Techdirt

While we’ve been criticizing some of Elon Musk’s actions and statements lately, we still stand by what we’ve said for years: that his view on patents is entirely, unquestionably, correct. In 2014, he pledged to open up all of Tesla’s patents. And when some investors insisted he didn’t really mean it, he clarified that he […]

Judges have plenty of power, especially local judges who can run their jurisdiction as they see fit without fearing too much pushback from higher courts, residents, or area law enforcement. Judge Steven Privette is the presiding circuit court judge in Howell County, Missouri, home to around 40,000 Missouri residents. Privette is currently facing some controversy […]

This refurbished Microsoft Surface Pro 3 is designed to be the perfect companion for your everyday life and/or professional career. Run your favorite programs on the powerful Windows 10 operating system with a high-resolution 12″ screen and 128GB of flash storage – ideal for businesses, students, or anyone who needs quick access to files. With […]

I’ve written a few times lately about the overreaction many people seem to have to claims that “cancel culture” is a “threat to free speech.” Obviously, there are some examples of people overreacting to speech they dislike, but more often than not, the claims of “cancel culture” are really assholes upset that they’re being held […]

Last year, Apple received ample coverage about how the company was making privacy easier for its customers by introducing a new, simple, tracking opt-out button for users as part of an iOS 14.5 update. Apple marketing and press reports heavily hyped the App Tracking Transparency system, which purportedly gave consumers control of which apps were able to […]

This is truly strange. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals somehow decided it was a good idea to redact its decision finding (partially) in favor of a person whose rights were violated by DC Metro police officers. What could have been a straightforward recognition that cops exceeded their boundaries was, at least temporarily, presented misleadingly, […]

While technologies like low orbit satellite can help shore up broadband access, they come with their own additional challenges. One being that services like Space X’s Starlink have cause potentially unavoidable light pollution, harming scientific research. The other being the exponential growth in space detritus, aka space junk, that will make space navigation increasingly difficult. […]

If you don’t like people making “People’s Republic of California” jokes, maybe don’t do stuff like this: The San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the legislative body for the city, voted 7-4 to test Mayor London Breed’s surveillance camera proposal, which will take effect in 30 days and sunset in 15 months. Under the policy, the San Francisco Police Department […]

Last year, I tried to create a “test suite” of websites that any new internet regulation ought to be “tested” against. The idea was that regulators were so obsessively focused on the biggest of the big guys (i.e., Google, Meta) that they never bothered to realize how it might impact other decently large websites that […]

Germany’s uncomfortable relationship with free speech continues. The country has always been sensitive about certain subjects (rhymes with Bitler and, um, Yahtzee), resulting in laws that suppress speech referring to these subjects, apparently in hopes of preventing a Fourth Reich from taking hold. But the censorship of speech extends far beyond the lingering aftereffects of […]

Go anywhere and stay connected with 4G LTE on the refurbished Galaxy Tab A (8.4″”, 2020). With a long-lasting battery, you can stream your favorite music, shows and movies for over 10 hours on a single charge. Whether you’re traveling, unwinding or enjoying a quick break, Galaxy Tab A’s compact, slim design and vivid display […]

Right after the 5th Circuit’s ruling on Texas’ HB 20 law on content moderation came out, I wrote up a long post going through the many, many oddities (and just flat out mistakes) of the ruling. Since then, one thing that was bothering about this ruling was that it wasn’t just wrong on the law, […]

VPN providers remain a primary target of governments around the world (authoritarian leaning and otherwise) that don’t much like their citizens chatting privately or avoiding government surveillance. We watched it happen in Russia, where strict new data collection and retention rules resulted in a mass exodus of VPN providers (the ones that are actually dedicated […]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is That One Guy with a comment further exploring the analogy in our post about making the internet “like Disneyland”: Actually let’s run with that idea, say the internet is Disneyland, would you as a parent take your kids to the entrance, pay the fee […]

Five Years Ago This week in 2017, the Senate was moving ever closer to passing SESTA, as it held a hearing that showcased the issues with the bill. We wrote about the many reasons it was so terrible, and noted that it put just about every single online service at risk, but Senator Blumenthal seemed […]

If you want your rights violated, all you need to do is call a cop. If you want your rights upheld, you’ll probably want your rights to be violated in another federal circuit. We can learn something from this decision. But it won’t be things we want to learn. Instead, it shows how courts (especially […]

We’ve written stories about people having difficulty recognizing people joking around quoting movies. Sometimes it ends up ridiculously, like the guy who was arrested for quoting Fight Club and had to spend quite some time convincing people he wasn’t actually looking to shoot up an Apple store. We’ve also talked a lot about the impossibility […]

