The Miami-Dade Police Department has decided to drop its wide-area surveillance plan in the face of public backlash. The MDPD tried to slip it past residents and the county government by claiming the acquisition of a secret spy plane was too important to be done properly.

Documents submitted by the commission, first reported by New Times last Thursday, showed that MDPD has already applied for a $500,000 Department of Justice grant to begin testing the program. The department claimed the deadline to apply for the grants had allegedly been too pressing to wait to notify the public, and so County Mayor Carlos Gimenez's office applied for the DOJ money without first getting public approval.

A classic case of asking forgiveness rather than permission, coupled with a deliberate attempt to circumvent the part of the process that would have caused the most problems for the MDPD's surveillance plans: the public's comments.

Once the document was posted publicly, the backlash began, led by a number of rights groups including the ACLU and the Defending Rights and Dissent Foundation. The surveillance system sought is repurposed Iraq War tech: a high-powered camera system mounted on an airplane that proponents and opponents both describe as a "DVR for real life." Capable of capturing a 32-square-mile area, the cameras don't provide much in terms of close-up detail, but do allow law enforcement agencies to track people's movements over a several hour period, whether in real-time or by replaying recordings.

As the Miami New Times reports, the MDPD has offered no justification for this expansion of its surveillance powers. Apparently, the new surveillance tech was supposed to sell itself, what with most of the cost being offset by a $500,000 DOJ grant. Just as disturbing is the fact that so few county lawmakers questioned the acquisition, even after being made aware the MDPD had already applied for the grant without running it by them first.

Fortunately, the plan is now dead. The MDPD may still want its eye in the sky, but its top official has decided he won't go against the public's will... for now.

[A]fter New Times broke news of the plan two weeks ago, MDPD Director Juan Perez announced in an email to the American Civil Liberties Union today that he's scrapping the program.

"There is some good news on the horizon for you," Perez told ACLU Florida Director Howard Simon at 10:20 a.m., according to a copy Simon sent New Times. "I am scrapping the project, but would like to get your opinion on the matter."

The ACLU is obviously pleased with this decision, but still hasn't heard from the MDPD director whether this includes trashing its DOJ grant request, or whether this grant money might be still be used to purchase other surveillance gear the public won't know about until it's on the doorstep of approval.

The good news is the public's voice was heard, if a little after the fact. The invaluable reporting by the Miami New Times was instrumental in mobilizing opposition, something good journalism has a tendency to do. The real test of the MDPD's new outlook will be when the next opportunity to buy up surveillance gear with federal grants arrives. Hopefully, it will seek out public comment first, rather than only react when the backlash becomes too much to ignore.

With the ubiquity of social media presence in people's daily lives, the past few years has seen the rise of concern over people's privacy of their social media accounts, as well as concern over how content shared on those accounts could be used against the account holder. In America, this commonly breaks mostly into concerns about prospective employers reviewing social media accounts during the hiring process and how government reviews social media accounts for law enforcement purposes. While there are real concerns to be had in both cases, however, it's useful to be reminded that there are places where it is so much worse. Useful in that it's good to be reminded what privacy advocates are fighting to keep us from. Such as death.

In Pakistan, the government there has reached the unfortunate milestone of sentencing its first ever person to death over content he put on Facebook.

On Saturday, 30-year-old Taimoor Raza became the first person to receive a death sentence in a Pakistan anti-terrorism court for "using derogatory remarks ... in respect of the Holy Prophet" on social media.

Amnesty International's Pakistan campaigner, Nadia Rahman, said in a statement the conviction set a "dangerous precedent."

"No one one should be hauled before an anti-terrorism court or any other court solely for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief online," she said.

While the rules and laws of countries vary greatly, it should be an uncontroversial stance to state that no person should be sentenced to death over what amounts to speech and thought. Even those confused into thinking that supporting multiculturalism requires the absence of a moral stance on whether criticism of any particular faith ought to come with any punishment whatsoever must be capable of acknowledging that death sentences ought not be on the table for consideration. But, should someone want to argue that point, it should at least be understood that these kinds of laws pretty much have abuse of the law baked into them.

A 2016 report by Amnesty International found the laws are "open to abuse" and anyone who is accused is usually presumed to be guilty, leaving them open to mob retribution. There were 91 blasphemy cases concerning the Prophet or his companions registered between 2011 and 2015, the report said.

Specific blasphemy laws which punished perceived insults to Islam were introduced between 1980 and 1986, during a period of martial law under the military government of General Zia-ul-Haq. They were never removed once martial law ended.

