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For years now we've pointed out how one of the telecom industry's sleazier lobbying tricks involves paying minority groups to parrot awful tech policy positions. That's why you'll often see groups like the "Hispanic Technology & Telecommunications Partnership" support competition-killing mergers or oppose consumer-centric policies like more cable box competition or increased wireless competition. This quid pro quo is never put into writing, so when these groups are asked why they're supporting policies that undermine their constituents, they can deny it with a wave of breathless indignation.But this tactic remains very real, and very harmful all the same. It played a huge role in ginning up bogus support for the attack on net neutrality. AT&T and Comcast have co-opted countless minority groups in this fashion, with a lot of it coordinated through a telecom-funded organization dubbed the Multicultural Media, Telecom & Internet Council (MMTC). In short: if you want to keep the funding flowing, it's expected that you'll parrot telecom industry policies, even if they harm your constituents. This has been a problem for years that nobody much likes to talk about.The NAACP has consistently been part of this problem, opposing real net neutrality protections after receiving funding from AT&T, Comcast and Verizon. The group signed off on letters opposing tough FCC rules both (pdf) times (pdf) they were proposed, often mirroring the incumbent ISP claim that tougher net neutrality rules would hamstring ISP efforts to expand broadband availability into poor communities (utterly false). In other FCC filings (pdf), both the MMTC and NAACP claimed that real neutrality would damage the "fragile state of minority engagement in the digital ecosystem."But now that the FCC's attack on net neutrality is getting media attention due to a massive public backlash, the NAACP has issued a statement proclaiming that the group is "deeply disappointed" with the FCC's decision to repeal rules. Now that the battle is making headlines, the NAACP is claiming that the removal of rules it fought against strips away "critical safeguards for ensuring an accessible internet":

A little over a year ago, we wrote about an unfortunate case in which Dr. Seuss Enterprises decided to sue for copyright and trademark infringement over an attempt to create a (pretty funny) parody that mashed up Dr. Seuss with Star Trek, called "Oh, The Places You'll Boldly Go." As we noted at the time, this seemed to be a clear parody (which is protected by fair use). It was clearly transformative, and was commenting on the differences between Trek and Seuss. We also noted some extraordinary (and extraordinarily silly) claims in the lawsuit. The defendants in the case, Comicmix, won a round earlier this year, when the judge tossed out the trademark claims. However, he let the copyright claims stand for the time being. After, Dr. Seuss Enterprises filed an amended complaint on all the claims, leading to a new motion to dismiss.Unfortunately, in a new ruling, the court has again denied the fair use claims on copyright, and also denied a new motion to dismiss on trademark grounds, meaning the case will move forward. And it's in large part due to the Muppets and a font. I only wish I were joking. You can read the ruling here. Since the court had previously done a copyright fair use four factors analysis, it mostly just points back to its previous ruling on the matter, but only adjusts its analysis of factor four -- the "effect of the use upon the potential market." The other factors split evenly (factor one in favor of Comicmix, factor two in favor of Seuss, factor three favoring neither).So this ruling turns on what many courts (perhaps incorrectly...) believe is the most important factor: does this use harm the market for the copyright-covered work. Here, the discussion turns on whether or not this would undermine the Seuss Estate from licensing out its copyrights to someone to do a Star Trek mashup. Comicmix's argument is basically "come on, no one's doing that." Seuss's argument is "hey, look, we've done other mashups before"

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Wisconsin businessman Paul Nehlen is running for the other Paul's (Ryan) House seat in next year's midterm elections, and we can only hope this man is never allowed to operate law-making apparati at a federal level. He has big ideas for the nation -- most of them sounding exactly like President Trump's big ideas: A wall! Paid for by Mexico! Killing off Obamacare! Making abortions illegal! Bulk, untargeted deregulation!Nehlen also has big ideas about the First Amendment. Big ideas and a toddler-like grasp on tricky terms like "censorship." Nehlen hates (HATES!) government regulation but feels the government should step in and, under the color of law, prevent internet companies from monitoring their platforms as they see fit.The highly-problematic Nehlen wants Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. to stop kicking like-minded people off their platforms. It's undeniable Twitter has been deleting accounts held by far-right persons more often than those veering widely to the left. Some feel Facebook and Google have been doing the same thing, but the complaints of unfair moderation are loudest on Twitter. Nehlen is one of those complaining. But if he gets elected to Congress, he'll be able to do actual damage.This is Nehlen's grand idea for turning Twitter etc. into alt-right-friendly platforms: heavy-handed regulation. He introduces it by borrowing words from none other than net neutrality-killer Ajit Pai. Why? Because Ajit Pai's anti-regulatory efforts are somehow aligned with Nehlen's plan for regulation of internet services. The following is from his press release [delivered via tweeted images rather than a PDF, because wtf. {makeshift PDF version}]:

By now you've probably noticed that FCC boss Ajit Pai isn't particularly popular online after he voted last week to kill popular net neutrality protections. A big reason for that unpopularity is Pai's tendency to simply make things up as he rushes to coddle broadband duopolists, whether we're talking about his bogus claims that net neutrality killed broadband investment, his claims that net neutrality only emboldens tyrants in Iran and North Korea, or his claims that the broadband market is amazingly competitive.So in the wake of the repeal (which of course still needs to survive legal challenge) it's not too surprising to see Pai engaging in more blatantly false nonsense as he tries to frame net neutrality supporters as hysterical hyperbolists. For example, Pai tried to argue last week on Fox and Friends that net neutrality supporters were clearly wrong to worry about the repeal because Twitter and Facebook still worked the day after the repeal:To try and gather support for his extremely unpopular plan, Pai's been throwing some red meat to the base by framing net neutrality concerns as the domain of out of touch Hollywood elites, despite the fact the rules have broad, bipartisan support. As such, Pai took particular aim at comments made by comedian Jimmy Kimmel, claiming he was foolish to worry about the repeal since social media websites still worked the day after the FCC voted 3-2 to kill the rules:

