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For additional matters that otherwise may have arisen or may arise directly from the Investigation, you should consult my office for a determination of whether such matters should be within the scope of your authority. If you determine that additional jurisdiction is necessary in order to fully investigate and resolve the matters assigned, or to investigate new matters that come to light in the course of your investigation, you should follow the procedures set forth in 28 C.F.R. 600.4(b).

Barr's report said that there was never a case where the DoJ overruled the special counsel on prosecutorial orders, so presumably Mueller and Rosenstein (and perhaps subsequently Whitaker and Barr as well) agreed to the scope of the investigation and investigations and prosecutions on unrelated matters were handed off to other authorities.

Which is the point I'm trying to make that you seem to have trouble with: Mueller was only investigating a limited set of matters, and if he expanded his scope at all it was also in a limited manner made in consultation with DoJ. The other stuff, like Cohen's financial chicanery and the campaign finance crimes and whatever else were handed off to other authorities.

Despite the picture that Trump was painting as this being an open ended witch hunt looking at anything and everything to bring him down, it very much was not. Which is both good and bad for him, good since he has nothing more to worry about from Mueller prosecuting him or more of his associates and only has to worry about what he has already collected and put in his report, bad in that any other issues that were outside Mueller's scope are distinctly unresolved by the closure of the special counsel's investigation as well as any potential political fallout that occurs when more details are released.

You're claiming Muller didn't investigate Cohen and dig evidence related to the crimes for which he was charged, and hand that evidence over to prosecutors like any investigator does? Muller would be very surprised to hear that! Muller would also be guilty of perjury if that were so, since he submitted sentencing recommendation for Cohe to the court, and in it made statements to the court about him investigating the crimes Cohen was charged with.

Here's the government's sentencing recommendation for Cohen. Notice who signed it as the author:
https://www.documentcloud.org/...

The only downside to stuff like this (e.g. the "Green New Deal") is it benefits _everybody_. If you're one of the 1% that's no good.

Reading through AOC's “Green New Deal” document as published by NPR, there seem to be a few additional downsides for everyone, including banning:

all forms of plastic and fossil fuels,
all carbon emissions, regardless of source,
all nuclear power plants,
non-union jobs related to renewable energy (or anything to do with the GND),
airplanes,
and famously, farting cows.

But don't worry, they'll guarantee:

Economic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work

And hey, they even have momentum:

Nearly every major Democratic Presidential contender say they back the Green New deal including: Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Jeff Merkeley, Julian Castro, Kirsten Gillibrand, Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, and Jay Inslee.
        o 45 House Reps and 330+ groups backed the original resolution

But yeah, Executive orders instead of laws was bad when Obama did it and it's still bad if Trump does it. Funny how I don't recall you opposing Obama's use of them to magically create full blown immigration programs, though.

Don't worry, the Democrats won't stop trying to ban things until they've covered their whole list, which per the AOC “Green New Deal” includes banning:
all forms of plastic and fossil fuels,
all carbon emissions, regardless of source,
all nuclear power plants,
non-union jobs related to renewable energy (or anything to do with the GND),
airplanes,
and famously, farting cows.

But don't worry, they'll guarantee:

Economic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work

And hey, they even have momentum:

Nearly every major Democratic Presidential contender say they back
the Green New deal including: Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Kamala
Harris, Jeff Merkeley, Julian Castro, Kirsten Gillibrand, Bernie Sanders,
Tulsi Gabbard, and Jay Inslee.
o 45 House Reps and 330+ groups backed the original resolution for a
select committee

If you mess with a countries governing institutions and get caught expect consequences. I am not suggesting giving anyone in any jurisdiction a pass here.

As for Russian hacking and your incredulity about how pervasive it is, do yourself a favor and read Muellers speaking indictment released months ago. Interesting reading, especially from a tech/geek perspective. The details of the allegations are highly detailed and highly specific and these people are not master hackers. https://www.documentcloud.org/...

Agreed - if the driver was looking away per training and performing a task the employer told her to do.

However it was my understanding that the driver was likely viewing a personal entertainment video based on this news report:

According to the spreadsheet of watch data from Hulu, Vasquez was streaming television episodes for approximately three hours the night of the crash. She was watching "The Voice" from 9:16 p.m. until 9:59 p.m. Police believe the crash happened while she was streaming that show.

If that is the case (and her employer didn't allow such activities while performing her duties) she was careless and/or negligent (I lean towards negligent).

A redacted version of the report is here but it's long (and not text searchable) so I've not confirmed that it says what the ABC news station article claims.

And your mother isn't a virgin, but they both started out that way.

No. The lawsuit never included a defamation claim.

Regarding the ODNI report, I'll just leave this here as it covers most of the bases. More amazing are the points you did not argue over: you do not point to the report or any arguments or evidence from it. It's hard to do that for a document with a bunch of unsupported conclusory statements, though.

> But you've got a real knack for finding the meat of a story, which obviously is how many agencies contributed to the report written by Coats which was then ignored and dismissed by Trump against the counsel of virtually everyone around him. Yeah, the story there is the number of agencies.

That was *your* argument. You are the one who trumpeted the number of agencies as proving something, I said it was BS and challenged you to point to items of substance from the ODNI report. You failed to do so and then created this smokescreen as if I was the one claiming this statistic was meaningful. If you admit that it's BS and don't want it attacked, then maybe it shouldn't be the only damned factoid about the report that you cite. Maybe you should actually discuss the *factual basis* of said report as I've repeatedly challenged you to do so.