The genesis of these laws should tell you all you need to know about their virtue, which is to say they have none. It also demonstrates the fear that regimes of this kind have in regards to the sort of wide-ranging communications tool that Facebook represents. This all comes down to controlling thought within the citizenry out of fear of a change in social opinion, which would deprive that regime of the power it wields so perniciously. With that in mind, actions taken by governments of this kind deserve the broadest and harshest condemnation, and damn well ought to weigh on foreign policy as well.

Put more simply, if governments, including America's, can't take a stand against death sentences over Facebook posts, it cedes the moral high ground to an astounding degree.

Under the guise of fighting sex trafficking, legislators have been offering up a slew of bills that will make things much worse for plenty of people not involved in this heinous crime. Elizabeth Nolan Brown, who is the go-to expert on all sorts of government abuse done in the name of sex-trafficked children, has tallied up the current stack of legislative paperwork floating around the halls of Congress. Spoiler alert: it's a lot.

So far this year, federal lawmakers have introduced more than 30 bills related to "sex trafficking," which many in government now define to mean all prostitution. This week alone brought three new efforts. And following the familiar pattern of the drug war, these measures mostly focus on giving federal law enforcement more "tools" to find, prosecute, and punish people for actions only tangentially, if at all, connected to causing harm.

Currently, the forerunner for "worst" is one that makes a mockery of federal wiretap statutes. The laws governing government eavesdropping have been modified over the years with an eye on protecting something even more sacrosanct than someone's home: someone's private conversations. Wiretaps are only supposed to be used for felonies -- dangerous, possibly life-threatening criminal activities. They're supposed to be issued only when law enforcement has exhausted all other options and subjected to strict oversight to prevent their abuse. (Note: what's supposed to happen and what actually happens are two very different things.)

What they're not supposed to be used for is small-time stuff -- misdemeanors and other low-level, non-dangerous crimes. But that's exactly what legislators are hoping to do: expand wiretap authority to cover the consensual exchange of money for services.

One such measure would expand state and local government authority "to seek wiretap warrants in sexual exploitation and prostitution cases" (emphasis mine) and mandate the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institute of Justice conduct a "study on the long-term physical and psychological effects of the commercial sex trade." It would also give the Department of Homeland Security a mandate to develop protocols "for implementation across federal, state, and local law enforcement" on how to screen people "suspected of engaging in commercial sex acts" for the possibility that they have been trafficked. The screening process would also be applied to people suspected of working in violation of any labor regulations, including occupational licensing rules.

Combine this new authority with government officials' natural tendency to name-and-shame anyone involved with consensual sex work and you've got a whole can of wiretapped worms just waiting to be exploited for maximum public damage. Add to that the underlying assertion that sex work is some sort of illness that must be studied by the CDC and, presumably, "remedied" by even more ridiculous, harmful legislation.

And no one really wants to see the DHS getting involved in local vice cases. The DHS has already proven it knows almost nothing about securing the homeland. Asking it to dip into prostitution busts is basically asking for widespread rights violations, especially if this activity takes places in the so-called "Constitution-Free Zone," which covers areas where a large majority of the US population resides.

Also included: more federal targeting of customers and a potential to add "hate crime" sentencing enhancements to the crime of buying sex. Brown points out the bill orders the DOJ to view buying sex as a "form of gender-based violence."

And there's more, which hardly seems possible. Prostitutes could possibly be legally considered "criminal street gang members" under proposed legislation. And some bills would allow the government to start seizing personal property if fines are not paid.

The named target is sex trafficking and the supposed beneficiaries would be children, who are kidnapped and exploited all the damn time according to stats made up out of thin air. But the real targets will be the oldest profession, which includes plenty of un-exploited sex workers voluntarily providing services to paying customers. But the end result will be a spectacular amount of collateral damage -- and that's not just limited to customers having their conversations intercepted or being hit with hate crime enhancements. The proposed legislation would also wreak havoc on the internet.

Grassley's bill cobbles together a host of changes that give federal prosecuting agencies more power. Among other things, it would create a federal mandate to fight "sextortion" (without defining what this means); ask the quasi-governmental National Center for Missing and Exploited to assist the government in identifying "misleading domain names" and "misleading words or digital images on the Internet"; and more than quadruple annual appropriations for grants related to these activities.

Starting with this premise, those caught up in these supposed anti-sex trafficking efforts will find themselves in the position of proving a negative. If the government decides you're looking for child porn or exploited children (or offering either of these) but can't find images or terminology affirming this hunch, it can still go after you for being "misleading."

