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Cloudflare Is Liable For Pirate Sites and Has No Safe Harbor, Publisher Says (torrentfreak.com)
After dragging Cloudflare to court and accusing the web services company of various types of copyright and trademark infringement, noting that several customers used Cloudflare's servers to distribute pirated content, adult publisher ALS Scan told the California District Court this week that the company should be held liable for copyright infringements committed by its customers. According to TorrentFreak, "The company requests a partial summary judgement, claiming that the CDN provider assists pirates and doesn't qualify for safe harbor protection." From the report: "The evidence is undisputed," ALS writes. "Cloudflare materially assists website operators in reproduction, distribution and display of copyrighted works, including infringing copies of ALS works. Cloudflare also masks information about pirate sites and their hosts." ALS anticipates that Cloudflare may argue that the company or its clients are protected by the DMCA's safe harbor provision, but contests this claim. The publisher notes that none of the customers registered the required paperwork at the U.S. Copyright Office. "Cloudflare may say that the Cloudflare Customer Sites are themselves service providers entitled to DMCA protections, however, none have qualified for safe harbors by submitting the required notices to the U.S. Copyright Office. Cloudflare may say that the Cloudflare Customer Sites are themselves service providers entitled to DMCA protections, however, none have qualified for safe harbors by submitting the required notices to the U.S. Copyright Office."
Cloudflare itself has no safe harbor protection either, they argue, because it operates differently than a service provider as defined in the DMCA. It's a "smart system" which also modifies content, instead of a "dumb pipe," they claim. In addition, the CDN provider is accused of failing to implement a reasonable policy that will terminate repeat offenders. "Cloudflare has no available safe harbors. Even if any safe harbors apply, Cloudflare has lost such safe harbors for failure to adopt and reasonably implement a policy including termination of repeat infringers," ALS writes. ALS now asks the court to issue a partial summary judgment ruling that Cloudflare is liable for contributory copyright infringement. If this motion is granted, a trial would only be needed to establish the damages amount.
Cloudflare itself has no safe harbor protection either, they argue, because it operates differently than a service provider as defined in the DMCA. It's a "smart system" which also modifies content, instead of a "dumb pipe," they claim. In addition, the CDN provider is accused of failing to implement a reasonable policy that will terminate repeat offenders. "Cloudflare has no available safe harbors. Even if any safe harbors apply, Cloudflare has lost such safe harbors for failure to adopt and reasonably implement a policy including termination of repeat infringers," ALS writes. ALS now asks the court to issue a partial summary judgment ruling that Cloudflare is liable for contributory copyright infringement. If this motion is granted, a trial would only be needed to establish the damages amount.
"Publisher Says" ... nuff said
When court says it, or legislation saying it actually says it, then it starts to mean something.
Right now, its just horseshit. (Much like that Nunes memo.)
...doesn't make it so
What was the expression? A drowning man will clutch at a straw?
anyone can say anything but the headline starts with the drama
fuckin clickbait lol and I clicked it
Haven't been to that website in years, surprised they are still around.
The editor of this submission needs to be sent immediately to the Copyright Office him/herself, because they infringed on their own content 3x in one paragraph!
Almighty Science! -smh :-(
Slashdot Valentines Beta Massacre: iT WORKED! The boycotts killed Beta!!
And, of course, "The evidence is undisputed". No need for a trial; just seize CF's bank accounts now...
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
... the offender.
The reasoning here would support my electric company's termination of service because I download copyrighted material.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Somehow I have a feeling that it actually is disputed. The disputing party? Cloudflare!
Someone should tell this lawyer asshat that words have meaning, and that using them incorrectly undisputedly makes him look stupid.
Publisher eh? I'm sure they're liable for SOMETHING using that logic!
No safe harbors for publishers! Find them and destroy them!
I volunteer to be on that jury, and demand they produce every bit of the evidence!
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
By the publishers claim, if criminals repeatedly rob the same bank using an SUV with Firestone tires, the bank can go after the tire company for it's failure to "implement a reasonable policy that will terminate repeat offenders".
The court should punish the publisher for bringing this frivolous lawsuit to court by granting a partial summary judgement to Cloudflare and the court for the same amount they are seeking.
My mom said the publisher was wrong. Who's right?
I suspect not, they pretty plainly do said assistance.
The dispute will be about DMCA, and I suspect will not be determined in a summary judgement.
