Slashdot Mirror

A writer I work with had a situation along these lines with a subpoena from the city of Chicago regarding alleged police brutality we reported on.

The good news is that we won, and that, combined with this decision and a few others, there is starting to be some good precedent for shielding online journalism from gratuitous subpoenas -- specifically, the decision in this case (which came down while our subpoena battle was still raging, but wasn't applicable because of jurisdiction), says that a person who publishes online is a journalist insofar as their activities can be construed as journalism. This is a really sane approach that avoids the ivory-tower/guild mentality that journalists like to trot around when they start talking about shield laws and helps revive the notion of the citizen-journalist. Our case was decided similarly.

The bad news is that unless you've got serious legal support in these "new" areas of jurisprudence and your adversary has deep pockets, they can grind away for months and years pushing hopeless motions and ridiculous claims. When the City of Chicago subpoenaed us, they asked for all of the notes of the writer, Jamie Kalven, regarding all allegations of police brutality or misconduct by any officer during a four year period. The case in question--and reporting we did on the case--was about one alleged victim of police brutality and a couple of police officers.

Our legal representation argued this was, uh, overbroad. The judge agreed. But, over the next few months, the city filed several more motions with significant space devoted to contesting a point that was farcical and obvious to everyone involved. We were lucky enough to know some good attorneys. The Apple bloggers got the EFF behind them. But this is troubling on two levels. First, it's a big waste of resources all around -- federal judges have a lot more pressing issues than reading another two, or ten, or twenty pages of the same unreasoned, unsubstantiated assertions of fact.

What's more scary is that there are countless subpoenas and other legal threats every year that unfairly crush people, who, even if they win in the end, will no doubt question a dubious equivalence in our society: that winning a case and justice amount to the same thing.

I got HL2 Episode 1 today, and I think it is quite inspired for this reason. Absolute max with a game for me is an hour once or twice a week if I'm lucky. Judging from the hour I put in today, Episode One is extremely polished, immersive, and it doesn't overreach, which lets the devs get all kinds of tiny little things right. And, happily, it won't take me 6 months to play through with my current schedule. I'd much rather play one excellent, short game every three or four months than spend all my free time just to complete a damn game. I loved Planescape Torment but I played that one for the better part of a year.

Another good game if you like interactive fiction is Phototopia. It plays through in under two hours and is deeply moving and artful -- like Planescape and Grim Fandango, it is art. Game developers and designers want more stuff in their games -- more explosions, longer sequences, etc. I want something that will be thought-provoking, moving, and not take over my life to have those experiences.

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The View From The Ground : Internet citizen journalism from the inner city

Basically, the court afforded bloggers the same protections under the law that are given to all journalists, including shield laws.

Actually, the court said that they didn't want to rule on what qualifies a person as a "journalist" but would rather focus on the activity. That's a quite sane and reasonable approach.

I'm currently in the midst of a case where the city of Chicago is aggressively pursuing a subpoena of a writer I work with for our online reporting on police misconduct in conjuction with a federal civil rights lawsuit (see The View From The Ground). One of the questions in these cases always centers on whether or not the writer is "really" a journalist. This court sets a useful precedent in arguing that the spirit of shield laws is intended to protect the activity of making and distributing "news" and not "journalists" per se. Of course, there's no federal shield law, so our situation is different.

Following the court's logic in this case, you have to wonder how much "journalism" (as in material that appears in newspapers, magazines, etc) is protected by shield laws.

I live in Chicago, and wanted to respond to several comments I've seen in this discussion and to the article. I also live in one "ghetto" and work in another, which are famous hotspots for police activity.

First, their IT infrastructure claims to make policing more effective. As several have pointed out, correlation is not causation. As a further addendum to that, several other forces are at play which could be responsible for the drop in crime: gentrification, relocation of public housing residents (many of whom are going to the suburbs and beyond), and what seems to be a few more jobs at the low-wage end of the spectrum. Basically, you'd have to try to control for a) new, affluent residents of "crime-ridden" neighborhoods making more calls, b) how relocation of public housing residents (many of whom are involved in criminal activity that ranges from peddling to drug dealing and gangbanging) is tranforming crime (I'd guess, but I don't know, that drug arrests and such are down, because murders and rapes are most definitely going strong in Chicago), and how job creation for poor folks is also reducing some of the crime.

Secondly, lots of people have immediately argued that this IT infrastructure is a good thing and that Slashdot police-bashing is a Bad Thing.

