All of this coalesced into Chaudhry's arrest for the crime of pretending to be a terrorist. Chaudry was charged with violating the "terrorism hoax" law, which is a real thing, even though it's rarely used.
This kind of reminds me of the laws in the US against simulated controlled substances. Apparently when the cops and legislators don't have enough actual crimes to worry about, they turn to non-crimes*, and then to simulated non-crimes.
*The controlled substances, not the terrorism.
If NSO weren't an identifiable company located in a friendly nation, but rather "shadowy hackers" in China or Russia, wouldn't they be considered international criminals, or maybe even "terrorists?" I don't see them as any different from the people selling dangerous ransomware and other malware on the dark web.
I know that these kind of double standards are SOP for unprincipled, corrupt governments, but it is still hard to get used to.
Exactly. Until these criminals with badges get prosecuted and imprisoned for their crimes they will keep on committing them. This DA who "declined" to do the right thing should be considered an accomplice after the fact.
Maybe the Alabama SC is trying to compete with the Louisiana SC for the "Worst and Most Absurd State Supreme Court Decision in Favor of Law Enforcement" award?
The same applies to encryption of all types (chat, email, etc). If everyone does it, if encryption and privacy are the norm rather than the exception, there is no way that using encryption or other privacy-enhancing features can attract extra scrutiny.
the viper is sure to object.
At the risk of clouding or distracting from the point of the article, here is an analogy.
There is a fundamental difference in companies that use the roads, like:
UPS
Fedex
J. B. Hunt
and companies that build and maintain the roads, like:
APAC Inc
Bob’s Barricades
State DOTs
even though all of them drive lots of trucks on the roads as an integral part of their operations.
The distinctions that are fairly obvious between these two types of road-related organizations may not be quite so obvious when it comes to Internet companies and their operations, but they are the kinds of distinctions that need to be made in order to have fruitful discussions of the topic.
Bingo! If Facebook is in favor of it, it is the wrong answer . . . and probably just plain wrong . . . and probably full blown evil.
This is an issue that really needs to get more attention, particularly amidst all the calls for and against regulation, censorship (or the opposite: requiring content be allowed), anti-trust action, etc.
Anywhere you attempt to draw a line in the Internet, the blurring and exceptions quickly become apparent. The heavy hand of government regulation has never been good at dealing with such nuances.
And, as Mike correctly points out, with technology and the Internet, change happens very quickly. Government and it's regulations are famous for lagging far behind, even when it comes things that change much more slowly.
We can never have an intelligent discussion about anything unless the terms involved are clearly defined, and those definitions are well-understood by everyone involved in the discussion.
While a new taxonomy (which tends to focus on categorizing things into groups or layers) might not be in order, maybe some new terminology, clearly defined and broadly understood, might be what is needed.
I have not been pulled over by a cop in a very long time, but in the event that should happen, I will try to get my registration and proof of insurance out of the glove compartment and put it in my lap or on the seat beside me in clear view before the cop even has a chance to get out of the cop car. Same for wallet w/ license.
To the poster who pointed out that they can look these things up on their computer: Of course they can. But that would deprive them of the pretext to shoot you, or maybe just to ticket you for not having useless pieces of paper in your possession.
Moving your mouth while slowly exhaling thereby making sounds to communicate audible information is now conduct, not speech!
1984 was not subtitled A Beginner's Guide to Dystopia.
Not just Southeast Asia. Look no further than the US, and everyone who voted for either Trump / Pence or Biden / Harris, all four of whom had solid histories of authoritarianism. The widespread popular support for authoritarianism, and even totalitarianism, is some very scary stuff.
This is the people entrusted with making sure the rest of us abide by laws abandoning their duty to be law-abiding themselves.
This is what a majority of elected, appointed, and hired "public servants" do as standard operating procedure (SOP). Exceptions to this rule are rare, indeed, and are usually purged, themselves (recent, high profile case-in-point: Justin Amash).
peoples' private fascbook pagesThere is no such thing as a "private" Facebook page, or group, or whatever.
all they're doing is burning bridges and gutting any chance that companies and individuals will be willing to help them when they come asking in the future, making their jobs all the harder if not outright impossible when that day comes.While I suppose there might be some drawbacks to this result, I think that it would be a net positive, and probably a large one, at that.
To both social media and the LAPD (and anyone else who asks). There is too much surveillance and spying that we cannot avoid. There is really no excuse for not avoiding the instances that we can avoid.
Mistrial is almost always too lenient, particularly when it comes to clear, intentional prosecutorial misconduct.
dismissal with prejudice, sanctions and Bar disciplinary referrals.These should be standard procedure, and maybe add some big fines, too, so the taxpayers would have reason to be mad at the prosecutor(s), and might be motivated to find a new one.
Exactly! in places where judges are elected (either to the position or to retain the position) attack ads painting them as "soft on crime are still the order of the day. At least this judge had the backbone to make this decision, which was clearly needed, given the contents of the opening arguments. Hell, the DOJ lead off with pure mistrial material.
I'm sure you could come up with many more examples of data loss, but of the six examples listed (the Sidekick example was duplicated on both links), all are rather old, and only three were complete loss of data due to accident / incompetence:
Disney / Pixar - <1999 - accident / incompetence
Sidekick - 2009 - accident / incompetence
DreamHost - 2007 - accident / incompetence
NARA - 2009 - theft / It appears that only one copy was lost, data existed elsewhere
AMAG Pharma - <2015 - It appears that only one copy was lost, data restored from backup or other source
UK Prison system - 2008 - It appears that only one copy was lost, data existed elsewhere
I mentioned the examples were old because in years past making backups was more costly and time-consuming than it is today. Storage was more expensive and data transfer rates were slower. In the time frames of the incidents linked to, terabyte drives and gigabit/sec devices were not quite the commodity items they are today. These may be small points, but they can make a difference
Another, much larger and more important, point: in the above examples, there is a possibility that corruption and / or criminal intent was involved. After all, business rivals could have a motive for causing a competitor to lose data or experience some other kind of setback. In the case of the Dallas PD, given what we know of police departments in general, and given what we know about the likely contents of the data that they keep, I would suggest that there is a strong probability that corruption and / or criminal intent was involved. Murderers can be highly motivated to cause the "loss" of evidence of their guilt, and I doubt that they would consider bribes, blackmail, or similar to be beneath them.
So, yeah, accidents happen and incompetence exists. But in this case I think an investigation should start with the assumption that this data loss is probably not the result of either one.
Wrong bear
Xi Jinping hates being portrayed as Winnie the Pooh