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DC Inauguration Protestors Are Being Hit With Facebook Data Searches (citylab.com)
During the protests over the inauguration of Donald Trump, more than 230 protestors were arrested -- many of which were charged with rioting and had their phones seized by Washington, D.C., police. One of the individuals who was arrested received an email from Facebook's "Law Enforcement Response Team," which raises the question: Did D.C. police ask Facebook to reveal information about this arrestee? CityLab reports: In an emailed response to CityLab's request for more information, Rachel Reid, a spokesperson for the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, responded that "MPD does not comment on investigative tactics." The District of Columbia United States Attorney's Office -- the agency leading the prosecution of Inauguration protesters -- has not yet responded to CityLab's inquiry. CityLab also asked Facebook about the email. "We don't comment on individual requests," company spokesperson Jay Nancarrow said. He referred CityLab to the site's law enforcement guidelines page and to its Government Requests Report database, where the public can see how many legal processes it receives from countries worldwide. According to this database, U.S. law enforcement requested information on the accounts of 38,951 users over January to June of 2016, and they received some type of data in 80 percent of cases. Which "legal process" authorities sent to Facebook for information on the protester matters considerably in terms of how much data they can seize for investigation. According to Facebook's legal guidelines, a search warrant, for example, could allow Facebook to give away content data including "messages, photos, videos, timeline posts, and location information." A subpoena or a court order would give authorities less information, but would still include the individual's "name, length of service, credit card information, email address(es), and a recent login/logout IP address(es)."
Setting cars on fire, assaulting people, and breaking windows isn't "protesting."
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
This is based on a law pushed through by Obama. Trump just gets to use it. i.e. Just because your guy is in, don't let him pass bad laws. The next guy might not agree with you.
Rioting is not protesting. Only 230 arrests out of millions of peaceful protestors.
A number of crimes (including violent ones) have been committed, which the relevant law-enforcement agency(ies) are duly investigating. They have detained some suspects and are collecting evidence. What's so outrageous or even particularly newsworthy about this?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Part of the reason of that is the opacity with which government treats these things. That makes it hard as hell to be an informed populace and fight overreach. It is also something Obama promised and never delivered, he in fact often did the opposite. This is not a partisan statement, as I have nothing but disdain for or current administration and tend to lean pretty damn liberal. I mention it as a point of fact that few, if any of those in power have your or my interest at heart, regardless of the populist messages they spew.
Silence is a state of mime.
Can we stop confusing the fucking idiots who are the Black Bloc with actual protesters? Protesters should just arrest Black Bloc assholes.
So now under Trump... protesting is illegal.
Hey look! Fake News from the Snowflake News Network.
Please explain, specifically, how you come to this conclusion. Or are you in the "arson is just protest" school of thought? You are? Great. Thanks for demonstrating (so to speak) exactly why liberals have been losing state legislative seats and governorships for the last six years, along with both houses of congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court. Please continue with your way of thinking in advance of the next legislative elections, so this trend can continue.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
"Begging the question" just doesn't mean what it used to mean any more.
"Begging the question" is almost always used incorrectly, and most people don't even know the correct meaning. But enough people get annoyed by incorrect usage, that it is best to just avoid the phrase entirely in your own speaking or writing.
Use "raise the question" if that is what you mean.
Use "circular reasoning" if that is what you mean.
Or, if you really want to look pretentious, use "assuming the antecedent".
just because people object to Trump using overreaching laws, doesn't mean that they supported Obama - or more particularly Obama's signing of the enabling law. And even if they did, changing your mind about the proper scope of presidental powers as you see them used, or on any other political issue, being met with derision, "told you so" or "our turn now that we won, ha ha" is the opposite of helpful. It's just being an ass Also, the way you wrote that implies you are okay with Trump using this law, so you may want to be aware of that.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
If you are protesting and have your phone on you with a social media app working..
Expect all that networking to be collected by some agency and later passed to law enforcement.
A US social media brand offering services in the USA has to respond when asked by courts in the USA.
If you want to protest having a device that broadcasts unique data about yourself is not going to go unnoticed by a long list of agencies given the day and event.
Know that all and any public comments on social media are been tracked. Friends of friends joining or showing support for local events and will be connected back by 2 or 3 hops of friends.