What is it with government agencies and the media teaming up to Streisand some dumb thing that almost no one has ever done or heard about, and turning it into a thing that everyone knows about? Back in the heady days of 2018, the American Association of Poison Control Centers released a press release warning […]

A federal court delivers another blow to tireless enforcers of parking violations, ensuring we will soon be at the mercy of parking scofflaws everywhere. First, it was the Sixth Circuit Appeals Court, ruling (twice!) that marking tires with chalk to track how long cars had been parked in spaces was an impermissible intrusion into people’s […]

Impressively thin and light, the HP EliteBook 725G3 empowers users to create, connect, and collaborate, using enterprise-class performance technology that helps keep them productive in and out of the office. Combining high-performance technology with an AMD A10 processor, Intel Integrated HD Graphics, and 8GB RAM, this refurbished laptop gives you seamless browsing throughout. With a […]

I wrote up an initial analysis of the 5th Circuit’s batshit crazy ruling re-instating Texas’s social media content moderation law last week. I have another analysis of it coming out shortly in another publication (I’ll then write about it here). A few days ago, Prof. Eric Goldman did his own analysis as well, which is […]

We’ve noted a few times that Elon Musk’s Starlink broadband service is great if you have no other options. It’s also great if you’ve spent an eternity stuck on an expensive 3 Mbps DSL line straight out of 2003, or a traditional, capped, expensive satellite broadband connection. Being able to get 100 Mbps in the […]

Along with the call for law enforcement reforms following the inflection point created by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd, there has been increasing demand for bail reform. Bail reform isn’t new. It’s something activists and politicians have attempted to achieve for years. The problem with bail is that it exacerbates what’s […]

Oh, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Whatever will you do next? The qualified immunity complaints of Judge Don Willett notwithstanding, the Fifth Circuit is where you go if you want batshit decisions that run contrary to common sense, much less established constitutional law. If you need a decision that sides with the government — no […]

Back in the early aughts, when I wrote exclusively about the broadband sector, you literally couldn’t go a week without a story about a cable broadband technician falling asleep on the job, blowing up homes, occasionally murdering people or getting arrested for torturing and spray painting kittens. The problem was several fold: one, these companies’ executives were so fixated […]

Back in May, an 11th Circuit appeals court panel found that Florida’s ridiculous content moderation law was clearly unconstitutional, mostly upholding a district court ruling saying the same thing. As you’ll recall, Florida passed this law, mainly in response to Trump being banned from social media, that limits how websites can moderate content, largely focused […]

This refurbished iPad 7 is a great choice for anyone who loves to read, surf the web, and play games. This 10.2-inch A10 Fusion powerhouse has a beautiful “Retina” display, is powered by a four-core 2.33 GHz Apple A10 Fusion processor, and has up to 10 hours of battery life. With 8MP back camera, 1.2MP […]

When a Cellebrite device is hooked up to a seized phone, the operator presses a few buttons to pull pretty much every bit of data from the device. From there, investigators can try to find the evidence they’re seeking. While the FBI continues to claim device encryption is preventing law enforcement from accessing evidence, plenty […]

So, we’ve talked quite a bit about the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), Senator Amy Klobuchar’s attempt to do Rupert Murdoch’s bidding and force successful internet companies to send cash to media companies for… linking to them. Yes, not only do the news orgs want the traffic from Google, but they also want to […]

In 2019, the Supreme Court of the United States resolved a long-running lawsuit over asset forfeiture. Indiana resident Tyson Timbs had his $42,000 Land Rover seized by law enforcement following his sale of $260 of heroin to an undercover officer. The basis of his challenge were the 8th and 14th Amendments of the US Constitution, […]

Remember when AT&T spent more than $200 billion to acquire Time Warner and DirecTV in the belief it would help the telecom dominate video advertising? Then remember when company leadership was so monumentally incompetent they had to run to the exits in terror? Good times. After AT&T’s gambit fell apart, the company returned to what […]

When the Elon Musk/Twitter drama landed in the Delaware Court Of Chancery, it thrust specialist publication The Chancery Daily into the spotlight, and they began offering up excellent explainers on this important court that most people knew very little about. The people behind the publication have decided to remain anonymous amidst the influx of attention, […]

Courthouse News Service takes home another win in the ongoing fight for the respect of the First Amendment. For years, courts received filings printed on paper. Those filings were routinely made available to journalists almost immediately. Whatever processing needed to be done could be interrupted long enough to make copies for reporters. Nothing slowed down […]