But is there really nothing to this? One of the related stories for this is https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/08/24/1639200/cloudflare-faces-lawsuit-for-assisting-pirate-sites which is another similar content lawsuit. But in that lawsuit, the plaintiff is actually using Cloudflare's kicking off the Daily Stormer as evidence toward their liability for hosting pirated content: https://torrentfreak.com/daily-stormer-termination-haunts-cloudflare-in-online-piracy-case-170929/. If something comes of that in the previous case, it might sink Cloudflare in this one as well. Any legal experts able to comment on this possibility?
I'll start. FISA warrants do not require disclosure of information being the product of paid third-party work, yet this memo claims the lack of that information is inappropriate to this investigation suspect. A guy who was being watched since 2013 by the FBI, which is probably another foundational piece of the warrant application that we can't read because it's a classified freaking FISA warrant. That's what's wrong with it - there's no transparency here because there's factual omissions we aren't even legally entitled to know about. Which means it's highly biased with an agenda, which some have said is called fake news.
grasping at straws
Can't they in turn just block all traffic to ALS? See how they like that?
Only porn group I'm aware of that injured a model to the point she had to go on disability.
If changing the content means taking on liability would that not imply that an ISP that modifies encrypted content is liable for infringement too?
---- aut viam inveniam aut faciam
They had a nice niche and good production when they started.
That niche is now the norm and other companies provide better content.
The torrenting sites could pull all their content and add the comment "Unimaginative material. Poor production. Star Wars Episode I is better than this shit."
Cloudflare is probably a massive NSA operation to track users across websites, including such things as intercepting their logins. It'll never be allowed to be taken down...
Iâ(TM)ll continue. The guy is guilty as hell. Not that it matters to PedoBear and his friends. And lets be honest, PedoBear is more amusing than most of the kind of comedy American politics has been creating recently.
Nutria pointed out:
And, of course, "The evidence is undisputed". No need for a trial; just seize CF's bank accounts now...
This.
If Cloudflare is doing anything other than pleading guilty, the "evidence" is, by definition in dispute.
The argument presented in this motion is pure handwaving. Any competent Federal judge is going to dismiss it out of hand, because no actual evidence is cited - only the claims presented in the argument itself.
Claims and evidence are two legally distinct things, AFAIK. <DISCLAIMER>I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV.</DISCLAIMER>
And then, of course, there's this. (WARNING: extremely NSFW!)
I think ALS needs a new lawyer ...
Check out my novel.
> Right now, its just horseshit. (Much like that Nunes memo.)
So, why did you fight so hard to hide it from us again?
You know why the Republicans reauthorized FISA, right? They're going to use the same thing on you guys. You'd have to be an idiot not to see that coming.
I'll be against such abuse both then and now, for whatever it's worth, but thanks for helping undermine things by not caring when your side benefits from abuse of power.
Right now, its just horseshit. (Much like that Nunes memo.)
A political comment in an entirely unrelated context? How original. I would rather subscribe to Cat Facts than your newsletter.
"NONE OF YOU FUCKING FAGGOTS CAN LIST ONE SINGLE SPECIFIC THING WRONG WITH THE MEMO! "
I mean, its biased, and lacks information, and omits context. It's poorly researched, and poorly sourced. Its all of 4 pages; that's absurdly thin. Then on top of that, it comes to a conclusion that has no legal basis, not even the cherry picked facts in the memo support its conclusion.
That's not why the memo is a big deal. The memo is a big deal because it represents the whitehouse's willingness to undermine its own DoJ, National Security, Intelligence oversight bodies. It's a step down the path to violating the separation of powers.
Trump needs to leave the DoJ alone. If the Mueller investigation ever reaches charges, Trump can fight them vigorously within the courts -- but he can't make this go way by the firing judges and prosecutors.
Well... perhaps he can... but if he does we now live in a tin pot dictatorship. And that's kind of a big deal.
Actually the one thing the memo proves is that there is a actual conspiracy within the Republican party in congress and Trump to obstruct the independent investigation.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
No comrade. You are incorrect.
If the memo were actually true and correct and its conclusions were founded in law instead of wishy-thinking, then Trump should let Mueller along his merry way; and sleep easy, and then destroy the case in court -- assuming the DoJ ever decided to even lay charges.
There's no possible need to fire mueller, and violate the separation between the exective and justice departments. Fight it in court where it belongs.
The reason this whole episode is a big deal is precisely because the white house is seeking to undermine the autonomy of the justice department.
Trump isn't some poor sap whose going to get railroaded into a false confession and sent to federal prison for life. He's going to have the best representation possible; and then appeals forever, and due to the unique situation what with him being the president there's going to be enough for the supreme court to chew on to last decades. And he appointed the last supreme court justice himself. He'll die of old age long before its over.