Last year, the Russian authorities ordered LinkedIn to be blocked in the country, supposedly for failing to store personal data locally. Since other US companies like Google and Facebook had also ignored this data localization requirement, it was curious that only LinkedIn was affected. Now the German news site Deutsche Welle is reporting that Twitter and YouTube risk being locked out of Russia, but for quite different reasons. These involve Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once the wealthiest person in Russia, and a long-time vocal opponent of President Putin. Khodorkovsky spent a number of years in prison, allegedly for fraud and embezzlement. He now lives outside Russia, and has set up the NGO Open Russia, which promotes democracy and human rights in Russia.Open Russia was put on the official list of "undesirable organizations" in April of this year. The Russian government has shut down Open Russia's web site, and now it is demanding that the NGO's presence on social media be deleted as well. Roskomnadzor, the country's media regulatory agency, gave YouTube and Twitter a deadline to delete Open Russia's accounts on their services, or be blocked entirely. The deadline has now passed, but the accounts are still accessible within Russia. The question is: what happens now?If Twitter and Google continue to refuse to delete the accounts, the Russian authorities could try to block them individually. That wouldn't be easy, so the government might simply order the whole of Twitter and YouTube to be blocked. After all, that is what it did with LinkedIn. However, the local experts interviewed by Deutsche Welle point out that LinkedIn was never very popular in Russia, so its loss passed largely unnoticed. Shutting down Twitter and YouTube would be a different matter, and would probably cause widespread online protests -- something the authorities would be keen to avoid.In any case, users could use proxies, VPNs, and Tor to circumvent such blocks. It's true that Russia has brought in a law that gives the authorities the power to order those kinds of services to block access to particular sites, or be shut down. But the Deutsche Welle post contains the following information about what is actually happening on the ground:

When it comes to frivolous trademark lawsuits, you think you've seen it all, but then one comes along that makes you throw up your hands. Here at Techdirt, we understand that the average individual might not know some of the broader nuances of trademark law, such as the focus on customer confusion, or the requirement, in most cases, that the parties reside within the same industry or market. But that understanding goes out the window when we're talking about a lawsuit brought by a large corporation that, like, totally has lawyers and stuff. I use that tone and vernacular specifically as preparation for stating that Five Below, the large retailer with trendy products for less than five bucks, has sued 10 Below, a small chain of ice cream shops.And before you ask, yes, pretty much all of the media covering this is actually pointing out how divergent the markets and industries of these two companies is, often in spectacularly funny fashion.

As we've been noting for a while, the FCC's 3-2 vote to kill net neutrality is really only the beginning of a new chapter in the fight for a healthy, competitive internet. The rules won't truly be repealed until 60 days after they hit the federal register in January. And even then, the repeal will have to survive a multi-pronged legal assault against the FCC, accusing it of ignoring the public interest, ignoring feedback from countless experts, and turning a blind eye to all of the procedural oddities that occurred during its proceeding (like, oh, the fact that only dead and artificial people appear to support what the FCC is up to).ISPs know that this legal fight faces a steep uphill battle with all of the procedural missteps at the FCC. That's why we've been warning for a while that ISPs (and their army of think tankers, sock puppets, consultants, and other allies) will soon begin pushing hard for a new net neutrality law. One that professes to "put this whole debate to bed," but contains so many loopholes as to be useless. The real purpose of such a law? To codify federal net neutrality apathy into law, and to prevent the FCC from simply passing tougher rules down the road.Just like clockwork, Comcast responded to last week's net neutrality killing vote with a blog post by top Comcast lobbyist David Cohen (the company, for the record, hates it when you call Cohen a lobbyist) calling for a new, Comcast-approved law. Cohen declares that it's "time for Congress to act and permanently preserve the internet," while repeatedly and comically trying to downplay Comcast's own role in the chaos we're currently witnessing:

Another court has decided compelled password production isn't a violation of the Fifth Amendment. The Massachusetts case [PDF], titled "In the Matter of a Grand Jury Investigation," concerns allegations of child abuse. The grand jury requested access to the contents of the suspect's phone. The government obtained a warrant but sought a court order compelling the suspect to produce a password to unlock it. The court granted it and the suspect challenged the order after being hit with contempt charges for failing to turn over the password. (via FourthAmendment.com)The court finds no problem with the government's reasoning. According to the court, the ownership of the phone is the only "foregone conclusion" the government needs to reach.