In Chicago, police corruption and brutality is systematic at the highest levels, pervasive, and shocking.

Further, a good IT infrastructure cannot mitigate the effect of the completely shitty policies that keep good police from being effective in certain situations. Many of my friends on the police force lament the way that resources are deployed and policy works in handling drug-related crime, because the police necessarily tip their hand in busts, allowing the worst criminals to get away and leaving a couple of poor drug-addicted saps (not exactly the folks who marshall significant resources to get heroin and crack into the city and into the neighborhoods) for the police to nab.

Finally, and this is absolutely significant to this award, the Chicago police have often argued that their job is NOT crime deterrance or prevention, but crime reponse. Therefore, in several cases of police brutality and misconduct, the police claimed that they knew that crime was likely to occur in the places they raided or severely beat (killed in one instance, raped in another) innocent people, but that they couldn't just show up in order to deter the crime, because then the crime wouldn't happen. If the police are serious about deterring crime in Chicago, then the CLEAR system needs to be used in conjunction with pre-emptive prevention policies. These are things like simply stationing officers in cars in places they know (probably know even better with this new system, though it doesn't take a genius) lots of drug dealing happens, a stunningly effective and rarely used technique compared to the-chase-folks-around-yelling-"nigger"-and-then beating-them-up-without-an-arrest-but-pocketing-th eir-cash technique.

I'm not trolling. I believe in strong, effective policing. But that's so far from what I see in Chicago that congratulating them for an IT infrastructure that reduces costs and makes the police more "effective" is laughable compared to their abhorable behavior on a daily basis.

I live in Chicago, and wanted to respond to several comments I've seen in this discussion and to the article. I also live in one "ghetto" and work in another, which are famous hotspots for police activity.

First, their IT infrastructure claims to make policing more effective. As several have pointed out, correlation is not causation. As a further addendum to that, several other forces are at play which could be responsible for the drop in crime: gentrification, relocation of public housing residents (many of whom are going to the suburbs and beyond), and what seems to be a few more jobs at the low-wage end of the spectrum. Basically, you'd have to try to control for a) new, affluent residents of "crime-ridden" neighborhoods making more calls, b) how relocation of public housing residents (many of whom are involved in criminal activity that ranges from peddling to drug dealing and gangbanging) is tranforming crime (I'd guess, but I don't know, that drug arrests and such are down, because murders and rapes are most definitely going strong in Chicago), and how job creation for poor folks is also reducing some of the crime.

Secondly, lots of people have immediately argued that this IT infrastructure is a good thing and that Slashdot police-bashing is a Bad Thing.

In Chicago, police corruption and brutality is systematic at the highest levels, pervasive, and shocking.

Further, a good IT infrastructure cannot mitigate the effect of the completely shitty policies that keep good police from being effective in certain situations. Many of my friends on the police force lament the way that resources are deployed and policy works in handling drug-related crime, because the police necessarily tip their hand in busts, allowing the worst criminals to get away and leaving a couple of poor drug-addicted saps (not exactly the folks who marshall significant resources to get heroin and crack into the city and into the neighborhoods) for the police to nab.

Finally, and this is absolutely significant to this award, the Chicago police have often argued that their job is NOT crime deterrance or prevention, but crime reponse. Therefore, in several cases of police brutality and misconduct, the police claimed that they knew that crime was likely to occur in the places they raided or severely beat (killed in one instance, raped in another) innocent people, but that they couldn't just show up in order to deter the crime, because then the crime wouldn't happen. If the police are serious about deterring crime in Chicago, then the CLEAR system needs to be used in conjunction with pre-emptive prevention policies. These are things like simply stationing officers in cars in places they know (probably know even better with this new system, though it doesn't take a genius) lots of drug dealing happens, a stunningly effective and rarely used technique compared to the-chase-folks-around-yelling-"nigger"-and-then beating-them-up-without-an-arrest-but-pocketing-th eir-cash technique.

I'm not trolling. I believe in strong, effective policing. But that's so far from what I see in Chicago that congratulating them for an IT infrastructure that reduces costs and makes the police more "effective" is laughable compared to their abhorable behavior on a daily basis.

I live in Chicago, and wanted to respond to several comments I've seen in this discussion and to the article. I also live in one "ghetto" and work in another, which are famous hotspots for police activity.

