We shouldn't need a special 'on a computer' law to charge vandalism. The public Google drive location wasn't much different then a public park. What was allegedly done was closer to vandalism then hacking. Much like someone going to a public park and chopping down several trees. The person chopping trees was authorized to be in the park but not authorized to chop down trees. The person deleting files was authorized to be in the google drive but not authorized to delete files.
Charge for the crime committed, vandalism of property, not for just being in the public drive.
Charge a 10 cent per call tax on all calls over 1000/month from a phone number. When millions of spam calls start costing money to make, the numbers will likely drop a lot.
The pole cameras are owned and operated by the city or a company contracted by the city. The Autonomous Vehicles are owned and operated by private companies/individuals.
The rules of evidence in court are often different for recordings created by the city versus that obtained by private persons/companies.
There is a big difference in thinking between the average GOP voter and the people running the party organization. The Dems have the same problem. The folks running the various party organizations have become rather hard core left or right depending on party. Neither has much tolerance for a middle ground politician. RINO and DINO are terms frequently heard from party officials to describe anyone daring to try a moderate approach. The problem for politicians is that in order to get party support and the resulting campaign help and funding, they have to at least appear to conform to the dictates of the Party. And the true believers in the far right or left now have an easy time of getting official party support. Twenty or thirty years ago, such outliers would have been labeled as radicals and largely ignored by the two parties.
Plus the comment above about corporate donations is spot on. Many corporations give to PACs that then give to the two parties so that no matter who wins, the corporation can go to that person and say "We helped you get elected and would really appreciate your vote for/against ...."
Add me to the Starlink customer service sucks herd.
I had paid a deposit 13 months ago. Without any warning, I received a "Your Starlink package is ready pending your confirmation." email. At the time, I was dealing with the death of a family member and the stuff that goes with wrapping up a dead person's affairs, and wasn't paying much attention to that email account. I received two more emails, one a '3 days left' and one a '1 day left' notice. The last email was a 'Ordered canceled, deposit will be refunded' message. I found these messages a couple days after the Order canceled message. Starlink made no effort to contact the phone number I had provided. Even a robo-call would have clued me in to check that email account.
Like the story says, there is no published way to contact Starlink and go "But wait, I really did/do want the service." No phone number, no email, not even a listed mailing address.
Really, only a seven day window with no advance warning? People go on vacations longer then seven days. Or have other issues that prevent frequent checking of email accounts. The claimed target audience is the very type of folks that might have long service outages with their existing service(s).
Seems Starlink is NOT really interested in providing service to those that can most benefit.
A cell phone, smart or otherwise, that is on should be thought of as a Personalized Tracking Device(PTD). Same for connected cars, TVs or cable boxes connected to the Internet, those connected workout devices, etc. Anytime you use a PTD, expect that you have little to no effective privacy while doing so. There is almost always language in those 'Privacy Policy' statements that allow the data to be collected, aggregated, processed and sold for profit.
As many studies have shown, anonymized data isn't, especially when combined with other data sets.
I would be surprised if there are not similar data brokers selling the location data of folks visiting places where guns and ammunition are sold. Or dancers gyrate mostly naked. And you just thought your visit to the 12 step place was anonymous.
If Florida loses, they can always add a "No Politics" clause to the restored special Disney exemption and re-revoke the exemption unless Disney shuts up. Any Disney win could be short lived.
As mentioned, I am sure there are multiple fully activated banks of Disney funded lawyers researching options and likely outcomes. Same for Florida funded lawyers. Probably lots of dust being blown off decades old legislative records, court rulings and administrative findings concerning the Disney special economic zone.
Wonder if this case: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-783_k53l.pdf
will wind up being cited at some point in this trial?
Would seem to be on point on Bowers sharing of the extra case files. Not so much on point for what the IT worker did in accessing Bowers files but could be an issue in how Bowers gets charged for sharing the files.
Should be a warning to all to keep a hard line between work accounts and devices and personal accounts and devices.
