Upstream 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: FBI Ignores Internal Guidelines To Target Readers Of Reporting On The Shooting Of FBI Agents (Updated)

    Upstream ( profile ), 08 Jun, 2021 @ 04:17am

    Intellectually dishonesty

    the government is too intellectually dishonest to be upfront

    This is a pervasive theme in much, if not most, of what the government says and does.

    The same goes for most of the government's C Suite and media co-conspirators.

  • On the post: Newly-Released Body Cam Footage Shows Louisiana State Troopers Beating A Man To Death

    Upstream ( profile ), 04 Jun, 2021 @ 03:29pm

    Of course, it's not just the LSP

    The [Insert Name of Law Enforcement Agency Here] has proven itself unworthy of trust -- both in its inaction and its officers' actions, which needlessly ended a man's life and went mostly undocumented because the troopers knew better than to record their own excessive force and rights violations.

  • On the post: Man Sues After Field Drug Test Says His Daughter's Ashes Are Meth And Ecstasy

    Upstream ( profile ), 04 Jun, 2021 @ 05:45am

    Re:

    The problem is not the crappy tests, the problem is the lack of consequences. No one should be surprised by the outcome.
    We see this time and again: Bad incentives, improper incentives, lack of disincentives or consequences . . . they all inevitably result in bad behaviors and bad outcomes. And the AC is absolutely correct in that none of this should be cause for surprise.

  • On the post: Man Sues After Field Drug Test Says His Daughter's Ashes Are Meth And Ecstasy

    Upstream ( profile ), 04 Jun, 2021 @ 02:09am

    Don't blame the dogs

    They're even more unreliable than drug dogs when it comes to correctly identifying drugs.

    It is not that the dogs are inaccurate, it is generally that the handlers are dishonest and corrupt, ie they are cops. Poor training, often intentional in the case of drug detection dogs, can be at fault as well. Of course, drugs shouldn't be illegal to begin with, but drug detection dogs can be just as accurate as dogs that detect explosives, cadavers, cancers, viruses, or other substances. And all of these detection dogs can be extremely accurate.

    The drug detection dogs should not be allowed to be "probable cause on four paws" nor should their "testimony" be allowed in court, but not because the dogs are inherently inaccurate, but because the handlers are dishonest and corrupt.

    Here is some data from the National Academy of Sciences:

    https://www.pnas.org/content/117/7/3492

    Here is a quote from the abstract:

    "Evaluation of 10 canines trained for detection of a severe exotic phytobacterial arboreal pathogen, Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus (CLas), demonstrated 0.9905 accuracy, 0.8579 sensitivity, and 0.9961 specificity."

    Here is an article from UCLA Department of Psychology:

    https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9xw413g4

    Here is a quote from that abstract:

    " After 15 weeks, the dogs achieved 95% detection reliability."

    Here is an article from Frontiers in Veterinary Science about dogs detecing viruses, and distinguishing between different types of viruses:

    https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fvets.2015.00079/full

    Here is a quote from the article:

    "Detection of BVDV-infected cell cultures by Dog 1 had a diagnostic sensitivity of 0.850 (95% CI: 0.701–0.942), which was lower than Dog 2 (0.967, 95% CI: 0.837–0.994). Both dogs exhibited very high diagnostic specificity (0.981, 95% CI: 0.960–0.993) and (0.993, 95% CI: 0.975–0.999), respectively. These findings demonstrate that trained dogs can differentiate between cultured cells infected with BVDV, BHV1, and BPIV3 and are a realistic real-time mobile pathogen sensing technology for viral pathogens."

    Here is a recent article from CNN about dogs that detect Covid-19:

    https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/10/health/detection-dogs-covid-19-scent-study-scn-wellness/index.html

    Here is a quote from that article:

    "During the testing period, the dogs did dozens of trials, with a success rate of between 76% to 100%. Jacky and Bella, the two dogs that specialized in detecting colon cancer, had a 100% success rate in the 68 tests they completed."

    Here is an article by Radley Balko that also addresses the issue. This article, while mentioning the capability of the dogs, focuses primarily on all the problems introduced by incompetent or improperly motivated handlers:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/08/04/federal-appeals-court-drug-dog-thats-barely-more-accurate-than-a-coin-flip-is-good-enough/

    Here is a quote from that article:

    "The problem with drug-sniffing dogs is not that dogs aren’t capable of sniffing out drugs; it’s that we’ve bred into domestic dogs a trait that trumps that ability — a desire to read us and to please us. If a drug dog isn’t specifically trained to compensate for this, it will merely read its handler’s body language and confirm its handler’s suspicions about who is and isn’t hiding drugs."

