Brindle

Because some people need a cause so bad they'll literally make one up, this is a video of a lady explaining why Monster Energy is the work of the devil. Proof includes the M on the can resembling 666 in Hebrew, Monster's 'Unleash the beast' marketing slogan, and the O in Monster at the bottom of the can containing a cross that, when a can is sipped from, becomes inverted and represents witchcraft. Obviously, she's got it all figured out. No word how she feels about Red Bull or how anxious her kids are to run away from home. Keep going for the captain of the make-believe debate team. Thanks to MG, brianna and YouSunkMyBattleship (you're damn right I did, and I'm coming after your dinghy), who want to know the hell that '$10 Show Special' board she has is all about. Is she selling DVDs? Because I need one.

Oakley, Michigan has only 300 residents. Up until very recently, it also had 100 police officers. How does a town end up with a police force equal to one-third of its population? To answer that question, you have to go back to when it had a single police officer.

Oakley, Mi. is barely a town at 300 people, only one streetlight and, until recently, one police officer. The one cop was good at his job, reports Vocativ's M.L. Nestel, until he was forced to step down after getting caught stalking a teenage girl.

A new chief, Robert Reznick, was installed. He immediately began hiring new officers. The one officer that had policed the town for several years without incident was replaced with twelve full-time officers. Then Reznick went further, allowing civilians to buy their way onto the police force.

Here's how the chief's program works: The wanna-be officers pay about about $1,200 for a uniform, bullet-proof vest and gun, and some make additional donations to the police department. In return, they get a police badge and the right to carry their gun almost anywhere in the state, including places that people with normal gun permits can't, like casinos, bars, stadiums and daycare centers.

This proved to be very popular, even pulling in a couple of non-resident NFL players as auxiliary officers. Needless to say, running a pay-to-play police force tends to generate problems. Complaints were raised about the heightened police presence at a local event that had run peaceably (if rather rowdily) for years.

The concerns raised echo those stated by Oakley Bike Run President Randy Sutter back in 2011.

"We have successfully held this event in its current location, in this village for 13 years without a single major incident. In past years, the one Oakley Police officer provided the necessary presence for the entire weekend without a problem. This year, we were adorned with 15 police officers, uniformed and undercover, two police cars, a golf cart and a K-9 unit. The view down Main Street looked as if the village had been locked down from some deadly viral outbreak and at any moment the National Guard would be rolling in with personnel carriers to escort us all into a containment zone."

Sutter went on to claim that the number of officers negatively affected participants' perception of event's safety and was causing harm to both his event and the businesses supported by the influx of non-residents.

2014's complaints included further instances of perceived abuse and misconduct.

Brandi Bitterman, a member of the family that owns the Oakley's Family Tavern, claimed her fiance was wrongfully arrested and harassed during bike weekend. The man, who was arrested at the Family Tavern, refused to provide his name.

This wasn't Chief Reznick's first tangle with Bitterman and her bar. In 2013, Reznick was accused of harassing one of the tavern's bartenders.

Reznick has defended his out-sized police force and his actions even as council members have called for his dismissal. Since that point in early September, the police force has been shut down and revived several times.

The police force was suspended due to its lack of insurance coverage. It later put itself back to work -- without a council vote -- after purchasing $500,000 in coverage from a company willing to overlook numerous ongoing lawsuits against the department, as well as its large number of honorary gun toters.

Since that initial shutdown failed to take, the stakes were raised by a county court, which ordered the disbandment of Reznick's ad hoc police force. It also ordered the return of all equipment in use by the numerous auxiliary officers. Chief Reznick refused to comply with the order, resulting in many items being forcibly retrieved by outside law enforcement agencies.

Now, with several news agencies looking to obtain the names of the auxiliary officers "employed" by Reznick, an unlikely person has stepped in to block the release of this information.

Herschel Fink, a longtime First Amendment defender who has represented several Detroit area TV networks (along with some national outlets), is the man standing between the media (and the plaintiff of a lawsuit against Chief Reznick) and the list of auxiliary officers.

Fink, in defending this action, cites both the FBI and Chief Reznick in what has to be one of the most ridiculous defenses of self-serving opacity ever.

In the undated email, Fink cited an Oct. 13 bulletin by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security that ISIS had called for attacks against law enforcement and government workers.

"To release identifying information about law enforcement personnel under such circumstances would not only result in damages against the Village, and everyone involved in such a release, it would likely be considered as having been done with malice, opening the door to punitive damages," wrote Fink.

So, why has Fink decided to argue against the freedom of information? Here's the answer, as noted by M.L. Nestel of Voacitv back in October.

Another guy who bought himself a badge and gun from Reznick is a white-shoe lawyer named Herschel Fink, who serves as the editorial counsel for The Detroit Free Press. Calls made to Fink's office weren't returned.

Fink is for free speech except when his position as a amateur cop is threatened. That's sickening and hopefully the Detroit Free Press will reconsider his employment in light of this hypocrisy.

Despite all the indications that Reznick's inflated police force is a bad idea for Oakley and its residents, the town may have no choice in the matter. Circuit Judge Robert Kaczmarek issued an injunction suspending the force until after last Tuesday's election. That election saw four candidates backed by the auxiliary police force elected, giving them a majority on the seven-member city council.

If you're looking for the nadir of terrorism-based rationalizing, this legal battle over the names of those "employed" in Reznick's rent-a-badge scheme is very likely it. No terrorist group would care about a loose collection of imitation cops who chipped in at least $1,200 each in exchange for some extra rights. If anything, they'd point to it as evidence of American corruption and hypocrisy -- and they'd be right to do so.

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Note: Larger version HERE in case you like big things. This is the infographic created by David McCandless refuting 52 common misconceptions. I found it all rather questionable. Like, who is this David McCandless and what does he know? What is his AGENDA? Also, what does the Monster Energy is the devil's work lady think about all this? Because if I trust anybody to get to the bottom of something, it's her. She's the kind of lady who can find clues where there aren't any. I wouldn't be surprised to find out True Detective was actually named after her. Thanks to jessie, who agrees infographics are just the devil's way of spreading lies across the internet.

The New York Times has obtained some rather enlightening footage from law enforcement asset forfeiture seminars. In it, various speakers -- including police officers and attorneys -- present this extremely popular law enforcement program as a great way for agencies to get the things they want. Without a trace of self-awareness or remorse, speakers indulge the perverted incentives that have seen this swell from $407 million (in 2001) to $4.3 billion in 2012.

In one seminar, captured on video in September, Harry S. Connelly Jr., the city attorney of Las Cruces, N.M., called them “little goodies.” And then Mr. Connelly described how officers in his jurisdiction could not wait to seize one man’s “exotic vehicle” outside a local bar.

“A guy drives up in a 2008 Mercedes, brand new,” he explained. “Just so beautiful, I mean, the cops were undercover and they were just like ‘Ahhhh.’ And he gets out and he’s just reeking of alcohol. And it’s like, ‘Oh, my goodness, we can hardly wait.’”

Too bad the cops couldn't wait. No Mercedes for them. The city attorney notes, not without remorse, that if they hadn't jumped the gun and had waited until the intoxicated man had actually entered his vehicle, the police could have scored a brand new Mercedes for nothing more than a drunk driving violation.

Other officials involved in law enforcement asset seizures were even more blunt. According to the head of the forfeiture unit in Mercer County, New Jersey (Sean McMurtry), assets seized are closely tied to law enforcement agency "wish lists."

Mr. McMurtry made it clear that forfeitures were highly contingent on the needs of law enforcement. In New Jersey, the police and prosecutors are allowed to use cars, cash and other seized goods; the rest must be sold at auction. Cellphones and jewelry, Mr. McMurtry said, are not worth the bother. Flat screen televisions, however, “are very popular with the police departments,” he said…

Mr. McMurtry said his handling of a case is sometimes determined by department wish lists. “If you want the car, and you really want to put it in your fleet, let me know — I’ll fight for it,” Mr. McMurtry said, addressing law enforcement officials on the video. “If you don’t let me know that, I’ll try and resolve it real quick through a settlement and get cash for the car, get the tow fee paid off, get some money for it.”

Prosecutors at this seminar noted that seizures are rarely challenged. Further adding to the imbalance are "first hearings," which are presided over by prosecutors whose offices often directly benefit from asset seizures, rather than by more impartial judges.

Adding to this farcical display of "justice" is the fact that many law enforcement agencies have expanded the reach of these programs. What used to be limited to fraud or drug cases -- with the intent being to reimburse the defrauded and cripple the finances of powerful drug dealers -- is now just another form of punishment, one that allows law enforcement agencies to stock up on flat screen TVs and vehicles.

[M]cMurtry… said forfeiture contributes to only a small percentage of local budgets but it is a good deterrent and works especially well against repeat offenders, such as domestic violence perpetrators who repeatedly violate a restraining order.

As noted earlier, agencies are also seizing the vehicles of drunk drivers, even for first offenses. A police officer attending this seminar notes that the vehicle seized often doesn't belong to the drunk driver, but another family member, like a parent or spouse. But the officer (and the department he represents) doesn't care. The vehicle is as guilty as the suspect, even if the vehicle doesn't belong to the suspect. This allows the PD to punish an innocent party for the wrongdoing of another (and, of course, take advantage of the seized asset).

Officials may argue that seizures are a good deterrent, but that was never the program's intention. It was about providing retribution to members of the public (in fraud cases) and weaken large-scale criminal enterprises (like drug syndicates and organized crime). Now, law enforcement agencies are using it to punish drunk drivers and restraining order violators. Vehicles and cash have been seized in cases related to prostitution, shoplifting -- even statutory rape.