These bills may namecheck sex trafficking and carry the veneer of honest law enforcement work, but underneath every one of them lies the Puritanical notion that buying and selling sex is immoral and must be punished not by God, but by the government itself.

Editor's Note from Mike Masnick: Tim alerted me that he was writing on this subject, based on the article he found in the Deseret News, and I realized that we separately needed to reveal some stuff that happened earlier this year in relation to Tim's earlier reporting on this story. As Tim mentions in the story below, he first wrote about this case in 2014 (again, based on an article he found in the Deseret News) and then mentioned it obliquely in 2015 when discussing another lawsuit, and until now, had not written about it again. Back in February, one evening, I received a knock on my front door at home, with a process server handing me a subpoena. I was... confused. The subpoena was from a lawyer, Michelle Herrera, of the very large law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, on behalf of San Diego Comic Con. I was still confused. The subpoena demanded all sorts of information from us, including any "business relationship" we might have with the people who ran the Salt Lake City Comic Con (including whether or not they held any ownership stake in our company), any communications we had ever had with the organizers of Salt Lake City Comic Con and... incredibly... "all documents concerning SDCC or any SDCC Convention."

Yes, because three years ago we had written a story -- clearly based on coverage in the Deseret News -- San Diego Comic Con was demanding that we cough up every document we have that even mentions San Diego Comic Con, while similarly implying that merely having written about a legal dispute (something we do all the damn time), it meant that we were somehow in cahoots with the folks who run Salt Lake City Comic Con -- people neither Tim nor I (nor anyone else working here) have ever spoken to in any context for any reason. Such a request, beyond being overbroad and completely misguided, is also a nuisance and a burden. At best, it appeared to be a wild and unnecessary fishing expedition. At worst, it could certainly be seen as an attempt to stifle reporting that was critical of San Diego Comic Con's litigation strategy.

It also wasted our time and resources, while at least creating something of a chilling effect in making us think twice about whether it was even worth it to publish the article below, because who knows if it will lead to another knock on my door, and more time having to talk with lawyers and whatnot.

Either way, soon after receiving the subpoena, lawyer Ken "Popehat" White, filed our response, noting that we had no responsive documents for most of it, but also objecting to the overly broad nature of the request. The key part:

With respect to request 7, seeking “All documents concerning SDCC or any SDCC convention,” Witness responds that the request is overbroad, burdensome, harassing, not reasonably calculated to lead to production of admissible evidence, and seeks documents equally available to Plaintiff. Witness operates a popular blog, Techdirt.com, that has covered legal issues surrounding technology and internet culture since 1997. Plaintiff has served this subpoena because Witness has published two posts critical of Plaintiff’s case. The public posts Witness has published about SDCC or mentioning SDCC are equally available to Plaintiff at https://www.techdirt.com/blog/?tag=comic+con or https://www.techdirt.com/search-g.php?q=comicon. It would be extremely burdensome and expensive for Witness to review 20 years of records of reporting to determine if it has any document mentioning SDCC or any SDCC convention, whether or not those documents have any relationship to this case. Moreover, Plaintiff’s motive to seek such a wide range of documents unrelated to this case is clearly to harass and retaliate against Witness for critical coverage of Plaintiff’s case. Moreover, Witness objects pursuant to California Evidence Code § 1070 that the subpoena seeks unpublished information from a publisher. O'Grady v. Superior Court, 139 Cal. App.4th 1423 (Cal. Ct. App. 2006) [Section 1070 protects online news magazine]. Witness stands on its objections and will not produce documents in response to this request.

We filed that in response and never heard another peep from San Diego Comic Con. But, Tim found this latest bit of news and wished to report on it, and we felt it necessary to waste even more time putting together this bit of disclosure about SDCC's subpoena to us. No wonder the damn case is still going. Anyway... on to Tim's post:

Nearly three years ago, we wrote about a rather silly trademark dispute between the folks that run the San Diego Comic-Con and Don Farr Productions, organizers of the Salt Lake City Comic Con. The SDCC has a registered trademark for "comic-con" and suggested that iterations such as "comic con" infringed on that trademark. We pointed out at the time that there are all kinds of comic conventions using similar or identical terms, and many had done so for many years, resulting in the term "comic con" being rendered generic. Add to that the low likelihood that anyone would actually be confused into thinking these other conventions were the product of the SDCC and this whole episode seemed head-scratchingly silly.

Except it isn't silly for those targeted by these kinds of bullying trademark lawsuits. Despite the SDCC filing its suit in the summer of 2014, I want to take a moment to point out that this legal dispute is still going on and has finally reached the deposition phase.