    The bottom line is that the weak link is either the training or the handler, whether through incompetence or ill-intent. Trained and handled properly, the dogs do quite well.

  • On the post: How Predictive Policing Got A Chicago Man Shot Twice

    Upstream ( profile ), 03 Jun, 2021 @ 11:52am

    Are we sure?

    The "heat list" was finally abandoned in 2019. . .

    Is there any reason we should believe this? Even though the cops say so, and maybe they aren't harassing this guy as much as they used to, I am not convinced. As we all know, lying is SOP for cops.

  • On the post: Supreme Court Says The Community Caretaking Exception Doesn't Apply To Warrantless Searches Of People's Homes

    Upstream ( profile ), 03 Jun, 2021 @ 06:35am

    SCOTUS ". . . still has a lot of damage to undo from its decades of expansion of the qualified immunity doctrine. . ."

    While this decision may be a start in the right direction, SCOTUS also has a lot of damage to undo from their decades of demolition of the 4th Amendment (which seems to me to be implicated in this case).

  • On the post: After 50,000 Layoffs And Absolute Chaos, AT&T Ends Its Bungled Media Experiment

    Upstream ( profile ), 18 May, 2021 @ 07:54am

    Re:

    I am one of those captive customers, and if the whole damn company went up in flames I would be one of the millions of people roasting hot dogs and marshmallows.

  • On the post: Lawsuit: Cops Trashed An Attorney's Home In Retaliation For Successfully Defending A Suspect Against Murder Charges

    Upstream ( profile ), 05 May, 2021 @ 08:38am

    Re: Let's hope justice prevails

    Yeah, about 20 years of 6' x 8' therapy.

  • On the post: Detroit PD Detective Sued For His (Second) Bogus Arrest Predicated On Questionable Facial Recognition Searches

    Upstream ( profile ), 23 Apr, 2021 @ 12:48am

    Re: The modern day version of 'reasonable cause on demand'

    This is just the new-tech version of the police dog named "Probable Cause," who "alerted" on the handler's cue.

  • On the post: Facebook's Distinction Between Data Breaches And Scraping Would Make A Lot More Sense If It Hadn't Argued Differently In Court

    Upstream ( profile ), 23 Apr, 2021 @ 12:37am

    Just say "No!"

    Just say "No!" to [insert name of company or online service that uses violation of privacy and / or mass surveillance as a business model here]

    Mass abandonment is the solution, here. Unfortunately it is a less viable option when government is the violator. Government's private enterprise proxies, however, can and should be kicked to the curb.

  • On the post: Law Enforcement Officials Confirm Clearview's Facial Recognition Tech Is Mostly Useless

    Upstream ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2021 @ 05:01am

    P(A) + P(B) = 0

    There is no possibility that recognition of the exquisite crappiness of facial recognition will result in Clearview not continuing to sell it to cops to use to arrest random people.

    And

    There is no possibility that recognition of the exquisite crappiness of facial recognition will result in cops not continuing to use it to arrest random people.

  • On the post: Appeals Court: No Immunity For Cops Who Punched A Man Hanging From A Second Story Window And Tased Him When He Hit The Ground

    Upstream ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2021 @ 04:45am

    Schrodinger's weapon: one that exists in two states until an officer feels comfortable testifying one way or the other.

    Schrodinger's weapon: one that exists in two states until an officer feels comfortable testilying one way or the other.

    FTFY

    The Fourth Amendment right of an injured, visibly unarmed suspect to be free from temporarily paralyzing force while positioned at a height that carries with it a risk of serious injury or death.

    It is truly disgusting that the 4th Amendment has to be contorted like this to find some Constitutional basis for the right not to be viciously assaulted (sometimes murdered) by the cops for no valid reason. It is even more disgusting that this determination of a gross violation of basic rights results in only a civil trial being allowed to proceed, rather than an open-and-shut / mandatory-minimum-sentence criminal case against the cops involved.

  • On the post: Judge Has Some Fun Denying Injunction Requested By One Brewery For Another Over Trademark Suit

    Upstream ( profile ), 20 Apr, 2021 @ 08:49am

    I am not sure Low Tide Brewing as a beer trademark is worth defending. While those who grew up along the shore may find the mental images and smells of low tide reminiscent of home and carefree youth, much the same way some people raised on farms think of barnyard images and smells, many (most?) people find the look and smell of seaweed and other shoreline detritus putrefying in the sun at low tide to be nauseating. I think it is mostly hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide, and methane, none of which are generally considered appetizing.