Tesla remains a fascinating company. Elon Musk famously likes to do things his own way, and doesn't much care for convention. And that's often a great recipe for innovation. At times, it leads to really awesome things like giving away all the company's patents for anyone to use without licensing. But, sometimes it does some weird things that should make people think twice about buying into the Telsa vision -- even when at first pass it may make sense. For example, a few months ago, we were concerned about the "surprise" remote range extension that Tesla gave to drivers in Florida to help them evacuate before Hurricane Irma hit. On its face, this obviously seems like a good thing. Helping people evacuate a hurricane by extending their mileage is unquestionably good.But it did raise some concerns -- about a company remotely, and without notification, updating the car you purchased from afar. Because if it can be used for "good" reasons (like giving you extra range to escape a hurricane) it might also be used at other times for bad reasons. What if, for example, Elon Musk decides he doesn't like you. Last year, Musk famously banned famed venture capitalist Stewart Alsop from buying one of Tesla's cars after Alsop publicly complained about a poorly staged event by Tesla. Could Musk "brick" someone's car for displeasing him? The backlash to that would be massive, which probably keeps such a move out of the realm of likelihood, but there are still problems with the company changing your car after purchase.Similarly, last year there were reports that Tesla was banning people from using its self-driving car technology as part of any ride-sharing project. This seemed like an anti-competitive move, as Tesla has talked about setting up its own sort of Uber using self-driving cars that people would buy (basically, you'd "rent out" your car while you weren't using it). We thought that was a neat idea, but were troubled by the idea of contractually blocking Tesla owners from working with other vendors on such a project.And now there's another troubling move: Tesla is telling "commercial" drivers of its vehicles (mainly ride-sharing drivers) that they can't use the company's Supercharger network to charge their cars. There are perfectly legitimate, non-nefarious reasons for this. Mainly: there are apparently problems with Superchargers being overcrowded these days, and you could see why the company doesn't want them clogged up with ride sharing drivers, effectively subsidizing their driving jobs. At the very least, the company has made it clear the policy only applies to new Tesla buyers, so it's not a bait-and-switch situation.But, still, there's something troubling about the idea that the company can ban you from using its Superchargers based solely on the type of driving you're doing. Again, that leads to questions about what other situations may arise where Tesla bans people from using its chargers in one form or another. I'm sure that many won't think this is a big deal -- and will point out that the company needed to do something to avoid congestion. But we should be concerned about how this is subtly changing our relationship to the products we (thought we) own, and the control that companies have over our usage, post-purchase.I don't think Tesla is doing anything nefarious here, and there are plenty of seemingly good reasons for why the company chose this path. But we should be quite careful and thoughtful about how we move into a world where the company that sells you something retains an astounding amount of control over how and even if you are allowed use it, based on how much it likes or dislikes you or your profession. Because sooner or later, these issues are going to get bigger and more problematic -- and it might help if we really thought about them now, before things get messy.

If the end of the year is closing in, it means it's time for Manhattan DA Cy Vance's Annual Anti-Encryption Spectacular! Gather the kids around because the 2017 edition of Vance's annual plea for an encryption ban has just been published [PDF]. Don't worry, Vanceheads, the core essence of the DA's anti-encryption publication remains unchanged: encryption is for letting bad guys get away with crimes.Vance's state-of-encryption report leads off with the same assertion the FBI and DOJ have been making lately: every locked device contains a wealth of criminal evidence.

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You would think that to become a state Supreme Court Justice you need to be familiar with the basics of the law -- including famous legal rulings. For example, New York Times Company v. United States from 1971 is a pretty important and well known First Amendment case, in which the court specifically said that preventing newspapers from publishing information was unconstitutional prior restraint. That case relies on a number of other super famous First Amendment cases such as Near v. Minnesota and Bantam Books v. Sullivan. I mean, I'm not a lawyer and I know these cases. You would think that an Iowa Supreme Court Justice would as well.No such luck, apparently. As the Associated Press is reporting, Justice David Wiggins of the Iowa Supreme Court has blocked the Des Moines Register from publishing material that it had obtained via court records that were inadvertently made public.

This is one of those frustrating stories where basically everyone's wrong about everything. Here's how it started: Just prior to Ajit Pai's FCC officially dumping net neutrality rules last week, the Daily Caller released a video with Pai. Pai seems to have a way of not realizing just how incredibly unfunny, tone-deaf and cringeworthy his "jokes" are -- but it doesn't stop him from trying again. If you somehow missed it, you can see the video here:The video is bad and dumb and misleading and, yes, very, very cringeworthy. The pure awfulness of the video is what got people worked up initially, with Pai's supporters gleefully laughing at Pai's opponents for getting upset about it. If you can't see it for some reason, it involves Pai claiming that nothing is going to change on the internet following his bad decision to kill the FCC's net neutrality rules, and then attempts to show some examples: posting images of food and dogs to the internet, doing some online shopping, being a dorky Star Wars fan and, finally, "ruining a meme."That meme? The Harlem Shake. If you were online in 2013, you almost certainly remember it. Because it was everywhere. For a couple months or so, everyone on the internet seemed to feel it was their obligation to create a video showing people crazy dancing to a snippet of the song "Harlem Shake" by "Baauer" the stage name of a music producer named Harry Rodrigues. The song, the Harlem Shake uses a sample from another song, Miller Time, by Philadelphia's Plastic Little. Also, the "con los terroristas" line was sampled from a singer named Hector Delgado.Back in 2013, we actually had a few stories about copyright issues around the whole Harlem Shake phenomenon. First, we noted that Baauer and his label, Mad Decent, seemed to have engaged in selective enforcement of whatever copyright they might have held on the song. They left most videos live on, but did take down some from people they disagreed with. We also noted that the whole meme went viral not for anything that Baauer actually did, but because of the first few videomakers whose crazy videos turned it into a thing. Finally, we noted that Delgado and Plastic Little were demanding their cut as well.And, of course, we should note that the whole Harlem Shake meme came and went pretty fast. I mean days after it went big, it was already declared dead. And, yes, this was part of the lame Pai joke.Onto outrage two: soon after everyone was complaining about how awful (and inappropriate) this video was, some people noticed that one of the women dancing in the Ajit Pai Harlem Shake video... was a conspiracy theorist Pizzagater. Which, you know, is not really a good look for the freaking Chairman of the FCC (especially while making fun of people who are concerned about the future of the internet).Outrage three: we're back to copyright. Baauer tweeted angrily that he supported net neutrality and was "taking action" saying "whatever I can do to stop this loser."

