesses have often overstated the probative value of their evidence, going far beyond what the relevant science can justify. Examiners have sometimes testified, for example, that their conclusions are “100 percent certain;” or have “zero,” “essentially zero,” or “negligible,” error rate. As many reviews—including the highly regarded 2009 National Research Council study—have noted, however, such statements are not scientifically defensible: all laboratory tests and feature-comparison analyses have non-zero error rates.

Despite these conclusions, law enforcement forensic scientists, along with the FBI and DOJ are promising to continue using junk science to convict people. The Attorney General's response to the report is basically, "Thanks for all the hard work, but we're not changing a thing."

In a statement reported by the Wall Street Journal, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said that the agency remains “confident that, when used properly, forensic science evidence helps juries identify the guilty and clear the innocent, and the department believes that the current legal standards regarding the admissibility of forensic evidence are based on sound science and sound legal reasoning.” As such, she said, while “we appreciate their contribution to the field of scientific inquiry, the department will not be adopting the recommendations related to the admissibility of forensic science evidence.”

The FBI's response [PDF] is no more enthusiastic. Its one-page blast claims the entire PCAST report is flawed. It also asserts there are "multiple studies" that back up its forensics work. However, the FBI turned down an invitation to participate in the PCAST study and one of the PCAST members points out that the studies the FBI claims contradict the PCAST findings actually do no such thing.

Asked about the FBI’s complaints, Eric Lander, co-chair of the presidential council and president and founding member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, a biomedical research group, told The Intercept that the FBI is mistaken. “Neither report says that proficiency testing be used to estimate the ‘error rate’ of forensic methods,” he wrote in an email, and both reports agree that examiners should be subject to proficiency tests. And Lander said he is “not aware” of what studies the FBI believes were ignored by the report. “We specifically received FBI’s input on studies to consider and we did so.”

[...]

Lander wrote that the presidential council did in fact review the six studies the FBI complains that it missed. “However, these studies are clearly not empirical studies ‘providing support for foundational validity,'” he wrote. “Indeed, only one of the papers even reports an empirical study of current forensic method at all!”

But the most defensive response [PDF] to the PCAST study has come from the American Congress of Forensic Science Laboratories. Unsurprisingly, the group isn't pleased that its conclusions and methodology have been questioned. Before addressing the shortcomings it feels the study contains, the ACFSL first tries to claim the whole thing is just a politically-motivated attack on the good people in law enforcement.

Interestingly, the PCAST report comes during a presidential administration that has demonstrated a deep sensitivity to the needs and demands of trial attorneys, criminal defendants, and advocates of sweeping criminal justice reform. Future administrations may take a different approach, tending to champion positions traditionally held by police and prosecutors. We have no opinion in these matters. But these swings in ideological perspective cause commensurate changes in how forensic science and its role in our criminal justice system are perceived. In the current political climate, forensic science is looked upon with far more suspicion and, in some cases, disdain than would be the case in other political circumstances. And because forensic science is both expected and apt to remain independent of these political currents, it is vulnerable to being misportrayed and even bullied in a way that compromises its occupational stability.

It's somewhat interesting that a field where evidence has been used to deprive innocent people of their freedom -- and whose courtroom assertions are treated as nearly-unassailable despite a long history of uncorrected errors -- can somehow be bullied by a report both the DOJ and FBI have already indicated they're going to ignore.

It also attacks some of the contributors for their work with the Innocence Project (Eric Lander) and their previous assertions about the intrusiveness of DNA collections (Tania Simoncelli) -- all the while claiming it has no interest in "disparaging" the authors of the study. Even in this, the forensic scientists' sample size is way too small. Attacking Lander for his Innocence Project work conveniently overlooks his considerable contributions to the scientific community.

[Innocence Project's Chris] Fabricant said the congress’ assertions were absurd. “To suggest that the leading scientists in the country would cash in their credibility to do – what? What possible agenda could they be pursuing except scientific validity?” he asked. “I’d like to know what agenda they propose is being driven, and how somebody like Eric Lander – who mapped the human genome — is going to preside over a process that is intended to undermine the criminal justice.”

These responses indicate business -- as lousy and inaccurate as it is -- will continue as usual until the DOJ is forced to confront these issues, either by litigation or legislation. Not exactly heartening news for citizens who don't like being locked up for crimes they didn't commit.