Co-founders Dan Farr and Bryan Brandenburg will each face a full day of deposition Tuesday and Wednesday, leading up to a final settlement conference before a federal judge in San Diego on Thursday. Following that conference, the judge will decide whether the case will continue to advance toward a trial scheduled in October. While the organizers staunchly maintain they are in the right, Brandenburg says that after investing approximately $1 million in their defense, they are ready to focus exclusively on their event.

"I would just as soon use those creative juices to really level up (the event)," Brandenburg said. "I think we've done a great job putting on great events over the past two years in spite of this thing going on, but you know, just imagine what we could do if it wasn't."

This is the largely unheralded toll that is paid when these kinds of trademark disputes arise. Sure, there is the cost of legal fees to consider, and the annoyance of having to defend themselves in court as well. But there is a cost to the public as well, paid in terms of a lack of production that would otherwise exist by the accused. When individuals or companies that are not truly infringing upon a trademark get caught up in this sort of legal web, their customers suffer along with them.

What's truly irritating about all of this is how the SDCC appears to have decided to enforce this trademark at the flip of a switch, having spent years failing to do so. The Salt Lake City folks, meanwhile, remain rather sweet in their disposition by comparison.

Brandenburg emphasized that despite the prolonged litigation, he and Farr hold no ill will toward San Diego Comic-Con but continue to admire the iconic event. He speculated that the lawsuit represents a kind of "Custer's last stand" for San Diego Comic-Con, which has dabbled for years in taking action about other events using the name "comic con," ultimately latching onto the Salt Lake event after Brandenburg and Farr drove their branded Audi to the competing event in July 2014.

In the lawsuit, the San Diego convention claims legal ownership over the term "comic con" in its various forms, though similar events around the country — including the recently renamed "Stan Lee's Los Angeles Comic Con" — have used the name for years.

The San Diego Comic-Con remains a wildly successful event. By all accounts, it is one hell of a show, one that I personally have wanted to visit for some time. It reached that level of success despite years of other conventions using some form of the "comic con" term. What harm it may have suffered that would warrant three years worth of litigation, and all of the legal costs associated with that litigation, is absolutely beyond me.

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We've covered a lot of ridiculous defamation lawsuits here at Techdirt. A ton. MANY. We like covering them so much we bought the company. But this defamation lawsuit passed on to us by Adam Steinbaugh is just baffling. Even more baffling, it's been filed with professional representation. Its attempt to fashion a libel lawsuit out of nothing bears far more resemblance to those filed by plaintiffs with fools for lawyers.

In March of last year, Jim Myers of the The Tennessean wrote an article about some staff changes at a local university's culinary arts program. If this seems like extraordinarily innocuous subject matter, you're obviously not former director Tom Loftis or his legal representation. Loftis has formally shouted "defamation" in a crowded courthouse. But his accusations aren't levied against Myers or The Tennessean, but rather against someone featured in the article: new culinary arts director Randy Rayburn.

His complaint [PDF] tries to turn Rayburn into the libelous villain by attributing things Myers wrote about Loftis and Rayburn into direct quotes by Rayburn.

On March 2, 2016, The Tennessean published an article, which is attached hereto as Exhibit A and incorporated herein by reference, under the byline of Jim Myers. The words in the article were spoken by Randy Rayburn and published by Mr. Myers in The Tennessean.

This opening assertion is then immediately proven false by Loftis' next allegations. (Emphasis mine.)

"It starts and ends on the cooking line," wrote Mr. Myers, "regardless of the talent of the chef or the quality of the wait staff." The article promoted an event called "Tennessee Flavors," purportedly the product of the Defendant, Randy Rayburn, as a benefit for the culinary arts program of Nashville State Community College.

Myers claimed to have written before about "the dearth of qualified line cooks in town, from our best restaurants to the hotels and convention centers ...." Rayburn, according to Myers, "recognized this need every day in his kitchens at the old Sunset Grill, Midtown Cafe, and Cabana, so he decided to do something about it by dedicating himself to helping build a Culinary Arts program at what used to be called Nashville Tech." These words of self-aggrandizement portray Rayburn as the savior of culinary arts from the incompetence of Plaintiff. The school had chosen to name its new facility at the former Hickory Hollow Mali in Antioch, "The Randy Rayburn School of Culinary Arts."

Reputation isn't zero-sum. Self-aggrandizement isn't defamation, even if it makes someone else look worse by comparison. And we still have yet to see any direct quotes from Rayburn -- only the columnist's impression of Rayburn and his activities.