    Maybe they are intentionally trying to limit their market appeal to locals only?

  • On the post: PlayStation Y2K-Like Battery Bug About To Become A Problem As Sony Shuts Down Check In Servers

    Upstream ( profile ), 19 Apr, 2021 @ 01:56pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    I've heard about this before, but I've never been able to find a good explanation for WHY anyone would create a system like this.
    Maybe there were completely different priorities and constraints in place when the Unix-epoch type of time systems were created? Computer RAM was much more limited and very expensive. Computers executed code drastically slower, so anything that cost extra CPU cycles was dreaded. Code was made as compact as possible, to minimize the size of the stacks of Hollerith cards, and the time it would take a program to execute. Maybe a simple linear time system worked well with these priorities? Maybe a somewhat more complicated (many would say absurd) 60 second per minute, 60 minute per hour, 24 hour per day, 7 day per week, 28/29/30/31 day per month and 12 month per year system conflicted with some of these priorities? Today hundreds / thousands of lines of code and millions of CPU cycles every now and then may seem trivial and insignificant, but it was not always so.

  • On the post: PlayStation Y2K-Like Battery Bug About To Become A Problem As Sony Shuts Down Check In Servers

    Upstream ( profile ), 17 Apr, 2021 @ 08:45am

    Re:

    Please forgive my lack of knowledge of the details of the subject. Apparently I was born without the computer game gene. I am completely unfamiliar with these devices and the games that run on them. What little I do know about them comes from articles like this one, which usually explain how some detail* is causing or might cause the whole system to fail, effectively bricking the devices and leaving the "owners" with no recourse. *Proprietary code that can be bricked with a forced update, or a server that can be taken off-line, or similar.

  • On the post: PlayStation Y2K-Like Battery Bug About To Become A Problem As Sony Shuts Down Check In Servers

    Upstream ( profile ), 17 Apr, 2021 @ 06:17am

    Could this be yet another object lesson that anything that relies on a central server system or proprietary code is not really owned, but just on loan from the tech overlords?

    Sometimes these issues can be overcome, but often it seems it is just not worth the effort. Even if these obstacles are overcome, there remains the problem of possible legal action on the part of the tech overlords for some real or perceived copyright or patent violation.

  • On the post: Private Prison Company On The Hook For Legal Fees After Suing Investment Group For Saying It Was Doing Stuff It Was Actually Doing

    Upstream ( profile ), 16 Apr, 2021 @ 09:45am

    Re:

    It seems like almost every time I read a story where I end up cheering for the judicial branch, the name "William Alsup" appears.
    I was thinking the same thing. This is also a horrible, yet mostly accurate, commentary on the rest of the federal bench.

  • On the post: Lying NYPD Narcotics Detective Just Cost Prosecutors Nearly 100 Convictions

    Upstream ( profile ), 15 Apr, 2021 @ 05:16am

    Re:

    When cops are actually charged with a crime, there's always a "person of faith" on the jury whose faith in the cops puts them above reproach, lest the cognitive dissonance become too great.
    This is often the case, and probably will continue to occur at least some of the time because some people just refuse to accept the reality that cops are serial liars. This we will all have to deal with. But there are greater systemic issues that we should most certainly not have to deal with: judges who accept a cop's known "testilying" as truthful, judges who don't allow a cop's past lies to be introduced as evidence to impeach that cop's "testilying," prosecutors who intentionally put known lying cops on the witness stand, an opaque system that hides a cop's history of lying from everyone, including defense attorneys and the public. Not only should lying cops be be held criminally accountable for the damage they cause, but their enablers (judges, prosecutors, police supervisors, captains, chiefs, etc) should also be held criminally accountable, as well.

  • On the post: I Guess They're Not All On The Same Side: Cops Brutalize Soldier For [Checks Notes] Leading Them To A Well-Lit Area

    Upstream ( profile ), 15 Apr, 2021 @ 04:53am

    But we'll stick with the "less lethal" option because we're being overly charitable here.

    The time for being charitable, overly or otherwise, is long past.

  • On the post: Sens. Cruz, Hawley & Lee Show How To Take A Good Bill Idea And Make It Blatantly Unconstitutional

    Upstream ( profile ), 14 Apr, 2021 @ 12:43pm

    Re: 'Welp it's been five seconds, time for a reminder...'

    Hypocrisy and hating the 1st Amendment when used by others are traits not limited to Republicans. They just happen to have a momentary lead in the never-ending race to the bottom.

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