First, their IT infrastructure claims to make policing more effective. As several have pointed out, correlation is not causation. As a further addendum to that, several other forces are at play which could be responsible for the drop in crime: gentrification, relocation of public housing residents (many of whom are going to the suburbs and beyond), and what seems to be a few more jobs at the low-wage end of the spectrum. Basically, you'd have to try to control for a) new, affluent residents of "crime-ridden" neighborhoods making more calls, b) how relocation of public housing residents (many of whom are involved in criminal activity that ranges from peddling to drug dealing and gangbanging) is tranforming crime (I'd guess, but I don't know, that drug arrests and such are down, because murders and rapes are most definitely going strong in Chicago), and how job creation for poor folks is also reducing some of the crime.

Secondly, lots of people have immediately argued that this IT infrastructure is a good thing and that Slashdot police-bashing is a Bad Thing.

In Chicago, police corruption and brutality is systematic at the highest levels, pervasive, and shocking.

Further, a good IT infrastructure cannot mitigate the effect of the completely shitty policies that keep good police from being effective in certain situations. Many of my friends on the police force lament the way that resources are deployed and policy works in handling drug-related crime, because the police necessarily tip their hand in busts, allowing the worst criminals to get away and leaving a couple of poor drug-addicted saps (not exactly the folks who marshall significant resources to get heroin and crack into the city and into the neighborhoods) for the police to nab.

Finally, and this is absolutely significant to this award, the Chicago police have often argued that their job is NOT crime deterrance or prevention, but crime reponse. Therefore, in several cases of police brutality and misconduct, the police claimed that they knew that crime was likely to occur in the places they raided or severely beat (killed in one instance, raped in another) innocent people, but that they couldn't just show up in order to deter the crime, because then the crime wouldn't happen. If the police are serious about deterring crime in Chicago, then the CLEAR system needs to be used in conjunction with pre-emptive prevention policies. These are things like simply stationing officers in cars in places they know (probably know even better with this new system, though it doesn't take a genius) lots of drug dealing happens, a stunningly effective and rarely used technique compared to the-chase-folks-around-yelling-"nigger"-and-then beating-them-up-without-an-arrest-but-pocketing-th eir-cash technique.

I'm not trolling. I believe in strong, effective policing. But that's so far from what I see in Chicago that congratulating them for an IT infrastructure that reduces costs and makes the police more "effective" is laughable compared to their abhorable behavior on a daily basis.

I live in Chicago, and wanted to respond to several comments I've seen in this discussion and to the article. I also live in one "ghetto" and work in another, which are famous hotspots for police activity.

First, their IT infrastructure claims to make policing more effective. As several have pointed out, correlation is not causation. As a further addendum to that, several other forces are at play which could be responsible for the drop in crime: gentrification, relocation of public housing residents (many of whom are going to the suburbs and beyond), and what seems to be a few more jobs at the low-wage end of the spectrum. Basically, you'd have to try to control for a) new, affluent residents of "crime-ridden" neighborhoods making more calls, b) how relocation of public housing residents (many of whom are involved in criminal activity that ranges from peddling to drug dealing and gangbanging) is tranforming crime (I'd guess, but I don't know, that drug arrests and such are down, because murders and rapes are most definitely going strong in Chicago), and how job creation for poor folks is also reducing some of the crime.

Secondly, lots of people have immediately argued that this IT infrastructure is a good thing and that Slashdot police-bashing is a Bad Thing.

In Chicago, police corruption and brutality is systematic at the highest levels, pervasive, and shocking.

Further, a good IT infrastructure cannot mitigate the effect of the completely shitty policies that keep good police from being effective in certain situations. Many of my friends on the police force lament the way that resources are deployed and policy works in handling drug-related crime, because the police necessarily tip their hand in busts, allowing the worst criminals to get away and leaving a couple of poor drug-addicted saps (not exactly the folks who marshall significant resources to get heroin and crack into the city and into the neighborhoods) for the police to nab.

Finally, and this is absolutely significant to this award, the Chicago police have often argued that their job is NOT crime deterrance or prevention, but crime reponse. Therefore, in several cases of police brutality and misconduct, the police claimed that they knew that crime was likely to occur in the places they raided or severely beat (killed in one instance, raped in another) innocent people, but that they couldn't just show up in order to deter the crime, because then the crime wouldn't happen. If the police are serious about deterring crime in Chicago, then the CLEAR system needs to be used in conjunction with pre-emptive prevention policies. These are things like simply stationing officers in cars in places they know (probably know even better with this new system, though it doesn't take a genius) lots of drug dealing happens, a stunningly effective and rarely used technique compared to the-chase-folks-around-yelling-"nigger"-and-then beating-them-up-without-an-arrest-but-pocketing-th eir-cash technique.