Firing Mueller is a gross abuse and violation of the separation of powers. Even sensible republicans think interfering in the DoJ is crossing the line.
This case only has merit if net neutrality is not a thing.
If net neutrality is abolished, then every service provider is liable for anything that passes though their system.
Which do you choose?
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
They are a large part of what makes the net run as well as it does. Having responsibility of that much information is not feasible.
[($)]
The _eviodence_ need not be in dispute for a lawsuit or criminal prosecution to need to go to court. Whether an act is illegal can be in dispute. I'm particularly reminded of Edward Snowden, whose leaking of classified documents on NSA domestic spying is not in dispute. Whether he should be tried for treason, or given a Medal of Honor as a brave whistleblower is in dispute.
The memo says a few interesting things:
The application was based primarily on claims from Steele, a person who himself had said he was "desperate that Trump not get elected and passionate that Trump not be president".
The DOJ official interviewing Steele was Mr. Ohr.
The Ohrs were being paid by the DNC and Clinton campaign to try to discredit Trump.
This information was not revealed to the Court when DOJ sought the FISA warrant.
Which is these facts do you call "horse shit" and why?
For ISIS a few days ago. This seems to be practical you the same. Cloudflare provides a tool. Someone is misusing it.
just watch pornhub or whatever
Was the Steele Dossier the basis for the FISA warrant (and much of the Russiagate investigation) or wasn't it? Lotsa table-pounders from both parties but this simple question is being avoided with a 20 foot pole.
Muller's investigation, like Ken Starr's before it, is a disgusting perversion of justice. Probable suspicion, initial investigation, probable cause, court proceedings is how this shit is supposed to work. None of the Russiagaters have come up with anything approaching probable suspicion, which means this is another open-ended writ of assistance where none of the indictments thus far have anything to do with Russiagate and Muller hasn't even bothered to examine the DNC servers.
> The memo is a big deal because it represents the whitehouse's willingness to undermine its own DoJ, National Security, Intelligence oversight bodies
It's own? Congress is the oversight and it is their memo. Wtf?
ALS is nothing but a copyright troll trying to exhort money from 3rd parties like Cloudfare.
Fuck off Yuri.
1) Please explain precisely what part of the memo is biased. It lists facts of record, which by definition cannot be biased.
2) What information does it lack, that it could have included? The actual documents it was based on are still classified, and of the Republicans only Trey Gowdy was allowed to see them.
3) What context was omitted? This is basically a repeat of #2. They couldn't include stuff that is still classified. In part because it's still part of an ongoing investigation.
4) How is it poorly researched? Please explain.
5) Interesting thing to say, given that it has no conclusions. It is simply a list of facts. It does not make conclusions from them.
6) In order to know they were cherry-picked, you'd have to know what's in the rest of the classified documents. What is your security clearance?
7) Remember, this memo did not originate with Trump. It was brought to him by members of Congress.
8) I'll offer a conclusion: I think you're talking out your ass.
"Was the Steele Dossier the basis for the FISA warrant..."
If we're parsing English, then no.
sr
"If the memo were actually true and correct and its conclusions were founded in law instead of wishy-thinking...
I'm going to repeat the question I asked above to another of your comments: To what "conclusions" do you refer?
The memo doesn't draw any conclusions. It's just a list of facts. Conclusions are what happens when you put those facts together.
"There's no possible need to fire mueller..."
Huh? Trump has expressed no desire to fire Mueller. McCabe and Rosenstein, on the other hand, may be in trouble.
"... and violate the separation between the exective and justice departments.
Huh? The Justice Department is part of the Executive Branch. It isn't part of the Judiciary. Different things.
Looks like it's back to school for you.
They cannot claim to be "neutral" after they took the Daily Stormer offline.
Antique Geekmeister cautioned:,/p>
The _eviodence_ need not be in dispute for a lawsuit or criminal prosecution to need to go to court. Whether an act is illegal can be in dispute.
What you say is true. However, the points the quoted argument cites are not evidence. They're the plaintiff's lawyer's characterization of relationships between the defendant (Cloudflare) and third parties not named as co-dependents - a.k.a. "opinions" ...
Check out my novel.
This was inevitable, after Cloudflare removed their services from dailystormer. By demonstrating they discriminate on what content they protect, they assume a degree of responsibility for the benefits that content receives.
Your questions are leading.
They also clearly show you will accept no evidence so providing it would be idiotic.
As it is with all conservatives.
Especially the ones that voted you up and will vote this down. Liars all.