Law enforcement agencies have found a steady stream of income and they love it. Officers aren't just taking advantage of an easily-abused system. They're actively engaged in telling others how to get the most out of asset forfeiture. The New York Times reviewed footage of three law enforcement seminars and saw all of the following:

In the sessions, officials share tips on maximizing profits, defeating the objections of so-called “innocent owners” who were not present when the suspected offense occurred, and keeping the proceeds in the hands of law enforcement and out of general fund budgets[...]

Officials offered advice on dealing with skeptical judges, mocked Hispanics whose cars were seized, and made comments that, the Institute for Justice said, gave weight to the argument that civil forfeiture encourages decisions based on the value of the assets to be seized rather than public safety.

The Dept. of Justice is actively involved in this exploitative use of asset forfeiture laws. According to documents obtained by Muckrock, the DOJ provides a way for agencies to skirt restrictive state laws and directly profit from asset seizures.

Unless their state specifically prohibits it, agencies enrolled in the equitable sharing program can petition a DOJ agency to "adopt" their seizure.

In an adoptive seizure, if the local agency has seized the property without any help from the feds, they get to keep 80 percent of the profits while the DOJ takes the rest.

Proceeds from joint seizures, in which DOJ agencies cooperate with their local counterparts in the investigation, are split based on how much effort each agency contributed.

Even if local governments attempt to head off the inevitable result of these perverted incentives (like Missouri does by diverting asset forfeiture proceeds to its education fund), the federal government is there to kick that door wide open -- yet another way the government of and by the people directly contributes to the abuse of the very same public it's supposed to be protecting.

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Today's "terroristic threat" is brought to you by a very disappointed Satan.

Apparently, this graffiti first appeared in a Brownsboro High School boys restroom before making its way across Facebook (as one's graffiti does), where it was spotted by an increasing number of concerned parents and students. That groundswell of social media handwringing culminated in this:

School and law enforcement officials received information about graffiti on a bathroom stall at Brownsboro High School on Tuesday afternoon and investigated the matter. On Wednesday, the high school student was detained at the beginning of the school day and was questioned. The student was later charged with terrorist threat on a public entity, a third degree felony.

The Athens (TX) Daily Review's coverage provides more color commentary from a concerned parent.

Stephanie Teel shared her concerns, and a photo on the Chandlerslist Facebook page.

“Today someone wrote on the walls starting 10 students would be sacrificed on 11/6/14. It also had writings about Satan as well as hell. I was informed it's been going on for the past couple days,” she wrote. “With all the school shootings in the past, I don't believe this is something to be taken lightly or joked about especially by a school official whom we trust with our children's safety daily.”

At which point, the school district leapt into action, painting over the graffiti and asking students not to talk about it. Oh, and they sent the cops after the unnamed student, who will undoubtedly soon be graced with a name because of this decision:

At the beginning of the school day Wednesday, the student, who is being considered an adult instead of a minor, was immediately detained.

That escalated quickly. KLTV's coverage includes this not-quite-accurate description of the graffiti/threat:

Pictures of the graffiti show images of a pentagram and words printed in and around it mentioning Satan and sacrifices. The graffiti depicted a pentagram and had phrases including "I will sacrifice 10 students" and "Satan is God".

A pentagram it ain't, at least not in the classic Satanic sense. For comparison:


And if there's something referencing the death of "10 students," it can't be found in this "heavily circulated" photo, which only shows the phrase "sacrifice the children."

If the unnamed student was hoping to impress the Dark Lord with his restroom wall tribute, he couldn't have done much worse than this Lone Star State approximation littered with quasi-Satanic afterthoughts -- something about as "threatening" as anything shown by Count Floyd and as "Satanic" as Simon Milligan and man-servant Hecubus. Someone bored and stupid made this, and now they're facing felony charges… as an adult.

Hopefully, an investigation is also underway, rather than some sort of railroading. Third-degree felonies are punishable by fines up to $10,000 and sentences of 2-10 years. Texas is a bad place to be caught uttering terroristic threats. Just ask Justin Carter, whose online trash talk netted him $500,000 bail, time in solitary confinement (for his protection) and acts of violence from other inmates. As Tamara Tabo points out at Above the Law, terroristic threat laws steamroll the Constitution in their zeal to bring "terrorists" to justice.

Politicians and prosecutors trumpet terroristic threat laws as tools for the swift intervention of authorities, allowing law enforcement to prevent horrendous crimes. Sure, they make things easier. Ordinarily, if someone tips off the cops that someone else was talking about committing a crime, the police investigate. They could make an arrest later, if their investigation revealed that necessity.

With terroristic threat laws, the suspicious talk itself is the crime, not just evidence of plans for one. The cops can arrest for the threat charge and investigate the possible underlying violent scheme later. Meanwhile, the accused is not simply enduring the inconvenience of a police inquiry. He is locked up. Even if he is ultimately acquitted or charges are dropped, months of lost liberty is too high a price for using gauche language or failing to understand his audience’s sensitivities. It’s too high a price when police could have investigated the old-fashioned way.

Maybe this will all shake out in a few days. Maybe the cops did capture someone who needed capturing. Or maybe the swift overreaction of students, parents, administration and local law enforcement -- all primed to believe another school shooting is constantly just around the corner -- will see someone harshly punished for the crime of being stupid in public.

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President Obama has finally stepped up in the net neutrality battle, calling on the FCC to reclassify broadband as Title II, with forbearance, to create strong real net neutrality rules. Here's the key bit:

I believe the FCC should reclassify consumer broadband service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act — while at the same time forbearing from rate regulation and other provisions less relevant to broadband services. This is a basic acknowledgment of the services ISPs provide to American homes and businesses, and the straightforward obligations necessary to ensure the network works for everyone — not just one or two companies.

Investment in wired and wireless networks has supported jobs and made America the center of a vibrant ecosystem of digital devices, apps, and platforms that fuel growth and expand opportunity. Importantly, network investment remained strong under the previous net neutrality regime, before it was struck down by the court; in fact, the court agreed that protecting net neutrality helps foster more investment and innovation. If the FCC appropriately forbears from the Title II regulations that are not needed to implement the principles above — principles that most ISPs have followed for years — it will help ensure new rules are consistent with incentives for further investment in the infrastructure of the Internet.

He also encourages the following setup, while acknowledging that the FCC is independent and can create whatever rules it wants.

The FCC is an independent agency, and ultimately this decision is theirs alone. I believe the FCC should create a new set of rules protecting net neutrality and ensuring that neither the cable company nor the phone company will be able to act as a gatekeeper, restricting what you can do or see online. The rules I am asking for are simple, common-sense steps that reflect the Internet you and I use every day, and that some ISPs already observe. These bright-line rules include:

• No blocking. If a consumer requests access to a website or service, and the content is legal, your ISP should not be permitted to block it. That way, every player — not just those commercially affiliated with an ISP — gets a fair shot at your business.
• No throttling. Nor should ISPs be able to intentionally slow down some content or speed up others — through a process often called “throttling” — based on the type of service or your ISP’s preferences.
• Increased transparency. The connection between consumers and ISPs — the so-called “last mile” — is not the only place some sites might get special treatment. So, I am also asking the FCC to make full use of the transparency authorities the court recently upheld, and if necessary to apply net neutrality rules to points of interconnection between the ISP and the rest of the Internet.
• No paid prioritization. Simply put: No service should be stuck in a “slow lane” because it does not pay a fee. That kind of gatekeeping would undermine the level playing field essential to the Internet’s growth. So, as I have before, I am asking for an explicit ban on paid prioritization and any other restriction that has a similar effect.

If carefully designed, these rules should not create any undue burden for ISPs, and can have clear, monitored exceptions for reasonable network management and for specialized services such as dedicated, mission-critical networks serving a hospital. But combined, these rules mean everything for preserving the Internet’s openness.

The White House has also released the following video of President Obama discussing this: Make sure not to miss the first few seconds of the video, in which the White House appears to acknowledge the "internet slowdown day" with a mock buffering image: Many people engaged in the net neutrality fight had been annoyed at President Obama for not taking a strong stand on net neutrality -- a promise he had campaigned on. Instead, the White House was pretty quiet about things, and President Obama made a bunch of vague, non-committal statements about it. Making a clear and bold proclamation supporting reclassifying under Title II (with the important forbearance) is a big step forward. It won't sway Republicans who have fought against Title II from the beginning, but it may finally give folks who had been wavering and playing a political game of not fully supporting Title II in the past the political cover they need. And that includes those at the "independent" FCC...

This won't necessarily change the end result here, but this is a big win for net neutrality supporters who had been feeling abandoned, and certainly provides some political support to full reclassification to protect an open internet. It could have and should have come much earlier, but better late than never.

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Recently Techdirt wrote about the extraordinary tirade by the new GCHQ boss, Robert Hannigan, which boiled down to: "however much we spy and censor online today, it's still not enough." It was so full of wrong-headed and dangerous ideas that it was hard to capture it all in one post. Here's one thing we didn't have room for last time:

Isis also differs from its predecessors in the security of its communications. This presents an even greater challenge to agencies such as GCHQ. Terrorists have always found ways of hiding their operations. But today mobile technology and smartphones have increased the options available exponentially. Techniques for encrypting messages or making them anonymous which were once the preserve of the most sophisticated criminals or nation states now come as standard. These are supplemented by freely available programs and apps adding extra layers of security, many of them proudly advertising that they are "Snowden approved". There is no doubt that young foreign fighters have learnt and benefited from the leaks of the past two years.

