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 […]
Prepare to sit a various CompTIA certification courses with the Complete 2025 CompTIA Certification Training Super Bundle by IDUNOVA. Over 17 courses, you’ll learn about penetration testing, network security, IT fundamentals, and more. It’s on sale for $50. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from […]
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 […]
Every New Year’s Eve, the Chief Justice releases his year-end report, which used to include things like what the court would like to see Congress do. However, Justice Roberts now uses it more as a way to blog post whatever is on his mind. His latest is particularly tone-deaf, which is impressive, given how John […]
It seems unfathomable that we’re even here. The First Amendment is one of our clearer constitutional provisions. “Make no law,” it says, “abridging the freedom of speech.” And yet, with the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act,” Congress has done exactly that, effectively banning a platform helping millions of Americans speak. It tells […]
The Ultimate Adobe CC Training Bundle has 12 courses to help you get the most out of the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite. Courses cover Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver, After Effects, and more. It’s on sale for $40. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt […]
I know it’s no surprise that the modern MAGA world is incredibly hypocritical. They speak of free speech while making every effort to suppress speech they dislike. But the latest example of this hypocrisy is glaring. Those who screamed to high heaven about debunked claims of the Biden admin “censoring” social media are noticeably silent […]
Last week a corrupt court system bought and paid for by corporations effectively made it illegal for the federal government to protect broadband consumers from widely despised regional telecom monopolies. That, as we wrote at the time, is at the heart of the death of the several decade net neutrality fight. But if you read […]
They’re going to have to change the nickname. For years, cops have referred to drug dogs as “probable cause on four legs.” But over the last half-decade or so, jurisprudence has been leaning the other way. One of the first rulings to knock this assumption back a bit was the Supreme Court’s ruling in Rodriguez, […]
A little over a year ago, Maine residents voted overwhelmingly (83 percent) to pass a new state right to repair law designed to make auto repairs easier and more affordable. More specifically, the law requires that automakers standardize on-board diagnostic systems and provide remote access to those systems and mechanical data to consumers and third-party independent repair shops. […]
Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos wants you to believe he’s on a noble mission to restore trust in media. His solution? Muzzling his own paper by blocking it from endorsing Kamala Harris in the runup to the election, a decision he defended in a self-serving op-ed claiming that trust in media is at an all-time […]
Never let a tragedy go unexploited. That’s the political rule and it applies to both sides of the partisan divide. Of course, the divide has been Oval Office top heavy for a majority of this century, so we’re hearing more from one side than another in most cases. That being said, there’s no limit to […]
The Ultimate Python and Artificial Intelligence Bundle has 9 courses to help you take your Python and AI knowledge to the next level. You’ll learn about data pre-processing and visualization, artificial neural networks, how to use the Keras framework, and more. It’s on sale for $40. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated […]
When Elon Musk took over Twitter, one of his primary stated goals was to “bring back free speech” to the platform. He was particularly critical of how Twitter had briefly blocked links to a New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop in 2020. But now, the self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” is doing the very […]
stLouIST