Myers quoted Rayburn as willing to tell you "it hasn't been easy." When he sought the help of local restaurateurs and chefs to offer feedback on the program and the quality of his graduates, he was quoted, "the reports he got back weren't flattering. The program was simply turning out unqualified students."

Rayburn, "with his name on the building" chose to apply his experience in "how to cut losses and move on quickly," and "decided to get more involved."

Myers then wrote: "they started by cleaning house from the top by removing director Tom Loftis. It was a politically inexpedient move last year since Loftis was the brother-in-law of Bill Freeman who was running for Mayor at the time. If the election had gone a different way, it might have affected funding for the school."

And we still have yet to see Rayburn quote with anything more damning in it than his assessment of returned assessments. But Loftis isn't going to let facts stand in the way of a $1.5 million defamation suit.

These boastful and unseemly comments were reckless and made with a conscience [sic] indifference to the truth. No specific deficiencies were described nor was it revealed in this article whether any of the individuals about whom complaints were made had even attended the school much less graduated from it. No effort was made to determine whether these deficiencies were a function of a failure of instruction rather than an inadequacy of the individual. Among the chefs mentioned in the article were individuals who, to the knowledge of the Plaintiff, had never employed a graduate of the school.

And on and on it goes. Normally, a stupid defamation lawsuit is filed against the biggest target, be it Google or Yelp, etc., rather than the person actually engaging in alleged libel. This suit goes for the smaller target -- Randy Rayburn -- either out of spite (because Rayburn replaced Loftis and had a building named after him and appears to be better liked by local writers, etc.) or because Loftis thinks Rayburn will put up less of a fight than The Tennessean.

The motion to dismiss [PDF], filed by Rayburn's lawyer, Daniel Horwitz, does a thorough job explaining why this should be laughed out of court. It points out that Rayburn is never directly quoted -- at least not saying anything remotely defamatory -- and that the lawsuit states repeatedly that the words Loftis is bothered by were written by Myers and published by The Tennessean, neither of which are party to this lawsuit.

The problem here is Rayburn has to defend himself against these completely baseless allegations or get hit with an expensive default judgment. The best case scenario is the lawsuit being tossed as soon as a judge reviews the motion to dismiss. Unfortunately, this state has no anti-SLAPP law, so it will be extremely difficult to hold Loftis financially culpable for Rayburn's legal fees.

Hurt feelings often result in bogus lawsuits, but this one appears to be almost entirely motivated by the fact the plaintiff's successor at the university appears to be both better-liked and better at the job.

Some enterprising Colorado residents have turned a small tech panic into a stupid ballot measure. (via Free Range Kids)

Dr. Timothy J. Farnum apparently doesn't like the way his teenaged kids act. He blames this on smartphones.

"They would get the phone and lock themselves in their room and change who they were," he said.

With one of his sons, then 12, he thought the problem became bad enough to warrant taking the phone away.

"(With smartphones), the internet is always begging for your attention," he said. "The apps are all designed to addict you. ... For children, it's not a good thing."

Because parenting is hard, Farnum has decided to see if the state can't pick up his parenting slack. He has introduced a ballot measure that would ban retailers from selling phones to preteens, even indirectly. If this anesthesiologist can find 300,000 like-minded idiots willing to follow him into legislative infamy, his proposal could possibly become law.

To drum up support for his idea, Farnum has cobbled together a website that probably looks terrible on mobile devices. It certainly looks awful on the regular web.

And it's full of terribleness -- half-arguments and citation-less assertions, not exactly the sort of thing you'd expect from a board of directors composed of people with medical degrees. Here's just a few of the convincing arguments Farnum deploys:

Years from now parents will look back on our time and shake their heads and wonder how we allowed this atrocity. Allowing our children to be robbed of their carefree days of wonder, laughter, and normal natural development. Yes, they will wonder, didn't they see it?, didn't they see their children stop achieving, stop playing, stop laughing, ceasing to be free? Instead, isolating themselves in their rooms choosing soft and cushy electronic lives over their real ones. Didn't they see the damage?

Or:

Currently, parents are supposed to do everything, and the manufacturers, content and service providers, basically everyone in the whole industry gets a free pass. Parents are somehow supposed to be up to date on the current recommendations on usage from experts, and enforce these recommendations, plus guard their children everywhere they go. This is not only unfair, it is altogether impossible given the saturation of our children's environment.

Or:

The wild west free for all that we have now has left parents with little clear direction, and has caused incalculable damage to children. The American Academy of Pediatricians came out in 2000 with their recommendations, reaffirmed them in 2012, and yet parents are unaware, and children continue to be harmed.