Have you hit up our super-early holiday gear sale yet? Because you've only got until Monday, and then it's all going away for the rest of the year! Of course, there has been some debate about what exactly our designs mean. Since Teespring lets us superimpose our gear onto a parade of photogenic models, I figure we'll let force them to do the talking, with speech bubbles! So if you're confused, prepare to be enlightened:

Nerd Harder is available on T-shirts, hoodies, mugs and stickers »

Takedown is available on T-shirts and hoodies »

Home Cooking Is Killing Restaurants is available on T-shirts, mugs and stickers »

Math Is Not A Crime is available on T-shirts, hoodies, mugs and stickers »

Vote2016() is available on T-shirts, hoodies and stickers »

The sale ends on Monday! Hurry up and order your gear today! »

While politics isn't generally a topic we dive into around here, technology policy and issues certainly are. And, since presidential election cycles infect every conceivable topic like a wine stain spreading across your favorite couch, we've talked about the two mainstream candidates quite a bit recently. And I get the complaints from all sides against both candidates, but it's become somewhat breathtaking to watch Donald Trump build a campaign in large part on nonsensical and easily debunked conspiracy theories, such as how the planned internet governance transition will cede control of the web to China and Russia, or that our current sitting President might be a secret communist Muslim clay-person, but maybe not.

And, of course, there is the constant claim of victim-hood at the hands of that damned liberal establishment, which now apparently includes Google. Some background for you is in order. Over the summer, a really dumb video went viral after claiming to show that Google was manipulating autocomplete searches to keep any bad press out of the results for searches about Hillary Clinton. Compared with Bing, for instance, Google's autocomplete failed to finish off a search for "Hillary Clinton cr" with "Hillary Clinton crimes", instead completing as "Hillary Clinton Crimea." While your drunk uncle lost his goddamned mind over a conspiracy surely proven, Google chimed in to note that it specifically designed its autocomplete feature to keep disparaging results from anyone's name, not just Hill-Dog's. This was easily shown by putting in "Donald Trump cr", which likewise autocompleted as "Donald Trump Crimea."

And that really should have been the end of that. But, because Donald Trump's campaign isn't one to pass on a good chem-trails story, its candidate tried to deflect a general panning of his debate performance by repeating this already disproved accusation.

While discussing polling numbers at a rally in Wisconsin on Wednesday, Donald Trump offhandedly accused Google of manipulating search results in favor of rival Hillary Clinton, because hey, why not?

“The Google poll has us leading Hillary by two points nationwide,” said Trump. “And that’s despite the fact that Google’s search engine was suppressing the bad news about Hillary Clinton, how about that? How about that?”

I'm always reminded of a supposed quote from Michael Jordan back in the 90's when a reporter asked him why he didn't endorse political candidates, despite such an endorsement being so potentially powerful. His response was supposedly something along the lines of: "Because Republicans buy gym shoes, too." Imagine for a moment if Google, in the business of making money essentially by getting as many people as possible to use its search engine, decided to alienate roughly half of the American population by trying to dick around with search results for a political candidate. It would literally have to hate money to take such an action. Anyone think that Google hates money?

And, separately, I know that politicians generally lie, and have for quite some time, but it used to be that a candidate for president wouldn't simply be able to say something easily refuted and get away with it. I don't mean refuted in a murky way that can be debated. This conspiracy theory that Trump is continuing to raise has been debunked. It isn't a real thing. Yet he continues to repeat it. Some in the media may even call him out on the lie, but those that do will be accused of liberal bias and the whole thing will feed the playback loop.

This can't be a good method for picking our national leaders.

Journalists and citizens attending this week's Presidential debate at Hofstra Univserity found themselves facing an unexpected surprise when they were informed that WiFi at the event would cost them $200. Worse, perhaps, was that attendees said that the college was going around using this $2,000 WiFi signal detector to identify those using their smartphone as a mobile hotspot, and encouraging them to instead shell out the big bucks for a few hours of Hofstra WiFi:The behavior caught the eye of FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, who proclaimed on Twitter that there's "something not right" with what Hofstra was doing, and that it potentially violated FCC rules: Several times over the last few years, the FCC has fined hotel and conference center companies for willfully blocking users' hotspots from working, forcing them to shell out exorbinant rates for conference center WiFi. The crackdown began with Marriott in 2014, which initially tried to fight the fine before realizing it was outnumbered by regulators, annoyed consumers, and even companies like Microsoft. The FCC subsequently fined Hilton for similar behavior, as well as for actively obstructing the FCC's investigation into what Hilton was doing. Several smaller conference center WiFi companies have been fined by the FCC as well.