Jane has an editor buddy helping her out. What a coward the editor is. This wasn't Karma, it was just a pathetic loser libertarian who is exactly the character from Code Monkey.
In addition, the CDN provider is accused of failing to implement a reasonable policy that will terminate repeat offenders.
This is about all they have to prove to a judge. DMCA safe-harbor or not, if you're not trying to put a stop to copyright infringement, you lose your protection and are liable.
The rest? Irrelevant.
Going after the infringers? Waste of time and money, they don't have typically have anything and plus it's more involved to prove some individual did something, especially if Cloudflare resists giving out information. The objective is to get a nice fat payday. The end-users don't yield fat paydays. Also, suing little Cindy cuz she uploaded Spongebob, yeah, that doesn't play out too great in the public eye. Going after some random download dump site? Only TorrentFreak bats an eyelash.
You obviously chose to ignore what the FBI said on Wednesday, something like "material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memos accuracy." The FBI does not make a habit of commenting on political issues. The fact that they did should tell you how strongly they feel about the extreme partisan basis of this memo.
There are an untold number of classified documents that this memo draws it's information from. We don't even know how many, what they say, or any details about them. The Republicans pushing this memo KNOW THIS, it's the whole reason they released it. They know the public has NO way to verify it's claims, it's pure cherry picked bullshit that is skewed in the extreme to push their agenda.
How do we know this? Because when they voted to release this memo, they also voted AGAINST the release of another memo, created largely by Democrats, that was based on the SAME underlying classified documents!
The fact that they blocked the Dems memo should be a HUUUGE red flag for anyone that is actually interested in the truth, and not just hell bent on destroying the credibility of the FBI and DOJ. If it was an unbiased, truthful memo, there would be no reason to block the other one.
These people are doing serious damage to our democracy, undermining trust in our institutions and doing anything to support the political will of someone actively destroying any bit of moral authority the position of POTUS had left.
Watch out, there's a three headed russian behind you!!
He's Kinghidrov!!!
It's not about defending himself from a court. He of course will never be in a court again (see Ford-Nixon). It's about defending himself from impeachment. That would be an affair of politics, and our politicians and their most rabid supporters live in a post-truth world.
So, why did you fight so hard to hide it from us again?
Because the evidence to refute it is also classified and Trump won't allow that to be released. Declassifying one side of the argument is cheating.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
ALS Scan seems to have forgotten that Cs* like Cloudflare exist to reduce costs for publishers. Instead of CNN having to pay for the network traffic from their main server for every visitor to cnn.com, the site gets cached by Cs at strategic geographic locations around the world. Visitors can then get the content from their local cache, avoiding the extra bandwidth and expense of having to transmit that redundant data thousands or millions of times over the Internet backbone between the local cache and CNN's servers.
So any "victory" in court making life harder for Cs will just result in publishers's expenses going up. If they mange to force Cs to police the content they cache for copyright violations, the Cs will simply pass the cost of that policing back to them via higher prices. If they get the court to give them a monetary award from Cs, the Cs will just pass the cost of the award back to them via higher prices. If they manage to get Cs outlawed, their network and server costs will rise by more than they had been paying the Cs. Even if the Cs could enforce copyright at no extra cost, the price they'd charge publishers would still go up - if the Cs have to stop caching copyright-infringing sites, they have to amortize their expenses over fewer customers, meaning the price for their remaining customers goes up. In other words, there's no outcome here which results in true victory for the publishers. Cs were developed as a way to cut costs for publishers, so screwing around with them by definition increases the cost to publishers.
The whole thing reminds me of the newspapers suing Google to stop Google News from using snippets of their articles, who promptly fell off the web when they "won" and Google stopped using them as a source for Google News.
* Cs = CDNs. Apparently using "CDNs" six times in a slashdot post triggers the lameness filter.
The evidence is undisputed
Actually given the fact that they are in court, I think the only correct statement is that the evidence is being disputed RIGHT NOW.
The memo shows FBI used a partisan campaign document to get a warrant to spy on a rival campaign. And shows the FBI omitted crucial information from a FISA court. No spin can change those basic facts.
It's official, Memo states FISA warrant could have not been obtained without Steele Dossier. The memo asserts that former FBI official Andrew McCabe stated in closed-door testimony that without the anti-Trump dossier, the FBI would not have been able to secure surveillance warrants.