In the USA you have freedom of speech, freedom after speech. People can peaceably to assemble and petition the Government.
The protection of been compelled to be a witness is well understood. Any device found may not always enjoy the classic unreasonable searches and seizures protection.
Older cell phone would have unique International Mobile Equipment Identity as part of the device and would often be opened and noted by police as part of a battery protection offer. The request to avoid battery leakage would then allow that IMEI number to be matched over vast US wide call logs.
Modern devices might just work when police turn them on and show apps used.
Any account mentioned or found on the "net" to be public facing can be found or a court request made for more information.
Given the long history of tracking protests online in other nations e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... "1986, French university students coordinated a national strike using Minitel, demonstrating an early use of digital communication devices for participatory technopolitical ends" expect the same tracking in 2016/17 globally. Police around the world have been tracking people online for decades. Once something is public on line, expect all connections to that account to be tracked back for many hops.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
No matter how many people use literally to mean figuratively, no matter how many dictionaries take note of the inverse usage, it is still wrong, and anyone trying to avoid looking like a moron would be wise to steer clear of incorrect uses. Ditto "begging the question".
See that "Preview" button?
I don't know if Trump supporters are smart enough to do the same, but these rioters are certainly discrediting the cause they nominally claim to support.
Funny, I saw the protesters as doing exactly what they said they'd do all along: act like a bunch of spoiled babies who didn't get their way and are now throwing a tantrum. They don't rationalize. They don't listen. They don't engage cognitive thinking skills. They distill it down to "you don't agree with me, therefore you are a hateful, mean, stupid, intolerant, bigoted, racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic Hitler lover and I'm completely justified in doing whatever my emotions lead me to do and you can't criticize me because criticism is racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobic, etc."
It's the logical endpoint of the "there is no truth and right/wrong is an illusion" ideology.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
.That means what is "correct" is what the bulk of the speakers actually say. It changes from time to time. This is one of those times and one of those changes.
Yes, and it's also dumbing down the language to the level of the ignorant. And it causes confusion when the listener assumes original usage. I do not believe either a good thing.
Other examples of words and idioms often used to mean something different from the original:
- Literally. Factually. An antonym of figuratively, and not a synonym.
- Evacuate. A synonym for empty. You empty/evacuate buildings and areas of people; you seldom empty the people.
- Push the envelope: Stretch the limits, not pass the buck.
- Peruse: Going over something in detail, not skim over it lightly.
- Nauseous: Noxious. His socks were nauseous, and she became nauseated.
- Noisome. Related to nauseous; it means smelly, not noisy.
- Proscribe: Forbid, not recommend.
- Ultimate: Last, not greatest. Ultimate position is the opposite of pole position.
- Nonplussed: Dumbstruck and fazed, not unimpressed and unfazed. Only Americans seem to use this one contrary to original usage.
- Comprise: A synonym for contain and not consist. "Comprised of" is almost always wrong. USA comprises 50 states; it is not comprised of 50 states.
If there can be any doubt whether all your readers have switched over to the "new meaning", don't use it.
I have yet to see any actual evidence of that, unless you count pure conjecture by The Young Turks & co.
Meanwhile, I have seen a fair bit of evidence that someone employed by Berkley appears to have admitting to assaulting someone who was unconscious on Twitter, complete with pics of the guy. I suppose that person could've taken a picture of an unconscious person and claimed to have punched them for fun on Twitter without actually doing it, but that sounds even dumber.
No matter how many people use literally to mean figuratively, no matter how many dictionaries take note of the inverse usage, it is still wrong, and anyone trying to avoid looking like a moron would be wise to steer clear of incorrect uses. Ditto "begging the question".
While I absolutely agree with you that educated speakers/writers need to simply avoid "begging the question," I also absolutely disagree with you about your use of the word "wrong" here.
Language is about communication of meaning. It's not a "game" where you get to "win" if you check off enough of the "rules." I'm not sure there is ANY English speaker out there familiar with the phrase "begging the question" who is unfamiliar with its meaning to "raise the question," and generally it's clear from context if this is the meaning intended.
Meanwhile, I can guarantee you that outside of philosophical circles and wacko grammar pedants, NO ONE will understand you if you use "begging the question" to mean petitio principii.
