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Comment America.gov is a DOGE Scam (Score 4, Interesting) 115

This "new" site is part of a larger effort by that slob to kneecap or compromise US government Web sites, and steal your personal data.

I first read about the effort here: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fthedreydossier.substac...

Yesterday, she took a look under the hood of America.gov, and yes, it's as bad as everything else the DOGE vandals have been doing: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fthedreydossier.substac...

Up until this point, government Web sites were designed, built, and maintained by the agencies responsible for that government service. For example, if you wanted to apply for or renew your passport, you would go to state.gov, which is run by the US Department of State, which is responsible for processing applications for and issuing passports. No other department has lawful jurisdiction over passports.

From the point of view of the law, that's still true. But the slob, without anyone's permission, kluged together passports.gov. This site was built and is run by the White House's "National Design Studio," completely outside the law and without any independent oversight. The State Department was not consulted and has nothing to do with it. Further, the site is filled with third-party trackers, analytics, and some custom code that copies every page you view, including form contents, to an unknown third party.

Oh, and the guy leading the National Design Studio and in charge of building these fake sites? He's Joe Gebbia -- cofounder of Airbnb. Read both articles for more details.

In short, you should treat America.gov as a malware site and stay well away from it. Under no circumstances should you feed it any of your personal information.

Comment Re:kudos (Score 5, Insightful) 75

what's the point?

The point is to be able to use your hardware in the manner you deem appropriate, and to ensure it is not doing sneaky shit behind your back.

If, instead of a Playstation, we were talking about rooting LG televisions to run custom Linux builds stripped of pervasive privacy-violating code and "apps," I suspect your opinion might be rather different. (And no, when the entire industry has turned to the Dark Side, voting with your wallet doesn't work.)

Comment Re:Actively stalking is a different behavior ... (Score 1) 254

But the purpose of the stop was not enforcement of the vehicle code.

"When there is not probable cause to believe that a driver is violating any one of the multitude of applicable traffic and equipment regulations 24 -- or other articulable basis amounting to reasonable suspicion that the driver is unlicensed or his vehicle unregistered -- we cannot conceive of any legitimate basis upon which a patrolman could decide that stopping a particular driver for a spot check would be more productive than stopping any other driver." Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 661, 99 S. Ct. 1391, 1400 (1979)

Comment Re:Actively stalking is a different behavior ... (Score 2) 254

In California, as I suspect in most states, the driver is required to produce a license and registration when being pulled over for a traffic stop.

California Vehicle Code 12951(b) states: "The driver of a motor vehicle shall present his or her license for examination upon demand of a peace officer enforcing the provisions of this code."

Since the vehicle was not involved, the stop would not require a license to of produced. Of course, the cop would lie and make up a reason.

Comment Re:Actively stalking is a different behavior ... (Score 1) 254

Part of the job of the police is to prevent crime. They don't have to wait for the angry ex-boyfriend stalker to hurt someone, they can have a conversation before that to prevent things from going too far. It absolutely is not. Courts have ruled again and again that the police have no duty to protect. No, you falsely conflate the officers actual intentions with the cover your ass policies that exist for when they do not show up in time.

No, when they decide not to show up or release someone that they should have detained.

If you are not suspected of a criminal act, the police have no business detaining you, full stop. Absolutely untrue, if there is a public safety concern no specific crime is necessary to have an interview.

Read Terry v. Ohio | 392 U.S. 1 (1968) and Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada (2004) 542 U.S. 177

Comment Re:Actively stalking is a different behavior ... (Score 2) 254

In many states, there is no requirement to show ID unless arrested. In other cases, there still has to be reasonable suspicion (the Terry standard).

Detaining someone for 1 second without reasonable suspicion violates the 4th amendment. Pulling someone over is not a consentual encounter, but the officer is probably trained to turn it into one. Extending the stop is unconstitutional. See Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. 348, 135 S. Ct. 1609, 191 L. Ed. 2d 492 (2015),. I suspect that even a diminimus extension would be unconstitutional. So, a false report could be argued a civil wrong, even when causing a deminimus delay.

Comment Might be armed (Score 1) 254

The "might be armed?" might not be a crime. The defense would argue that there is a possibility and argue that it might not meet the standard of reasonable doubt. But in a civil case, it could meet the preponderance of the evidence.

How much would you like to bet that Flock's lawyers told them what exactly to say when calling the police?

Comment this is funny.... (Score 2) 92

ok so maybe a little general knowledge helps...

This looks to me like a copy and paste from the a USA legal team to the UK... why ?

the USA courts routinely ask for backups from ANYWHERE in the world and even when they are encrypted they appear to use standard tools to decrypt

when you consider the number of American FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) requests to APPLE number over 500 and cover over 77,000 USERS

this starts to look a little silly and if I was to guess the legal team at Apple pushed back knowing that if they did not the rest of the world would all start this...

the USA agencies routinely takes requests and executes on them but "extracts its pound..." for doing so... the the UK pushed using their own laws and got given the run around...

have fun...

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.apple.com%2Flegal%2Ftransparency%2Fus.html

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reuters.com%2Farticle%2Fworld%2Fexclusive-apple-dropped-plan-for-encrypting-backups-after-fbi-complained-sour-idUSKBN1ZK1CO%2F

Comment "Policing" Is Doing a Lof of Heavy Lifting Here (Score 4, Insightful) 57

"It is clear Flock has aspirations far beyond ALPRs to become a digital platform for policing," [emphasis mine]

They misspelled, "Orwellian suveillance and harrassment."

Law enforcement officers are already abusing Flock's existing capabilities for stalking. This will not improve matters one iota.

Comment There Is No Larger Can (Score 4, Interesting) 48

Zymurgy's First Law of Evolving System Dynamics:
Once you open a can of worms, the only way to recan them is to use a larger can.

So. Who wants to bet that no one will point out what abysmal sysadmins they are, letting internal servers run amok all over the open Internet, only finding out days afterward after someone had to tell them.

And who wants to further bet that the AI grifters will respond that the only way to prevent this from happening again is to give them trillions more dollars so they can build bigger, "hardened" datacenters?

Is there no level of rank incompetence they won't excuse?

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