It's no secret that the two regions most affected by China's strict controls are Tibet and Xinjiang, the vast and troubled Western region where the turkic-speaking Uyghurs form the largest ethnic group. Earlier this year, we wrote about one fairly extreme surveillance technique in Xinjiang: a requirement for every vehicle there to be fitted with a tracking device. Now Human Rights Watch reports that an even more intrusive surveillance measure is being implemented for the region's 24 million inhabitants:

This week, both our top comments on the insightful side came in response to the DOJ's attack on Trump protestors, accusing them of "hiding behind the First Amendment". Robert L won first place for responding to that absurd notion:

Five Years AgoThis week in 2012, more and more people were coming out against the efforts of the ITU's WCIT, including both Tim Berners-Lee joining the already-active Vint Cerf and Mozilla expressing its concerns. Though the White House denied that it was prepared to dump the ITU, it was firm in refusing to support a bad treaty. The ITU itself was doing a really bad job of pretending to respond to people's complaints, and even though a whole bunch of countries ended up refusing to sign the treaty, the boss decided to go ahead and declare victory anyway.Ten Years AgoThis week in 2007, people were digging in to the recently introduced PRO-IP bill, with the DOJ coming out against the legislation, even as Hollywood's favorite lawmaker complained it wasn't strong enough, and the inimitable William Patry explaining the many problems with the bill. North of the border, Canada was stalling out in its efforts to introduce its own version of the DMCA as public opposition continued to grow rapidly. And, in a piece of news that is especially amusing given recent events, people were just realizing that you could pretty much submit anything to the FCC's public comment system, including fake comedy entries claiming to be from Leon Trotsky, George W. Bush and... Donald Trump.Fifteen Years AgoThis week in 2002, there was a lot of uncertainty in the world of internet distribution and media distribution in general. We believed predictions that the DVD would be the last physical format, perhaps underestimating Hollywood's aggression on that front — like the fact that device makers appeared poised to give in to demands to put copy protection in everything. The Balkanization of the web into many walled gardens was becoming really concerning (though of course it was still silly for folks like the New York Times to be predicting "the end of free content"), but some folks like Tim O'Reilly were at least able to see the bigger picture on issues like piracy. And while it's easy to forget today that it wasn't always that easy or cheap to get yourself a web host for your small business (let alone personal) needs, in 2002 it was a big deal that a major player like Yahoo announced it would be getting into the small business hosting game.

Earlier this year, we covered the horrific story of the death of a 5'4" 110-lb. 18-year-old at the hands of the Mesquite (TX) police department. The teen, suffering from a bad acid trip, was tased multiple times, threatened with death by an officer, and left to die in a jail cell with little more than a cursory nod towards his health and wellbeing.Graham Dyer's parents were unable to obtain any details about their son's death from the Mesquite PD. The department refused to turn over records, pointing to state law allowing it to withhold records on arrested suspects who never faced criminal charges. This exemption may have made sense to lawmakers at the point it was passed. But in-custody deaths are inherently questionable. This exemption does little more than give law enforcement agencies everything they need to cover up misconduct.Fortunately, Dyer's parents didn't stop there. They asked the FBI to open an investigation into their son's death. The FBI closed its investigation without forwarding it to the DOJ for charges but the investigation did serve at least one purpose: it allowed Dyer's parents to finally obtain records related to their son's last night on earth.What they found was horrifying. Video showed their son thrashing around in the back of a police car, incoherent and completely unrestrained. Captured audio captured an officer threatening to kill their son if he didn't calm down. The in-car video also showed the same officer repeatedly tasing their son in the testicles. (The officer claims he was aiming for the "inner thigh" but Dyer kept moving. Considering a taser is effective almost anywhere it's placed, why place it so close to a person's testicles unless you're hoping to "accidentally" tase that part of the arrestee?) They also saw their son dragged from the police car at the jail sally port, laying on the floor with an officer's foot on his head.Without these records from the FBI, the Dyers would never have known what led to their son's death. The Mesquite PD's refusal to turn over records also served its own purpose: it ran the clock on the statute of limitations. The state can no longer bring criminal charges against the officers -- despite the DA saying there's evidence of criminal behavior.But that can't prevent the officers from being sued. The Dyers have taken the Mesquite PD to court and now, at long last, the PD is being forced to hand over the documents it refused to give to the teen's parents. What's in these documents -- and the officers' testimony -- only adds to the portrait of these officers' depraved indifference.To begin with, the officers who arrested Dyer showed almost zero concern for his wellbeing. Not once did they consider bringing the teen to a nearby hospital. Nor was any sort of health check given when Dyer was turned over to the local jail. But the arresting officers had every reason to believe Dyer might be seriously injured.

If cops have the ability and opportunity to record a traffic stop, should it be held against them when they don't? Arguments have been made to that effect for a few years now. Dashcams have been in wide use for at least a couple of decades. Law enforcement agencies all over the US are issuing body cameras to officers. But it seems whenever something questionable happens, footage is nowhere to be found, or what there is of it is almost useless.Unfortunately, years of discussion by (mainly) defense lawyers hasn't resulted in policy changes. Worse, it hasn't budged the judicial needle much. In rare cases, the absence of footage is used against officers, but in those cases, it mainly seems to be because efforts were made to destroy footage already captured.In this case [PDF] reviewed by the Sixth Circuit Appeals Court, no effort was made post facto to destroy footage. Instead, an officer proactively prevented footage from being created by disabling the dashcam recording the traffic stop. (via FourthAmendment.com)The defendant made a few different arguments for suppression of evidence obtained via a search of his vehicle. Citing Rodriguez, he claimed the wait for the K9 unit unnecessarily prolonged the traffic stop. The appeals court disagreed, saying its interpretation of the Supreme Court's decision gives officers about 20 minutes to freely violate citizens' rights.

The Mirai botnet that swept through poorly-secured devices last year resulted in unprecedented denial-of-service attacks. At one point, the botnet turned its wrath on security researcher Brian Krebs' site, resulting in a sustained attack that saw Krebs' DDoS protection service (Akamai) say it was getting too old for this shit uninterested in providing further protection for this particular user.The people behind the botnet have just pled guilty to federal charges.