Can you in your wildest dreams imagine if the GOP had done that to Mrs. Clinton? Can you imagine the blood in the eyes of the media pooh-bahs if they found the GOP doing exactly what HRC and the media did?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
The Democratic National Committee paid a law firm who paid Fusion GPS who paid a foreign spy who paid Russians for a dossier used by FBI for FISA warrant to wiretap Trump.
Federal officials conspired to spy on a rival political campaign using information they had not verified from people they knew were untrustworthy. And these officials deliberately and repeatedly defrauded the judiciary by withholding key information.
The most messed up part is that the Congressional committee is in charge of oversight of these intelligence agencies, not the other way around. For Rosenstein to threaten the committee because they're doing their job of oversight is stunning. These agencies have gone rogue and seem to feel they are unaccountable to anyone.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
"her"?
The FISA courts are, and were designed to be, rubber-stamp kangaroo courts that never get more information than whatever the DOJ or FBI feels like giving.
For the people who legislated them to be like that to now come crying is REALLY rich.
That's how those courts are MEANT to work, so stop it with the fake outrage!
Well, if congress was serious about getting down to the truth, they could make the FISA proceedings public. And even ask the judge. It would be pretty trivial to find out the truth. Nobody cares about the truth here though, and that's what the FISA courts are perfect for: dishonesty, lies, illegal warrants, it's all up for grabs, just ask them! The perfect design: an adversarial court system (so the judge can't really use his own brain beyond applying useless procedures) with the adversary removed!
The US justice system has finally found its holy grail and perfected the art of perverting justice.
Was the Steele Dossier the basis for the FISA warrant (and much of the Russiagate investigation) or wasn't it? Lotsa table-pounders from both parties but this simple question is being avoided with a 20 foot pole.
Carter Page first came on the FBI's radar in 2013, and was supposedly the subject of a FISA warrant in 2014:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Page#Foreign_policy_and_links_to_Russia
The fact that he came up, again, is hardly surprising given he didn't appear to change his behaviour towards Russia over the years.
Muller's investigation, like Ken Starr's before it, is a disgusting perversion of justice. Probable suspicion, initial investigation, probable cause, court proceedings is how this shit is supposed to work. None of the Russiagaters have come up with anything approaching probable suspicion, which means this is another open-ended writ of assistance where none of the indictments thus far have anything to do with Russiagate and Muller hasn't even bothered to examine the DNC servers.
Tell that to the people who (a) have been indicted, and (b) the people who have already pled guilty.
how much proof that cliton rigged the election in her favor do you SJW crybabies need?
The election went in her favor?
but only if they take down customers of their service that have been properly identified as committing copyright violations or other illegal activities. Which Cloudflare refuses to do.
It lists facts of record, which by definition cannot be biased.
You can bias facts. You just omit the ones that aren't in your favor. Whether it is or isn't biased can't be known by the American public, and that's still a concern.
I'll bite.
We don't know what was left out of this memo. We do know the FBI thought it had inaccuracies, but no idea what they are.
At best, this memo should be considered a limited view of things. It is a summary with no details and we can't see the original documents. Taking everything in this memo as fact is not possible because the intelligence agencies have already said it's not accurate, but not how it's inaccurate. We don't know what to trust.
It's possible that everything in there is true, and the FBI simply wanted to add doubt as to not screw up the investigation. We don't know that though.
The release of the memo was extremely partisan and if the parties were reversed, the GOP would be crying fowl right now too. That's something everyone should agree on.
It's pretty obvious that the russians tried to meddle in our election. We don't know how much and we don't know who was involved for certain. While I think the evidence that is public has not implicated Trump personally, it has cast doubt on several members of his campaign. My money is on kushner though.
They started off scanning other peoples work without permission. Now they shoot their own porn but they've moved on to fucking over hard working affiliates who send their customers.
Trump is trying to set the stage for an eventually court and congressional victory. The memo provides arguments that can be used in trial and where the DOJ may not want to use classified information. It gives breathing room to some of the birds that we're going to start singing to the FBI. At the end of the day it also gives Republicans a new target and investigation, so they and their propaganda machine can start laying the foundation for why Trump shouldn't face impeachment even if something is found. They are conspiring to hurt the investigation and any harm from it's outcomes.
There's zero chance that Snowden will get a Medal of Honor.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Hear that whooshing noise? It's sarcasm zooming over your head.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
If every hosting/carrier/etc was liable for its customers actions, then the entire country would be shut down as commerce would grind to a halt, in most every industry.
Hear that whooshing noise? It's sarcasm zooming over your head.
No whooshing noise. Pro tip: Read the context, not every reply on Slashdot is disagreeing with you, and your sarcasm was not only noted but built upon.