The problems with Clearview AI’s facial recognition system, particularly in the hands of police, are myriad and serious. That the technology exists as it does at all raises significant ethical concerns, and how it has been used to feed people into the criminal justice system raises significant due process ones as well. But an article […]

The Microsoft Surface Laptop (refurbished) delivers incredible performance with its 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 processor and 8GB of RAM. It offers an improved 13.5″ PixelSense display. It has either a 128GB or 256GB hard drive capacity. You can be productive anywhere you go. Its compact size makes it perfect for travel or taking to […]

Legal battles have been fought for most of a decade now over access to the full CIA Torture Report. A limited release at the tail end of 2014 — the 525-page, heavily redacted “Executive Summary” — is all the general public has been given access to. What was in the summary was horrifying enough. But […]

This FCC this week formally announced it had finally started gathering more accurate broadband mapping data from U.S. ISPs after more than a decade of complaints about mapping accuracy. “On June 30, the Federal Communications Commission opened the first ever window to collect information from broadband providers in every state and territory about precisely where […]

At this point, we probably have enough stories about companies trying to bury leaked information or content that hasn’t been publicly released via DMCA takedowns that it warrants its own metatag. It’s both amazing and frustrating that this is still a tactic companies, particularly tech companies, think somehow works. It doesn’t. Once a leak is […]

The US government passed the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in 1986, years before computers became something everyone had at home and carried around in their pockets every day. The CFAA had a purpose, but its value declined as computing advanced. The abuse it was written to address tended to take a backseat to abuses […]

The EU Copyright Directive contains one of the worst ideas in modern copyright: what amounts to a requirement to filter uploads on major sites. Despite repeated explanations of why this would cause huge harm to both creators and members of the public, EU politicians were taken in by the soothing words of the legislation’s proponents, who even went […]

Current Los Angeles County sheriff Alex Villanueva campaigned with the promise he would clean up the literally gang-infested Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (LASD). Once he took office, however, he just became part of the problem. Rogue units of deputies continued to freely operate, resulting in federal lawsuits, a bunch of whistleblowing, and [re-reads report] the […]

Disneyland can be a fun experience for kids (and potentially a frustrating one for parents), but it’s a very controlled environment in which everything is set up to bend over backwards to be welcoming to children. And that’s great for what it is, but the world would kinda suck if everything was Disneyland. I mean, […]

Sporting a full-sized 9.7″ LED-backlit Retina display with a resolution of 2048×1536, this refurbished 5th Gen iPad lets you surf the web, watch videos, or view files on a clearer, wider screen. Powered by a dual-core 1.8GHz Apple A9 processor, with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of flash memory storage, this iPad gives a smooth […]

The Saudi government is decidedly unconcerned that other nations may have concerns about its censorship efforts. I mean, if need be, it will murder and dismember critics who prove unwilling to be silenced by less drastic efforts. Having some of the keys to the oil kingdom helps, providing leverage against foreign governments that may want […]

When it comes to manhandling US regulators and gutting telecom industry oversight, the nation’s biggest telecom monopolies have had an impressive five year run. Under Trump, they managed to lobotomize FCC consumer protection authority, dismantle federal net neutrality rules, dismantle media consolidation rules and get all of their planned megamergers approved, kill off broadband privacy […]

It seems anti-cheat technology is the new DRM. By that I mean that, with the gaming industry diving headfirst into the competitive online gaming scene, the concern over piracy has shifted into a concern over cheating making those online games less attractive to gamers. And because the anti-cheat tech that companies are using is starting […]

No matter how expensive law enforcement is, it can always get more expensive. Most agencies demand outsized portions of local budgets. That’s just the ground floor. Cops want more money and less accountability. Perpetually. The cost of keeping bad cops on the payroll is far, far more than their paychecks. Bad cops generate lawsuits, which […]

It’s been seven years since Congress last introduced a federal anti-SLAPP law (and that was six years after the previous attempt). So here we are, and once again we’ve finally got a federal anti-SLAPP law introduced in Congress, this time by Rep. Jamie Raskin, who recently held a hearing focusing on SLAPP lawsuit attacks against […]

You might recall that Elon Musk claims that he hates taxpayer subsidies. They should all be “deleted.” Except for the subsidies given to his companies, apparently. You might recall that Musk’s Starlink gamed the Trump FCC Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) to grab $886 million in taxpayer dollars. It was a deal consumer groups noted […]

The “Constitution-free zone” — the area within 100 miles of any border crossing, port of entry, or international airport — now apparently covers the entire country in perpetuity. Border agencies — mainly Customs and Border Protection (CBP) — have steadily increased the number of device searches they do every year. Sometimes the search is limited […]