The last time we checked in with the folks behind the massively popular video game PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, the company was complaining about Epic Games "ripping off" its 100 vs. 100 player game mode for its Fortnite title. In that post, we attempted to explain why this sort of thing isn't "ripping off" in an intellectual property sense, because the idea/expression dichotomy exists. Using someone else's idea for creative expression is not infringement, whereas using someone else's specific creative expression is. Simple enough.Except the folks behind PubG, as the game is sometimes known, didn't take to this intellectual property lesson and are now instead suggesting that the entire video game industry needs much more intellectual property protection because of all the "ripoffs" out there. This from the creator of the game, Brendan Greene.

Because it's worked oh so well in the past, European news agencies are (again!) calling for service providers like Google and Facebook to start paying them money for sending them business.

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After regulators blocked AT&T's attempted acquisition of T-Mobile, T-Mobile found a new lease on life and began delivering some much-needed competition to the wireless sector. That added competition brought numerous benefits to consumers, from forcing AT&T and Verizon to bring back unlimited data plans, to the elimination of long-term contracts. And while these companies still try to avoid competing too intently on price, T-Mobile's disruption has been hugely beneficial all the same.That said, T-Mobile's consumer-friendly brand identity (driven by trash-talking CEO John Legere) often only goes so far. The company has consistently opposed net neutrality rules, at one point insisting this opposition would put the company on the "right side of history." When people questioned T-Mobile's positions (and a lot of the outright bullshit it used to justify its own zero rating and throttling), Legere doubled down by attacking the EFF.So it's interesting to see the company's announcement this week that it would be jumping into the television business and challenging traditional cable operators. According to T-Mobile, they've also acquired a streaming video operator by the name of Layer3TV, whose technology will be used to fuel the new service scheduled to arrive sometime in 2018. While details and pricing are non-existent, Legere quite justly took the opportunity to make fun of the cable industry's high prices and horrible customer service reputation:

Employees of the federal government swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. Assistant US Attorney Rizwan Qureshi must have done that as well. And, among the parts of the Constitution he's supposed to defend is the First Amendment. But, as a lawyer for the DOJ he has a job to do -- and apparently sometimes that job includes making batshit insane arguments to try to throw protesters and a reporter in jail against their basic First Amendment rights to assemble and to report. This is the case against six people who were singled out and prosecuted, among hundreds of people arrested during protests around Donald Trump's inauguration. We wrote about it last month, mainly focusing on one defendant Alexi Wood, a journalist who was filming/live-streaming the protests, but still got arrested and prosecuted.Pretty much everyone should agree that protesting is legal and protected under the First Amendment. Obviously, vandalism and property destruction are not. But, the incredible thing about this case and the arguments that Qureshi made is that he didn't even bother to claim that the six defendants participated in violence or property destruction. He just argued a form of aiding and abetting the violence and damage, just by being present, and complained that they were "hiding" behind the First Amendment. Here's a snippet from the Washington Examiner's report on the closing arguments:

Emma Best of MuckRock has unearthed some disturbing details in an FBI response to an FOIA request: apparently the agency considered -- however briefly -- the investigation and prosecution of people filing requests.The nature of the requests may shed some light on the FBI's thought process because the heavily-redacted email included in the response certainly doesn't. Each year, the FBI updates its Dead List -- the names of people the FBI has files on who have passed away. Death increases the chances of released files because this major life event tends to terminate investigations.The FBI claims it can't find its updated Dead List. This seems odd, if not downright unbelievable, but the DOJ has backed the FBI's claim and FOIA requests for the latest copy are being rejected. No problem, said MuckRock. It went to work with an older version of the list which included 7,000 names.

Remember Suburban Express? It's been a few years since we've had the pleasure of writing about the company that buses students between the University of Illinois and Chicago, or its lawsuit happy owner, Dennis Toeppen. Toeppen and his company have engaged in some fairly anti-consumer behaviors, most of which have to do with hefty three-figure fines unilaterally assessed to passengers for the most minor of infractions, like showing up for the wrong bus or on the wrong day. But some of the online critics also brought up issues with drivers for the company who treated foreign exchange students like trash in front of other passengers.Now, one of Toeppen's excuses for filing lawsuits against those specific critics is that this foreign exchange student was apologized to, though the company has never said from who or at what time that apology was issued. One would think such an apology was an indication of regret over those racist comments, had such an apology ever actually been issued. Judging by a recent advertisement Suburban Express sent out for its Christmas bus schedule, it seems like the drivers take their cues from the company at large./div>Companies generally don't advertise that students will ride buses with: "passengers like you. You won't feel like you're in China when you're on our buses." Why? Well, because catering to any asshole that can't stand being on a bus with someone who looks a bit different from them isn't the MO for most people with a soul. One does wonder whether any lawsuits over the reviews accusing the company of racism would have survived all this being entered into evidence.But, as per usual, Suburban Express was quick with an apology. And it's just dripping with remorse.When called out for a racist advertisement, companies don't generally apologize for that by insisting that a major public university is terribly run because it admits a large number of foreign students, nor does it call that "selling out." For the record, the actual percentage of Chinese-born students at U of I is much lower, not to mention that the claim that higher-paying foreign exchange students somehow are a burden on Illinois residents seems like a self-defeating argument.Regardless, the Illinois Attorney General has decided to get involved, opening an investigation into the company to determine if Suburban Express violated the Illinois Human Rights Act. And, whaddya know, shortly after Lisa Madigan got involved, the company apologized again.No need to read the entire apology. It's actually apologetic, both for the initial advertisement and the first apology. Apologizing for an apology isn't generally a good look, but the reputation Suburban Express has built for itself practically begs you to read this supposedly sincere apology in a tone of sarcasm, because nothing in the history of the company suggests that we should take this as anything other than the shivering, whimpering attempt to avoid the scrutiny of a state attorney general known as a bulldog.Best of luck to Suburban Express in getting itself out of this one, and even more luck to any foreign student finding herself in need of a ride to Champaign-Urbana.