In case it's not obvious: This post is a negative reply to your silly whooshing comment.
If Hillary Clinton could rig votes, why didn't she rig votes in the states she lost? She knows how politics works, she knows how the electoral college works. Having higher vote totals in California does jack shit. So I'm expected to believe Hillary Clinton is both all-powerful *and* incompetent to fit your political memeplex. No thanks.
ALS anticipates that Cloudflare may argue that the company or its clients are protected by the DMCA's safe harbor provision, but contests this claim. The publisher notes that none of the customers registered the required paperwork at the U.S. Copyright Office.
Er, what? Since when has someone needed to register with the Copyright Office for that? That makes no sense.
According to then head of the DNC, Hillary rigged the primary to become the Democrat candidate for president. Easier to rig a primary that is built around super delegates than the national election which has the electoral college firewall.
your sarcasm was not only noted but built upon.
If your statement Actually given the fact that they are in court, I think the only correct statement is that the evidence is being disputed RIGHT NOW was designed to build upon my sarcasm, then it did so horribly.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
That's a decision, that's something a judge does based on an interpretation of evidence. Saying that evidence is undisputed means that no parties dispute the evidence, it doesn't mean that they all agree on how to interpret that evidence.
So they say, "The evidence is undisputed, [and therefore] conclusion conclusion conclusion."
"1) .. It lists facts of record, which by definition cannot be biased."
This is just naive. There are lots of ways to create bias even in a list of facts.
"5) ... it has no conclusions."
The following are not facts, these are conclusions.
Our findings, which are detailed below, 1) raise concerns with the legitimacy and legality of certain DOJ and FBI interactions with the Foreign IntelligenceSurveillance Court (FISC), and 2) represent a troubling breakdown of legal processes established to protect the American people from abuses related to the FISA process.
"7) Remember, this memo did not originate with Trump. It was brought to him by members of Congress."
Yes, and what is the significance of that?
As for the rest...start here... this is pretty well written.
https://www.politico.com/magaz...
The holder is in no way liable for content UNLESS it is brought to his attention in a legal complaint.
Publishers, QUIT FUCKING WHINING and do your damned job.
A BOT can find this stuff you know!!
That's just Chaika Veselnitskaya, its a science experiment I'm working on.
Firing Mueller is a gross abuse and violation of the separation of powers. Even sensible republicans think interfering in the DoJ is crossing the line.
Firing Mueller would be a severe political mistake, but it would not be a violation of the separation of powers. The DoJ is within the executive branch, not the judicial branch, so Trump has the authority to fire Mueller. If Mueller were under the judicial branch, Trump wouldn't be able to touch him (e.g. Trump cannot fire judges). So, that said, I believe that the one thing Trump could do to end his presidency would be to fire Mueller. If he rides it out, he'll probably make it through letting his lackeys take the fall.
538 has given some good history and analysis of special counsels: https://fivethirtyeight.com/fe...
An important detail of civil suits that you might want to be aware of is that everything is divided into two categories, "facts" and "law," and all the claimed facts have to be either agreed to or disputed.
So it is literally up to the other side if something is disputed. They're saying that the other side didn't dispute the facts, leaving those facts undisputed.
It is not a matter of opinion, nor is it the type of situation you imply.
The facts are not in dispute, the case rests on matters of law rather than a dispute over the facts. Trials are where Juries decide what the facts were; Judges can't do that. Judges rule on matters of law. So that's why it is normal and proper therefor to ask that the judge issue a Summary Judgement. That is actually what the judge is required to do when there is no dispute of fact.
The motion for partial summary judgement will be granted, but the ruling doesn't matter. That's because this case covers some new ground on a matter of national importance that will come up again and again, and in the US legal system the judges at this level do not set precedent. So there is little/no chance that whatever the judge rules will fit whatever balanced test the appeals courts eventually come up with to split the hairs on a service provider that alters content rather than providing mere internet access.
This doesn't mean that somebody is ignoring process and blah blah about seizing bank accounts. First the partial summary judgment will happen. A damages trial will be held to establish the facts of how much harm was done. And then an appeals court will rule one way or the other. Notice at this point, we've had basically three stages complete, but we still have no idea what the outcome is, and no bank accounts are going to be seized. Then an additional appeal will finally be at a high enough level where they have some chance of having the last say, and they decide what they want the precedent to be. And then the case gets sent back down to the original judge, where they either re-do the damages (up or down depending on who won which appeals) or maybe even totally start over using the newly-minted precedents from the appeals courts.
