Bergman 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (3321) comment rss

  • On the post: Sheriff Defends Deputies' Lies In Court By Saying Officers Didn't Know They Were Supposed To Tell The Truth

    Bergman ( profile ), 22 Jun, 2017 @ 08:02am

    Re:

    It should, but wouldn't you know it, the people in charge of determining that never seem to determine they committed any wrongdoing. Funny, that.

  • On the post: Supreme Court Says You Can't Ban People From The Internet, No Matter What They've Done

    Bergman ( profile ), 21 Jun, 2017 @ 05:38am

    Re: Except the crime of poverty.

    You can also starve to death, drown in a river or freeze to death because you bought a new XBox instead of paying your heating oil bill.

    But so what?

  • On the post: Supreme Court Says You Can't Ban People From The Internet, No Matter What They've Done

    Bergman ( profile ), 21 Jun, 2017 @ 05:35am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Lower Courts

    You seem to be a bit confused as well.

    At the moment, the courts have a doctrine -- a rule internal to the courts based on no law whatsoever -- called Qualified Immunity. Under this doctrine, courts will simply refuse to hear any lawsuit against a police officer unless the plaintiff can present compelling evidence up front, before any discovery, that the defendant acted outside of the line of duty and violated the law.

    If Congress were to pass a statute that turned this doctrine into actual law, it would be struck down by the courts as unconstitutional, because it creates a less privileged class of citizen. Yet the courts apply this doctrine as if it were law, despite the fact that the courts cannot create new laws, and Congress had no part in the crafting of the doctrine.

    However, if Congress were to pass a law that makes Qualified Immunity illegal, the courts would have no choice but to obey the law, because a statute ALWAYS overrides and supersedes a doctrine unless the statute is itself unconstitutional in what it does.

    Doing so is well within the powers of Congress as defined by the constitution, even though it would be a direct modification of the federal court system.

  • On the post: SLAPP Threats And The Grenfell Fire: Why We Must Stop Attacks On Free Speech

    Bergman ( profile ), 21 Jun, 2017 @ 05:24am

    Re:

    How, precisely, do you defame a public official by telling the absolute truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about their actions while in office?

  • On the post: Small Irish Craft Beer Joint Has Actually Original Trademark Opposed By Holder Of A Purely Geographic Mark

    Bergman ( profile ), 21 Jun, 2017 @ 05:18am

    Re: Re: Re:

    So basically, the big company failed to get the trademark they sought, but are attempting to oppose someone else's perfectly valid mark anyway?

  • On the post: Supreme Court Reminds US Government That Hate Speech Is, In Fact, Free Speech

    Bergman ( profile ), 20 Jun, 2017 @ 10:18am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Yes. You are.

  • On the post: Supreme Court Reminds US Government That Hate Speech Is, In Fact, Free Speech

    Bergman ( profile ), 20 Jun, 2017 @ 10:15am

    Re: 1st vs. 4th Amendment

    The same is true of the 2nd amendment. At the moment, we have two separate court rulings that, taken together, ban 100% of all firearms from civilian ownership.

    When the Gun Control Act of 1968 was challenged in court, SCOTUS ruled that the Act prohibited only weapons that were not militarily useful, and that the 2nd amendment only protected those weapons useful to a militia.

    More recently, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that assault weapons are not protected by the second amendment because civilians have no need to own military weapons. Leaving aside the fact that an assault weapon is a hunting weapon with one or more safety or cosmetic features in common with a military weapon, these two decisions taken together mean that ALL can be constitutionally prohibited for civilian ownership in the 4th Circuit!

  • On the post: There Is No 'Going Dark' Problem

    Bergman ( profile ), 20 Jun, 2017 @ 08:31am

    Re:

    There has always been a going dark 'problem'. A century ago people had safes that could not be forced open by police. Fifty years ago, people could use fairly weak encryption (by today's standards) that police lacked the computer power to decrypt. Even writing in a foreign language that no one was available to translate could cause people to go dark.

    None of this is new. Police work has ALWAYS had these problems. What is new though, is that police have access to more information on any suspect today than at any time before in history.

    Going dark is Comey-speak for a return to how police investigated crimes in the 1980s and 1990s. And you'll notice, there were no problems convicting people in courts in those decades.

  • On the post: Oversight Report Shows NSA Failed To Secure Its Systems Following The Snowden Leaks

    Bergman ( profile ), 20 Jun, 2017 @ 08:20am

    Re: But it was just easier..

    This. Their approach to security seems to be "We're the US government, no one would DARE attack us!"