The difference in this instance is that Hofstra wasn't actively jamming personal hotspots in the same way conference centers have. And when pressed for comment, Hofstra representatives laid the blame for the $200 price tag at the feet of the Commission on Presidential Debates. They also claim they worked to shoot down people's personal hotspots out of fear that they might cause interference with the existing network:

"The Commission on Presidential Debates sets the criteria for services and requires that a completely separate network from the University’s network be built to support the media and journalists. This is necessary due to the volume of Wi-Fi activity and the need to avoid interference. The Rate Card fee of $200 for Wi-Fi access is to help defray the costs and the charge for the service does not cover the cost of the buildout.

For Wi-Fi to perform optimally the system must be tuned with each access point and antenna. When other Wi-Fi access points are placed within the environment the result is poorer service for all. To avoid unauthorized access points that could interfere, anyone who has a device that emits RF frequency must register the device. Whenever a RF-emitting device was located, the technician notified the individual to visit the RF desk located in the Hall. The CPD RF engineer would determine if the device could broadcast without interference."

While interference is certainly real, it's not particularly likely that a user's personal tethered hotspot would grind the Hofstra network to a halt if properly designed. Regardless, Rosenworcel says she has urged the FCC Enforcement Bureau to take a closer look at whether debate staffers went too far. Regardless of the outcome, Rosenworcel is probably happy to have her name in print for something other than her failure to support the FCC's quest for cable box competition, a position fueled largely by inaccurate claims by the US Copyright Office.

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A few weeks ago, CNN had a story on how a jury failed to convict Peter Wexler, an unemployed IT worker, who had been arrested and spent nearly a year in jail (without bail) for writing some mean stuff on his blog. He was literally arrested for five blog posts (which came with 20 criminal charges, as they had multiple charges on each post) and was facing up to 15 years in jail for those posts. Ken "Popehat" White blogged briefly about it, noting that it was a huge First Amendment win in a case where the defense team included one of his partners, Caleb Mason (along with lawyer Marri Derby, who was appointed by the court to represent Wexler through the Criminal Justice Act). It's also a case that involved... me. I was an expert witness in the case, brought in to explain to the jury the nature of internet discourse, including how trolls quite frequently say outrageous things to get attention, and how it's (for better or worse) not that uncommon to see people post angry rants on the internet, or to talk about how certain people should die, or to photoshop famous people into weird scenarios.

I've avoided writing about the case up until now, mostly because of my involvement. And since Wexler was found not guilty on some charges, while the other charges resulted in a hung jury (the jury foreperson said that they voted 8 to 4 to acquit on those other charges), there's a chance there may be a second trial. So recognize that it's a case that I may still have future involvement in -- and where I'm choosing my words carefully (the prosecutors in the case tried to take some of my posts on Techdirt out of context to attack my credibility, and it's possible that could happen again -- though I will admit to some confusion over being asked, twice, on the stand if I consider myself "an advocate for internet freedom," as if that were a bad thing).

What I will say is that I was asked to review Wexler's blog -- and while I certainly don't agree with much of what he wrote there, I didn't see anything that seemed out of character in many internet forums. Much of it seemed straight out of 4chan's /pol/ honestly. Wexler cheered on ISIS beheadings and cop shootings. He blasted US politicians and US policy both at home and abroad. He's not a fan of the mainstream media. He's not a fan of any "establishment" politician, and would mock them all, while cheering on both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. In short, he had opinions and he expressed them, sometimes angrily and in ways that were clearly designed to get people to react. At one point, responding to the news that the online troll Joshua Goldberg had been arrested (a story we wrote about, in part because of my own interactions with Goldberg), Wexler declared himself to be an "ISIS SUPPORTING ONLINE TROLL" (echoing the language being used to describe Goldberg): Even an FBI special agent, Voviette Morgan, noted to others in the Bureau that "everything we have reviewed to date [on Wexler's blog] falls into the category of First Amendment protected speech." But the FBI still sent some agents to visit him. And that led him to post some fairly angry rants against the FBI and the FBI's top agent in Southern California, David Bowdich (who has since moved up to a new position in DC), including the one in the image above.

After a few more posts calling out Bowdich, and photoshopping him into a variety of images -- including taking a picture of a Bowdich press conference and overlaying a forearm and hand holding a gun pointing at Bowdich, overlaying a target on Bowdich's face in a press shot, and photoshopping Bowdich into a still from an ISIS beheading video (something that Wexler did with other people, including Brian Williams and Ben Carson, which the FBI also seemed to think was protected speech), Wexler was arrested, with the charges focusing on his posts about Bowdich, and arguing that statements like what he says above about how he wants "to shove my Fat Man Gadget up David Bowdich's limpwristed West Los Angeles ass, and I intend to!" should be seen as a legitimate threat on Bowdich's life (anyone know what a Fat Man Gadget is?).