Just as a Church is unlikely to have their special IRS benefits revoked before engaging in political speech, why would Florida revoke Disney's special status prior to Disney doing something blatantly political? Is the revokation retaliation? Sure looks like it and Florida has stated that it is. Is it unconstitutional? The IRS precedents make it seem unlikely. Churches as religious institutions get some rather unique protections that non-religious organizations do not receive. If a church can have its status revoked over politics, seems Florida is on fairly good ground over revoking Disney's special status over politics. But I am sure that Disney's robust legal staff is researching options and Disney as a corporation isn't exactly lacking in resources to make any case the legal staff thinks they can make.
If Florida hadn't passed this 'Strip Disney Benefits' law, how long before some group filed a lawsuit claiming that Florida was subsidizing 'Say Gay' speech with taxpayer dollars? This wasn't a general benefit that any corporation got, it was a special set of laws that created a unique area where Disney had greatly expanded economic powers that no other Florida corporation received.
The IRS tax benefits that Churches receive do come with limitations on political speech by those churches. If a church does the wrong kind of political speech, it can lose its special tax status. https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/charities-churches-and-politics
This has been litigated in court and the constitutionality of the limitations affirmed.
Florida just leveled the Free Speech playing field. Disney no longer has its special economic area and can now feel free to engage in the same level of political advocacy that any other Florida corporation is entitled to make.
Sometime after Daniel Holtzclaw was convicted https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Holtzclaw , the lead detective laid out the case in the Oklahoman. One of the things I remember is she stated that the worst thing you can do when being questioned by police is not requesting a lawyer. When a cop is telling us to have a lawyer during questioning by cops, best pay attention and get a lawyer.
What! An article about DirectTV making a sound business decision? 'Checks calendar.' Close but not April 1st. 'Starts dusting off plans for Hell Freezing Over.'
When major US agencies, think FAA, don't pay attention to turn on, turn off tech notices, why should we expect private companies to react differently?
Add to the list of possibly impacted gizmos - cell connected game cameras.
I recently looked for a replacement phone for my father who was on a 3G AT&T flip phone. Many of the 'new' flip phones being offered were still only 3g. Then unexpectedly, a package arrived from AT&T that had a free new 4G flip phone and service transfer instructions.
Time for the FCC to issue a '4G Life Cycle Schedule' similar to a Microsoft OS life cycle announcement. List a Last Date a new 4G gizmo can be legally sold. Allow a several year warranty period after that. Forbid any turn off of 4G towers until several years after the expiration of the final warranty period. Minimum 4G life cycle should probably be at least 20 years. If the 3G shutdown is bad, the future 4G shutdown will be worse. Almost every car being sold is connected and cars often last 20+ years.
In no way am I defending Charter/Spectrum but "Rob" needs to wake up and get a different job. Sounds like a "Do you want fries with that" job from McDonalds or being a Walmart greeter would yield more net income then the current independent contractor job with Charter. Which,if true, says a lot about the Charter job setup.
I have to wonder if Rob knows about the Self Employment FICA Tax? If not, he is going to get a nasty surprise from the IRS in the form of a 15% tax on all his income on top of the normal income tax. Another of the wonderful things about being a self employed independent contractor. Avoiding this tax plus getting rid of having to pay for medical insurance is a big reason a lot of companies go the contractor route.
I played the inkjet game once. Cheap Epson printer spent more time and ink cleaning the head then printing. Still had banding several times. When the final cartridge fouled up, pitched the thing. My HP 1200 Laserjet is 20 years old and still working. Don't print a lot, self test shows 7028 pages. It can sit for weeks and be printing good pages in a matter of seconds.
Sad thing is that if you watch the sales, you can often get a decent laser printer for not much more then an inkjet + a spare set of cartridges.
Pretty sure that all TSA agents have to swear an oath to "Protect and Defend the Constitution..." as part of their hiring process. For the TSA to claim lack of education as an excuse for violating that same Constitution seems rather hypocritical. Maybe the supervisors that thought this case was defensible should be brought up on charges of violating their oath of office.
We shouldn't need a special 'on a computer' law to charge vandalism. The public Google drive location wasn't much different then a public park. What was allegedly done was closer to vandalism then hacking. Much like someone going to a public park and chopping down several trees. The person chopping trees was authorized to be in the park but not authorized to chop down trees. The person deleting files was authorized to be in the google drive but not authorized to delete files. Charge for the crime committed, vandalism of property, not for just being in the public drive.