  • On the post: Islamic State Using Small Drones Routinely In Iraq For Scouting And Dropping Explosives

    Bergman ( profile ), 19 Jun, 2017 @ 07:32am

    Re:

    Just remember, the password to the air shield is 12345.

  • On the post: EFF Sues FBI Over Withheld NSL Guideline Documents

    Bergman ( profile ), 17 Jun, 2017 @ 02:55pm

    Re: Why shouldn't...

    It meets every legal test for criminal contempt of court. The court could simply order the head of the FBI to be taken into custody until he or the next official down the chain of command complies with the court order.

    And the court could keep jailing FBI officials until the entire bureau is behind bars or someone there remembers the oath they swore. In theory, they could remain imprisoned for the rest of their lives, if enough of them disobeyed the court order long enough.

  • On the post: Dangerous Copyright Ruling In Europe Opens The Door To Widespread Censorship

    Bergman ( profile ), 17 Jun, 2017 @ 02:41pm

    Re: Re:

    Applying the same logic to offline things, you could sue the Chancellor of Germany because you got mugged on a government-owned street. By paving the street and failing to guard every inch of it 24/7/265 with police, the government enabled the mugger.

  • On the post: New York Legislators Trying To Make A Bad Publicity Law Even Worse

    Bergman ( profile ), 17 Jun, 2017 @ 02:38pm

    Re: Where are the limits ?

    So, I'm curious.

    If you live in a state that is not New York, post content that was not generated in New York to a server that is not located in New York, and you have never been to New York, what authority does a New York state civil court decision based solely on a New York state law have upon you?

    What will they do if you ignore a court summons that lacks jurisdiction over you? Send you another one?

  • On the post: Monkey Selfie Case Gets Even Weirder, As The Monkey's 'Next Friends' Are In A Criminal Dispute With Each Other

    Bergman ( profile ), 10 Jun, 2017 @ 12:32am

    Re: Re: macaques vs lawyers

    It would be a fascinating case either way.

    On the one hand, while pirates versus ninjas is a fairly deadlocked issue, ninjas versus lawyers remains to be explored.

    On the other hand, if PETA can in fact sue in US courts on behalf of a monkey who has never set foot in any jurisdiction and despite the fact that the 'property' they are suing over does not exist and cannot exist under US laws...then it should also be possible to sue PETA for misrepresenting the wishes of all the monkeys that have never set foot in US jurisdiction.

    Standing? What's that?

  • On the post: Copyright Trolls… But For Houses

    Bergman ( profile ), 10 Jun, 2017 @ 12:24am

    Re:

    Something I've never understood -- Congress is the elected representatives of the people of the United States, employed to act on the larger body of people's behalf. Just like every other elected official is.

    This effectively makes any elected official the employee of the people as a whole. So how is it that an employee can have sovereign immunity against claims of misconduct made by their boss?

  • On the post: Reporter Indicted For Covering Trump Inauguration Protests

    Bergman ( profile ), 09 Jun, 2017 @ 02:47am

    Re:

    By the standards that a journalist covering a protest participated in the "riot", a police officer present at that "riot" is also participating.

  • On the post: Kellogg's Takes Australian Tennis Player To Court For Branding Himself 'Special K'

    Bergman ( profile ), 09 Jun, 2017 @ 02:45am

    Soylent Green

    The more I ponder what sort of brand confusion there would be between breakfast cereal and tennis players, the more sinister it all starts to look.

    I have to ask, is Special K made of people?

  • On the post: Congress Getting Pissed Off Over Failure Of Intel Community To Reveal How Many Americans Are Being Spied On

    Bergman ( profile ), 08 Jun, 2017 @ 09:42am

    Re: No Stakes, No Game

    Contempt of Congress still exists, I think the Senate should start stomping on people who show contempt.

  • On the post: VMProtect Accuses Denuvo Of Using Unlicensed Software In Its Antipiracy DRM

    Bergman ( profile ), 08 Jun, 2017 @ 07:53am

    Re: Re:

    What's really absurd about this, is that if VMProtect did that, they'd be guilty of a crime in some countries -- nowhere in most anti-circumvention laws does it say that the anti-circumvention code must not be stolen.

  • On the post: Licensing Body Agrees To Temporarily Allow Man To Criticize The Government Without A License

    Bergman ( profile ), 06 Jun, 2017 @ 06:52pm

    Re:

    Except there already is a lawsuit challenging it.

    The state's response was to issue the citizen whose rights it violated a temporary waiver so that he could exercise his rights.

    The state did not change the law.

Next >>