I'm not trolling. I believe in strong, effective policing. But that's so far from what I see in Chicago that congratulating them for an IT infrastructure that reduces costs and makes the police more "effective" is laughable compared to their abhorable behavior on a daily basis.

I know I'm posting late, but in Chicago, you've got a couple options:

• PCs for schools -- this organization, quite poorly named, a wonderful recycling and training center. I'm mentioning this before my shameless plug precisely because they're probably the better recipient of a general donation. Ask for Willie Cade.
• My group, the Invisible Institute. I work in the housing projects, and we give out lots of PCs and Macs to families who live in public housing. We're not so formal about things, but the computers are assured to go people who desperately need them, and who live near-Third World conditions and I install a lot of the systems we give to folks with Linux.
• Eerie Neighborhood House -- these folks are awesome, and they always need computers.
• The CUIP (I think) program at the University of Chicago, which does computer work with Chicago public schools. Google for "Ben Lorch" and "university of chicago"

I run a website (The View From The Ground) that uses an email newsletter that monitors what the city, police, and other agencies are doing in Chicago public housing (the projects) because there is absolutely no public accountability. We don't spam, don't release our email list to anybody. We're very disciplined about the privacy of our list.

We've thought about going to RSS, but there are big advantages to using an email newsletter for such a purpose.

While our email publication is "unwelcome" in places like the police department in the sense that they rarely like what we have to say, everyone from top administrators to low level officers read it because it scares them. There have already been several successful lawsuits and many major news stories (in the Chicago locals like the Tribune and Sun-Times and some nationals like the New York Times) that generate public scrutiny.

Now, imagine people at the police department or the Chicago Housing Authority, whose technical proficiency is often, uh, lacking, setting up an RSS reader and subscribing to our feed in order to receive our publication. Further, email is easy to forward, and we often get feedback that reveals a long and sordid chain of forwards until it reaches the person in question. We have received amusing lawsuit threats (one from a major company president for "deflamation") with such histories attached. RSS feeds don't have the same forward-ability as email.

Not all email that is received in a spirit of hostility is spam, and sometimes, even if the receiver hates the message, they have to read it. But that's only if they get it. RSS significantly raises the barrier of entry, particularly for people without lots of Net savvy.

This isn't not to say we're not working on implementing RSS. We are, and expect it to dominate the friendly/sympathetic side of our distribution list once we implement it as a distribution method this fall.

The point is that email is still a killer application of the Internet for distributing journalistic content, and that RSS and email can coexist in a mutually beneficial way.

I hate to say it, but the only way we'd become RSS exclusive would be if the next version of IE (which may not appear for years) ships with a super-easy RSS feed reader because almost every city agency in Chicago is MS-exclusive. Until then, we'll do both.

For the record, this is a list of 85 business breakthroughs. People forget, especially in the gadget happy world of Slashdot, that some of the great historical inventions and innovations are theoretical and intellectual and first exist in the realm of ideas and aren't clearly profitable or worth, by objective measures, an investment of money. Forbes wants you to think about breakthrough because they have the potential to make profit, which is good because it spurs innovation. But there are other reasons to try to innovate and revolutionize that are outside of the world of consumer culture.

Fight the national One-strike law for public housing residents

...are a lot like the problems and advantages of Microsoft's products. Mathematica is slow and bloated, but it's also easy and trusted. There are a ton of undergrads who know Mathematica and like it because of the symbolic interface. Any open source competitor needs to have a symbolic interface on par with Mathematica to compete because one of the reasons that gridMathematica may take off is precisely because there will be a lot of undergrads coming to grad school who won't want to program C++ or using the numerical Python module and just want to click sigma and do an infinite sum. Or, in this case, come up with something complicated and click "Solve on the grid" and it will Mathemagically do it, albeit slowly. As someone else said, gridMathematica could reduce a lot of the trouble for smaller universities to get a high powered computing set up, even if there is a ding in speed.

I think, pedagogically, it is actually better to start making your students program, say with VPython (which is easy as pie) and looking through numerical methods books to find a needed numerical method because it really dissects the guts of a math or physics problem better. You have to think about the error term, step sizes, singularities, processing time, etc, rather than just clicking solve in Mathematica.

But that doesn't matter: the more people are used to the Mathematica interface, the more this will catch on.

Fight the national One-Strike law!