Charge a 10 cent per call tax on all calls over 1000/month from a phone number. When millions of spam calls start costing money to make, the numbers will likely drop a lot.
The pole cameras are owned and operated by the city or a company contracted by the city. The Autonomous Vehicles are owned and operated by private companies/individuals. The rules of evidence in court are often different for recordings created by the city versus that obtained by private persons/companies.
There is a big difference in thinking between the average GOP voter and the people running the party organization. The Dems have the same problem. The folks running the various party organizations have become rather hard core left or right depending on party. Neither has much tolerance for a middle ground politician. RINO and DINO are terms frequently heard from party officials to describe anyone daring to try a moderate approach. The problem for politicians is that in order to get party support and the resulting campaign help and funding, they have to at least appear to conform to the dictates of the Party. And the true believers in the far right or left now have an easy time of getting official party support. Twenty or thirty years ago, such outliers would have been labeled as radicals and largely ignored by the two parties. Plus the comment above about corporate donations is spot on. Many corporations give to PACs that then give to the two parties so that no matter who wins, the corporation can go to that person and say "We helped you get elected and would really appreciate your vote for/against ...."
The right to free speech should also include the right to keep your mouth shut.
Add me to the Starlink customer service sucks herd. I had paid a deposit 13 months ago. Without any warning, I received a "Your Starlink package is ready pending your confirmation." email. At the time, I was dealing with the death of a family member and the stuff that goes with wrapping up a dead person's affairs, and wasn't paying much attention to that email account. I received two more emails, one a '3 days left' and one a '1 day left' notice. The last email was a 'Ordered canceled, deposit will be refunded' message. I found these messages a couple days after the Order canceled message. Starlink made no effort to contact the phone number I had provided. Even a robo-call would have clued me in to check that email account. Like the story says, there is no published way to contact Starlink and go "But wait, I really did/do want the service." No phone number, no email, not even a listed mailing address. Really, only a seven day window with no advance warning? People go on vacations longer then seven days. Or have other issues that prevent frequent checking of email accounts. The claimed target audience is the very type of folks that might have long service outages with their existing service(s). Seems Starlink is NOT really interested in providing service to those that can most benefit.
A cell phone, smart or otherwise, that is on should be thought of as a Personalized Tracking Device(PTD). Same for connected cars, TVs or cable boxes connected to the Internet, those connected workout devices, etc. Anytime you use a PTD, expect that you have little to no effective privacy while doing so. There is almost always language in those 'Privacy Policy' statements that allow the data to be collected, aggregated, processed and sold for profit. As many studies have shown, anonymized data isn't, especially when combined with other data sets. I would be surprised if there are not similar data brokers selling the location data of folks visiting places where guns and ammunition are sold. Or dancers gyrate mostly naked. And you just thought your visit to the 12 step place was anonymous.
If Florida loses, they can always add a "No Politics" clause to the restored special Disney exemption and re-revoke the exemption unless Disney shuts up. Any Disney win could be short lived. As mentioned, I am sure there are multiple fully activated banks of Disney funded lawyers researching options and likely outcomes. Same for Florida funded lawyers. Probably lots of dust being blown off decades old legislative records, court rulings and administrative findings concerning the Disney special economic zone.
Wonder if this case: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-783_k53l.pdf will wind up being cited at some point in this trial? Would seem to be on point on Bowers sharing of the extra case files. Not so much on point for what the IT worker did in accessing Bowers files but could be an issue in how Bowers gets charged for sharing the files. Should be a warning to all to keep a hard line between work accounts and devices and personal accounts and devices.
Just as a Church is unlikely to have their special IRS benefits revoked before engaging in political speech, why would Florida revoke Disney's special status prior to Disney doing something blatantly political? Is the revokation retaliation? Sure looks like it and Florida has stated that it is. Is it unconstitutional? The IRS precedents make it seem unlikely. Churches as religious institutions get some rather unique protections that non-religious organizations do not receive. If a church can have its status revoked over politics, seems Florida is on fairly good ground over revoking Disney's special status over politics. But I am sure that Disney's robust legal staff is researching options and Disney as a corporation isn't exactly lacking in resources to make any case the legal staff thinks they can make.