You do not because you cannot. Heck, you didn't even bother to link to the ODNI report because apparently it's not even important, despite you being the one to put it into evidence. Then again, that would get us back to discussing the factual basis underlying the report and you'd run into trouble right at the start of the document when we see this -

Thus, while the conclusions in the report are all reflected in the classified assessment, the declassified report does not and cannot include the full supporting information, including specific intelligence and sources and methods.

I used to joke that my classified evidence can beat up your classified evidence, but I don't really have to any more. Half of this stuff on the origins of the Russia nonsense came about via this bogus FISA warrant against Carter Page.

Also, one of the leaked emails from waaaay back when floated the idea of attacking Trump on Russia, so we knew it was planned as far back as the campaign. You can claim that Wikileaks is Russian if you want, but you would have to prove them *wrong* on this email to counter the argument. I alsso hope you don't want to play the game that some have of pretending the emails were manipulated, because they're not and I've long ago posted on Slashdot a copy of the DKIM keys that provide cryptographic non-repudiation.

> OK. Well, just because I'm curious, I've got a question for you: has Russia been actively attacking and trying to undermine US and European democratic processes, yes or no?

All countries are interfering with all other countries, more or less, I'm more interested in the specifics of actual wrongdoing. For example, Obama had Steele & Halper, both foreign spies, running a lot of interference.

I don't generally consider uncovering corruption or making political arguments to be 'wrongdoing' though, at least in the moral sense, nor do I consider anonymous or pseudonymous speech on the internet to be that either, as if each country had some right to regulate whether or not the rest of the world could even talk about them online. There are definitely process crimes that it can run afoul of--which is why the Podesta group was

Page 15 of this document: https://www.documentcloud.org/...

The examiner is right, it's nonsense. They are trying to build some kind of charge pump buy turning a FET on and off, but their "replenishment current" is coming from ground. Ground is shown both sinking and sourcing current.

Maybe they build some clever supply system that they are referring to as ground here, but in that case it's rather odd that they used the standard symbol for ground and not something else. In either case it's a glaring mistake.

It sounds like he is guilty of having sex with an under-age minor.

However if he really thought she was 18, then he's not a pedophile.

That's an important distinction in terms of others doing business with someone - many people would be horrified at having anything to do with a true pedophile, while being OK with someone that had questionable but legal sexual tastes otherwise. Just paying for sex is a whole different kind of deal morally speaking.

Even if it was not a setup, he was pretty stupid to do anything even close to illegal when it was very probable everything he did was being tracked by the government (probably more than one).

Read the details. It wasn't a setup. The girl told her counselor and the counselor told the police and yada yada yada arrest warrant. - https://www.documentcloud.org/...

I am curious as to how the authorities found out about this. I would like to assume that people don't generally brag about their paid sexual experiences. If she lied about her age to get on the site, then why is this man fully to blame? Did she disclose her age to him before engaging in sex? Does she 'look' 16? Did he record the encounter? Was the whole thing a setup? We need more information, I think.

all of that information is in the article

On August 22nd, 2018 officers in PD responded to a call from a counselor who stated that a client, a juvenile female under the age of seventeen, advised her she had sex with a thirty-year-old male on August 15th, 2018 and was paid $500.00 dollars. APD Child Abuse detectives received the report and scheduled a forensic interview at the center for child protection. On August 27th, 2018, the officer attended the iforensic interview which was conducted by CCP. The juvenile female, hereafter will be referred to as Victim, told the forensic interviewer she had sex with a thirty-year-old- male at a hotel in Austin, Texas and was paid five hundred dollars by him.

https://www.documentcloud.org/...

http://reason.com/blog/2018/09...

https://reason.com/blog/2018/0...

it's called an article because it summarizes, but all the information is in the underlined words. Honestly she got paid $500 to have sex with a thirty year old dude when she was 17?? By sex worker standards alone he criminally underpaid her on top of the inherrant abuse.

The arrest warrant was issued by Texas.
Not really known to be totalitarian anti gun anti second amendment state.

As I suspect you actually understand, Texas isn't even close to a monoculture. The affidavit leading to the arrest warrant was issued by the police department of the well-known liberal hotbed of Austin. The application for warrant was signed by magistrate judge Tamara Needles, a Democrat.

Other than all that, spot on.

Here is a study for you: https://www.documentcloud.org/...

TLDR - the race was very close and I believe its not possible to argue successfully that Russian meddling didn't carry the day.

Personally, I don't think we give the Russians nearly enough credit. Vladimir Putin is truly an evil genius. If you don't agree, read House of Trump House of Putin. I have to say it blew my mind. And if you're tempted to cry Fake Book, be sure to review the bibliography. Its hard to argue with facts backed up by proof.

Ah, the distinction between the law and its application. Not only were Title IX investigations lacking in due process and not only were they also overwhelmingly used to target men and not women, but shit, look at the hypocrisy that flies when a woman is accused:
https://jezebel.com/what-are-w...

On top of that, you're telling me Amherst settled Doe vs Amherst because they felt they were in the right? Have you read page 18 of the lawsuit?
http://s3.documentcloud.org/do...

