velox 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (149)

• On the post: New York's Attorney General Shouldn't Be Able To Go On A Fishing Expedition Through AirBnB Hosts

  

  velox ( profile ), 12 Nov, 2013 @ 01:26pm

  Re:

  How could the owner of AirBnB have forgotten to take the NY AG on a nice marlin fishing expedition. Certainly this "little misunderstanding" would be all taken care of.

• On the post: Renault Introduces DRM For Cars

  

  velox ( profile ), 12 Nov, 2013 @ 07:29am

  Re: And this is why...

  "The gas and oil companies will stick around for a long, long time."

  Your comment is just another way of saying that competition disciplines the marketplace. So long as gas-powered cars are reliable, and do not bring the hidden 'gotcha' factor found in some consumer electronics, they will have a place in the market.
  Renault won't be able to do much with DRM so long as there is healthy competition.

• On the post: NSA Defenders Reject Appeal For Clemency That Ed Snowden Never Made; But Here's Why US Should Give Him Amnesty

  

  velox ( profile ), 04 Nov, 2013 @ 12:34pm

  Re: Truth is a crime

  Will Snowden get exonerated any faster than Galileo did? Doubtful.

• On the post: Chinese Propaganda: The US Military Is Making Master Chief Armor; Me: Awesome!

  

  velox ( profile ), 01 Nov, 2013 @ 06:54pm

  Re:

  Yes. Totally agree with this.
  
  It looks like a tiny version of the "Missile Gap" propaganda promulgated by Jack Kennedy's supporters during the Cold War.
  Here's manipulation of the public through news media releases of "classified intelligence" was done in 1959:
  1) Claim the Russians have 1500 ICBMs
  2) Claim the US is dangerously behind in the arms race because we only have 130 ICBMs.
  3) Make sure no one finds out that the true number of ICBMs Russia has at the time is 4.

• On the post: VA State Police Collected Massive Amounts Of License Plate Data By Scanning Plates At Political Rallies

  

  velox ( profile ), 10 Oct, 2013 @ 07:50pm

  proof of deletion??

  What guarantee to the citizens of Virginia have that an officer hasn't squirreled away this data on a thumb-drive somewhere -- even though the 'non-hits' have been officially purged from PD databases.

• On the post: NY Times Doesn't Think That NSA Sharing Raw Communications With Israel Is Newsworthy

  

  velox ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2013 @ 06:41pm

  news is to "newsworthiness" like truth is to "truthiness"

  The crime: Spy on America and give the info to the Israelis.
  
  In case you forgot: A guy named Jonathan Pollard is spending life in prison for doing that.
  
  And in case you wondered: The NYT has reported on, or at least published a mention of Pollard's crime on more than 250 occasions during the past ~25 years.

• On the post: Court Tells Journalist Barrett Brown He And His Lawyers Can't Talk To The Press Any More

  

  velox ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2013 @ 11:04pm

  Regional differences in Gag orders

  This gag order would never have been issued if it was coming from a state within the 3rd, 6th, 7th or 9th Districts. Unfortunately Texas is in the 5th District which happens to allow the most restrictive, and at the same time the most weakly supported gag orders in the country. Based on what you can read here, here, and here, it seems unlikely that the 5th Appellate Court would overturn the gag.
  Given the split between the Districts, at some future time, the standard for the issuance of a gag order will probably have to be reviewed by SCOTUS.
  Are there any lawyers here who could comment on what kind of case it would take to get a SCOTUS "cert" on this issue any time soon?

• On the post: MLK Jr.'s Sons Celebrate 50th Anniversary Of 'I Have A Dream' By Suing His Daughter

  

  velox ( profile ), 03 Sep, 2013 @ 05:15pm

  Copyright as an incentive to be nonproductive

  This is a very public example of why copyrights that extend beyond length of the creator's career are worse than useless. The copyright is now counterproductive. The King descendants can rely on an income from their father's work, therefore they have lack the necessity to work and be productive themselves.

• On the post: Congress Asks Eric Holder To Explain Why NSA Supplies DEA Info Which It Then Launders To Go After Americans

  

  velox ( profile ), 28 Aug, 2013 @ 07:43am

  Re:

  "I'd like to see the DEA explaining to the courts when they prosecute a drug case as to which search warrant they used to stop such a truck."

  Law enforcement agencies use a tactic called "parallel construction" to launder the source of their information, and thereby make it appear to have been obtained legally. This practice is not just limited to the current NSA affair, but is actually widely used in other police investigations.

• On the post: Former State Dept. Official, Expert On Extremism Says US Terror Alert Is 'Crazy Pants'

  

  velox ( profile ), 07 Aug, 2013 @ 01:20pm

  Re: Re: The one goal of terrorism

  "cowardice was taken advantage of by a small group of powerful people in US government and industry to advance their own anti-American agenda

  Yes. The American public is told by those who stand to benefit that cowardice is the only reasonable response to terrorism, and it appears their strategy of intoning "Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid" (repeated 'soberly') does pay handsome dividends - both in profits and power.