FINALLY. A citation to something other than Farnum's gut instinct, or how the world should change to better accommodate his strained relationship with his sullen, withdrawn children. Something written by someone other than an anesthesiologist.

Or not. There's no link to these recommendations or direct quotes from any AAP report. It's as if Farnum believes you can just type something on the internet and readers are obligated to believe it.

The AAP certainly doesn't suggest legislation should take the place of parenting, no matter how Farnum skews it.

The AAP recommends that parents and caregivers develop a family media plan that takes into account the health, education and entertainment needs of each child as well as the whole family.

“Families should proactively think about their children’s media use and talk with children about it, because too much media use can mean that children don’t have enough time during the day to play, study, talk, or sleep,” said Jenny Radesky, MD, FAAP, lead author of the policy statement, “Media and Young Minds,” which focuses on infants, toddlers and pre-school children. “What’s most important is that parents be their child’s ‘media mentor.’ That means teaching them how to use it as a tool to create, connect and learn.”

What a revolutionary idea: parents engaging in the act of parenting! But if that's not for you, there's Farnum's ballot measure [PDF], which is prefaced with phrasing guaranteeing it will never be taken seriously.

WE THE PARENTS AND CONCERNED CITIZENS OF THIS MOST MAGNIFICENT STATE THROUGH FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE AND MOUNTING SCIENTIFIC DATA HAVE COME TO BELIEVE THAT SMARTPHONES ARE ADDICTIVE, HARMFUL, AND DANGEROUS IN THE HANDS OF CHILDREN.

THE MANUFACTURES AND SERVICE PROVIDERS OF SMARTPHONES HAVE CONTINUED UNABATED TO PROMOTE THEIR USE IN A RECKLESS AND WANTON MANNER, WITH NO CONCERN FOR OUR CHILDREN'S HEALTH OR SAFETY.

OUR GOVERNMENT BODIES ON ALL LEVELS HAVE FAILED TO GRASP THE LEVEL OF ADDICTION, THE SEVERITY OF THE HARM, OR THE UNMENTIONABLE STARK DEPRAVITY OF THE DANGERS.

WE AS PARENTS FIND THIS MATTER TO BE SO WIDESPREAD, SO INSIDIOUS AND OF THE VERY HIGHEST PRIORITY. NO HALF MEASURES, INEFFECTUAL EDUCATION CAMPAIGNS, NEW APPLICATIONS, OR PROMISES FROM MEGA-CORPORATIONS OF IMPROVEMENT WILL SUFFICE TO CAUSE THE GREAT CHANGE NECESSARY TO RESCUE THIS AND GENERATIONS OF CHILDREN TO COME FROM THE CARELESS AND EXPERIMENTAL INTRODUCTION OF SIMILAR TECHNOLOGIC[AL] DEVICES AND ADVANCEMENTS BY PROFIT DRIVEN CORPORATIONS.

It's pretty much a conspiracy theorist's message board post, only with some nonsensical legislation attached. The proposal would require retailers to ask customers if they're buying phones for preteens and, apparently, refuse the sale if the answer is "yes." Retailers are also required to put up signage informing customers of the new state-enforced policy and train employees to dig into the details of customers' purchases. Then they'll have to turn this information over to the state.

(4) RETAILER SHALL VERBALLY INQUIRE ABOUT THE AGE OF INTENDED PRIMARY OWNER PRIOR TO COMPLETING THE SALE OF ANY SMARTPHONE.

(5) RETAILER MUST DOCUMENT THE RESPONSE OF PURCHASER AND KEEP A RECORD OF THIS RESPONSE.

(6) RETAILER MUST FILE A MONTHLY REPORT TO THE DEPARTMENT THAT PROVIDES A LISTING OF:

(a) THE TYPE OF PHONE THAT WAS PURCHASED EITHER SMARTPHONE OR CELLULAR

(b) THE AGE OF THE INTENDED PRIMARY OWNER AT TIME OF PURCHASE

This is a really disturbing addition, as it places smartphone sellers under a more pervasive form of regulation than sellers of other age-controlled items like alcohol, cigarettes, and porn. And it makes no sense at all to maintain these records, as the proposal contains no avenue of state recourse against parents who lie to retailers about the cellphone recipient's age.

Retailers who violate the law face steadily-increasing fines, starting at $500 and topping out at $20,000. Retailers are given an "affirmative defense" to use when accused of violating the law, but can only use this defense twice in a 24-month period. And it's not really an affirmative defense. It's really nothing more than a statement of compliance with mandated sales policy changes that can be used to shield the retailer from fines if it's determined to have violated the law.

