ke9tv 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (191) comment rss

  • On the post: Federal Court Temporarily Extends The NYPD's Famous Opacity, Blocks Release Of Misconduct Records

    ke9tv ( profile ), 02 Sep, 2020 @ 08:45am

    Over there, on your side of the Pacific, people are imprisoned without having been proven guilty? ... for long enough that they need to re-integrate into society?
    No, that's an American specialty. Hold them while awaiting trial. There are misdemeanants who plead guilty in order to get out of jail, sentenced to time served.

  • On the post: Federal Court Temporarily Extends The NYPD's Famous Opacity, Blocks Release Of Misconduct Records

    ke9tv ( profile ), 02 Sep, 2020 @ 08:42am

    'Sexual gratuities' as a perq

    "He is king, he does whatever he wants... takes the girl from her mother and uses her, the warrior's daughter, the young man's bride." - Epic of Gilgamesh

  • On the post: Federal Court: No, You Fucking May Not Force Your Way Into A Home And Strip Search Six Very Young Children

    ke9tv ( profile ), 28 Aug, 2020 @ 11:16am

    Re: Oh look, people who should NEVER be around kids again...

    In this case, I don't think it was any sort of perverse desire to see kids naked. It was using the kids as weapons - the perverse desire was for power over the mother. They didn't get their gratification from seeing the kids' wee-wees, they got their gratification from seeing the mother weeping.

  • On the post: On Appeal, 'Star Trek Discovery' Still Doesn't Infringe On Video Game's Copyright

    ke9tv ( profile ), 27 Aug, 2020 @ 06:16am

    Re: Double jeopardy doesn’t apply to civil actions

    The corresponding legal concept is res judicata - 'the matter has been decided'. It's grounds for dismissal of the action. An appeal is not a trial. There's no jury, and no finding of fact. It's strictly arguments before a panel of judges that a lower court committed an error of law or procedure that caused a case to be wrongly decided. Ordinarily, in a civil action, if error is found, the appellate court doesn't try to make a new finding, but rather instructs the lower court on the error and remands the case to the lower court for further proceedings consistent with the correct law or procedure. (Hence, in criminal cases, a defendant who mounts a successful appeal ordinarily isn't simply set free, but gets a new trial. It's as if the wrongly conducted trial never happened. Ordinarily, in criminal procedure, there's no appeal of an acquittal. The state gets only one chance to prove its case. Unless error is found, there's only one path of appeals. For copyright, that's district court -> [petition for reconsideration] -> circuit court -> [petition for rehearing en banc] -> Supreme Court. The Supreme Court picks and chooses what cases it hears. Petitions for reconsideration and for rehearing are only occasionally granted. When a petition for reconsideration is granted, it's generally because the judge recognizes that a mistake might have been made. A petition for rehearing goes before the entire panel of appellate judges for the circuit, and is usually granted only when there's considerable controversy about the correct outcome of the case.

  • On the post: Judge Recommends Copyright Troll Richard Liebowitz Be Removed From Roll Of The Court For Misconduct In Default Judgment Case

    ke9tv ( profile ), 21 Aug, 2020 @ 11:43am

    Re:

    As far as I've heard, the only other lawyer in Liebowitz Law Firm is his sister.

  • On the post: Just As The Postal Service Is Being Dismantled To Prevent The Handling Of Mail In Ballots, It Tries To Patent Blockchain Voting By Mail

    ke9tv ( profile ), 17 Aug, 2020 @ 10:21am

    Re:

    In any case, I suggest getting an absentee/mail-in ballot and dropping it off at a proper ballot collection spot as soon as possible instead of mailing the ballot.
    Team Trump is suing to prevent this from being an option.

  • On the post: Tennessee Court Strikes Down Law Criminalizing Calling Political Candidates 'Literally Hitler'

    ke9tv ( profile ), 04 Aug, 2020 @ 11:16am

    We've already heard Godwin on the general principle

    https://twitter.com/sfmnemonic/status/896884949634232320

    By all means, compare these shitheads to Nazis. Again and again. I'm with you.

