Dan Brown 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Florida College Asked Local Sheriff To Declare Faculty Member's Artwork Obscene

    Dan Brown ( profile ), 20 Mar, 2019 @ 08:39am

    Re: Re:

    I'm not sure what any of that has to do with the question of whether the college violated his First Amendment rights by declining to show his work in their exhibition. After all, troublemakers are still protected by the 1A just like the rest of us, and the 1A's protection of free speech certainly isn't limited to the cream of the crop. I just don't think it guarantees his right to have his work (regardless of who he is, or what it is) exhibited in this venue, and I think the courts agree here--though I remain interested in seeing contrary authority. I'm also pretty skeptical of the conclusion that his work is obscene. Yes, it depicts sex acts. Does it, taken as a whole, "lack[] serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value"? Well, maybe, though I doubt any Circuit would agree here--after all, it's pretty obviously intended as (certainly childish) political commentary. But is it, as a whole, designed to appeal to the prurient interest? Not even close. In order to establish obscenity, all three of these must be true--if any of them is not, the work isn't obscene. So, IMO: The work itself, whatever its merits or lack thereof, is not obscene, and I don't see anything else that would put it outside of the scope of the 1A's protection. Thus, the 1A protects the "artist's" right to make and show the work. It does not, however, guarantee him a venue, nor does it require the school to include it in their exhibition.

  • On the post: Florida College Asked Local Sheriff To Declare Faculty Member's Artwork Obscene

    Dan Brown ( profile ), 20 Mar, 2019 @ 06:50am

    Polk State Program Coordinator Nancy Lozell informed Tanyolacar on Feb. 6 that it would not be displayed at a then-upcoming faculty art exhibition

    The university refused to offer any justification for this move when asked to explain its ignorance of the First Amendment by FIRE.

    The school declined to show the piece at a faculty art exhibition. How do you believe this demonstrates "its ignorance of the First Amendment"? Granting that the school is a state actor for purposes of the 1A, are you suggesting that the 1A prevents the school from limiting what pieces will be shown at such an exhibition? From making content-based distinctions among pieces? Because if so, I'd be very interested in seeing your authority for these propositions.

    There doesn't seem to be a lot of directly-relevant appellate case law, but there is some. In Close v. Lederle, 424 F.2d 988 (1st Cir. 1970), an art instructor at a state university, after being invited to exhibit his paintings in a busy corridor, was made to remove them because they were sexually explicit; the First Circuit found no violation of the First Amendment. See also Piarowski v. Illinois Community College Dist. 515, 759 F.2d 625 (7th Cir. 1985), in which a faculty member was required to remove his sexually-explicit artwork from a public gallery--again, this was held to not violate the First Amendment.

  • On the post: VPNs Are No Privacy Panacea, And Finding An Ethical Operator Is A Comical Shitshow

    Dan Brown ( profile ), 05 Mar, 2019 @ 05:11pm

    Re: Re: Streisand

    That solves a different problem. It gives you a safe connection when on public WiFi, but doesn't do so much when you're actually at home. And even when away from home, your connection is going to be limited by your connection speed at home. And if you're concerned about your home ISP snooping on your connection, this doesn't help you at all. OTOH, if your goal is to get into your home network, that's exactly the right answer. Now, if public WiFi providers are blocking connections to AWS/GCE/DigitalOcean/Vultr IP blocks, then a Streisand host might not help you. But that's going to block an awful lot more than just VPNs. Personally, I do both--I run an OpenVPN server on my home router, and a Streisand node (actually, two--one on AWS and one on GCE, but once my free year on AWS is up I'll cancel that one).

  • On the post: VPNs Are No Privacy Panacea, And Finding An Ethical Operator Is A Comical Shitshow

    Dan Brown ( profile ), 05 Mar, 2019 @ 04:55pm

    Streisand

    This seems like a particularly appropriate place to mention Streisand (https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand)--a script that provisions a small VPS (free on Google, free for a year on Amazon, minimal cost elsewhere) to serve as your own private VPN host.

  • On the post: Initial Fallout From McDonald's Losing Its EU 'Big Mac' Trademark Is Mockery From Burger King

    Dan Brown ( profile ), 06 Feb, 2019 @ 03:46am

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    There's also (in the US, at least, though we derive our legal system from England) the concept of "judicial notice", where the court can accept without the presentation of evidence such propositions as that the sky is blue, the sun rises in the east, and February 4, 2019, was a Monday. That alone should suffice to demonstrate that the Big Mac is a well-known sandwich sold by McDonald's. But even if judicial notice alone weren't enough, the sales figures presented should have done the job.