Leaving aside the rather pathetic dig at Snowden at the end there, and the unsubstantiated statement that terrorists have benefited from his leaks, the key message here is that strong encryption is now used routinely by the wrong people, and that it presents an "even greater challenge" to the world's security services. If that lament sounds familiar, it's because suddenly, over the last few weeks, it has become the persistent refrain of law enforcement agencies in both the US and UK.

First we had the FBI Director James Comey talking about his agency's fears about things "going dark" because of encryption; then we heard from NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton about how encryption "does a terrible disservice to the public"; a couple of weeks later, former NSA General Counsel Stewart Baker suggested the reason Blackberry had failed was because it used "too much encryption".

Now it seems that the baton has been passed to the UK. The day after Hannigan led the way with his piece in the Financial Times, the head of London's Metropolitan Police added his voice to the chorus of disapproval, as the London Evening Standard reports:

London's police chief today warns society against letting parts of the internet become a "dark and ungoverned" space populated by paedophiles, murderers and terrorists.

In a call for action, Met Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe says encryption on computers and mobile phones is frustrating police investigations, meaning parts of the web are becoming "anarchic places".

What's particularly interesting is that as part of his visit to New York to make this speech, Hogan-Howe was also planning to meet all the senior US officials who had just voiced their concerns about encryption in precisely the same terms:

Sir Bernard has spent several days in talks with New York and Washington police chiefs about the threat of terrorism and what he calls "the challenges and opportunities" of technology. Today he was meeting FBI director James Comey.

He was also telling law enforcement experts behind closed doors at the New York police department that the internet is now a safe haven for criminality, adding: "Privacy is important but in my view the security of communications methods and devices is growing beyond what any genuine domestic user could reasonably require."

It's hard not to see this as part of a concerted and organized counter-attack against growing calls to rein in US and UK surveillance in the wake of Snowden's revelations. The common line on both sides of the Atlantic is that encryption has gone too far -- that "the security of communications methods and devices is growing beyond what any genuine domestic user could reasonably require". The clear implication is that only "paedophiles, murderers and terrorists" would want strong crypto, and that for law-abiding citizens with nothing to hide, crypto with backdoors is good enough.

But it isn't, of course. Law-abiding citizens with nothing to hide have a perfect right to real privacy online, just as they have a right to use doors, walls and curtains to screen off their private lives from the world's gaze. As Techdirt has noted before, placing backdoors in nominally secure systems simply makes them completely insecure, since there is no way to stop the bad people from using them too. Moreover, weakening crypto would not only make the Internet vastly less secure for billions of users, it would also undermine millions of online businesses and thus the economies with which they are now so deeply intertwined.

We can expect more of these blatant attempts to demonize strong cryptography, and to paint its mere use as a sure sign of terrorism and depravity. But we have been here before. During the 1990s the US government tried to introduce backdoors into secure communications using the Clipper chip. Civil society won those first Crypto Wars; now it needs to gird its loins to fight and win Crypto Wars 2.0.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

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14-year-old Lucero Tovar's project for her criminal justice class was supposed to depict the inside of a courtroom. In an unexpected turn of events, her diorama instead proved an unlikely theory: there's a child running Texas' Santa Maria Independent School District.

A 14-year-old Texas student was suspended last week after she created a diorama of a courtroom using pictures of school board members to represent various people in her project, including a prosecutor and "fake" defendant.

The assignment, which was due Oct. 20, was to create a miniaturized 3D courtroom setting, she told KGBT-TV.

She decided to use photos of school district personnel and elected board members, which she printed out from the Santa Maria Independent School District’s website.

Tovar also used photos of family members and relatives, along with various dead presidents, to ensure every "person" in her diorama had a face.

But one of the people "depicted" in her diorama had a problem with her face being used: Santa Maria ISD superintendent Maria Chavez.


As you can see from this screengrab of KGBT's report, Chavez's face was applied to the "defendant's" body.


Somehow, Superintendent Chavez was informed of Tovar's criminal justice project, resulting in Tovar being called to her school's office.

“The principal just looks at me and is like, ‘You know why you're in here right?’” Tovar explained. “I said no. She said, ‘You're harassing people.’ And I was like, ‘Huh?’ For me, I was like, ‘What?’"

Tovar adds: “She just told me that I was harassing and that she's going to suspend me for 4 days.”

Tovar's mother -- perhaps realizing there would be no reasoning with the childlike-but-in-all-the-wrong-ways entity running the district -- pulled her child from the school rather than deal with the ridiculous suspension.

If you think I'm being too harsh on Maria Chavez (and by extension, everyone under her command), read on. The suspension notice obtained by KGBT says the following:

You are hereby advised that Lucero Tovar is assigned an In-School-Suspension (ISS) from Santa Maria High School for the following Code of Conduct violation(s): damaging innuendo message on class project to another’s reputation — district personnel.

After dodging KGBT reporter Ryan Wolf for an entire day, Maria Chavez finally answered one of his phone calls and made the following statements.

Chavez did not want to appear on camera but said over the telephone how she felt Tovar’s depiction of her and others was “bullying” to personnel...

Chavez said she found the rationale behind her face on the defendant in an orange jumpsuit as “politically” motivated, “distasteful” and a complete deviation from the project’s “requirements."

And while Chavez found it “distasteful,” she told Wolf none of the board members, whose faces are also featured in the project, complained to her about harassment or a damaged reputation.

Chavez also claims Tovar's project caused a "disruption," which is a really lame way to shift blame to the victim. (Meaning the actual victim -- Lucero Tovar -- and not the fake victim who's supposed to be acting like an adult.) There would have been no disruption if school personnel hadn't somehow arrived at the conclusion that Tovar's use of district personnel photos was a form of bullying.

What's even sadder than Chavez's gratuitous display of power is that she continues to maintain the pretense that this is really about Tovar's unwillingness to follow the project's instructions. This assertion (and nothing to back it up) leads to non-sequiturious paragraphs like the following:

There was no written description required, according to Tovar.

Tovar said she was just trying to be creative with the assignment and used photos of her relatives as well.

Wolf asked the superintendent if the teacher listed any requirements to students ahead of the assignment to which she responded “yes.”

Unless the instructions specifically stated that no photos of district personnel were to be used, then this assertion is a painfully stupid attempt at misdirection. Even if there were certain instructions Tovar didn't follow, the worst she should have expected was a low grade from her teacher, not accusations of bullying from the district superintendent and a suspension.

What makes it even stupider is Chavez's actions following the assertion that Tovar didn't follow the project guidelines.

[Chavez] also said [the project instructions] would be faxed over to Action 4 News around noon time.

They were never received as of 11 p.m. Wednesday.

Maria Chavez may not have liked her face being pasted to an orange jumpsuited body, but the proper response for someone in her position would have been to tell the teacher or administrator that brought it to her attention to find something productive to do with their time. Instead, she chose to be the victim in a situation that clearly wasn't crying out for anyone to fill that role. To become the victim, she had to turn a 14-year-old student into someone capable of intimidating the top of the district's organization chart. Now, because she chose to fully inhabit the victim role, she's exposed herself as someone incapable of filling the role of district superintendent and unworthy of the trust inherent to the position.

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While there has been some progress towards a restoration of the nation's Fourth Amendment rights, there have also been several steps back. A lot of this seems to be tied to a judicial reluctance to side with criminals. These Fourth Amendment issues generally boil down to law enforcement v. bad guys, usually delivered without nuance.

Earlier this year, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals found that tracking suspects using phone location info required a warrant. This wasn't a general ruling, however, and it was limited to several specifics in this case. The court found that cell phone location info carried an expectation of privacy despite also being a "business record" -- something that is normally stripped of privacy expectations thanks to the Third Party Doctrine.

But here's where the decision ultimately falls apart. The Appeals Court arrived at a different conclusion, but refused to overturn the lower court's decision because it felt the lower court had "acted in good faith." Warrant requirements are now in place in the circuit court's jurisdiction, but the plaintiff was ultimately unable to have the illegally-gathered evidence thrown out.

Similarly, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals found last year that warrantless GPS tracking was a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Again, this decision tiptoed around other similar cases and reached a rather narrow conclusion. This was immediately appealed by the government, which asked for an en banc hearing. The en banc hearing returned this decision October 1st:

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that evidence derived from warrantless use of a GPS tracking device can be used in court, even though law enforcement's failure to get a warrant before attaching the device to a car may have violated the Fourth Amendment.

The 8-5 decision in this case, U.S. v. Katzin, applies an expansive interpretation of the so-called "good-faith exception" to the Fourth Amendment's exclusionary rule, holding that officers reasonably relied on decades-old cases dealing with primitive "beeper" tracking technology in concluding that no warrant was required for sophisticated GPS tracking.

Once again, the court found that the search was in violation of the Fourth Amendment, but "good faith" nullified the remedy of excluding the illegally-obtained evidence. The court also vacated the earlier ruling that instituted a warrant requirement for GPS tracking.

Nathan Freed Wessler, staff attorney for the ACLU, has a long piece at Slate describing how these decisions have turned the "good faith exception" into the rule.

Under the “exclusionary rule,” when police engage in an illegal search, prosecutors can’t use the results. This penalty incentivizes police to abide by the Constitution and provides relief to victims of government misconduct. Indeed, as the Supreme Court explained a century ago, without the exclusionary rule the Fourth Amendment would be “of no value” and “might as well be stricken from the Constitution.”

But in a series of decisions starting in 1984, the Supreme Court has retreated from this vital protection of our rights. The justices first held that if police were relying in good faith on a judicially issued warrant authorizing a particular search, the resulting evidence couldn’t be suppressed even if the search was later held to be unconstitutional. The court has since expanded this good-faith exception to cover police reliance on other forms of explicit authorization, including statutes later held to be unconstitutional and binding court rulings that are later reversed.