Finally, to cap off the nonsense this is, Farnum's own site presents this contradictory argument:

It absolutely is a parents right to choose how to raise their child. But it is also our American parents right to form an alliance together and try to make manufacturers and service providers accountable for the mess they have created.

It is a parent's right to choose. Here's some legislation taking that choice away! And some sort of plan to collect reparations from local retailers for the evils perpetrated on society by manufacturers. Somehow this proposal managed to survive the scrutiny of state ballot officials, which doesn't say much for their judgment skills.

Back when Verizon first began expressing interest in pivoting from broadband duopolist to media and advertising, you might recall that it launched a short-lived technology blog named Sugarstring. Sugarstring quickly made headlines for all the wrong reasons however, after it was revealed that Verizon was banning any new hires from writing about hot-button subjects like net neutrality, or the fact that companies like Verizon and AT&T are now bone-grafted to the nation's intelligence and surveillance apparatus.

Sugarstring is long-since dead, replaced in large part by Verizon's acquisitions of Yahoo and AOL, which also brought Huffpo, Engadget, and Techcrunch under the Verizon umbrella. And while Verizon itself has been busy using fake reporters to blatantly lie about the company's ongoing role in killing net neutrality, there's no indication (yet) that the company has pressured any of its own news outlets to quiet down on the subject. In fact, we've noted previously that some of the best reporting on net neutrality in recent months has originated at TechCrunch (this piece in particular is worth a read).

But while Verizon hasn't yet tried to get its own news outlets to quiet down on net neutrality, other now-Verizon-owned companies that used to be very active on the subject have gone dead quiet. Case in point: Tumblr, which was an integral ally in the SOPA/PIPA fight and an outspoken protector of net neutrality, is now utterly radio silent as FCC boss Ajit Pai attempts to kill the popular consumer protections. Insiders at the company this week expressed their concern to the Verge that Verizon is pressuring CEO David Karp to keep his mouth shut on the subject:

"Now, multiple sources tell The Verge that employees are concerned that Karp has been discouraged from speaking publicly on the issue, and one engineer conveyed that Karp told a group of engineers and engineering directors as much in a weekly meeting that took place shortly after SXSW. “Karp has talked about the net neutrality stuff internally, but won’t commit to supporting it externally anymore,” the engineer said. “[He] assures [us] that he is gonna keep trying to fight for the ability to fight for it publicly.” Karp did not respond to four emails asking for comment, and neither Yahoo nor Tumblr would speak about the matter on the record."

Granted Karp may just have toned down the company's rhetoric voluntarily to avoid ruffling feathers during the transition. And obviously any time a smaller company gets acquired by a larger conglomerate (especially from the historically droll and stodgy telecom sector) you'll see a major culture shift that often isn't for the better. Still, Verizon's positions on subjects like net neutrality are so hostile, Tumblr employees have grown increasingly uneasy in recent weeks, which could lead to an exodus of talent at the company:

“Some of our previous stances on issues that are really important to Tumblr employees and its community are being silenced,” said the former employee. “We've been really noisy about things like net neutrality in the past. We asked the new Head, Simon Khalaf, about it in an all-hands a few weeks ago and he said it was ‘not his problem’ and ‘above his pay grade.’” A current employee and another former employee corroborated this account."

It's unfortunate to have lost Tumblr's voice in the net neutrality fight, especially given that other industry giants like Google and Netflix have similarly gone mute on the subject, leaving consumers and small businesses increasingly alone in fighting for something vaguely resembling an open and healthy internet. And while you'd like to think Verizon is above trampling the editorial independence of former AOL and Yahoo news outlets, Verizon's Sugarstring experiment should make it pretty clear that ham-fisted attempts at censorship aren't exactly out of character for the telco.

For now, however, Verizon appears content to try and use entirely fake journalists like "Jeremy" to spread misinformation on net neutrality, as evident by this recent, comically misleading video by the company:

This one is clearly no surprise at all, given that -- as we wrote about just a couple days ago -- Bob Murray and his company Murray Energy were threatening John Oliver with a SLAPP suit if Oliver's satirical report about the coal industry was used to "defame, harass, or otherwise injure Mr. Murray or Murray Energy." Of course, Oliver's report did no such thing... but, alas, Murray has now sued Oliver, HBO, Time Warner... and the writers of the story. The lawsuit was filed in West Virginia state court. In my original post, I suggested it might be filed in Ohio, where Murray Energy is headquartered, but it does also have operations in West Virginia as well. Either way, as with Ohio, West Virginia is a state with no anti-SLAPP law.