Hence, 98% of people will understand the common meaning of the phrase "begging the question" to mean "raises the question," and of the remaining 2%, the 1% of philosophers won't much care which meaning you use. And the other 1% of wacko grammar pedants actually KNOW about the modern usage, so they'll understand it too, even if they mutter under their breath.
So, if we're looking at language as successful communication, using "begging the question" to mean "raising the question" has a near 100% success rate in communication, and a 1% failure rate among the lunatics who don't realize language isn't a weird game where you keep score. But if you use "begging the question" to mean petitio principii, you'll likely only communicate with 2% of your audience at best (and that's assuming an educated audience). Communication failure.
There are all sorts of reasons "begging the question" was doomed to failure as an English phrase from the start -- it was a bizarre and archaic attempt at a translation of the Latin phrase even when it was coined hundreds of years ago, and it was based on a poor Latin translation of the original Greek. The "modern" meaning of "raising the question" has been used in learned discourse and by good writers for well over a century -- in previous threads about this, I've posted an example of a debate in Parliament from the 1820s I think where the "new" meaning was already so well established that a representative could make a pun on the two meanings.
The battle has been lost. "Wrong" is meaningless here.
That said, I'll agree with you that "literally" is a different sort of beast, since it has much greater potential for confusion between the two meanings. That doesn't mean I would condemn the new meaning as illegitimate -- but I agree that there's a good reason to stick to the original meaning there. "Begging the question" is no longer even in the running. I avoid it everywhere not because of confusion (since EVERYONE knows what it means, i.e., what you declare to be "wrong"), but because of the tiny minority of self-righteous lunatics who can't understand that educated usage has already changed... about a century ago.
I think pointing out that their silence helped lead to this can be helpful, as long as it's not done in a "haha, told you so" manner. If the partisanship isn't pointed out, people go back to ignoring it when their person is in power again.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
Thanks for demonstrating (so to speak) exactly why liberals have been losing state legislative seats and governorships for the last six years, along with both houses of congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court. Please continue with your way of thinking in advance of the next legislative elections, so this trend can continue.
Gerrymandering, electorate manipulation through mechanisms such as Voter ID, DMV closures, and polling site elimination, along with lying to the public and refusing to do their sworn duty out of a partisan lie they can't even openly take responsibility for, but have to blame on others? That's right, not only could they not muster up the courage to reject Merrick Garland, however transparently, they couldn't even take responsibility for it.
There's a reason why the new elections were ordered in North Carolina,(which thanks to their stubbornness on the bathroom bill will likely cost the state even more) reforms in districts in Wisconsin, Florida, Alabama, and Virginia, (all drawn by what party? Hmm.), why the Republicans in Arizona lost their attempt to defy the will of the voters(who are supreme over the legislature), and why Trump lost the popular vote(his landslide claims a lie as obviously false as his fraud claims), only winning because the electoral college lets a candidate several million votes behind do so.
Yeah, and Mitch McConnell can't even afford to let Trump spend the money investigating the problem because just like the birtherism, he doesn't want an answer. It would burst all the tiny Republican hearts to know they truly lost even despite their cheating.
But yeah, let the right-wing continue their behavior. A few more hamfistedly handled executive orders like the immigration one, and even the most naive fool will realize what kind of incompetence is sitting in the Oval Office.
All the illusions of grandeur will wash away. The only question is if Trump will have the grace to resign, if they'll manufacture some medical issue, or if the CIA will take care of it. He's not savvy enough to just shut up and follow the script like Reagan. Sorry, but he is that kind of buffoon.
So thank you, keep doing that, and maybe convince yourself to support an oppressive dictatorship because of all the "civil unrest" that needs law and order to crack down on it. Wannabe authoritarians like you are so obvious.
I'm still laughing over the alternative facts. You are a funny bunch. The jokes write themselves.
Grand Moff Trumpkin will lead you to your defeat.
Right, As much as I hate seeing people get hurt I am hopeful this how the left with its us against them identity politics it always engages in finally burns itself out. Hopefully regular will wake up a look around in 2 years and realize that all the damage all the violence came about from left wing protesting and all of them reached their point of justification not from Trump but from supposedly respectable news media, entertainers, politicians and the like.