If Florida hadn't passed this 'Strip Disney Benefits' law, how long before some group filed a lawsuit claiming that Florida was subsidizing 'Say Gay' speech with taxpayer dollars? This wasn't a general benefit that any corporation got, it was a special set of laws that created a unique area where Disney had greatly expanded economic powers that no other Florida corporation received. The IRS tax benefits that Churches receive do come with limitations on political speech by those churches. If a church does the wrong kind of political speech, it can lose its special tax status. https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/charities-churches-and-politics This has been litigated in court and the constitutionality of the limitations affirmed. Florida just leveled the Free Speech playing field. Disney no longer has its special economic area and can now feel free to engage in the same level of political advocacy that any other Florida corporation is entitled to make.
Sometime after Daniel Holtzclaw was convicted https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Holtzclaw , the lead detective laid out the case in the Oklahoman. One of the things I remember is she stated that the worst thing you can do when being questioned by police is not requesting a lawyer. When a cop is telling us to have a lawyer during questioning by cops, best pay attention and get a lawyer.
With a Binding Arbitration service fee.
What! An article about DirectTV making a sound business decision? 'Checks calendar.' Close but not April 1st. 'Starts dusting off plans for Hell Freezing Over.'
When major US agencies, think FAA, don't pay attention to turn on, turn off tech notices, why should we expect private companies to react differently?
Add to the list of possibly impacted gizmos - cell connected game cameras.
I recently looked for a replacement phone for my father who was on a 3G AT&T flip phone. Many of the 'new' flip phones being offered were still only 3g. Then unexpectedly, a package arrived from AT&T that had a free new 4G flip phone and service transfer instructions.
Time for the FCC to issue a '4G Life Cycle Schedule' similar to a Microsoft OS life cycle announcement. List a Last Date a new 4G gizmo can be legally sold. Allow a several year warranty period after that. Forbid any turn off of 4G towers until several years after the expiration of the final warranty period. Minimum 4G life cycle should probably be at least 20 years. If the 3G shutdown is bad, the future 4G shutdown will be worse. Almost every car being sold is connected and cars often last 20+ years.
In no way am I defending Charter/Spectrum but "Rob" needs to wake up and get a different job. Sounds like a "Do you want fries with that" job from McDonalds or being a Walmart greeter would yield more net income then the current independent contractor job with Charter. Which,if true, says a lot about the Charter job setup.
I have to wonder if Rob knows about the Self Employment FICA Tax? If not, he is going to get a nasty surprise from the IRS in the form of a 15% tax on all his income on top of the normal income tax. Another of the wonderful things about being a self employed independent contractor. Avoiding this tax plus getting rid of having to pay for medical insurance is a big reason a lot of companies go the contractor route.
Smartphone = Personalized Tracking Device.(PTD)
Always connected car = PTD.
Most 'smart' home devices = PTD.
Anyone surprised by this hasn't been paying attention.
I played the inkjet game once. Cheap Epson printer spent more time and ink cleaning the head then printing. Still had banding several times. When the final cartridge fouled up, pitched the thing. My HP 1200 Laserjet is 20 years old and still working. Don't print a lot, self test shows 7028 pages. It can sit for weeks and be printing good pages in a matter of seconds.
Sad thing is that if you watch the sales, you can often get a decent laser printer for not much more then an inkjet + a spare set of cartridges.
And now for something really scary. It seems that another town was willing to hire this guy even after he shot Tamir and lied to Cleveland about his prior record.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/us/timothy-loehmann-tamir-rice-shooting.html
He may be currently unemployed if this article is correct:
https://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2021/02/08/president-of-cleveland-cop-football-team-resigns-after-protest-coverage-of-timothy-loehmanns-participation
Pretty sure that all TSA agents have to swear an oath to "Protect and Defend the Constitution..." as part of their hiring process. For the TSA to claim lack of education as an excuse for violating that same Constitution seems rather hypocritical. Maybe the supervisors that thought this case was defensible should be brought up on charges of violating their oath of office.