Unfortunately, I don't have the full lawsuit. The Daily Beast, which first wrote about the case has chosen -- for whatever reason -- not to post the document, which is pretty lame. However, having watched the John Oliver piece multiple times, I can't see how any of it comes anywhere even remotely near defamatory. It falls into a variety of clearly protected categories, including opinion, satire and rhetorical hyperbole. The idea that there were materially false and defamatory statements that were put forth knowing they were false (or with reckless disregard for the truth) is laughable. There is no way that this lawsuit succeeds -- but, as we've been pointing out -- that's not really the point of most of these kinds of lawsuits. SLAPP lawsuits are designed to create a chill on free speech, by making that speech costly. Obviously, HBO/Time Warner can afford this, and have access to great lawyers, so there's almost no chance that Murray wins the lawsuit, but that's not the point. It will still cost money and lots of time to deal with the lawsuit and that's a hassle.

Murray Energy put out a bizarre statement that does little to support the idea that Murray has an actual case here:

The false and defamatory statements in this broadcast severely and destructively impact Mr. Murray, and all of Murray Energy, particularly our Mines in the State of West Virginia, where we are the largest coal mining employer in the State, as well as coal mining itself, one of the primary foundations of that State's economy.

Murray Energy filed this lawsuit, in part, in order to protect these lives and family livelihoods from the further damage by people who do not want to see coal mined, and want all of those lives destroyed, and will stop at nothing, including lying and fabrications, to accomplish their goal.

This is... laughable if you actually watched the Oliver segment, which is clearly standing up for the workers in these mines, but pointing out how the interests of the bosses -- such as Bob Murray -- are often different than the workers, and highlights a few examples of employees of Murray Energy not appreciating the way Bob Murray ran the company and treated the employees. Similarly, disparaging coal mining itself (which the Oliver report really doesn't even do) is not, in any way, defamatory.

The Daily Beast -- while not posting the complaint -- did get Ken "Popehat" White's opinion on it:

“Overall I’d say it appears frivolous and vexatious,” he said. “Any core of merit is buried in nonsense.”

“It does arguably cite one or two statements (like the bit about earthquakes) that could possibly be defamatory, since they involve fact,” he said. “But for the most part the section describing the purportedly false statements is rambling and semi-coherent, mixing fact with opinion and insult.”

As White notes, the defendants will likely get the case removed to federal court, which should be fairly easy, as there's diversity with most or all of the defendants being in New York, not West Virginia. Of course, it also depends which federal court they remove the case to -- but in some sense, it won't matter at all for anti-SLAPP purposes, since New York (the most likely other destination) has a very weak anti-SLAPP law and it would be tough to apply it here.

So, once again, we can only hope that out of this stupid situation, John Oliver will now become a proponent of much stronger anti-SLAPP laws. If his staff is looking into that issue, I'd be happy to point them to lots and lots of useful experts and resources on anti-SLAPP laws. It's a big issue (that we're living through ourselves) that needs more attention -- the kind of attention that John Oliver is now uniquely positioned to help bring to it.

Remember CETA, the "Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement" between the EU and Canada? After years of on-off moments, including one last burst of uncertainty in March of this year, it finally seemed that everything had been settled, and that the deal would soon come into force. But it turns out that there is another, hitherto-unsuspected problem -- cheese:

Canada's CBC reported on its website that plans to have CETA (the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement) in place on 1 July were "threatened by a new cheese dispute". It said Europeans were upset at how Canada would allocate import quotas for new EU products, including 18,000 additional tonnes of cheese that Canada has agreed to import tariff-free.

Euractiv has all the details of the problem, which turns out to be bickering over how EU cheese producers will share that new tariff-free allowance. That's just last-minute haggling, and presumably will be solved with some appropriate sticks and carrots on both sides of the Atlantic. But an earlier report on the same site indicates there are deeper issues with CETA that remain unresolved:

In France, 110 MPs have demanded the opinion of the Constitutional Council on the legality of CETA. A ruling is due this summer. And Belgium, whose calls for additional guarantees had led to a confrontation with Brussels, has promised to take its concerns to the Court of Justice of the European Union in the coming weeks.

Most recently, it is France's new President Emmanuel Macron who has put the issue back on the negotiating table, promising in the last days of his presidential campaign to set up an expert committee to examine the CETA agreement before ratification.

The last one of these is particularly problematic. Macron has adopted a surprisingly muscular style in his first few days as French President, most famously in his handshake with Donald Trump, and won't want to be seen backing down from his promise to seek expert scrutiny of CETA before ratification. Looks like there's life in that cheesy CETA saga yet.

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