Basically, the Supreme Court's new view is that the exclusionary rule is no longer a remedy, but a deterrent. The rule isn't there to ensure redress for those whose rights have been violated. It's there to steer law enforcement away from actions that would violate citizens' rights. But this doesn't work, and the main reason it doesn't work is the "good faith exception."

The cumulative effect has been to turn the "good faith exception" into a blank check for Fourth Amendment violations. The exception gives all but the most egregious violations a pass, a fact recognized by the dissenting opinion in the Third Circuit hearing.

"[T]his approach … expands the good faith exception to the point of eviscerating the exclusionary rule altogether by failing to provide any cognizable limiting principle. Now, law enforcement shall be further emboldened knowing that the good faith exception will extricate officers from nearly any evidentiary conundrum.”

Those with valid Fourth Amendment complaints will find the courts nearly useless when seeking redress. Combined with the immunity routinely granted to law enforcement in civil cases, those whose rights are violated are left to hope for long-delayed settlements post-incarceration, rather than avail themselves of their rights when on trial for criminal charges -- the point where the exclusionary rule would be of most use.

The good faith exception has swallowed the exclusionary rule and these compounding decisions allow law enforcement to predicate their defenses on uncertainty (even though the accused are never extended the courtesy of an "ignorance of the law" defense) and hide behind immunity while courts continue to defer to the judgement of John Q. Officer.

Scott Greenfield, questioning decisions relating to both the exclusionary rule and the (always expanding) good faith exception, had this to say about the intertwined issues back in 2010:

[T]he name “good faith exception” is problematic both from an application perspective as well as political perspective. It attributes a positive characteristic to the cops (good faith) making the idea of punishing them for it seem improper, if not downright disingenuous. Moreover, if the purpose of the exclusionary rule is limited to those situations where it serves only a deterrent purpose, and at the time of the search and seizure the cop’s conduct conforms with existing law, why would the law seek to deter compliance with precedent?

The courts have painted themselves into a corner, with the ample assistance of government prosecutors more than willing to portray any minimal nod to the Fourth Amendment as something that allows criminals to elude justice. Even the language deployed plays into law enforcement's hands.

The complications arising from technological advances have muddied the waters a bit, at least in terms of where Fourth Amendment protections begin and end. To prosecutors, these protections haven't changed at all. They're still almost nonexistent. Technology presents new challenges to law enforcement and these are greeted almost exclusively with pleas for further exceptions, as though they should also be immunized from keeping pace with the world itself. And, for the most part, they've been obliged by the judicial system.

When the exception swallows the rule, the Fourth Amendment becomes nothing more than a bit of aspirational fluff cranked out by hotheaded revolutionaries nearly 250 years ago. At best, it's a hassle. At worst, it's clearly unsuited to handle the nuances of today's technology. That's the prevailing government viewpoint. Our rights are eroding, and the most corrosive force has been those sworn to uphold the nation's laws and protect its citizens' liberties.

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Over the last few years, Verizon has been ramping up its behavioral tracking efforts via programs like Verizon Selects and its Relevant Mobile Ad system, which track wireless and wireline subscriber web behavior to deliver tailored ads and sell your information to third parties. Unknown until a few weeks ago however was the fact that as part of this initiative, Verizon has started using what many are calling controversial "stealth," "super" or "perma" cookies that track a user's online behavior covertly, without users being able to disable them via browser settings.

Lawyer and Stanford computer scientist Jonathan Mayer offered up an excellent analysis noting that Verizon was actively modifying its users' traffic to embed a unique identifier traffic header, or X-UIDH. This header is then read by marketing partners (or hey, anybody, since it's stamped on all of your traffic) who can then build a handy profile of you. It's a rather ham-fisted approach, argues Mayer, who notes that while you can opt-out of Verizon selling your data, you can't opt out of having your traffic embedded with the unique identifier. He also offered up a handy graphic detailing precisely how these headers work:

As the story grew the last few weeks, ProPublica noted that Twitter's mobile advertising arm is already one of several clients using Verizon's "header enrichment" system, though Twitter didn't much want to talk about it. Several tools like this one have popped up since, allowing users to test their wireless connections (note it doesn't work if your cellular device is connected to Wi-Fi, and may be masked by the use of Google Mobile Chrome, Opera Mini, or if viewed through apps like Flipboard).

Kashmir Hill at Forbes also has a great article exploring the ramifications of the system and asked Verizon and AT&T (who has started trials of a similar system) what consumer protections are in place. Both companies proclaimed that the characters in their headers are rotated on a weekly and daily basis to protect user information. But as we've noted time and time again, there's really no such thing as an anonymized data set, and security consultant Ken White argues that only part of the data in the headers is modified, if at all:

"White has been tracked for the past 6 days across 550 miles with a persistent code from both Verizon and AT&T. He has a smartphone with Verizon service and a hotspot with AT&T service. In AT&T’s case, the code has four parts; only one part changes, he says. “It’s like if you were identified by a birth month, a birth year, a birth day, and a zip code, and they remove one of those things,” said White. You’d still be able to reasonably track that person with the other three. Verizon’s code meanwhile hasn’t changed for him, and it’s been almost a week."

Amusingly, I remember back in 2008 when concerns about deep packet inspection and behavioral ads were heating up, Verizon declared there really wasn't any need for consumer protections or privacy rules governing such technologies, because, the company claimed, public shame and the oodles of competition in the broadband space would somehow keep them honest:

"A couple of years back during the debate on net neutrality, I made the argument that industry leadership through some form of oversight/self-regulatory model, coupled with competition and the extensive oversight provided by literally hundreds of thousands of sophisticated online users would help ensure effective enforcement of good practices and protect consumers."

Yet here we have an example where the behavior Verizon was engaged in was so surreptitious, even some of the best networking and security experts in the business didn't notice Verizon was doing it until two years after the effort was launched. Apparently, holding Verizon accountable is going to take a little more than a public scolding in the town square. The EFF has stated they've already filed a formal complaint with the FCC, and they're taking a look at possible legal action against Verizon for violating consumer privacy law.

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Jason Leopold has a big article at Vice detailing some more of what's in the Senate Intelligence Committee's CIA torture report, but the bigger news is that the long fought over, somewhat redacted executive summary may be released next week:

... the Senate committee is hoping to release its report as early as next week, when the US sends a delegation to Geneva, Switzerland where it will submit a report on compliance with the International Convention Against Torture. The release of the executive summary would be an effort to show "some form of accountability," one person familiar with the declassification negotiations said.

Of course, it also notes that the fight over redacting pseudonyms still isn't settled, and that may muck things up. And, really, why wouldn't the CIA keep pushing back? Now that the GOP has won the Senate, it knows that if it can just stall until January, the whole report may get buried.

As for the other leaks about the report, many of them confirm what had previously leaked about the report, but also go deeper into each of those areas. For example, earlier leaks had already talked about how the torture techniques used by the CIA went beyond what was approved, how the CIA tortured more people than previously admitted (and then hid those details), and then lied to Congress claiming that the torture was effective when it was not. Leopold has some more details about all of those, including how the CIA is responding to and challenging some of those findings.

However, Leopold also highlights a variety of ways in which the report does appear to fall short, choosing to pull punches and avoid blaming top administration officials like former Vice President Dick Cheney (despite his previous admissions that he okayed the program), and also carefully avoiding placing any blame on a high-ranking CIA official who is described as "Feinstein's boy":

Although he is identified in the Senate report, the committee did not level any criticism against Stephen Kappes, who was deputy director of the CIA while the interrogation program was up and running. Kappes allegedly played a role in covering up the death of a detainee who froze to death in 2002 at a CIA operated prison in Afghanistan called the "Salt Pit." The death of the detainee is highlighted in the Senate report.

Kappes had been Feinstein's choice to head the CIA after Barack Obama was sworn in as president in 2009. Feinstein is on record stating she would not support Panetta's nomination unless Kappes was named as his deputy, a position he served in until 2010. One former CIA official said Kappes is "Feinstein's boy," suggesting that he was spared criticism because of his close relationship with the Intelligence Committee chairwoman.

As for Cheney:

The Senate report promotes the narrative that the CIA deceived the Bush White House into permitting the agency to use the controversial interrogation techniques against certain captives. This, despite the fact that former Vice President Dick Cheney admitted in 2008 that he personally "signed off" on the waterboarding of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other high-value captives because he "thought that it was absolutely the right thing to do."

"This is why the SSCI [Senate Select Committee on Intelligence] report is flawed and is not a full historical overview of the EIT program," said one person familiar with it. "Who in their right mind would believe that Dick Cheney does not bear any responsibility here?"

Perhaps even more troubling is that the report does not say that the "enhanced interrogation techniques" were actually torture. We've questioned in the past why Senator Feinstein won't call torture "torture" and apparently that linguistic game continues in this report:

However, the Senate report does not conclude that the CIA violated any domestic or international laws prohibiting the use of torture, contradicting Feinstein's public statements. People familiar with the document say the Senate didn't even use the word "torture" to describe the techniques to which detainees were subjected.

In fact, Leopold claims that the report focuses on the "efficacy" of the torture program and doesn't even touch the questions of legality (or morality).

The report also, apparently, skips over George Tenet's leadership in the CIA, but instead focuses a lot of Michael Hayden:

The committee's executive summary, however, singles out Michael Hayden, who became CIA director in 2006 and is a staunch defender of the use of EITs. He is accused of lying to the panel during a briefing nearly a decade ago when he sought to revamp the CIA's interrogation program.