How the fuck was that a fair and balanced process? Shit, there are countless examples. E.g. one where two students were both drunk and had sex, but only the male was subjected to disciplinary proceedings:
https://www.armstrongteasdale....

I think that the changes offer substantially higher chances of actual justice: https://www.pandslaw.com/title...

It's not really a First Amendment issue though.

Why can't you shout "fire" in a theatre?

Censorious trope two. Who says that you can't shout "fire" in a theater, especially when it's true?

The Pentagon Papers case did not allow for suppression of true information where the consequences of that speech were "dire." The Federal government agreed that this information was not within the scope of ITAR and that it could not prohibit publication. The judge in issuing this very injunction admitted that "Regulation under the AECA means that the files cannot be uploaded to the internet, but they can be emailed, mailed, securely transmitted, or otherwise published within the United States."

Note: personally I support DD here, I'm just refuting the argument that it's a simple 1st Amendment issue.

Then why are you attempting to justify the outrage here using exception-to-the-first-amendment arguments?

Spam your single link again, why not. Prove me right once more.

Preliminary injunction page 25: "Regulation under the AECA means that the files cannot be uploaded to the internet, but they can be emailed, mailed, securely transmitted, or otherwise published within the United States."

Oops, a different link that proves you wrong. Oh well, I can live with it.

Keep reading, don't just stop at the part you thought you understood but don't, lol.

Ok, you mean the opinion of the judge in the case as he issued the preliminary injunction:
"Regulation under the AECA means that the files cannot be uploaded to the internet, but they can be emailed, mailed, securely transmitted, or otherwise published within the United States."

Yep, read through to that part too.

I thought there might be related cases. There certainly have been. See https://www.documentcloud.org/... , where police were allowed to place defendants' fingers on phones or pads to unlock them..The judge basically allowed the state to gain access to existing, stored communications, and to compel the assistance of the defendant to access those communications.

The original filing named defendants are Amazon.com Inc., Cox Media Group, Cox Communications Inc. and T-Mobile, as well as what the union estimates to be hundreds of employers and employment agencies who used Facebook's tools to filter out older job hunters when seeking to fill positions.

This is disingenuous, they didn't use it to filter out older applicants, they used it to proactively go out and advertise for prospective applicants.

The law is pretty clear that the company has to treat all applicants fairly and without regard for age (or race, religion, gender, ...) and if they don't, they should absolutely be held accountable. But it's a huge stretch to say that, when advertising for potential employees that have not yet applied, they have to do so in a way that the advertisement is seen by everyone equally. I don't know that anyone has claimed that being shown a job ad is a right in this fashion.

When Facebook's own algorithm disproportionately directs ads to younger workers at the exclusion of older workers, Facebook and the advertisers who are using Facebook as an agent to send their advertisements are engaging in disparate treatment

Disparate treatment of whom? Not of applicants, because they are folks that haven't even applied.

Moreover, how is this different than buying an ad in Teen Vogue? Or on Reddit? AARP magazine? Ebony? Cosmo? Any of those magazines has a massively skewed age/race/gender balance. A natural reading of the claim would mean that advertising in any of those would (quoting the pleading, section 21): "unlawfully exclude [some protected class] of workers from receiving job ads and other recruitment information". Heck, by this logic, even posting a (paper) job offer on the (physical) bulletin board at a university is discriminatory, since it's overwhelmingly likely to be seen by 18-22 year olds and hence "excludes older workers".

And by the way, I don't see that any of the employers are accused of otherwise-hiding the job listing such that the Facebook ads were the only entry point. If that were shown (e.g. that they advertised but company.com/careers didn't actually have the same information) I would have a much different opinion. That would actually be excluding workers from applying for the job.

None of this is at all to say that there is no unlawful age (or race or gender or ...) discrimination. But targeted advertisements in conjunction with an open application process is not it.

tinkerton sneered:

You despise him because you're an induhvidual eh. Apparently the idea is that if Assange is anything less than perfect we can easily betray him and your standards are so very high that everything Assange has contributed melts away when you consider the charges.

Actually, I despise the sonofabitch, too - and it has nothing whatsoever to do with his sex life.

Instead, it has everything to do with the contents of more than 11,000 Twitter DM's between Assange and a select group of "long term and reliable supporters" of Wikileaks that were leaked to The Intercept by a member of that group, and published on Valentine's day, 2018. (How's that for irony?)

Those DM's make it Waterford clear - in Assange's own words - that, far from being the neutral information broker he has always portrayed it as, Wikileaks always was, instead, an instrument designed to impose his own, personal agenda on the USA in particular, and the world, in general. It was - and is - engaged in a deliberate propaganda campaign to sway public opinion in favor of the Republican candidate in the 2016 presidential campaign, and in favor of Russia (as what Assange claims to be a necessary counterbalance to American influence on the international stage, a positive influence on the world, and, bizarrely, a weak - and helpless - victim of American covert tampering).

