Adrian Lopez 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (52) comment rss

  • On the post: Federal Court Says Wichita PD’s ‘Gang List’ Is Possibly Unconstitutional

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 09 Feb, 2024 @ 09:53am

    "Either the expressive conduct (i.e., the wearing of a Phillies hat to funeral) was supposed to express that the plaintiffs were, in fact, members of gangs, or it was no expression at all."
    So the court believes that a Phillies hat cannot be worn to express anything other than gang affiliation, if it expresses anything at all? It is a strange hat indeed that can only express one thing, and it just so happens to be the one thing that kills the plaintiffs' First Amendment challenge.
    "If that is happening (and it almost certainly is), the lawsuits need to be directed at those drawing these inferences, rather than against the city itself. The law, as written, does not direct officers to engage in this sort of conduct."
    Directed against the officers drawing those inferences who enjoy qualified immunity and would therefore not be liable in the first place. You can't sue the city because the law doesn't require officers to engage in unconstitutional behavior, and you can't sue the officers because they have immunity.

  • On the post: The EU Designates The Six Companies You Already Expected As ‘Gatekeepers’ Under The Digital Markets Act

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 08 Sep, 2023 @ 03:10pm

    It's not that they're trying to "fix a problem," but rather that they're trying to fix every problem and doing so rather badly and with little concern for the harmful effects of their legislation.

  • On the post: FCC Proposes Voluntary Security Labels For ‘Internet Of Things’ Devices Most Companies Will Probably Ignore

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 08 Sep, 2023 @ 10:45am

    There are plenty of voluntary standards that have been widely adopted by industry, including those developed by ANSI and ISO.

  • On the post: FCC Proposes Voluntary Security Labels For ‘Internet Of Things’ Devices Most Companies Will Probably Ignore

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 08 Sep, 2023 @ 08:29am

    I much prefer the idea of a voluntary standard to something like what was recently covered here by Cathy Gellis: https://www.techdirt.com/2023/09/06/move-over-software-developers-in-the-name-of-cybersecurity-the-government-wants-to-drive/

  • On the post: The EU Designates The Six Companies You Already Expected As ‘Gatekeepers’ Under The Digital Markets Act

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 07 Sep, 2023 @ 08:23pm

    The European Union is out of control. To them, there is not a single problem that cannot be solved through regulation, like the proverb about everything looking like a nail when all you have is a hammer.

  • On the post: EU’s New AI Law Targets Big Tech Companies But Is Probably Only Going To Harm The Smallest Ones

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 18 May, 2023 @ 02:25pm

    Modus Operandi

    Huge fines, extraterritorial application, and regulating everything that moves seems to be the European Union's standard approach to the Internet. I hope US legislators and litigators can find a way to mitigate the risks posed by the EU's insistence on becoming the Internet's global police.

  • On the post: EU Commissioner Heading Push For Client-Side Scanning Continues To Say Dumb Stuff In Defense Of Her Terrible Proposal

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 17 May, 2023 @ 05:25pm

    All right, which one of you decided to give Europe keys to the Internet? We should consider changing the locks.

  • On the post: How About Using AI To Determine Whether Or Not Something Is Creative Enough To Get Copyright Protection

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 17 May, 2023 @ 05:07pm

    Feh

    I really hope Prof. Frye is trolling because detecting "creativity" by running it through an LLM is a lot like trying to detect whether a given text is AI generated by doing the same. To say that such an approach is unreliable would be an understatement, and to condition legal outcomes based on the output of an AI is precisely the kind of AI misuse we should be looking to avoid. What should be the threshold for denying copyright registration based on an AI's confidence score for creativity? What should be the confidence threshold for expelling students for passing off AI generated works as their own? What should be the threshold for deciding whether a work is infringing? While there are differences in the details, it is basically the same problem in each case: wrong decisions by an AI could cause real harm. Same pig, different makeup.

  • On the post: Is the California Legislature Addicted to Performative Election-Year Stunts That Threaten the Internet?

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 02 Aug, 2022 @ 02:55pm

    Ashcroft v. ACLU

    SCOTUS rejected government-mandated age verification in Ashcroft v. ACLU, but would they still reject it if it were technically voluntary but nevertheless unavoidable for liability reasons?

  • On the post: DOJ Seizes Domains, Claiming They Pushed Iranian Disinformation; Should Raise 1st Amendment Concerns

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 11 Oct, 2020 @ 08:02am

    They're saying the domains were seized because "unauthorized exports of goods, technology or services to Iran, directly or indirectly from the United States or by a United States person are prohibited." Does that mean the domains were registered with U.S.-based registrars against export restrictions, or is the United States government claiming the authority to seize any non-country specific domain regardless of where it might be registered?

    While speech-based seizures are always problematic, prohibitions against doing business with Iran probably don't violate the First Amendment. What worries me is that the U.S. government may be seizing domains registered outside the U.S. Imagine if other countries joined in and did that.

  • On the post: EU Explores Making GDPR Apply To EU Government Bodies… But With Much Lower Fines

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 12 Jun, 2018 @ 05:31pm

    It's good to be the king.

  • On the post: Forget The GDPR, The EU's New Copyright Proposal Will Be A Complete And Utter Disaster For The Internet

    Adrian Lopez ( profile ), 25 May, 2018 @ 12:17pm

    What about jurisdiction?

    I wonder how much damage this could do to websites operating exclusively within the United States but made available to European users. The impact of foreign law on U.S. service providers is a growing concern of mine, and I'm not at all confident in the U.S. government's ability to protect citizens and legal persons against bad foreign law in today's connected world. There have been efforts in that direction -- the SPEECH act was borne out of an attempt to enforce bad foreign libel law in the United States -- but it's not enough. We may need to do the same for foreign laws in general, especially when those laws are in conflict with US law or lack any local equivalent.

    Any reading recommendations on the applicability of foreign law on U.S. soil where a company or legal entity lacks a physical nexus outside the United States? I'm looking to write a piece on this subject but need to read up and/or consult on the matter. Any help from a subject-matter expert would be very much appreciated.