People familiar with the executive summary said the committee obtained records about Hayden's briefings and carefully reviewed what he told committee members. The report concludes that the former CIA director erroneously told the committee that there were fewer than 100 detainees held captive by the CIA when in fact that number was higher. (The committee's full report says the CIA detained 119 men). Hayden is also criticized for telling the committee that the enhanced interrogation program was "humane." The committee's report concludes that Hayden misrepresented the scope of the program and was not being truthful.

This probably explains why Hayden has been the most vocal and stringent critics of this report. He claimed that Feinstein was "too emotional" to judge the CIA's torture program, and also insisted that it was just a partisan attack.

Still, Leopold's report also highlights how the CIA and its defenders are likely to hit back on the claims about the torture program not being effective. They're going to argue that the torture was the "bad cop" aspect of a "good cop/bad cop" scheme, and the useful information came out when the "good cop" was in the room, but wouldn't have happened without the "bad cop" (i.e., the torture).

Retired Air Force psychologist James Mitchell, who has been credited with being the architect of the CIA's enhanced interrogation program — he's bound by a non-disclosure agreement he signed with the government and does not confirm, deny, or discuss his role in the program — said that his understanding of "the purpose of the enhanced interrogation program was to get the detainee to be willing to engage with a debriefer or a targeter who was asking a question, and that it wasn't designed so that you would ask questions about actionable intelligence… while the detainee was experiencing the enhanced interrogation program."

In other words, Mitchell is saying the enhanced interrogation program was akin to a good cop, bad cop act. For example, a "bad cop" might use EITs on a detainee, then leave the room. A "good cop" might then enter the room and, without the use of any kind of force, get answers from the detainee, who had just been subjected to EITs. If the bad cop and good cop submit separate reports, it would appear on paper that the EITs were ineffective because the bad cop didn't get the answers — the good cop did.

And the Senate would have used that intel in compiling its report.

"If you could go in and read the individual pieces of intel that were written as a result of the debriefings and the interrogations, what would that look like in the database?" Mitchell says. "What that would look like is that all the actionable intelligence came from the good cop just like you would expect, and you wouldn't see a lot of actionable intelligence leading to things like capturing bin Laden coming from the enhanced interrogation program because it wasn't designed to do that."

Still, from previous leaks, even that explanation seems questionable -- as it appears that much of the useful information came from people who weren't being tortured or before they were tortured, suggesting that argument is bunk. And, even if it were true, that doesn't magically make torture right in any way (legally or morally).

Either way, all this speculation is getting ridiculous. The Senate should just release the damn report already.

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FBI director James Comey -- (again) citing no legal authority or precedent -- is demanding Google and Apple hand over the keys to their default phone encryption.

The director of the FBI on Monday doubled down on demands that Silicon Valley giants cooperate in the course of criminal investigations, saying that tech companies such as Apple and Google have to unlock cellphones, if authorities request it.

And what has all this "demanding" and "doubling down" netted Comey? Nothing really. He still needs a compliant legislative body to oblige his fantasies of subservient tech companies opening wide for fat-fingered g-men.

Comey's latest attempt to sell the government's plan to exchange fear for all-access mobile phone passes came at a counterterrorism conference hosted by Fordham University. And once again, Comey followed up his baseless demands with a whole lot of nothing.

Comey didn't specify what he wants Apple and Google to do but said that to find a solution requires an "honest debate."

"I don't want to tell people what to do," he said. "But I want to try to foster a national conversation about this."

"There has to be some solution that will allow us with lawful authority to be able to have the company unlock the device," he added.

There's nothing honest about Comey's approach and walking around claiming that phone encryption will lead to new highs in terrorist attacks and pedophilia is only part of the dishonesty. Comey claims he doesn't want to "tell people what to do," apparently completely unaware that throwing around the weight of his agency and position and demanding phone makers to play by his rules is the very definition of "telling people what to do."

Unfortunately for Comey, throwing around this weight just isn't enough anymore. No one in the tech world is going to be cowed into obeisance. Not anymore. Now, everyone wants to stick it to The Man, even many of those that worked in close proximity with government agencies over the past several years. Why? Because the nation's intelligence and investigative agencies are always hungry. They always want more.

The "solution" Comey's looking for runs through Congress. Historically, legislators have almost always come down on the side of law enforcement. The twin spectres of terrorism and child molestation have resulted in plenty of government expansion and law enforcement leeway over the years. But maybe even the legislators are beginning to realize that this is something that can never be satiated. You can give and give and give and the same people will be return over and over again, asking for just a little more. The government is -- and has been for years -- a mixture of junkies and their enablers.

Maybe we're at the point that a certain number of enablers have become sick of the constant need. Maybe they'll cut Comey and his ilk off and put up with the keening, inarticulate sounds of their withdrawal. Or maybe they'll meet them out back and slip them a fix when they think no one's looking. As I've said before, the voices out front are claiming the FBI will find no assistance here. It's the large number of those who've offered no opinion we need to keep an eye on. Law enforcement's emotional blackmail has worked for years. It may have recently lost its edge, but it's still too powerful to count out completely.

"In one way or another, our entire lives — our social lives, our work lives — reside online and on these devices," Comey said. "And that's a great thing. But that's also where the bad guys are."

Yeah. As in "real life" itself. I guess we should expect him to ask for "golden key" access to every front door in America. As long as he's transparent about it, what's there to be concerned about? Comey just wants to keep America safe. Who are we to deny complete access to our "entire lives?"

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There are times that I wonder if former NSA General Counsel Stewart Baker is just trolling with his various comments, because they're so frequently out of touch with reality, even though he's clearly an intelligent guy. His latest is to join in with the misguided attacks on Apple and Google making mobile encryption the default on iOS and Android devices, with an especially bizarre argument: protecting the privacy of your users is bad for business. Oh really? Specifically, Baker engages in some hysterically wrong historical revisionism concerning the rise and fall of RIM/Blackberry:

Baker said encrypting user data had been a bad business model for Blackberry, which has had to dramatically downsize its business and refocus on business customers. “Blackberry pioneered the same business model that Google and Apple are doing now - that has not ended well for Blackberry,” said Baker.

He claimed that by encrypting user data Blackberry had limited its business in countries that demand oversight of communication data, such as India and the UAE and got a bad reception in China and Russia. “They restricted their own ability to sell. We have a tendency to think that once the cyberwar is won in the US that that is the end of it - but that is the easiest war to swim.”

While it's true that some countries, like India, demanded the right to spy on Blackberry devices, the idea that this was the reason for the company's downfall is ludicrous. First of all, RIM gave in to some of those demands anyway. But, more importantly, the reason that Blackberry failed was because the company just couldn't keep up from an innovation standpoint -- and that's because early on it made the decision to focus onenforcing patents, rather than truly innovating. RIM got fat and lazy by getting an early lead and then focusing on protecting it, rather than keeping up with the market. And... one of the reasons it got that early lead was because companies were willing to buy into the Blackberry in part because of its strong encryption.

The idea that encryption was bad for business because China and Russia couldn't spy on people is not only ridiculous and silly, but it appears to be Baker supporting authoritarian states spying on its citizenry. What the hell, Stewart?

Beyond that, Baker insists that, really, the public doesn't want encryption anyway, and if people only knew what was really going on with the "bad guys," we'd all be willing to give up our privacy:

Baker said the market for absolute encryption was very small, and that few companies wanted all their employees’ data to be completely protected. “There’s a very comfortable techno-libertarian culture where you think you’re doing the right thing,” said Baker.

“But I’ve worked with these companies and as soon as they get a law enforcement request no matter how liberal or enlightened they think they are, sooner to later they find some crime that is so loathsome they will do anything to find that person and identify them so they can be punished.

Right. And that's what basic police and detective work is for. It doesn't mean that you need to weaken the security and privacy of everyone else. Anyway, let's see if Baker goes out and shorts Apple and Google's stock now that he believes encryption and protecting the privacy of their users is really so bad for business.

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With the release of the Nexus 9 — now available online from Google Play or in Best Buy retail stores — we knew Google would likely begin pushing out Android 5.0 Lollipop to AOSP today. Sure enough, they have.

Still hitting AOSP as we type this, the source code still isn’t fully available (these things take time), but you can already find repositories for the Nexus Player (ASUS Fugu) as well as the Nexus 6, Nexus 7 WiFi, Nexus 9 and we’re sure the rest of the Nexus family not too long after.

Currently, Android 5.0 Lollipop is only being referred to as “lollipop-release” with build LRX21M under platform build, but once everything is officially updated we should see that generic name changed to android-5.0_r1. Once everything is finished, expect your favorite Android developers to dive in and begin building updated Lollipop ROMs directly from source.

[Google]

This is part of the 4-acres of spiderweb built by orb-weavers in a Baltimore Wastewater Treatment Plant. Experts CONSERVATIVELY estimate there were over 107-million spiders living in the webs, with a population density as high as 35,176 spiders per square meter. For reference, that's 35,175 spiders per square meter more than necessary to justify burning the building to the ground. Per the entomologist and arachnologist experts sent to investigate the problem:

We were unprepared for the sheer scale of the spider population and the extraordinary masses of both three dimensional and sheet-like webbing that blanketed much of the facility's cavernous interior. Far greater in magnitude than any previously recorded aggregation of orb-weavers, the visual impact of the spectacle was was nothing less than astonishing. In places where the plant workers had swept aside the webbing to access equipment, the silk lay piled on the floor in rope-like clumps as thick as a fire hose. In some areas of the plant over 95% of space was filled with spider web. The webbing was so dense that it pulled 8-foot long fluorescent light fixtures out of place.