It's transparently obvious from even a cursory scan of the trove that Julian Assange is, at best, arrogantly delusional about how geopolitics works in the real world, is determinedly ignorant of how American domestic politics actually influences its international policies and actions, and is either grossly misinformed about, or is deliberately misleading his key financiers (because that's what, from context, his audience of "long term and reliable supporters" consists of) regarding the effectiveness of Vladimir Putin's covert operations to destabilize democracies not just in the USA, but globally, as well. Regardless of which is the case, in these DM's to his inner circle of "reliable" supporters - one of whom, I remind you, is unquestionably responsible for having leaked them to The Intercept - his determination to influence the USA's 2016 election against Hilary Clinton, and for Donald Trump is repeatedly, explicitly made clear (as is his belief, all historical evidence notwithstanding, that Democrats, rather than Republicans, are the primary authors of American global adventurism).

But, hey, don't take my word - or the Intercept's - for that. Instead, read their most germane Twitter DM's for yourself, and come to your own conclusions ...

Better stats than the linked paper. But you are right - I thought only full rejections were counted, but it seems full or part rejections were, so the number for 2017 should indeed by 76. In any case, it is pretty obvious that 2016,2017 are different from 2010-2014 in the fraction rejected - even if this difference is tiny.

I used https://www.documentcloud.org/... for the data for 2017.

You're really bad at this...

you mean "this" Propublica article:
https://assets.documentcloud.o...

""
Chapter 4
Conclusion ...

1. PP Conclusion: âoe

Black defendants who were predicted to recidivate (i.e., given a âoeNot
Lowâ score) actually did recidivate at a higher rate (63%) than the white
defendants (59%). This finding provides evidence of predictive parity for
the GRRS for blacks and whites in the target population.

2. PP Conclusion: âoe

White defendants who were predicted not to recidivate (i.e., given a
âoeLowâ score) actually did not recidivate at a higher rate (71%) than the

We use the Positive and Negative Predictive Values for stating the conclusions instead
of their complements to follow standard practice in the field.
black defendants (65%). This finding provides evidence of predictive
parity for the GRRS for blacks and whites in the target population.

3. PP Conclusion: âoe

The black defendants were not assigned inappropriately high risk scores.
PPâ(TM)s conclusion is based on their results from their misspecified reverse
logistic regression model, which is contradicted by their results from
their correctly specified Cox survival model. PPâ(TM)s own Cox survival
analysis showed that a variable coding White (0) versus Black (1) had a
positive effect for predicting recidivism over and beyond the COMPAS
Low, Medium, and High levels. There was an interaction showing that
this effect was smaller for the Medium and High levels, but for all three
levels, the predictions from the model were higher for black defendants.
The PP authors are essentially arguing that the COMPAS risk levels
overpredict for blacks. If that were the case, then the predictions from a
regression model that included the risk levels and race (black vs. white)
designed to predict recidivism would need to be adjusted down for blacks
vs whites. However, when Black is added to the Cox survival model, the
predictions from the model for all three risk levels are adjusted in the
opposite direction. Thus, the risk levels donâ(TM)t overpredict for blacks. A
more detailed technical discussion is provided in section 3.4.

4. PP Conclusion: âoe

Black defendants who were predicted to recidivate for violent recidivism
(i.e., given a âoeNot Lowâ score) actually did recidivate at a marginally
higher rate (21%) than the white defendants (17%). And white defen-
dants who were predicted not to recidivate (i.e., given a âoeLowâ score)
actually did not recidivate at a marginally higher rate (93%) than the
black defendants (91%). These findings provide evidence of predictive
parity for the VRRS for blacks and whites in the target population.

5. PP Conclusion: âoe

The black defendants were not assigned inappropriately high risk scores
for violent recidivism. In a survival analysis, a variable coding White
(0) versus Black (1) had a positive but non-significant main effect for
predicting recidivism over and beyond the COMPAS Low, Medium, and
High levels. There was no interaction of this variable with levels as
reported by PP. This finding indicates that the COMPAS risk levels
neither underpredict or overpredict for black defendants.
""

To recap from the conclusion:

1. The "group" predicted to commit further crimes did commit further crimes at a higher rate.

2. The "group" predicted to not commit further crimes did commit fewer crimes.

3. The algorithm did not over predict.

4. Largely a repeat of 1 and 2 with an added cavot that it applies to violent crime as well.

5. The models are mathematically sound.

As to neural nets, this is totally irrelevant... why would the neural net be racist if it were simply instructed to hire people that had certain job experience and educational backgrounds?

You're just making things up at this point. Self teaching neural nets? Come on. Who do you think you're fooling with this crap? This is pathetic.

As to your link, the Guardian article wasn't addressing hiring software but rather a language association system. It wasn't actually biasing against anyone. It merely saw certain words used in certain contexts and made associations on that basis. Hiring software doesn't do that.

Strike one.

The New scientist article was talking about stop and frisk in New York as administered by HUMAN BEINGS and not computers. There's no citation in that article of evidence of actual racial bias on the part of a computer in that article. What is more, the methodology of how they determined something was racist by the NYPD was not specified. You clearly didn't read your citations.

Strike two.

The article from the Atlantic is referring to accusations made against a court reporter software... the issue was investigated...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

There are two or three papers I could send you that would explain why the accusation didn't made sense. Fuck it, here they are:
https://www.documentcloud.org/...

http://www.crj.org/assets/2017...

Strike three.

As to neural networks etc... why would the neural network be consistently biased against race X? I mean, if it is unpredictable then that shouldn't be consistent.