Trump does some peevish name calling but its almost always directed at an individual and its *usually* based on something they did or failed to do, got poor ratings, gained a bunch of weight, got hacked, etc. That is different than the left were they toss around words like bigot and fascist quite often with no real historical justification at least not in terms of scope, they will outright fabricate claims of bigotry and racism which they will than often level not at individuals but at entire groups; the whole things really translates as "I know you are but what am I".
Hopefully middle America and lots women especially who went Hillary because they bought into the lefts lies about the "war on women" will wake up and see that:
1) They are at least as safe from external and domestic terror threats as before (Albright/Rice/Bush/Obama/Clinton/Kerry) were not foreign policy savants.
2) Their darker skinned friends and neighbors have not been dragged away in the night
3) They still have access to healthcare similar in quality to what they got before
4) Public schools still exist and maybe someone is actually trying to make them better in a meaningful way besides just pumping in more money which has not worked for the last 30 years.
5) Taxes are lower and people have a little more in their pockets
If all that comes to pass hopefully many of the remaining leftists will be removed from the Senate. We can get back to group of well meaning sensible liberals and traditional ( Taft style ) conservatives.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
You forgot transphobic and misogynistic , you cis-male hetero shitlord!
FTFY.
Tolerant liberals, by the thousands, have threatened to assassinate the president. I am not sure if imminent threats of violence protected by the first amendment.
Not only is there a flood of threats against Trump himself, but there have also been threats to rape Trump's wife. There have also been a flood of insults against Barron Trump – a ten year old child.
Gotta love Madonna's threats to bomb the white house.
The hate speech and violence advocacy is not just a few bad apples, it is entirely mainstream. Thousands of tolerant liberals have threatened murder (certainly on twitter). The hate speech and violence advocacy is strongly encouraged by mainstream media, such as the Guardian. The Guardian clearly feels that violence is an acceptable form of political advocacy, as long as it comes from the left.
Here is a statement by peaceful liberal Godfrey Elfwick, of the Guardian:
> I'd rather punch 300 innocent people and 1 genuine Nazi, than punch no Nazi at all.
--- Gedfrey Elfwick of The Guardian
Nasrine Malik, also from The Guardian, argues that physical violence against Trump supporters should be condoned because his voters are bigots.
FYI: physical violence, intimidation, and destruction, to advance a political goal is also known as “terrorism.”
> Title 22 of the U.S. Code, Section 2656f(d) defines terrorism as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.” [1]
> The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines terrorism as “the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”
https://www.nij.gov/topics/crime/terrorism/Pages/welcome.aspx
“When they go low, going high is not enough,” argues Malik, adding, “When Richard Spencer was punched in the street, it was a cathartic moment for many.”
Malik goes on to assert that “reasoned debate” is no longer sufficient when confronting “racists and misogynists”
Here is the video from The Guardian:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu3OPaNl3jU
Certainly the Guardian would find nothing wrong with this. It serves her right for having a political opinion that a leftist does not agree with:
https://twitter.com/abc7newsbayarea/status/827039436596670464
The hypocrisy of the left is palpable. Although the tolerant liberals are responsible for the actual violence, the left claim that anybody who dares to express a opinion that the left does not approve of is somehow committing violence.
Yvette Felarca is one of the ring leaders of Berkeley riots. She claimed that Milo exercising his right to free to speech was “raping” and “killing” her.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNGtI3Ezdvo
The Mayor of Berkeley, Jesse Arreguin, clearly condones the violence. He uses the usual liberal tactic of calling any differing opinion "hate speech."
> "Using speech to silence marginalized communities and promote bigotry is unacceptable. Hate speech isn't welcome in our community."
--- Jesse Arreguin
Peaceful liberals were violently attacking Milo's fans, but Milo is the "extremist".
In 2016, the left was screaming and crying about violence from Trump supporters. Clearly, the left does not condone violence to advance a political objective – unless the violence is coming from the left. Turns out, the violence at the Trump rallies was from thugs hired by the democrats.
The left booed and hissed at Trump when Trump suggested he might not accept election results. Hillary made some speech about how accepting elections was the cornerstone of our democracy, and everybody cheered. Until Hillary lost the election, then the Hillary supporters went out and violently r