One of the tensions in the digital world that I find fascinating is what a content or platform creator must feel when deciding just how much freedom it wants to give to its fans. The benefits of giving fans the freedom to tinker is especially noticeable in the video game space, where long traditions exist for modding and making custom user-created content. Most game publishers' embrace of this sort of thing ranges from a wink and a nod to actively fostering the modding community.The NBA2K series, on the other hand, has actually incorporated custom made content into the game's platform, allowing players to create and share custom clothing and accessory designs. The latest iteration of the game is no different, although this version of the game is notably allowing this custom content to be sold for the same "virtual currency" (VC) used everywhere else in the game. VC can be earned through play, or bought with real world money. All of this was going along swimmingly until 2K discovered, shockingly, that its custom content store was full of designs that pretty clearly infringed on all kinds of trademarks and other intellectual property.

Some surprising news out of Florida: actual public officials being held accountable for public records law violations. We're used to hearing about officials finding new and creative ways to dodge public records requests. We're also used to hearing about officials using tried-and-true methods to avoid turning over records, like demanding astronomical fees or abusing exemptions.In this case, several years of blowing off requests for emails has ended in indictments for two Florida officials.

The fact that the FCC comments for Ajit Pai's net neutrality repeal were stuffed with fake comments is nothing new at all. We first reported on it back in May, and reports of comments from totally fake people or long dead people continue to pop up. Even worse are multiple stories of people having their own identities used to file comments, often opposed to their own views. The FCC has consistently responded that it doesn't care. New York's Attorney General has been investigating this as fraud, and asked the FCC to delay its net neutrality repeal until after the investigation was complete -- a request the FCC completely ignored. And, as we just noted a little while ago, Schneiderman recently announced that he's found over 2 million fake comments.But it's easy to say "well, all these fake comments mean all the comments can be ignored." But it's important to look at the source of these fake comments and on which side they ended up. And just this week two new studies have come out, both taking a really deep dive into the fake comments. The Wall Street Journal did an investigation and reached out to 2,757 people who had supposedly commented. 72% of them said they had not posted the comments.But even more thorough and more interesting is a new report that just came out this morning, from Startup Policy Lab's "Truth in Public Comments" project. Its methodology was even more thorough than the Wall Street Journal's. It took a random sample of 450,000 public commenters, and asked them "did you submit the comment quoted below to the FCC, yes or no?" The results are astounding:

As Ajit Pai's attack on net neutrality rolls along, it's worth a steady reminder that the FCC's open commenting period for the public was marred by spam-bots inserting comments from some list somewhere, all in support of Pai's actions. In other words, the period during which the FCC is supposed to listen to the general public for feedback never actually existed, masked as it was by these fraudulent comments.Eric Schneiderman, the New York Attorney General, about whom we've not always written kindly, set up a searchable site through which you can find if you or anyone you know has their names in these FCC comments and, if their comment is in support of the government, you can verify whether you or they actually made that comment or not. You might be surprised by the answer you get, however, as Schneiderman announced this week that they have found -- so far -- that at least two million fake comments used real people's names to support Pai and the FCC.

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Last month, I wrote a post detailing Ajit Pai's big lie, concerning his totally false claim that the order the FCC voted on today simply brings the internet back to where it was in 2015. As we explained that's not even remotely close to accurate. That same post also mentioned a second, but still important, lie that Pai and Pai's supporters have been telling repeatedly: that the 2015 rules harmed broadband investment.There are two very important things to discuss regarding this claim. First, it is simply not true. Second, whether or not it is true, broadband investment is an incredibly meaningless proxy for whether or not the rules are good.Let's start with the first point. There is no credible evidence that Title II harmed investment. While the big broadband companies have made claims about this, and telco-funded thinktanks have pushed out studies claiming this, on financial reports (where the consequences can mean jail time if they're lying), they all admit that classifying broadband under Title II has not harmed investment.Here's Neil Smit, Comcast Cable's President and CEO telling Wall Street that nothing about Title II changes anything (on page 16):

So by now we've pointed out how 200 engineers, internet legends, nearly 1000 startups, countless internet companies, 30 small ISPs, and millions of American consumers have told the FCC its plan to repeal net neutrality is extreme and will harm competition, innovation, and the health of the internet. But we've also pointed out repeatedly how this makes absolutely no difference at Trump's FCC, which appears mindlessly dedicated toward one singular purpose: pleasing entrenched telecom duopolies like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon.You can add the FCC's own CTO to the long list of folks who think the FCC's net neutrality repeal is neither in the public interest, nor good for the health of the internet. In a leaked e-mail this week, FCC CTO Eric Burger (hired by Ajit Pai last October) warned that once the rules are repealed, there's really nothing in place to stop these entrenched duopolies from throttling or hamstringing services or websites they compete with:

Whistleblowing stories have become something of a commonplace, as a stream of Techdirt posts attests. Some leaks offer massive revelations, like the documents released by Chelsea Manning, or Edward Snowden. Others are smaller scale, but expose unsuspected activities that powerful people were trying to keep in the shadows. Here, for example, is a recent leak published in the Guardian about big companies spying on law-abiding organizations that dare to disagree with them:

Bitcoin has been much in the public eye recently. Most of the attention has been focused on the extraordinary rise in its price as measured against traditional currencies. But another aspect that has been exercising people is its energy usage, as a post on the Digiconimist site explains:

As you will all know, we've been covering the trademark case between San Diego Comic-Con and Salt Lake Comic Con pretty much since this whole dispute began some three years ago. From the outset, this whole thing seemed wholly unreasonable. Whatever trademarks SDCC managed to get past the USPTO, there are roughly a zillion comic cons across the country, few of which have any licensing arrangement with SDCC, meaning the plaintiff in this case hasn't bothered to enforce its trademarks for some time. That generally leads to the mark being abandoned, or considered generic. Either should have kept SLCC in the clear. Add to all that the fact that this is arguably a trademark that should never have been granted on the grounds that it's almost purely descriptive -- a "comic con" is a comic convention -- and many observers thought this was going to be an easy win for SLCC in court, including this writer.Well, the jury has come back, and it managed to rule for San Diego Comic-Con instead.