Think about it. You're making an argument that relies on some randomness and chaotic behavior and yet the results are very consistent. That makes your position indefensible. You can't argue that these black boxes programmed by different people, given different data sets, and given different critera are all going to be racist against the same group. That makes no sense. Such systems would be as likely to be biased against different groups or fixate on things entirely unrelated to race. I see no justification for the argument that hiring AIs would be racially obsessed and specifically biased against a given ethnic or racial group absent instruction to do so.

This is a translation of the whole "subconscious racism" argument that was spun up when the civil rights vultures ran out of actual racists to attack. So they had to start attacking non-racists otherwise who would need them? Now that we're moving on to machines you have to claim the robots are racists too.

Its sad.

Hey, anyone read the actual complaint? Check out "Count VI" (around page 49). If you're playing the drinking game, here's where you have to chug.

Plaintiff's computers contained information subject to copyright (campaign strategy and opposition research). They were protected by technological measures (passwords). The technological measures were circumvented (passwords were stolen) without authorization. Ergo: DMCA violation.

People, please remember: if you don't grant and protect copyright for political parties (and religions; you'll see why I bring them up, below) on their campaign strategy documents and opposition research, they won't have incentive to create those strategies and opposition research! You copyright-violating DNC-hackers are retarding the progress of science and useful arts!

And stealing passwords is cracking DRM!

It get better: accessing this stuff "caused significant damages" in "loss in the value of DNC trade secrets." I am not making this up; I am quoting the fucking document. They actually said that.

Trade Secrets. You just brought back 1990s memories of Scientology-vs-the-Internet.

DNC Trade Secrets. [fume] Because, let's just all remind ourselves of the big picture here: we want government to treat political parties' trade secrets as a legitimate thing, because that's good for us as a country, right?

Great going, Democrats: you reminded me of Scientologists, used one of the stupidest and evilest laws that America has (DMCA), and you abuse copyright too. So while we all agree that we hate Trump, thanks for reminding me that any conscientious person should hate you too.

Americans, please for fuck's sake stop voting for these parties.

The article says that the FBI didn't have the ability to "access" but the actual report says "exploit". The difference is that we know that the FBI had the ability to access the iCloud information that the phone shared but lost it when they disregarded Apple's advice on how to access that information. So the FBI had the ability to access some information on the phone. Also we know how to access the iPhone; guess the number combination. Given default settings with a forced delay, it would take 200+ days to unlock a 4 digit combination.

The report says that the FBI didn't have the capability to exploit the phone at the time of the Congressional hearings on the matter which is probably true. They probably possess some capability now depending on model and iOS version.

For theft of trademark.

Wait. What? Stormy Daniels?

https://assets.documentcloud.o...

28 pages.

My GAWD what will Trump do this time? "Nuculer War is Good"?

Even if you found its goals laudable, SESTA is not a particularly good piece of legislation. Techdirt hates it because it's intentionally vague--what, exactly, constitutes "knowing conduct by an individual or entity, by any means, that assists, supports, or facilitates a violation"? We know what violates current law, that is, what constitutes "general knowledge" versus "specific knowledge" versus "red flag knowledge" under the DMCA--but knowing what the law actually is means you can comply with it, and that's exactly the flaw this new bill seeks to address.

Lest you think I'm overly cynical (I am), it's worth mentioning that the Department of Justice also hates the bill, also because it's too vague. (Sensing a theme?) While Techdirt's worried that the "knowing conduct" non-definition of "participation in a venture" could be mean anything and everything, the DoJ's worried about the exact opposite--that courts, having been given absolutely no guidance by the bill, could just as easily decide that "knowing conduct" means something highly specific, "effectively creating additional elements that prosecutors must prove at trial." That the trafficking bill's intentional, catch-all vagueness could make it harder for the DoJ to jail traffickers, in other words.

The DoJ is additionally worried that the bill will send you to jail, retroactively, for past "ventures", even if those "ventures" were legal at the time, and again without caring to get too specific on what actually counts as a "venture." If you're reading along, they list that issue under the heading "CONSTITUTIONAL CONCERN", which you'll find capitalized, bolded, and underlined in the original.

In other words, it's a shit bill. If prosecutors were really interested in stopping child trafficking, they would prosecute the traffickers--if allegations are to be believed, you'll find a list of just those people, conveniently enough, on Backpage. Instead, they'd rather go after Backpage--make an example of them, even, since they didn't cave to think-of-the-children grandstanding like Craigslist did.

...which is why we now have a bill tailor made to throw Backpage employees in jail, retroactively, for whatever, because fuck you. I don't think many people here are dumb enough to find credible the sincerity and good intentions of a politician, on the eve of midterms, crying THINK OF THE CHILDREN, but it bears repeating that those sentiments are exactly why we're entertaining an ex post facto law to make King George proud, in 2018, when everything it purports to criminalize is already illegal.

The Copyright Act gives copyright owners the exclusive right to distribute copies of the copyrighted work. 17 U.S.C. 106(3); Adobe Sys., Inc. v. Christenson, 809 F.3d 1071, 1076 (9th Cir. 2015). That right is exhausted, however, once the owner places a copy of a copyrighted item into the stream of commerce by selling it. Id.; 17 U.S.C. 109(a); Vernor v. Autodesk, 621 F.3d 1102, 1107 (9th Cir. 2010). In other words, once a copyright owner transfers title to a particular copy of a work, the transferor is powerless to stop the transferee from redistributing that copy as he chooses. UMG Recordings, 628 F.3d at 1180.