Wait -- the workers just worked around them?! I thought the building was abandoned. At what point do you think employees gave up on a spider-free work environment and just let them have their way? Because I would have quit. Quit and sued the city for unsafe working conditions. Not only am I dealing with wastewater, but I have to cope with a spider infestation? Nobody gets paid enough for that. Unless it's over $40k with benefits, in which case that sounds reasonable and I'd like my old job back. One more shot after the jump of an 8-foot florescent light pulled out of place by the webs.

I've discussed in the past how many people mistake privacy as some sort of absolute "thing" rather than a spectrum of trade-offs. Leaving your home to go to the store involves giving up a small amount of privacy, but it's a trade-off most people feel is worth it (not so much for some uber-celebrities, and then they choose other options). Sharing information with a website is often seen as a reasonable trade-off for the services/information that website provides. The real problem is often just that the true trade-offs aren't clear. What you're giving up and what you're getting back aren't always done transparently, and that's where people feel their privacy is being violated. When they make the decision consciously and the trade-off seems worth it, almost no one feels that their privacy is violated. Yet, when they don't fully understand, or when the deal they made is unilaterally changed, that's when the privacy is violated, because the deal someone thought they were striking is not what actually happened.

And, unfortunately, it often seems like people are increasingly being pressured into deals they don't fully understand and don't have full control over. Michael Price, over at the Brennan Center for Justice, took the time to actually read through the "privacy policy" on his new "smart" TV and it's terrified him. Just the fact that a TV even has a privacy policy seems oddly terrifying, but it makes sense, given that at least some information goes outbound as part of the "smarts." But how much? Potentially a lot more than people would expect:

The amount of data this thing collects is staggering. It logs where, when, how, and for how long you use the TV. It sets tracking cookies and beacons designed to detect “when you have viewed particular content or a particular email message.” It records “the apps you use, the websites you visit, and how you interact with content.” It ignores “do-not-track” requests as a considered matter of policy.

To some extent, that's not really all that different than a regular computer. But, then it begins to get creepier:

It also has a built-in camera — with facial recognition. The purpose is to provide “gesture control” for the TV and enable you to log in to a personalized account using your face. On the upside, the images are saved on the TV instead of uploaded to a corporate server. On the downside, the Internet connection makes the whole TV vulnerable to hackers who have demonstrated the ability to take complete control of the machine.

More troubling is the microphone. The TV boasts a “voice recognition” feature that allows viewers to control the screen with voice commands. But the service comes with a rather ominous warning: “Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party.” Got that? Don’t say personal or sensitive stuff in front of the TV.

You may not be watching, but the telescreen is listening.

Now, yes, some of that certainly can be useful in creating interesting features and services. And, frankly, almost all of the same things can be said about the smartphone in your pocket with Siri or Google Now listening in to anything you say at any moment's notice. But at the very least, with those smartphone systems people tend to see and understand the immediate benefits: they use those tools to get information and they're fairly easy to turn off without creating other problems. With the TV, it seems to be more of the promise of potentially providing some future service -- but it's still willing and ready to listen in the meantime.

This is certainly not to argue that the technology is bad, but that these sorts of things shouldn't be hidden in a 46-page privacy policy that no one is going to read. People should be fully aware of what the deal is, and they should have control over how it's used, with some granular controls: maybe let people set the times in which the TV's "ears" are on -- so that maybe it only works during prime time when you're likely to use the TV. Or let people have access to the logs and data that it's snarfing up so they can view for themselves how it's being used. Make sure that the people using it have both transparency and control, and suddenly this becomes somewhat less scary (well, until the NSA goes to the FISA court to use Section 215 to get all the "metadata" from all your smart TVs.)

And, of course, just as I was finishing up with that article, I came across a report of a patent from Sony from a few years ago. It actually got some attention back in 2012 for describing a system in which your TV may ask you to say the advertiser's name to end a commercial. This figure in the patent is the one that quite reasonably got plenty of attention. Perhaps it's no surprise that some companies are considering something like this. In fact, some of the underlying ideas aren't totally crazy. We've long argued that good advertising is about making it good content, and making ads that are interactive and fun is one way to do that. Of course, I don't quite see how the above scenario is very much fun. To me, it sounds horrifying, but others may disagree.

Either way, it's become quite clear that while the world is becoming more connected -- between our computers, our phones, our TVs and much more, people are increasingly going to run into challenges around privacy. And, while some are going to jump to the conclusion that any information gathering and sharing is automatically bad and dangerous (or just crazy), it's going to be important to recognize the trade-offs inherent in these new devices and services. If companies don't want the public to totally freak out, they'd do well to make these processes much more transparent, clear and controllable by the users themselves. Unfortunately, we're not quite there yet. The focus is still on hiding these things out of a fear that no one would use them if they knew what they were giving up. That seems like a recipe doomed to create privacy panics, rather than one that actually enables innovation to advance and which lets the public be comfortable with the choices they're making.

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Earlier this year, we wrote about the case of Gulet Mohamed, a US citizen who was put on the no fly list and ran into some issues in the Middle East because of that (and by "issues" we mean he was beaten by Kuwaiti officials for wanting to fly home to Virginia). The DOJ was making some nutty arguments, including claiming that the whole case should be thrown out because "state secrets." This is the usual claim in these kinds of cases. Back in August we noted that the judge, Anthony Trenga, was skeptical of this argument, asking for the DOJ to provide a lot more info to back up its claims (in that post we also noted that the DOJ wanted to pretend that the leaked guidelines for how the no fly list works hadn't been leaked).

Now the judge has ruled officially and rejected the DOJ's argument, saying that they can't just claim "state secrets" and walk away. In the ruling, Judge Trenga makes it clear that while there may be some sensitive information in some documents, the case can move forward without that information being revealed:

Certain of the submitted documents appear to contain confidential, security sensitive information that may fall appropriately within a law enforcement privilege. However, the information presented to date by the defendants in support of the state secrets privilege as to these documents is insufficient to allow the Court to conclude that "there is a reasonable danger" that disclosure of these documents to at least the plaintiffs counsel, under the protections of an adequate protective order, would disclose information that would "expose military matters which, in the interest of national security, should not be divulged."

More importantly, Judge Trenga notes that the DOJ has to get over this idea that the "state secrets" privilege is some kind of "sovereign immunity" claim that the DOJ can just wave around and have entire cases dismissed:

... the state secrets privilege is a judicially created rule of evidence, not a doctrine of sovereign immunity or non-justiciability, whose applicability and consequences, where applicable, are best considered within a specific context during the actual adjudication of any claims to which it may apply.

That's a bit of a complex sentence, but it's basically saying that state secrets may apply to specific bits of evidence, but shouldn't be used to just toss out an entire case. Kudos for Judge Trenga for not just rolling over when the DOJ said "state secrets." It would be nice if more judges did the same.

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A few more details have come to light on the police state experiment conducted in Ferguson, MO over the past couple of months. Despite repeated denials that continued all the way up until October 31st, the real reason for the FAA's no-fly zone over Ferguson has been revealed.

"They finally admitted it really was to keep the media out," said one FAA manager about the St. Louis County Police in a series of recorded telephone conversations obtained by The Associated Press. "But they were a little concerned of, obviously, anything else that could be going on.

At another point, a manager at the FAA's Kansas City center said police "did not care if you ran commercial traffic through this TFR (temporary flight restriction) all day long. They didn't want media in there."

Law enforcement put FAA staffers in an awkward position with this request. The FAA (obviously) has nothing in the rule books that provides for blocking First Amendment-protected activity. While there would be the heightened danger of collisions if police helicopters were also in the area, it's not like this sort of situation hasn't been handled without incident before. (See also: news coverage of every demonstration/riot/police pursuit to this point.)

No, law enforcement simply wanted to keep news coverage to a minimum and control the narrative through the indiscriminate use of tear gas, a ridiculous (and unconstitutional) "five second rule" and the casual detainment of reporters at ground level.

St. Louis police claimed over and over and over again that the no-fly zone was for "safety," citing a single incident where a police helicopter was allegedly shot at -- an incident that only existed in the minds of those looking to keep the press from circling overhead.

[P]olice officials confirmed there was no damage to their helicopter and were unable to provide an incident report on the shooting. On the tapes, an FAA manager described the helicopter shooting as unconfirmed "rumors."

Small concessions were made when law enforcement realized what it was asking for was impractical (and mostly illegal). As one news director pointed out, his crew was eventually told it could fly over Ferguson but only at an altitude above 3,000 feet -- not exactly a height that produces optimal (or even usable) footage.

Whatever your stance on the shooting of Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson, the fact remains that nearly everything local law enforcement did in response was poorly thought-out at best, and an outright abuse of power at worst. Officials have lied to the public, paywalled public documents, released information in a purely self-serving fashion (and over the objections of Eric Holder and the Justice Dept.) and approached the citizens they serve as an occupying force, rather than trusted allies.

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On Thurdsday, a Virginia Circuit Court judge made a fairly groundbreaking and eye opening ruling involving the police asking someone to unlock their secured smartphone. According to the judge, demanding a suspect to provide the passcode to unlock their phone would be unconstitutional, while a suspect providing their fingerprint to unlock their phone would be fair game.

For those living under a rock, iPhone users since the iPhone 5s have been able to secure their smartphones using a fingerprint, a feature Apple calls TouchID. This was seen as a more convenient, but still plenty secure method of locking a smartphone to keep one’s data secure. If you’re a suspect detained police in Virginia, that’s not the case.

This relates back to the case of a man who allegedly strangled his girlfriend and police believe, may have recorded the act with this smartphone. Because his phone was locked with a passcode (and not a fingerprint), the defendant’s attorney argued that it was protected by the Fifth Amendment given that it would require a suspect to divulge knowledge. This is not in the same category as a person’s identity, which includes DNA, handwriting, or — you guessed it — fingerprints, all of which are within the bounds of the law.