  • On the post: Herrick V. Grindr – The Section 230 Case That's Not What You've Heard

    Dan Brown ( profile ), 23 Jan, 2019 @ 09:33am

    Re: Re: Re:

    please explain why victims can't sue gun makers.
    Well, because there's (properly) specific legislation protecting gun makers from liability in (most) such situations.

  • On the post: Amazon Dash Buttons Ruled Illegal In Germany For… Making It Too Easy To Buy Stuff

    Dan Brown ( profile ), 16 Jan, 2019 @ 10:07am

    Huh?

    Mike, is your headline dishonest, or do you really not understand what you wrote? Because the body of your article explains, in a good bit of detail, the basis for the decision--why do you then act like you don't understand it?

  • On the post: California Town OKs Destruction Of Police Shooting Records Days Before They Could Be Obtained By The Public

    Dan Brown ( profile ), 28 Dec, 2018 @ 05:23am

    Inglewood?

    Inglewood? The same city that sued a resident for posting video of city council meetings? Yeah, that makes sense.

  • On the post: Rep. Louie Gohmert Wants To Strip Section 230 Immunity From Social Media Platforms That Aren't 'Neutral'

    Dan Brown ( profile ), 26 Dec, 2018 @ 03:16pm

    Re: Couldn't have said it better

    Not only could you not have said it better, you clearly weren't able to say it even remotely as well.

  • On the post: FCC's O'Rielly Keeps Claiming, With Zero Evidence, That Community Broadband Is An 'Ominous' Threat To Free Speech

    Dan Brown ( profile ), 17 Dec, 2018 @ 08:34pm

    Missing the point

    You seem to have fundamentally missed the point of the portion you quoted--he's saying the relevant portions of the subscriber agreements are unconstitutional on their face, in which case there's no need for evidence of their being enforced in an unconstitutional way. Consider a more obvious example:

    • TOS include a provision prohibiting a subscriber from criticizing the mayor or city council. When correctly advised that this provision is blatantly unconstitutional, the community ISP says, "oh, don't worry, we'll never enforce that." They don't (so far), so there's no evidence of their having done so. There isn't even any evidence of any chilling effect. Unconstitutional? Presuming the community ISP is treated as a state actor, yes. Clear enough? No? Then let's try an even more obvious example.

    • City enacts an ordinance prohibiting, by name, practice of Islam within the city limits. Again, after they're correctly advised that the law is completely unconstitutional, they swear they won't enforce it, and in fact they never do. Is it still unconstitutional? Of course it is.

    O'Rielly is saying that a "hate speech" provision in the TOS of a community ISP is facially unconstitutional. That position relies on two legal questions, the answers to which I'm not sure are established:

    • Would a community ISP be treated as a state actor for First Amendment purposes? I don't know if this question has been litigated yet. If owned or operated by the local government, I'd think the answer is probably yes. But I expect there are a number of possible arrangements other than direct ownership or operation by the local government, in which case the question could get much more murky.

    • May a state actor prohibit "hate speech" in TOS for Internet service? Don't think this one is settled either, but I'm leaning toward "no".

    If the answers to both of these questions are "yes", then he's right. But whether he's right or not is not something that would be shown by evidence. Evidence is used to establish facts; his claim is one of law.

  • On the post: $337,000 Settlement Headed To Elementary School Students Handcuffed By School Resource Officers

    Dan Brown ( profile ), 20 Nov, 2018 @ 06:07am

    Re: Re:

    Settlements and apologies are in no way mutually exclusive. A settlement agreement will usually state that nobody is admitting liability or wrongdoing, but that's by no means required--it's perfectly valid for an agreement to read something like, "the parties agree that A is liable, and A agrees to pay B $100k" or whatever. Rare to be sure, but certainly not "by definition, mutually exclusive."

  • On the post: Rights Groups Demand Facebook Set Up Real Due Process Around Content Moderation

    Dan Brown ( profile ), 15 Nov, 2018 @ 10:58am

    Re: Contradicting own statement Section 230 gives arbitrary power.