There can be no dispute, therefore, that Disney’s copyrights do not give it the power to prevent consumers from selling or otherwise transferring the Blu-ray discs and DVDs contained within Combo Packs. Disney does not contend otherwise. Nevertheless, the terms of both digital download services’ license agreements purport to give Disney a power specifically denied to copyright holders by 109(a). RedeemDigitalMovies requires redeemers to represent that they are currently “the owner of the physical product that accompanied the digital code at the time of purchase,” while the Movies Anywhere terms of use only allow registered members to “enter authorized . . . Digital Copy codes from a Digital Copy enabled . . . physical product that is owned by [that member].” Thus, Combo Pack purchasers cannot access digital movie content, for which they have already paid, without exceeding the scope of the license agreement unless they forego their statutorily-guaranteed right to distribute their physical copies of that same movie as they see fit. This improper leveraging of Disney’s copyright in the digital content to restrict secondary transfers of physical copies directly implicates and conflicts with public policy enshrined in the Copyright Act, and constitutes copyright misuse.

Accordingly, Disney has not demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits of its contributory copyright infringement claim.

The judge hasn't ruled yet but has certainly indicated how he intends to rule in this matter. This is the court's way of telling Disney they've lost before the trial even begins.

Much of the parties’ briefing and argument focuses on Redbox’s contention that Disney’s attempts to prohibit transfer of digital download codes are barred by the first sale doctrine. For the reasons stated above, the issues presently before the court can be resolved irrespective of the first sale doctrine question. Indeed, at this stage of proceedings, it appears to the court that the first sale doctrine is not applicable to this case.

That's yet another point I made profusely in the prior discussion, and wouldn't ya know it, according to the judge who issued this 26 page order, I was right.

By Disney’s reading, no “copy” exists until a copyrighted work is fixed onto a downloader’s hard drive, and Redbox’s purchase of a download code therefore cannot possibly involve a “particular copy” to which a first sale defense could apply. Thus, Disney contends, this case is solely about the exclusive right to reproduce a copyrighted work, and has nothing to do with the right of distribution or, by extension, the first sale doctrine’s limitation on that exclusive right.

If Keeper wins this, they'll win because of misstatements/overstatements in Goodin's initial article that he significantly walked back multiple times, as laid out in Keeper's complaint. The research prompting Goodin's and other similar articles was not the issue.

I dunno, better ask Epstein and his guests on pedo island?

As explained in the complaint, there are two primary allegations:

1. That "Spectrum-TWC promised Internet speeds that it knew it could not deliver to subscribers."
2. That "Spectrum-TWC promised reliable access to online content that it knew it could not deliver to subscribers."

The specific legal theories are fraudulent misrepresentation, deceptive business practices, and false advertising.

It's completely unsurprising that the judge would conclude Net Neutrality or the lack thereof has no bearing on this case.

How and why could the the dossier (have you read it?)

Yes, I've read it, and you can too. Here is the full text:

https://www.documentcloud.org/...

... be used, in any capacity, without un-impeachable verification, to get a FISA warrant to surveil a presidential campaign and administration?Because parts of it had been verified, and more gets verified as time goes on. Before all is said and done, the entire document will be verified.

http://www.newsweek.com/trump-...

Haha, this wasn't the 1st FISA warrant on Carter Page, who became a person of interest to the FBI in 2013. The Steele document was a thing until 2016!

This has NOTHING to do with Manafort's laundering and Russia connections, contact between Papadopoulos and Russia, or Russia hacking the DNC to help the GOP win the election, or Trump's son and son-in-law meeting with Kremlin connected Russians, or Trump firing the FBI director, because, by his own admission, he wanted to hinder the Russia investigation.

It's fun seeing Nunes go to battle with the people investigating the campaign _he_ worked on. A decent person would recuse themselves. This has all the hallmarks of political theater aimed at confusing rubes who will jump at anything that makes their side look good. I'm sure McCabe said lots of things, but the simple fact is that Carter Page is marginal to the Trump-Russia investigation, and besides, this wasn't even the first warrant application. And it's easy for Nunes to omit details to pull the wool of partisan nitwits, because partisanship makes people dumb.

Speaking of which, here's a copy of the memo and a link to Damore's site, both of which are quite hard to find on Google for some reason, even though other search engines find the site just fine.

It's amazing how many people call it an "anti-diversity screed" who either haven't read it or who badly misconstrue the part where he tries to say that Google could be more welcoming of women by making it so it's not expected to work 60-hour weeks with no human interaction and fail to realize that the overall thrust of the paper is to find non-discriminatory ways to make Google friendlier to women.

And here is the actual document, so you don't have to scroll thru the Gizmodo clickbait. https://www.documentcloud.org/...

Funny, just last year, the standard to be met was 25 down / 3 up, and now it's going to be 10 down / 1 up. Sounds like 'down' rather than up to me, Mr. Fake News.

https://www.documentcloud.org/...

It is fake news. 25/3 is for FIXED broadband. 10/1 is for MOBILE broadband.

Nothing got lowered. People saying "FCC wants to lower broadband standards" are pushing literal Fake News.

Heaven forbid anyone should reply with, like, actual facts...