While it would be easy to scoff at iPhone (or even Samsung) users who use fingerprint locking on their devices, keep in mind that Apple has a safeguard for anyone who hasn’t unlocked their phone in 48 hours which requires a secondary passcode be entered in the event that TouchID is enabled. That still gives police plenty of time after a suspect has been apprehended to require a fingerprint for unlocking.

How do you guys feel about the judge’s ruling? If you have a Samsung device, will any of you start using passcodes over the fingerprint scanner to secure your phone? Keep in mind, the NSA is watching this post. We kid…. (we think).

[Ars Technica]

 

No, you are not reading The Onion. This is a real story.

Google has been fined by a Canadian court for using a photo in Street View that contained a woman and her cleavage. The woman in the photo claimed that she was so embarrassed it caused her emotional damage and a bout of depression. This all started in 2009, by the way, but today the case has finally been settled.

What kind of ridiculous amount of money did Google have to pay to make this woman feel better? A mere $2,000. The woman was hoping for more, but the judge did not buy her story about emotional damage and depression. If you don’t want to be embarrassed by cleavage maybe you shouldn’t sit on your front porch in the middle of the day in a low cut shirt.

[via GigaOm]

We've heard some mumbling about one of the main reasons that the CIA has been dragging its feet on declassifying the executive summary of the CIA torture report that the Senate Intelligence Committee put together: it knows there's a decent chance that the Republicans will win the Senate next week, and suddenly the report may disappear from view. As you may recall, the Intelligence Committee (with support from GOP Senators) voted to declassify the 480 page executive summary of the 6,300 page report (which the Senate spent $40 million putting together). Multiple leaks concerning the report have suggested that it's devastating and details how terrible the CIA's torture program was, how it was completely ineffective and how the CIA lied about it all.

But most of the support for releasing the report is coming from the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Dianne Feinstein (who sides with the NSA on plenty of stuff, but is more willing to challenge the CIA). But if the Republicans take the Senate next week, then the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee will likely shift to Senator Richard Burr, who has made it quite clear that he's on the CIA's team and against the public interest.

"I personally don't believe that anything that goes on in the intelligence committee should ever be discussed publicly," Burr told reporters in March. "If I had my way, with the exception of nominees, there would never be a public intelligence hearing."

It's also expected that Burr will try to muzzle Ron Wyden and Mark Udall (if Udall is re-elected, which is iffy at this point):

If Burr takes over as chair, he could easily sideline the committee's vocal civil libertarian bloc led by Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and bolstered by Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), two senators who've called for Brennan's resignation.

Udall, in particular, drew blunt criticisms from Burr earlier this year for disclosing the existence of an internal CIA review of the detention and interrogation program that Democrats believe vindicates their own study.

"I think Mark did make some public releases that were committee-sensitive information, but that's for the committee internally to handle," Burr told reporters in March. "My concern is that the release of information could potentially cause the losses of life to Americans. That to me, is a threshold that should be addressed."

As for the torture report itself, Burr has already said that the report is inaccurate and he's against it being released in any form. When a group of religious leaders asked him to support releasing the report, Burr told them he didn't think the report was accurate:

Last year, Burr drew criticism from more than 190 North Carolina religious leaders, including Christians, Jews, Quakers, and Muslims, for opposing the release of the Senate's post-9/11 torture report.

"The U.S. does not condone torture, but torture has been done by our citizens and in our country's name," reads a letter the religious leaders sent Burr. "We are writing to you as fellow people of faith to support the release of the ... report."

Disappointing the religious groups, Burr responded in a letter saying he opposed making the report public due to factual inaccuracies contained within the report. "I believe the American public should be provided with reports that are based on accurate facts," he said.

Given all of this, if the GOP does win, it seems like the only way the public may ever see the details is if someone steps up and leaks the damn thing.

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Now the world's least anonymous website (Facebook) has just joined the Web's most anonymous network (Tor).

The post Why Facebook Just Launched Its Own ‘Dark Web’ Site appeared first on WIRED.

In September, both Apple and Google announced plans to encrypt information on iOS and Android devices by default. Almost immediately, there was a collective freakout by law enforcement types. But, try as they might, these law enforcement folks couldn't paint any realistic scenario of where this would be a serious problem. Sure, they conjured up scenarios, but upon inspection they pretty much all fell apart. Instead, what was clear was that encryption could protect users from people copying information off of phones without permission, and, in fact, the FBI itself recommends you encrypt the data on your phone.

But it didn't stop FBI director James Comey from ignoring the advice of his own agency and pushing for a new law that would create back doors (he called them front doors, but when asked to explain the difference, he admitted that he wasn't "smart enough" to understand the distinction) in such encryption.

So, now, of course, the FBI/DOJ gets to go up to Congress and tell them scary stories about just how necessary breaking encryption would be. And it's being done in total secrecy, because if it was done in public, experts might debunk the claims, like they've done with basically all of the scenarios provided in public to date.

FBI and Justice Department officials met with House staffers this week for a classified briefing on how encryption is hurting police investigations, according to staffers familiar with the meeting. The briefing included Democratic and Republican aides for the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, the staffers said. The meeting was held in a classified room, and aides are forbidden from revealing what was discussed.

It's almost guaranteed that someone will introduce some legislation, written primarily by the FBI, pushing for this (such a bill is almost certainly already sitting in some DOJ bureaucrat's desk drawer, so they just need to dot some i's, cross some t's and come up with a silly acronym name for the bill). So far, many in Congress have been outspoken against such a law, but never underestimate the ability of the FBI to mislead Congress with some FUD, leading to all sorts of scare stories about how we need this or we're all going to die.

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Apparently ignoring just how badly this worked out for publishers in Germany, the Spanish Parliament has passed a law to fine aggregators and search engines for using snippets or linking to infringing content. As plenty of folks have described, the bill is clearly just a Google tax. As we had discussed, the proposed bill would be a disaster for digital commons/open access projects. There had been some thought that the proposed bill might be delayed because of a referral to the EU Court of Justice on a related issue, but apparently that didn't happen. Either way, it looks like the bill kept the ridiculous "inalienable right" to being paid for snippets -- meaning that Creative Commons-type licenses may not even be allowed, and people won't even be allowed to offer up their content for free. That's ridiculous.

It appears that almost everyone dislikes the law that passed. On the internet/aggregator side of things, the law doesn't make any sense at all, and seems likely to harm any sort of aggregator setup. And, meanwhile, those who want greater copyright expansion felt the law was a "missed opportunity" that is described as "vague and weak." I guess the silver lining is that "it could have been worse."

This idea of taxing aggregators for promoting your content is still completely ridiculous. It remains to be seen if Google takes the same approach as it did in Germany, removing the snippets of those who protest, only to have them begging to put them back -- except that, unlike in Germany, the newspapers may not be able to grant a free license thanks to the whole "inalienable right" thing. Either way, it's unfortunate that this seems to be the direction Europe is heading in. These kinds of laws are a recipe for chilling effects on innovation online, scaring companies away from doing useful things.

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Oh, Verizon. When all the big broadband providers filed their original comments with the FCC concerning its net neutrality/open internet proposal, Verizon's comments were a little different than the others. Comcast and AT&T were pretty effusive in supporting FCC boss Tom Wheeler's proposal to rely on Section 706 rather than Title II. Verizon, however, seemed to push back against any new rules, even under 706. Verizon noted that it wanted to do whatever the hell it wanted, even if it meant "differentiated services" (i.e., paid prioritization, fast lanes, slow lanes, etc.):

...consumer welfare is best protected if the Commission allows broadband Internet access service providers to manage their networks and—if they so choose—offer differentiated services or implement sophisticated pricing strategies as long as those practices do not harm competition.

In assessing whether a practice harms competition, it is essential not to confuse harm to competitors with harm to competition. The Commission has stated “We believe that consumers of broadband access service should have the ability to exercise meaningful choices.” Those choices should include services offered by edge providers that have chosen to enter arrangements for differential treatment in order to offer more desirable services to their customers. Such options will benefit consumers, even as they reduce rival edge providers’ economic welfare by increasing the competitive pressure they face.

Of course, in the past few months, the pressure on the FCC to actually use Title II has increased, and the other big broadband players have made it quite clear that they're furious with Verizon for fighting back against the last set of totally meaningless rules, since the backlash may lead to much stricter rules under Title II.

It now appears that Verizon is belatedly making a big push to attack the idea of Title II and say, "Hey, those original plans from Wheeler to use 706 sound great." That seems to be the clear message from Verizon's new letter to Senator Pat Leahy and corresponding blog post entitled "Title II Is Not The Answer".

In the letter, Verizon refers to the Title II option as "unprecedented utility-style regulation" and praises Section 706 as being effective.

Unprecedented, huh? Really?

If that's the case, why did Verizon beg regulators to have its FiOS internet broadband service classified under Title II for the sake of government subsidies? Here's Verizon using Title II in New Jersey: And again in Washington DC: So, um, you know, it actually seems fairly well precedented... by Verizon, no less. Verizon is playing a ridiculous shell game here, in which it wants to be classified as Title II in order to get subsidized access to install its network, but then doesn't want to be held to the rules that Title II puts on those networks. And so it claims, laughably, that such rules are "unprecedented," even as Verizon begs to be regulated under them when it benefits itself.

The letter also insists that "paid prioritization" is a joke and nothing more than "demagoguery since no major ISP has expressed an interest in offering 'paid prioritization' and all agree that the FCC has a valid legal path to prohibit it." Oh really? Can we just go right back up to the quotes we pasted above from Verizon's own filing with the FCC in July, in which it made clear that it wanted to engage in offering "differentiated services" to consumers? Does it think no one read that thing? Now it says no ISP is interested in offering any such service?