• On the post: Fifth Circuit Court Of Appeals Upholds Decision That Warrantless Cell Phone Tracking Doesn't Violate Fourth Amendment

  

  velox ( profile ), 31 Jul, 2013 @ 04:19pm

  warrant = paper trail

  "We also have to ask why there's such an aversion to obtaining a warrant."

  Law enforcement hates warrants because they create paper trails, and paper trails can reveal unpleasantries such as incompetence - or worse.

• On the post: Senate Appropriations Committee Approves Trade Sanctions Against Any Country That Offers Asylum To Snowden

  

  velox ( profile ), 26 Jul, 2013 @ 08:05am

  Avoiding responsibility for history

  Its notable that the Senate Appropriations Committee adopted this resolution by consensus, which means that they didn't have to go on record with their individual votes on the matter. The members will be able to squirm toward either direction and claim they were personally against it, or personally for it as they deem necessary as the fallout from the Snowden affair proceeds in the future.

• On the post: NSA Talking Points On Utah Data Center: We're Teaming Up With Tech Companies To 'Protect' The Internet

  

  velox ( profile ), 12 Jul, 2013 @ 09:51am

  The NSA's Utah tech partner

  OMNITURE

  "NSA Talking Points On Utah Data Center: We're Teaming Up With Tech Companies"

  
  
  To prevent data from your computer going to Omniture set a firewall rule to block incoming and outgoing traffic with the range 66.235.0.0/16
  (For those who aren't familiar with CIDR format, this actually means everything from 66.235.0.1 - 66.235.255.255)

• On the post: Washington Post Makes Bizarre, Factually Incorrect Claims About Glenn Greenwald, Can't Figure Out How To Update

  

  velox ( profile ), 10 Jul, 2013 @ 04:05pm

  Re: Re:

  Oh he's being smart alright, but I think its for a different reason.
  If he waits long enough, then almost all of the people who are ever going to read his story will have already done so and will have moved on to the next day's news. Not too many people are going to come back and look to see if there are any changes after a day or two. By delaying, he is able to leave group of readers who were not really informed on the situation with the same incorrect beliefs he wanted them to have in the first place.

• On the post: China, Once Again, Using Censorship Elsewhere To Justify Oppressive Great Firewall Of China

  

  velox ( profile ), 08 Jul, 2013 @ 04:52pm

  Great Firewall built by US Tech

  Another reason that China can point to US hypocrisy on this topic is the fact that US companies consulted on the Great Firewall project, and then sold them the equipment to make it happen -- knowing full well what it was intended for.
  Here is a series of slides from an internal presentation at Cisco dating back to 2002, as the Great Firewall was being built. The slides discuss its purpose, and you can see on slide #57 that suppression of China's religious minority, the Falun Gong is directly mentioned.

• On the post: Valerie Plame & Joe Wilson: This Has Nothing To Do With Snowden, The Intelligence-Industrial Complex Is Out Of Control

  

  velox ( profile ), 28 Jun, 2013 @ 08:21pm

  Re: Sideshows

  The fact that sideshows are interesting doesn't change the fact that they are still sideshows.
  
  The US Constitution, and the government's duty to uphold that essential American document is the story.
  
  What is some guy named Snowden who we never heard of until a few weeks ago compared with the that?

• On the post: President Obama Calls Ed Snowden A 'Hacker' When He Didn't Hack Anything

  

  velox ( profile ), 27 Jun, 2013 @ 12:46pm

  =

  "hacker" = "cyber-terrorist" = 'anybody who used a computer to do anything I don't like'

• On the post: Federal Judge None Too Impressed With Government's Defense Of Its 'No Fly' List

  

  velox ( profile ), 26 Jun, 2013 @ 02:57pm

  It seems to me that the No-Fly-List is another example of the unforeseen consequences that have proceeded after the government began twisting interpretations of the Commerce Clause into legal pretzels. Without the idea that the federal government is allowed to do almost anything it wants with respect to "interstate commerce", it would be hard to see where the US Constitution authorizes it to restrict travel by citizens.

• On the post: California AG Pretends Copyright Infringement Is Theft; Charges Streaming Site With Grand Theft

  

  velox ( profile ), 14 Jun, 2013 @ 06:18pm

  Re:

  You can bet the AG will really enjoy those great seats she has earned at the Oscars next March.
  Bonus: Partying with the glitterati afterward.

• On the post: The Current Surveillance State Is The End Result Of Two Consecutive Presidents Rewriting Their Job Descriptions

  

  velox ( profile ), 12 Jun, 2013 @ 10:14am

  Re: Re:

  Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that comment was applying the "Chimpy" label to GW Bush, not Obama.
  If you recall, many cartoon caricatures at the time gave W chimp-like features.

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