Wexler then spent basically the last year in jail for a bunch of angry blog posts, without even the option of being bailed out allowed. There were a number of other issues at play in the trial, some of which I may get to in a future post, but I was there to just explain the nature of online trolling, and how what Wexler said -- while certainly distasteful, and perhaps offensive -- was hardly out of the ordinary in certain online communities, and how many people in those communities recognized that kind of shitposting for what it was, and would laugh at those who "fell" for such extreme and offensive statements. I got to explain 4chan and trolling and even the creation of memes (yes, I explained rickrolling to a jury). I discussed numerous examples of similar blog posts, tweets, Facebook posts and forum posts. I highlighted numerous examples of people declaring publicly that some public figures (and some not so public figures) should be executed. I talked about (and showed examples of) politicians calling for the death of Hillary Clinton. I talked about photoshopping and photoshopping contests -- including ones that involved photoshopping targets or First Person Shooter-style overlays onto images of people. I showed many examples of famous people having targets overlayed on their images.

Basically, I showed the simple fact that in some corners of the internet, posting crazy offensive stuff is pretty commonplace, and it rarely means they're actually planning to go out and do anything. I don't know how useful my testimony was, though the fact that Wexler was not convicted and is now free from jail at least suggests it did not hurt the case. I recognize that what Wexler was saying on his blog is stuff that many people find offensive -- but if what he said was a crime, then a hell of a lot of people spouting off online are criminals too, and I'm pretty sure that's not how the First Amendment is supposed to work.

Once the case is really over, there are some other elements of the case that I'd feel more comfortable discussing, but for now, since a few people had asked about it, I did want to share this part of the story. A guy just spent nearly an entire year in jail because he blogged some (admittedly extreme) things in expressing his anger over the state of things in the world today. I may not agree with Peter Wexler's views on most of those things, but it seems like he should have the right to express himself on a blog without being thrown in jail for a year (or much longer).

Last year, Chicago proudly declared that the city would be expanding its 9% amusement tax (traditionally covering book stores, music stores, ball games and other brick and mortar entertainment) to online streaming services and cloud computing. While Chicago was hungrily pursuing the $12 million in additional revenue the expanded tax would provide, it ultimately faced a lawsuit questioning the legality of Chicago's move. The ongoing lawsuit by the Liberty Justice Center claims Chicago violated city rules by not holding a full vote on the changes, and is violating the Internet Freedom Tax Act.

Legal or not, Chicago's push to impose a Netflix tax has opened the floodgates.

Earlier this year, the Pennsylvania legislature expanded the state's 6% sales tax to cover digital downloads and subscription services like Netflix and Hulu -- but also music, e-books, apps, online games, and ringtones. And now Pasadena, California, has joined the fun, applying its own 9.4% tax on streaming video providers such as Netflix, HBO Go and Hulu. In fact, Pasadena is one of 46 total California cities that are rushing to embrace the tax to help shore up city budget shortfalls. But much like Chicago, there are a number of groups ready to sue over the move, claiming these cities don't have the authority:

"Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, called the tax “very suspect.” The association’s legal team is currently investigating the legality of the new interpretation of the tax.

"We will be taking a very close look at this,” Coupal said. “If we determine this is an extension of an existing tax, then under the Constitution, they need voter approval. They can put as much lipstick on this pig as they want, but the pig is still a tax increase."

Pasadena, however, says that city laws have always provided it with the authority to tax cloud-based services:

"Pasadena’s Finance Director Matthew Hawkesworth made his determination Thursday that the tax applies to video games and streaming services similar to cable “regardless of the content of such video programming, or the technology used to deliver such services,” according to a memo to City Manager Steve Mermell.

"It’s our interpretation because of our code, these types of video services have always been eligible to be taxable," Hawkesworth said. "The administrative ruling is instructing the various companies that offer video service that the tax includes their services as well, and it will be incumbent upon them to collect the tax and remit it to the city."

The efforts to tax all cloud services are creating an absolute legal minefield over determining exactly where a cloud-based transaction is taking place, when to apply said tax, and who intends to collect it. Who pays sales tax when an app developer in New York relies on a cloud computing provider in New Jersey, and sells to customers in Illinois? Nobody appears to know and the answer may differ state by state. But one thing's for sure: lawyers certainly won't be going to bed hungry as cities rush to cash in on the rise of the internet video revolution.