From 2016 we have:

1. Approximately 34 million Americans still lack access to fixed broadband at the FCC’s benchmark speed of 25 Mbps for downloads, 3 Mbps for uploads

2. Advanced telecommunications capability requires access to both fixed and mobile broadband

REF: FCC Fact Sheet: 2016 Broadband Progress Report, Chairman’s Draft, https://assets.documentcloud.o...

From 2017 under Ajit Pai we have:

1. We seek comment on the appropriate benchmark for fixed advanced telecommunications capability. Should we maintain the 25 Mbps download, 3 Mbps upload (25 Mbps/3 Mbps) speed benchmark, and to apply it to all forms of fixed broadband?

2. We seek comment on whether a mobile speed benchmark of 10 Mbps/1 Mbps is appropriate for mobile broadband services. Would a download speed benchmark higher or lower than 10 Mbps be appropriate for the purpose of assessing American consumers’ access to advanced telecommunications capability?

REF: FCC THIRTEENTH SECTION 7 06 REPORT NOTICE OF INQUIRY, http://transition.fcc.gov/Dail...

Maybe I'm blind but I don't see anything in the second document about changing the benchmark speeds for fixed broadband services.

... making wrong assumptions. The FCC wants to classify mobile broadband as 10 mbps.

... when last year's FCC said it would be 25mbps, per Wheeler's 2016 draft progress report.

So yes, Trump's FCC is indeed watering down the definition of "broadband".

The campaign, dubbed Project Cassandra, was launched in 2008

Obama didn't become President until 2009.

Funny how that article completely glosses over that fact. It's almost like the author might be biased.

That's lamer than a Thalidomide dachshund.

You really believe that didn't happen while Obama was pushing to cement his legacy with his Iran surrender?

You really believe that Politico is biased against Obama?

Oh, you didn't even bother to FUCKING READ THE ARTICLE EITHER, or you would have seen the filing of a money-laundering suit against Hezbollah - ON DEC 15, 2011

And how the Obama administration squashed that.

Got the balls to tell us all who was President in 2011? (Hint: It's not Crooked HilLIARy!)

And you would have seen the MARCH 2014 indictment of Ali Fayed.

And how the Obama administration squashed that.

Got the balls to tell us all who was President in 2014?(Hint: It's not Crooked HilLIARy!)

You fucking anencephalic howler monkey.

Oh yeah, there will never be a President Crooked HilLIARy! no matter how #ResistWeMuch spews out of your ass.

The campaign, dubbed Project Cassandra, was launched in 2008

Obama didn't become President until 2009.

Funny how that article completely glosses over that fact. It's almost like the author might be biased.

That's lamer than a Thalidomide dachshund.

You really believe that didn't happen while Obama was pushing to cement his legacy with his Iran surrender?

You really believe that Politico is biased against Obama?

Oh, you didn't even bother to FUCKING READ THE ARTICLE EITHER, or you would have seen the filing of a money-laundering suit against Hezbollah - ON DEC 15, 2011

And how the Obama administration squashed that.

Got the balls to tell us all who was President in 2011? (Hint: It's not Crooked HilLIARy!)

And you would have seen the MARCH 2014 indictment of Ali Fayed.

And how the Obama administration squashed that.

Got the balls to tell us all who was President in 2014?(Hint: It's not Crooked HilLIARy!)

You fucking anencephalic howler monkey.

Oh yeah, there will never be a President Crooked HilLIARy! no matter how #ResistWeMuch spews out of your ass.

Except the reporter wasn't simply reporting what the Google researcher said apparently. At least not originally. Let me play Devil's Advocate for a sec.

Here's the actual complaint Keeper is making, and if you compare some of the text they mention that was contained in the original version of the article to the twice-revised version that's currently posted, there are some differences in the phrasing and verbiage that affect the factual accuracy of the statements being made.

For instance, just look at the URL for the article and you can see that the headline has changed. It currently reads:

For 8 days Windows bundled a password manager with a critical plugin flaw: Plugin for Win 10 version of Keeper had bug allowing sites to steal passwords

which, from what I can tell, seems to be an accurate statement (though Keeper disputes it on a technicality). But note the differences from the original headline:

Microsoft is forcing users to install a critically flawed password manager: Win 10 version of Keeper has a 16-month old bug allowing sites to steal passwords

which was false at the time of publication since the bug has been fixed prior to publication and the new bug wasn't the same as the previous one (though it was very similar). The complaint goes on to list dozens of other statements across the various iterations of the article, each of which they've taken issue with.

That said, let me take my Devil's Advocate cap off and say that I don't really think that the Keeper case has much merit, since most of the "false" statements seem to be minor technicalities at best. As an example, they contend that "Keeper" didn't have any bugs, since it was the Keeper browser extension that was buggy, not the Keeper app itself. They also contend that the buggy extension wasn't "bundled", which is technically correct, but it's installed via the bundled app, so to an end user it would have seemed no different than if it had been bundled. So, yay for being technically correct?

Really, I think they're taking issue with the connotations of the original headline and the bad press it created, and they're just trying to prop up their case with as many slight inaccuracies as they can find, no matter how slight.

Goodin quoted a security expert, and was reporting on the expert's opinion. Keeper will lose and lose big.