You have to know what the steps are to know if they're being followed or not. ;)
The problem is that neither one of you comprehend the difference between disputing evidence and disputing the law, and so your attempts at "sarcasm" are destined to be mere pedestrian ignorance.
if the parties were reversed, the GOP would be crying fowl right now too.
The GOP cries fowl every day, just turn on cable TV or AM radio and its all, "quack quack quack HONK quack quack!"
You have to get lucky just to get a "Gobble gobble" or a "cluckcluck" out of them, but they do still do a lot of Cockadoodledo on the side.
I do, in fact, know the difference. Does TFA mention whether or not CF disputes the evidence, or are you assuming that they don't?
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
OK.
Cloudflare should just stop providing service for this publisher in particular and accidentally states that they did.
"Publisher Says" ... nuff said
When court says it, or legislation saying it actually says it, then it starts to mean something.
Right now, its just horseshit.
Also consider that "BeauHD" is the /. mod responsible for perpetrating this BS on /. readers... so "consider the source".
HE UNEQUIVOCALLY CORRECTED THEM, REPEATEDLY, "IF TRUMP FIRES MUELLER IT'S ENTIRELY CONSTITUTIONAL WITH ZERO POSSIBLE LEGITIMATE LEGAL CHARGES. YOU CANNOT PROSECUTE A PRESIDENT UNDER ANY THEORY FOR EXERCISING HIS CONSTITUTIONAL POWER, AND HE'S THE HEAD OF THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH--THERE IS NOTHING ANYONE COULD DO ABOUT IT. AND EVERYONE ACTUALLY KNOWS THIS."
Therein lies the problem. The reason this becomes a crisis isn't because firing Mueller isn't legal, or isn't constitutional; its simpler than that.
Firing the person investigating you, as a means to undermine the investigation is morally problematic. It is the equivalent of acting to place yourself above the law, beyond the reach of justice.
The president is a lot of things, but he is not above the law. Just because he CAN doesn't mean it's ok if he DOES, or that there will not be consequences. Letting the investigation complete is the sensible thing to do. Exercising his authority to fire the special counsel investigating him raises a serious question -- should the president actually be allowed to do that?
The constitutional crisis is not that the president has broken the law, or exceeded his authority, its that he has laid bare a gap in the checks and balances that keep the government 'for the people'.
That's not why the memo is a big deal. The memo is a big deal because it represents the whitehouse's willingness to undermine its own DoJ, National Security, Intelligence oversight bodies. It's a step down the path to violating the separation of powers.
Trump needs to leave the DoJ alone.
The DOJ is part of the executive branch. The president is in charge of the executive Branch. Where exactly is this violation of the separation of powers you claim? (Reminder from high school: Executive, Legislative, Judicial). The president is supposed to control the federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Why do people keep saying this as if its supposed to mean something. Sounds like cops who, after questionably targeting someone, bring up a completely irrelevant arrest record from years past as if it justifies the current actions. Was a dossier bought and paid for by one political candidate used to get a warrant to investigate someone on the opposing team, or wasn't it? Simple enough question.
Or just read the part you yourself quoted, but bolding the part you skipped over:
You were there? Cool, then you can give us the transcripts.
Don't worry, I'm not. Though I'm apparently not the first to assess your input as trolling.
It's just a list of facts.
Then I read that stupid shit. You're not a stupid person, so you know that isn't a true statement. I'm forced to conclude you're either gaslighting or trolling. -1 Troll, it is.
Federal officials conspired to spy on a rival political campaign using information they had not verified from people they knew were untrustworthy. And these officials deliberately and repeatedly defrauded the judiciary by withholding key information.
Objection! Speculation.
Moderating accordingly.
1) Please explain precisely what part of the memo is biased. It lists facts of record, which by definition cannot be biased.
Again with that bullshit-
It is a memo, a collection of *assertions* that cannot be corroborated by the writer, or anyone else. Those are quite distinct from facts.
Here, let me write my memo.
Jane Q. Public is purposefully gaslighting slashot commentary boards in order to paint the Nunes Memo has a collection of facts as opposed to what they really are, uncorroborated claims.
Jane Q. Public is doing this because Putin is paying her.
Moderating your ass into oblivion, yet again. You're a smart person, quit acting a fool.
"her"? No. Please don't let Jane make all women look bad. Jane is actually a man posing as a woman on the internet.
About all I can say is that this comment is bizarre.
The following are not facts, these are conclusions.
No, they're not. If we assume for the sake of argument that the rest of the memo is accurate, then these are facts too, not conclusions.
Yes, and what is the significance of that?
