I don’t know what kind of warrant system they’re running in Pennsylvania, but it doesn’t sound like a good one. Either the system is deliberately broken, or the testifying cops were playing fast and loose with the facts. Whatever the case is, the end result is the loss of the evidence obtained with Schrodinger’s Warrant, […]
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For quite some time now, we’ve pointed out how Jim Jordan has weaponized the government to suppress speech. Quite frequently, he seems to be doing this in coordination with Elon Musk. And yet, somehow, it felt like we were the only ones calling this out. So many in the media seem fine repeating the lie […]
In February 2024, AT&T bungled a network update causing a massive outage that it took AT&T twelve hours to fix. DownDetector lit up with 70,000 problem reports. The outage impacted an estimated 125 million wireless devices, blocked an estimated 92 million phone calls by AT&T customers, and prevented an estimated 25,000 attempts to reach 911. A […]
Well, I’ll give the Ninth Circuit this much: at least when the court is wrong, it is wrong fast. It was just a few weeks back that we discussed Molson Coors’ appeal for both the rulings and damages over its trademark fight with Stone Brewing. For those not familiar with the history here, here’s a […]
Last April, Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed a law designed specifically to make it easier for cops to arrest people who film them. While it’s generally accepted (without Supreme Court precedent… for some weird reason) by most courts that recording public employees in public while they perform their public duties is protected by the First […]
Senator Richard Blumenthal is at it again. The long-time Connecticut Senator, who never met an internet regulation he didn’t like, is eager to reintroduce his Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) — a bill that would trample all over the First Amendment in a misguided attempt to “protect the children.” As we’ve explained countless times, KOSA […]
Having lost twice in a row, a handful of Missouri state clerks will now be using taxpayers’ money to pay a former government employee who had the temerity to recommend a mask mandate during the height of the COVID pandemic. (via Short Circuit) The plaintiff, Tad Mayfield, had been a well-regarded staffer, serving as a […]
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On Monday, Taylor Lorenz posted a telling story about how Meta has been suppressing access to LGBTQ content across its platforms, labeling it as “sensitive content” or “sexually explicit.” Posts with LGBTQ+ hashtags including #lesbian, #bisexual, #gay, #trans, #queer, #nonbinary, #pansexial, #transwomen, #Tgirl, #Tboy, #Tgirlsarebeautiful, #bisexualpride, #lesbianpride, and dozens of others were hidden for any […]
For decades now, U.S. wireless carriers have sold consumers “unlimited data” plans that actually have all manner of sometimes hidden throttling, caps, download limits, and restrictions. And every few years a regulator comes out with a wrist slap against wireless carriers for misleading consumers, for whatever good it does. Back in 2007, for example, then […]
Is it too much to ask for cops to be better? When other government employees get the address wrong, it may mean mail delivery delays or incorrect property tax assessments. But when cops get it wrong, people end up dead. If officers are unfamiliar with the area they’ll be serving warrants in, it would make […]
Gravy Analytics, the parent company of Venntel, is like many dodgy data brokers. The company gleans vast troves of sensitive U.S. behavior and location cellphone data, then generally sells access to that data to a long line of folks. Including the U.S. government, which has increasingly turned to buying data broker data as a quick […]
As Michael McGrady pointed out in his recent guest post for Techdirt, nearly 41 percent of Americans subject to age verification laws targeting porn and, of course, porn consumers. An emboldened pseudo-theocratic wing of the Republican party is taking everything old and unconstitutional and making it new again, presumably in hopes of sliding it past […]
A lot of people dunked on the amicus brief Donald Trump filed at the Supreme Court in the constitutional challenge of the law effectively banning TikTok. And there is plenty that is dunkable about it, especially in his tone of entitlement. Trump is no sincere defender of the First Amendment and its critical protections for […]
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When the NY Times declared in September that “Mark Zuckerberg is Done With Politics,” it was obvious this framing was utter nonsense. It was quite clear that Zuckerberg was in the process of sucking up to Republicans after Republican leaders spent the past decade using him as a punching bag on which they could blame […]
Now that streaming subscriber growth has slowed, we’ve noted repeatedly how the streaming TV sector is falling into all of the bad habits that ultimately doomed traditional cable TV. That has involved chasing pointless “growth of growth’s sake” megamergers and imposing bottomless price hikes and new annoying restrictions — all while simultaneously cutting corners on product quality in […]
Well, there are two possibilities here. Either I’ve been doing this for too long or all cops are, indeed, bastards. Let me explain. When this rolled through my hundreds of feeds recently… DOJ enters agreement with California police department whose officers allegedly exchanged racist messages … I was sure I knew which California police department […]
Surveillance of students that continues even after they’ve left the campus is nothing new. School-issued tech comes preloaded with spyware meant to prevent students from cheating, accessing inappropriate content, or introducing malware of their own into the school tech ecosystem. But it goes beyond that: it also keeps tabs on anything they do while using […]
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