Even worse, later in the letter, Verizon actively plays up the idea of a different form of paid prioritization: the cynical use of "zero-rating" apps or things like T-Mobile's "Music Freedom" service. Verizon and other anti-net neutrality advocates point to these programs as "consumer friendly" proposals that would be barred under real net neutrality rules. Here's Verizon's letter:

Inflexible regulation also threatens to take choices away from American consumers. For example, some net neutrality advocates have attacked new business models, such as sponsored data or “zero-rating,” that would save money for consumers. Under these nascent arrangements, content providers could voluntarily agree to pick up the tab for usage-charges when consumers go to their sites. Or in other instances, such as T-Mobile’s Music Freedom plans, in order to differentiate its service a broadband provider could decide not to charge usage for certain types of traffic. While most consumers would no doubt welcome the opportunity not to pay for their usage – and some consumer groups have recognized the potential for such practices to help address affordability and encourage adoption – many of the loudest supporters of new regulation have advocated the regressive step of banning these pro-consumer practices.

It's a total joke to refer to these as "pro-consumer practices." As we explained after T-Mobile announced the Music Freedom program, this is like saying that you're a "hero" for setting a house on fire to save the baby inside. The only reason these programs are good for consumers is because they knock down the artificial walls set up by the telcos in the first place. It's not pro-consumer to say, "Hey, we're going to charge you massive data rates for everything... Oh, except for these few services that we'll be nice and let you access without those fees (probably because those services paid us directly already)."

Zero-rating programs sound good if you ignore the very reason why they're necessary in the first place: because of the artificially high tariffs that the telcos put there in the first place. It's not "pro-consumer" to offer them a tiny oasis from the ridiculous billing practices you yourself set up.

But that's the kind of contradictory bullshit that we've come to expect from Verizon these days. Title II is unprecedented (except all the times we beg to use it to get taxpayer-funded benefits for ourselves). No one wants paid prioritization (except that we've said we'd like to do paid prioritization). Zero-rating is pro-consumer (in that it saves the consumer from the rest of our awful policies). Basically, it seems like Verizon is so used to hiding the nasty details down in the fine print, that it now does it as standard operating procedures in everything it says and does.

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So, hey, let's say you're an old guy in a tiny town in central Wisconsin. Old, like, seventy-five, let's say, and the tiny town is farm country where you have a twenty-acre plot of good old American heartland. Now, let's say that the municipality hasn't appreciated the fact that you've kept your tractors out on the land you own and even went so far as to get a judge to level thousands of dollars of fines on you for not putting your toys away, because that's apparently a thing that can happen. Now let's say you've been ignoring these civil fines for some time. Under those conditions, would you expect this to show up on your lawn?

Could you repeat that? I couldn't hear your answer over the sound of you crapping your pants...

Yes, along with a couple dozen SWAT officers, 75-year-old Roger Hoeppner had his property assaulted by a BearCat armored vehicle for the crime of not keeping things as tidy as the local government would like and refusing to pay the fines they levied.

Marathon County sheriff’s captain Greg Bean declined to answer multiple requests for comment, but told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the large police presence was called in because law enforcement officials expected they would have to seize large equipment.

See, this is our fault. I don't think any of us realized that SWAT teams moonlight as large-format moving companies. I always thought they were for things involving tactics more complicated than the tactics of getting a tractor onto the hitch of a Mack truck. But, hey, what do I know? I'm sure Mr. Bean isn't prone to saying super ridiculous stuff or anything. So how about that BearCat?

“I’ve been involved in about five standoff situations where, as soon as the MARV showed up, the person gives up,” Bean told the Journal Sentinel.

I don't think the fact that the BearCat makes your job super easy to do is the proper justification for its deployment. If it was, why bother with the BearCat? Why not just bring the perp's mother to the scene and threaten to put a bullet through her head if perp doesn't give up immediately. Sure, it would be wholly unethical and inappropriate, but I bet Bean could still use the quote above, so all's good, yes?

This is yet another obvious and gross misuse of tactical and/or military-grade equipment in a haphazard way. Hoeppner owes Stettin, his city of 2500 residents, $80,000 in fines for not keeping his property as clean as the city would like. In other words, he left his tractors out. As a result, he faced down a BearCat and a SWAT team, which then escorted him to the bank where he paid his fines and was escorted back out by SWAT. All of this because the authorities couldn't be bothered to come up with a creative way to get Hoeppner out of his house.

“I just don’t understand why a dollar and a half of postage on an envelope that I would have had to pick up at the Wausau post office wouldn’t have done the same thing as 24 officers and an armored vehicle,” Hoeppner told the Guardian. “The United States is not supposed to terrorize its hardworking people."

Good one, sir.

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Oh, Verizon. When all the big broadband providers filed their original comments with the FCC concerning its net neutrality/open internet proposal, Verizon's comments were a little different than the others. Comcast and AT&T were pretty effusive in supporting FCC boss Tom Wheeler's proposal to rely on Section 706 rather than Title II. Verizon, however, seemed to push back against any new rules, even under 706. Verizon noted that it wanted to do whatever the hell it wanted, even if it meant "differentiated services" (i.e., paid prioritization, fast lanes, slow lanes, etc.):

...consumer welfare is best protected if the Commission allows broadband Internet access service providers to manage their networks and—if they so choose—offer differentiated services or implement sophisticated pricing strategies as long as those practices do not harm competition.

In assessing whether a practice harms competition, it is essential not to confuse harm to competitors with harm to competition. The Commission has stated “We believe that consumers of broadband access service should have the ability to exercise meaningful choices.” Those choices should include services offered by edge providers that have chosen to enter arrangements for differential treatment in order to offer more desirable services to their customers. Such options will benefit consumers, even as they reduce rival edge providers’ economic welfare by increasing the competitive pressure they face.

Of course, in the past few months, the pressure on the FCC to actually use Title II has increased, and the other big broadband players have made it quite clear that they're furious with Verizon for fighting back against the last set of totally meaningless rules, since the backlash may lead to much stricter rules under Title II.

It now appears that Verizon is belatedly making a big push to attack the idea of Title II and say, "Hey, those original plans from Wheeler to use 706 sound great." That seems to be the clear message from Verizon's new letter to Senator Pat Leahy and corresponding blog post entitled "Title II Is Not The Answer".

In the letter, Verizon refers to the Title II option as "unprecedented utility-style regulation" and praises Section 706 as being effective.

Unprecedented, huh? Really?

If that's the case, why did Verizon beg regulators to have its FiOS internet broadband service classified under Title II for the sake of government subsidies? Here's Verizon using Title II in New Jersey: And again in Washington DC: So, um, you know, it actually seems fairly well precedented... by Verizon, no less. Verizon is playing a ridiculous shell game here, in which it wants to be classified as Title II in order to get subsidized access to install its network, but then doesn't want to be held to the rules that Title II puts on those networks. And so it claims, laughably, that such rules are "unprecedented," even as Verizon begs to be regulated under them when it benefits itself.

The letter also insists that "paid prioritization" is a joke and nothing more than "demagoguery since no major ISP has expressed an interest in offering 'paid prioritization' and all agree that the FCC has a valid legal path to prohibit it." Oh really? Can we just go right back up to the quotes we pasted above from Verizon's own filing with the FCC in July, in which it made clear that it wanted to engage in offering "differentiated services" to consumers? Does it think no one read that thing? Now it says no ISP is interested in offering any such service?

Even worse, later in the letter, Verizon actively plays up the idea of a different form of paid prioritization: the cynical use of "zero-rating" apps or things like T-Mobile's "Music Freedom" service. Verizon and other anti-net neutrality advocates point to these programs as "consumer friendly" proposals that would be barred under real net neutrality rules. Here's Verizon's letter:

Inflexible regulation also threatens to take choices away from American consumers. For example, some net neutrality advocates have attacked new business models, such as sponsored data or “zero-rating,” that would save money for consumers. Under these nascent arrangements, content providers could voluntarily agree to pick up the tab for usage-charges when consumers go to their sites. Or in other instances, such as T-Mobile’s Music Freedom plans, in order to differentiate its service a broadband provider could decide not to charge usage for certain types of traffic. While most consumers would no doubt welcome the opportunity not to pay for their usage – and some consumer groups have recognized the potential for such practices to help address affordability and encourage adoption – many of the loudest supporters of new regulation have advocated the regressive step of banning these pro-consumer practices.

It's a total joke to refer to these as "pro-consumer practices." As we explained after T-Mobile announced the Music Freedom program, this is like saying that you're a "hero" for setting a house on fire to save the baby inside. The only reason these programs are good for consumers is because they knock down the artificial walls set up by the telcos in the first place. It's not pro-consumer to say, "Hey, we're going to charge you massive data rates for everything... Oh, except for these few services that we'll be nice and let you access without those fees (probably because those services paid us directly already)."

Zero-rating programs sound good if you ignore the very reason why they're necessary in the first place: because of the artificially high tariffs that the telcos put there in the first place. It's not "pro-consumer" to offer them a tiny oasis from the ridiculous billing practices you yourself set up.

But that's the kind of contradictory bullshit that we've come to expect from Verizon these days. Title II is unprecedented (except all the times we beg to use it to get taxpayer-funded benefits for ourselves). No one wants paid prioritization (except that we've said we'd like to do paid prioritization). Zero-rating is pro-consumer (in that it saves the consumer from the rest of our awful policies). Basically, it seems like Verizon is so used to hiding the nasty details down in the fine print, that it now does it as standard operating procedures in everything it says and does.

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