The person to whom I was replying implied that Trump wrote the memo.
As for the rest...start here... this is pretty well written.
No, it isn't. It even begins with a misleading omission. The October 21 FISA application was not the first. They had tried to get a warrant prior to that, but the application was rejected for lack of evidence. That's why they had to produce the bogus "dossier" to bolster their "evidence".
It is a memo, a collection of *assertions* that cannot be corroborated by the writer, or anyone else. Those are quite distinct from facts.
No, that is not correct. Most of what is in the memo are established facts already known to the public.
The only part that wasn't already established public knowledge was corroborated by testimony under oath, by McCabe and others.
Jane Q. Public is purposefully gaslighting slashot commentary boards in order to paint the Nunes Memo has a collection of facts as opposed to what they really are, uncorroborated claims.
Utter nonsense.
Jane Q. Public is doing this because Putin is paying her.
Hahahahahahahahahaha!
"her"? No. Please don't let Jane make all women look bad. Jane is actually a man posing as a woman on the internet.
Nonsense. I'm not "posing as a woman". There is a reason for the pseudonym, but I don't care to explain it to you.
So we all agree that people shouldn't sully female pronouns by pretending that "Jane" qualifies as a "her".
More bizarre than a transphobic man posing as a gal on the internet?
I think the issue is that the assertion is nonsense. The "safe harbor" provision doesn't say, "Internet Service Providers that registered to be so are a safe harbor."
Internet service provider doesn't mean Internet Service Provider. In DCMA terms, it would be "a provider of internet services."
You qualify as a "safe harbor" by providing certain classes of services. One of them. Cloudflare provides two, off the top of my head.
No, that is not correct. Most of what is in the memo are established facts already known to the public.
More gaslighting, Jane?
Your interpretation of some things that have been said establish these claims as facts, that does not make them so.
The only part that wasn't already established public knowledge was corroborated by testimony under oath, by McCabe and others.
This is also false. McCabe said that, and I'm too lazy to quote- "Without the Dossier, there would have been no FISA warrant."
Which is *not* the same as the conclusion made in the memo- that the FISA warrant relied on the Dossier.
This is the central argument that the pathetic spin doctors, of which I sadly now have to conclude you are one of, are making.
This is a highly unlikely interpretation of McCabe's testimony. Everyone involved minus Nunes seems to have interpreted what McCabe said as, "Without smoke, there never would have been an attempt to look for fire. But the 4 years of observing Page walking up to that house with a gas can became suspicious in light of the memo."
Stop being a spindoctor. You're better than that. You must be.
Great. Call all Janes "it" if you want.
This is the stupidest thing I've read this month.
Once again, you're pretending(?) to be unbelievably stupid. You're the only one here transphobic enough to use dehumanizing pronouns like "it" to refer to human beings. Projecting your transphobia onto others just makes you look even more like an "SJW".
And of course this isn't about "all Janes". Again, don't pretend to be stupid. It just refers to you, the toxic "Jane Q. Public" who is actually a male king baby named "Lonny Eachus". Obviously any "Jane" who is either cis or trans female should be referred to as "her". But it's very unlikely that you're trans, so people shouldn't refer to you as "her" because your toxic and irrational comments just make all women look bad (especially on a mostly male website).
It's not clear whether you're really delusional enough to think that you're not posing as a woman, or whether you're just so pathologically dishonest that you'll never stop lying. You've already deceived two commenters in this thread into helping you make all women look bad. And that happened long after you were told that "your UID implies you are female" and a commenter said they were "hopeful you really are female". And you certainly are posing as a woman every time you refer to yourself as "she" and "gal". When you say you're "not a lesbian", remember that if you weren't posing as a woman this wouldn't be necessary because you're a man, and men can't be lesbians.
You're also posing as a woman when you laugh after people note that you're actually a man and then speculate that they said this because they "don't have the spine to admit" that they can be "bested by a woman".
You're also posing as a woman when you respond to a suggestion that you don't know about women by saying "read my name again", and when you say things like "I am not a dude. Please check the name." and "who should be more offended than me?" and "try being a woman who speaks up".
"... You are really pissing me off here because you are acting out the worst sexist stereotypes of women: completely irrational, expecting special treatment and unable to keep a single thought straight in your head for more than a couple of minutes and then getting hyper-emotional when called on it. You are the kind of woman who makes it that much harder for the rest of us women to be judged on our abilities instead of the same old, ugly stereotypes you've spent the day reinforcing right here. Shame on you." [Someone to Jane, 2012-09-09]