    • Facebook (or Google, or Twitter, or any other platform) has the absolute legal right to moderate content in any way, on any basis, and with any (or no) degree of transparency they wish.
    • It is foolish (and perhaps even morally wrong) for them to moderate in an arbitrary and opaque manner.
    These two statements are entirely consistent with each other. But for some reason you seem to believe they contradict each other.

  • On the post: Judge Lets NRA's 1st Amendment Lawsuit Against Andrew Cuomo Move Forward

    Dan Brown ( profile ), 14 Nov, 2018 @ 09:43am

    "Late" Judge Posner?

    the late Judge Richard Posner.

    Judge Posner is still very much alive. Retired, and perhaps senile (which he may or may not have been before he left the bench), but certainly not ready to go on the cart.

  • On the post: Motel 6 Agrees To Pay $7.6 Million Settlement For Sending Guest Lists To ICE

    Dan Brown ( profile ), 09 Nov, 2018 @ 05:43am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: "Unconstitutional"?

    But when you begin regularly providing information to the government, then, imho, yes you are now acting as part of the government.
    Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), your HO isn't the state of the law. If a private citizen (individual or organization) decides, on their own, to provide information to the government, that doesn't mean they're "acting as part of the government"--regardless of whether it's a single instance or a regular thing. What makes it (or can make it) government action is if the government solicited that information. If ICE, the local PD, or any other agency requested/demanded that information, then it can be considered government action.

  • On the post: Motel 6 Agrees To Pay $7.6 Million Settlement For Sending Guest Lists To ICE

    Dan Brown ( profile ), 08 Nov, 2018 @ 07:41pm

    Re: Re: "Unconstitutional"?

    It doesn't work that way. If I decide, on my own, to give information to the government, that doesn't make me a state actor (it's a completely different story if the government solicited it), and it certainly doesn't mean I'm acting under color of law (that's where I have, or appear to have, state authority, and act under that authority). Your action may (or may not) have violated the law, but it wasn't unconstitutional.

    Motel 6 was clearly in the wrong--any number of common-law torts, and no doubt statutory violations as well. But no, it wasn't in any way unconstitutional.

  • On the post: Motel 6 Agrees To Pay $7.6 Million Settlement For Sending Guest Lists To ICE

    Dan Brown ( profile ), 08 Nov, 2018 @ 04:20pm

    "Unconstitutional"?

    The chain (of course) admitted no liability nor agreed that it had engaged in unconstitutional activities.

    Well, let's see. Motel 6 is not the government. They aren't part of the government. They weren't acting on behalf of, or at the behest of, anyone in the government, as you yourself note. The Constitution, of course, regulates how the government operates. So in what possible way could the chain, any of its employees, or any of its franchisees have been doing anything unconstitutional?

  • On the post: Court Tells Cops Playing Hunch Roulette Is No Way To Run An Investigation

    Dan Brown ( profile ), 31 Oct, 2018 @ 12:45pm

    Re:

    The drugs and the gun are both contraband (the drugs because they're completely illegal, the gun because it's illegal for him as an illegal alien to have it), so no, he doesn't get that back. The cash is a trickier question.

  • On the post: Detailed And Thorough Debunking Of Bloomberg's Sketchy Story About Supply Chain Hack

    Dan Brown ( profile ), 27 Oct, 2018 @ 11:00am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: What about the capabilities the BMC does have?

    ISO is a disk format, commonly used on DVDs, and PXE includes a network boot option. ISO boot makes no sense, which is about par for the article.
    The Supermicro BMC (or IPMI) allows the server admin to mount a .iso over the network, so it appears to the machine as a local CD--a very useful capability for installing the OS on a server. I don't know exactly what mechanism the BMC uses to accomplish this, but from the perspective of the main machine, it doesn't have anything to do with PXE.

  • On the post: Appeals Court Judge Tears Into ATF's Life-Wrecking, Discriminatory Stash House Stings

    Dan Brown ( profile ), 27 Oct, 2018 @ 06:02am

    Re:

    What part of this post had anything to do with Section 230?

  • On the post: Appeals Court Judge Tears Into ATF's Life-Wrecking, Discriminatory Stash House Stings

    Dan Brown ( profile ), 27 Oct, 2018 @ 05:59am

    Re: Re: Sup liar

    Judges won't care in the least unless someone brings a case in which the question is remotely relevant. Put up or shut up.

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