  • On the post: Appeals Court Bashes Predictive Policing And The Judge Who Argued People In High Crime Areas Want Fewer Rights

    ke9tv ( profile ), 27 Jul, 2020 @ 05:44pm

    Machine learning

    When decisions are made by software, we are entitled to see that source code because it is no different to seeing the wording of the laws by which we are governed.
    Alas, the source code won't help. You can open it up completely, and it will remain inscrutable. Most such software, nowadays, relies on some sort of deep learning algorithm. Those algorithms are, in their place, better than nothing: they can troll through a vast volume of data and identify regularities. Nevertheless, they are noted for their inscrutability. They produce only decisions. Nowhere do they offer any rationale; it's all based on the confluence of far too many statistical metrics ever to tease out what was the deciding factor in any individual case. They most certainly cannot offer anything resembling a legal justification. More over at Technology Review (paywall warning).

  • On the post: Bill Barr Celebrates New DOJ 'Surge' Targeting Violent Crime By Touting 199 Arrests That Occurred Pre-Surge

    ke9tv ( profile ), 23 Jul, 2020 @ 11:17am

    CPB may be responsible

    According to The Nation, US Customs and Border Patrol spokesman acknowledges that its agents were involved in some way in the Portland arrests (but neither confirms nor denies that they were the arresting officers, nor whether they were acting under orders, much less whose orders). In summary, there's no credible evidence that the camo-wearers are anything other than a private goon squad who happen to have government jobs. Of course, they may be beyond the rule of law, because they're shielded by the law of the ruler.

  • On the post: Bill Barr Celebrates New DOJ 'Surge' Targeting Violent Crime By Touting 199 Arrests That Occurred Pre-Surge

    ke9tv ( profile ), 23 Jul, 2020 @ 11:06am

    Yes. That's the point. Which is what makes it important to get the word out that these "agents" are precisely what you characterize as "ammosexual whackjob[s] in camo fatigues." No government agency has acknowledged them, and their actions are in any case ultra vires for any government agency. They are therefore private actors. They cannot claim to be law enforcement officers and be accorded corresponding privileges because they are not acting in the line of duty. Of course, the shadowy Heimatsicherheitsdienst that employs them will probably try to have it both ways: "they were rogue actors, so we're not responsible" and "they were Federal agents, so shielded from prosecution." Although we're pretty close to where these actors will simply ignore the courts, who after all have no direct enforcement power. "John Marshall has given his opinion. Let him enforce it." (A. Jackson)

  • On the post: Bill Barr Celebrates New DOJ 'Surge' Targeting Violent Crime By Touting 199 Arrests That Occurred Pre-Surge

    ke9tv ( profile ), 23 Jul, 2020 @ 10:17am

    "Looking for all the world like a branch of the military"

    It's been officers in camo -- looking for all the world like a branch of the military

    Nope. They don't look at all like any branch of the military. I'm not being pedantic. This is an important point.

    If they serving with a branch of the military, their battle dress uniforms would have displayed prominently their names, their services, the insignia of their units, and their insignia of rank, as can be seen at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Dress_Uniform#/media/File:Defense.gov_News_Photo_970806-N-4790M-012.jpg

    If this were a war between nations, these individuals would not be soldiers subject to the Third Geneva Convention, but rather unlawful combatants. They are entitled to no protection accorded by wearing a uniform, since they wear merely a camouflage suit that is not recognizable as a uniform.

    Unlawful combatants are likewise subject to capture and detention, but in addition they are subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals for acts which render their belligerency unlawful. The spy who secretly and without uniform passes the military lines of a belligerent in time of war, seeking to gather military information and communicate it to the enemy, or an enemy combatant who without uniform comes secretly through the lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property, are familiar examples of belligerents who are generally deemed not to be entitled to the status of prisoners of war, but to be offenders against the law of war subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals.
    (Ex parte Quirin 317 U.S. 1 (1942); STONE, CJ delivered the unanimous opinion of the Supreme Court, with MURPHY, J recusing.)