By now we've noted countless times how the claim that net neutrality hurt broadband investment is indisputably false. It's not a debate. Public SEC filings, earnings reports, and numerous CEO statements to investors (who, unlike you, they're legally not allowed to lie to) have disproven this canard. Data suggesting otherwise usually originates with ISP-paid economists more than willing to twist, distort, cherry pick and massage the numbers until they comply with whatever message is being shoveled toward the media this week.Despite the "net neutrality-killed investment" claim being decidedly false, it never appears to die. ISPs and FCC boss Ajit Pai continue to desperately cling to this claim as if repetition forges reality itself. The claim has played a starring role in nearly every speech Pai has given on this subject, as well as every press release that has been issued by the FCC. The claim popped up yet again recently, when Ajit Pai issued a press release (pdf) claiming that he had been meeting with five small ISPs, all of which claimed that net neutrality had seriously harmed their ability to expand their broadband footprints. From the release:

If you had evidence an opposing witness in a criminal trial was untrustworthy, you'd want to use it, right? Too bad says the local law enforcement union. And too bad says a California court. The issue at hand is the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department's "Brady" list. "Brady" is shorthand for exculpatory evidence and untrustworthy law enforcement officers called to provide testimony certainly falls under that heading.After Sheriff Lee Baca resigned in disgrace following his department's implication in widespread jailhouse corruption and its tendency to hire some of the worst people possible to staff its jail, new sheriff Jim McDonnell wanted to make this list of questionable officers public. He wanted to hand it to prosecutors so they'd know which deputies to avoid if they wanted honest, untainted testimony. He didn't go so far as to offer the same list to defense attorneys, but it was one step further than any sheriff before him had taken.The sheriff's union sued, claiming handing the Brady list to prosecutors violated state confidentiality laws. In July, the LA County Appeals Court agreed with the union. The case has been taken up by the California Supreme Court, but it won't be discussed or decided until next year. Meanwhile, the ~300 deputies whose names are on the Brady list may have been witnesses in a combined 62,000 cases since 2000. And still, nobody is allowed to access their disciplinary files.The Los Angeles Times has obtained copies of the 2014 version of the list. (It does not say how it obtained these, so its presumably a leak.) In it are details of hundreds of acts of misconduct, all relating to "moral" issues which could conceivably be used to cast doubt on these deputies' credibility. The documents contain many more details, but this quick rundown by the Times scratches the surface of the secret Brady list. [h/t CJ Ciaramella]

When we discuss the problems around "the internet of things" and app-controlled everything, we typically have to get into the weeds a bit about privacy, whether you own what you purchased, and the ethical implications of opening up an internet-connected service or product to potential hacking. On the security and hacking side of things, it should be clear by now that far too many companies don't take this stuff seriously enough. Our pages are rife with IoT devices being hacked, including everything from Barbie dolls to sports cars. It's enough to make you long for a company with a mission basic enough to develop a product so geared towards security that it couldn't possibly get this app-controlled thing wrong.Well, how about a handgun safe? Take the Vaultek VT20i handgun safe, for instance. This safe can be opened either by inputting the user's PIN number, up to eight digits, either on the box itself or via a smartphone app. Now, you're probably wondering why someone who needs their hand-cannon would need to open the safe up with an app. It's a great question, but one we probably shouldn't worry about considering that some security researches found that you can just open that damn thing with a laptop instead, no PIN number needed.

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One of those things I thought would have gone out of vogue is apparently still in style in New Hampshire. The number of bullshit wiretap prosecutions brought against people recording cops has dropped precipitously over the past half-decade as courts have found use of wiretap statutes in this fashion unconstitutional, but over in the Live Free or Die state, the statute lives freely and dies even harder.Back in 2015, prosecutors brought wiretapping charges against Alfredo Valentin. Valentin had returned home one day to find a SWAT team in the middle of a no-knock raid. Apparently, Valentin's roommate was also a heroin dealer. Valentin had been called home by a neighbor who noticed his dog wandering the street, apparently set free (and still alive!) by the SWAT team's home-breaching efforts. Valentin chose to record the officers as they proceeded with the raid despite officers telling him (wrongly) that he couldn't.This became a wiretapping charge because the cops couldn't handle a citizen ignoring a direct order. They claimed Valentin "hid" the phone by placing it down by his leg while he kept recording. Apparently, the officers could still see the phone, so claims of it being a "secret" recording were per se moronic. But this was what the flimsy, highly-questionable charges rested on: a supposedly surreptitious recording officers in attendance knew was happening.The charges were tossed and Valentin sued. Now, with the ACLU's help, Valentin has obtained a settlement (but not an admission of wrongdoing) from the government.