I don't think it's that clear-cut at all, for at least the reason that the current version of the Ars Technica article behind the link is not the the one that occasioned the lawsuit. Taking a look at the complaint Keeper filed, paragraph 30 walks through a laundry list of statements that Goodin himself made in the original article. Then, paragraphs 38 and 39 detail how he incrementally walked back many of the original statements after Keeper challenged them. The multiple rounds of watering down the original statements (coupled with the fact that, according to the complaint, Goodin didn't even talk to Keeper before publishing) could themselves suggest the original article was published with reckless disregard for the truth.

The prisoner's dilemma doesn't result in everyone cooperating. If it did, then it wouldn't be a dilemma.

If the reward for defecting is small enough, and the population punishes defectors enough, it's a smart play to cooperate. If the payoffs are (5,0), (3,3), (0,5), (1,1), you can get 5 once then nothing but 1s for the rest of your life -- while everyone else keeps getting 3s. On the other hand, if you're in a population of defectors, cooperation is suicidal. Note that in a world of cooperation, the average person fares drastically better.

But alas, we live in a world where defectors buy themselves draconian copyright laws, and attempt to make cooperation illegal (like FCC rules or Article 13 of the EU Copyright Directive).

From GEMSA's cease and desist letter "... to write you in relation to the defamatory, false and malicious slander which you and Electronic Frontier Foundation made concerning our client..."

There really can only be one response:
"I resent that! Slander is spoken. In print, it's libel."

(In passing, I find it curious that they say "to write you" rather than "to write to you". Previously I've only seen the former construction from Americans, but this is an Australian law firm.)

The signatories in the letter are indeed experts in the field and do have some awareness of the related issues; it's not unlikely this will devolve into a legal mess because of the violations of the equal protection clause.

Take a look at the letter itself: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4243275-Extreme-vetting-tech-expert-critique.html

Equal protection applies to US citizens and those already lawfully admitted to the country. It does not apply to those seeking admission.

The signatories in the letter are indeed experts in the field and do have some awareness of the related issues; it's not unlikely this will devolve into a legal mess because of the violations of the equal protection clause.

Take a look at the letter itself: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4243275-Extreme-vetting-tech-expert-critique.html

I've read his memo.

https://medium.com/@Cernovich/...

or

https://www.documentcloud.org/...

And he seems very sensible here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Basically he's alleging that Google's system of quotas discriminates against whites and men and in favour of non whites and women. And they fired him.

Now imagine if a black woman had made the same argument - i.e. that the company had discriminated against black women. Not only would she not be fired - she'd mostly likely be promoted. If she did get fired she'd sue and win millions. All the people who accused Damore of writing an 'anti diversity screed' would support her.

And Damore isn't anti diversity. His memo explicitly says

The harm of Google's biases

I strongly believe in gender and racial diversity, and I think we should strive for more. However,
to achieve a more equal gender and race representation, Google has created several
discriminatory practices:

* Programs, mentoring, and classes only for people with a certain gender or race5
* A high priority queue and special treatment for "diversity" candidates
* Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for âoediversityâ candidates by
decreasing the false negative rate
* Reconsidering any set of people if it's not "diverse" enough, but not showing that same
scrutiny in the reverse direction (clear confirmation bias)
* Setting org level OKRs for increased representation which can incentivize illegal
discrimination

It's typical of the media that they've accused him of saying something he explicitly was not saying to smear him and defend his employer. And it's typical that, if he'd have been a different race or gender that same media would have rushed to defend him and attack his employer.

The phrase 'this sort of thing is why Trump won' is overused, but this sort of thing is why Trump won. Trump is gaffe prone but most of those gaffes are him trying to confront the PC establishment. And it's clear there's a lot of resentment at that establishment, enough to make people overlook Trump's other character flaws.

Then again his opponent was hardly free of character flaws either. If you have two awful people standing, one you mostly agree with and one you mostly disagree with, it's not ignoring the awfulness to pick the one you mostly agree with.

The memo is here. There are these crazy things called "quotes" that one normally uses to support a particular point like that. You have posted six times on this story as of a moment ago when I went here and counted. I note a conspicuous lack of supporting quotes in your posting.

I do not and will not believe that you have read the actual, uncensored memo until and unless you quote from the memo to support your claims. You appear to have read reports about the memo while ignoring the memo itself and then conflated what's been reported about the memo with that which was actually written. This is hilariously bad because some outlets have done stupid things like strip all the citations.

Because what reader would want to bother with pesky things like facts in a discussion like this?

> He says things - over, and over, and over - like they're facts, with zero basis for them. His citations are often ridiculous, and he certainly does spend some time talking about how unbiased HE is.

Way to contradict yourself. He has zero basis... except for all the citations of scientific studies. What could be more ridiculous than hand-waving away all the evidence without bothering to engage with it? Why don't you read the memo some more and discuss that? Right, then you'd have to deal with scientific facts that make you uncomfortable.

So please explain the factual basis of your disagreement with the citations or GTFO. There are facts on this side in the paper. You haven't presented even one specific factual basis for disagreement. That only serves to show people that you know your basis for arguing is weak and you therefore are reluctant to disclose any specific factual disagreements.

In short, facts or GTFO.

Try reading the memo.

You are trolling. Everyone who read the memo knows that you did not.

It's painfully obvious, in fact, and it's hilarious because it makes you look so ignorant and you're not even aware of it.