Ernie Gordon's Techdirt Profile

Ernie Gordon

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  • Jul 03, 2024 @ 01:38pm

    AT&T aka Cingular Wireless

    Nobody seems to recall that perhaps the most reprehensible national wireless carrier ever, Cingular, changed its name to AT&T after a merger/acquisition. Continued reprehensible conduct shouldn't be a surprise.

  • Mar 22, 2024 @ 01:46pm

    Tim, the conduct in this instance is reprehensible, but NYT did a deep dive into the local jurisdiction when this story broke last year and a large majority of the Goon Squad victims over many years were white with brutality including false arrest and imprisonment, beatings, waterboarding, rape with foreign objects and more. This wasn't so much a racist cesspool as it was police brutality for the sake of brutality.

  • Feb 09, 2024 @ 01:52pm

    Anyone remember Cingular Wireless?

    In my experience Cingular Wireless was the worst telecom to deal with in any capacity. It bought AT&T in 2004 and changed its name to AT&T given that entity's somewhat better reputation. Not surprising that present day AT&T has been a big player in attacking municipal networks.

  • Oct 06, 2022 @ 10:21am

    nothing new here

    In my 20 years as a prosecutor in a large west coast county DA's office it was fairly common knowledge that many sheriff's deputies and city police officers competed to be the first to shoot a dog at a crime scene.

  • Aug 02, 2022 @ 11:39am

    If this case is pending in Illinois, the penalty for criminal contempt of court is $500 or 180 days in jail. The financial penalty is inconsequential, but the court could and should order the ShotSpotter CEO into court and remand them into custody per their request - no hearing is needed when a party before a court is asking for court ordered action against them. That would get the ShotSpotter analytics and reports released ASAP.

  • Jul 27, 2015 @ 06:46pm

    Annotations

    All serious legal research involves reading annotated codes rather than unannotated, and no brief gets filed without checking citations to ensure cases haven't been overturned.

    Most people don't realize that federal, state, appellate and supreme court cases from 1950, and US Supreme Court cases from 1791 to within about 90 days of the search can be read using Google Scholar. However, what separates Westlaw and LexisNexis from Google Scholar, and why most attorneys subscribe to one of them, is annotated codes and citation checkers (KeyCite or Shepard's).

    As each case gets published, editors read them and write summaries to attach to the codes if that statute is referenced creating new law, or to note in a citator if a case disapproves or overrules a prior case. Someone has to pay for this work, and as described, LexisNexis is doing it for Georgia. Because attorneys can't get this service anyplace else, they continue to pay for it and both features keep the money flowing - Westlaw is hugely profitable.

    Given the above, this fight won't be fought by Georgia alone, but Westlaw and LexisNexis depend on the annotations and citators for their very existence.

  • Apr 04, 2015 @ 05:40am

    Mmm Naugles

    I spent a tortuous year ending in 1980 working for a congressman in Washington DC. My drive back to Southern California was tedious, but tolerable, because a visit to Naugles was my first planned stop, even before getting home. Great memories of growing up, hanging out and hitting Naugles for a midnight snack.

  • Jun 12, 2014 @ 11:07am

    If you leave your car running but unattended when you run into the house to get something you forgot and someone drives off in it, that's theft - an unlawful taking which deprives the owner of their property (or use of their property in some jurisdictions). Use of unsecured WiFi cannot be theft because it does not depriving the owner of their property.