Lawsuits have begun to pile up for broadband provider CenturyLink, after a whistleblower revealed earlier this year that the ISP had been routinely over-billing its broadband customers for years. The whistleblower, who claims she was fired after bringing the problem to company management, said the company had a multi-year habit of consistently signing customers up for services they never ordered and didn't want. Of course that's on top of the routinely-misleading billing practices we see at most giant broadband providers, most notably the habit of making up completely bogus fees to jack up the advertised price post sale.The whistleblower account was followed up by lawsuits from several state attorneys general, who say they discovered ample evidence that misleading pricing and overbilling was a consistent occurrance. An investigation by Minnesota AG Lori Swanson, for example, found numerous examples where customers were overbilled -- yet CenturyLink refused to fix the problem -- even when customers had the ISP's original promises in writing.But worry not! CenturyLink last week issued a press release stating it had investigated itself, and found that company executives were completely and utterly innocent of any wrong doing. According to CenturyLink, the company constructed a "special committee" filled with CenturyLink board members, who collectively dug through 9.7 million documents, 4.3 terabytes of billing data consisting of over 32 billion billing records -- and interviewed 200 current and former Company employees. They found, impressively, precisely what CenturyLink CEO Glen Post hoped they would:

UK prosecutors are looking at the possibility of having a whole bunch of convictions overturned, thanks to misconduct by a lab service contracted by the government. Malfeasance at Randox Testing Service, which handles toxicology tests for UK law enforcement, first came to light earlier this year when two of its employees were arrested.

Just a quick update from Portland, Oregon, folks. After the city engaged in some truly impish behavior by trying to bully aside a local brewery that has a trademark on Portland's iconic jumping-deer sign, there have been no further negotiations on a resolution between the two sides. See, the city of Portland really wants to license the trademark for the image of the sign to national and international macrobrewers, whereas Old Town Brewing just wants to have the same trademark rights it has legally held for that image in the alcohol industries since 2012. You might have thought that a refusal of the mark by the USPTO would have ended this story. You would be wrong.Apparently, the city has filed multiple trademark applications in the hopes that something, anything, will get approved. This is according to a Portland hospitality industry group, which has taken notice of the city's actions and is firing off angry letters to its own mayor as a result.

Last week, Mike and I were at a conference celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Reno v. ACLU, a seminal case that declared that the First Amendment applied online. What makes the case so worth a conference celebrating it is not just what it meant as a legal matter – it's a significant step forward in First Amendment jurisprudence – but also what it meant as a practical matter. This decision was hugely important in allowing the internet to develop into what it is today, and that evolution may not be something we adequately appreciate. It's easy to forget and pretend the internet we know today was always a ubiquitous presence, but that wasn't always so, and it wasn't so back then. Indeed, it's quite striking just how much has changed in just two decades.So this seemed like a good occasion to look back at how things were then. The attached paper is a re-publication of the honors thesis I wrote in 1996 as a senior at the University of California at Berkeley. As the title indicates, it was designed to study internet adoption among my fellow students, who had not yet all started using it. Even those who had were largely dependent on the University to provide them their access, and that access had only recently started to be offered on any significant a campus-wide basis. And not all of the people who had started using the internet found it to be something their lives necessarily needed. (For instance, when asked if they would continue to use the internet after the University no longer provided their access, a notable number of people said no.) This study tried to look at what influences or reasons the decision to use, or not use, the internet pivoted upon.I do of course have some pause, now a few decades further into my career, calling attention to work I did as a stressed-out undergraduate. However, I still decided to dig it up and publish it, because there aren't many snapshots documenting internet usage from that time. And that's a problem, because it's important to understand how the internet transitioned from being an esoteric technology used only by some into a much more pervasive one seemingly used by nearly everyone, and why that change happened, especially if we want to understand how it will continue to change, and how we might want to shape that change. All too often it seems tech policy is made with too little serious consideration of the sociology behind how people use the internet – the human decisions internet usage represents – and it really needs to be part of the conversation more. Hopefully studies like this one can help with that.

Gaming is changing the nature of storytelling. Video games of course — but also the modern rise of board games, tabletop RPGs and other forms of analog gaming. A good game does more than just arbitrarily pair play with a veneer of narrative, it marries the mechanics and the theme to enable interesting new ways of conveying and exploring complex ideas. This week, we're joined by game designer Randy Lubin to discuss how games can tell stories in a way nothing else can.Follow the Techdirt Podcast on Soundcloud, subscribe via iTunes or Google Play, or grab the RSS feed. You can also keep up with all the latest episodes right here on Techdirt.

If you understand anything about the net neutrality fight, it should be this: repealing these popular rules is just one small part of a long-standing ISP plan to reduce meaningful oversight of one of the least-competitive industries in America. So far this year we've already watched as the Trump administration gutted broadband privacy rules, defended price-gouging prison phone monopolies, made life easier on business broadband monopolies, and began weakening the standard definition of broadband to help obfuscate a lack of competition in the sector.And they're only really getting started. The next big push, lobbied for by Comcast, AT&T and Verizon, is to gut meaningful FCC oversight of giant ISPs, then shovel any remaining authority over to the FTC. This week the FCC and FTC released a joint statement declaring that this new "coordination of online protection efforts" would be a massive boon to consumers while protecting a "free and open internet":

Presumably prestigious law firm 1-800-LAW-FIRM is winning some cases somewhere. But it's not having any luck with its dubious legal theories related to social media companies and "material support for terrorism." The firm hasn't racked up any wins in these cases (as far as I'm aware). The page touting its "anti-terrorism" lawsuits has a lot to say about the filings, but provides no details on the firm's lack of success. And yet, the lawsuits keep flowing.Not content to represent family members of people killed in terrorist attacks, 1-800-LAW-FIRM is also representing law enforcement officers not killed or injured by terrorists, but rather ones who happened to be on the scene of shootings targeting cops. Again, the real villain, according to this law firm (and its plaintiffs), is social media.In January, Dallas Police Sergeant Demetrick Pennie sued [PDF] Twitter, Google, and Facebook, claiming they were directly responsible for "radicalizing" Micah Johnson, who shot and killed five police officers in Dallas, Texas. According to Pennie, the social media companies actively allowed and encouraged terrorist use of their platforms to spread their message and attract participants.Pennie's exploration of the outer limits of culpability has come to an end, netting 1-800-LAW-FIRM (and Excolo Law) a loss in its "sue social media for violent acts committed by individuals" sweepstakes.

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