Archive for 2017
March 24, 2017
HMM: Senate votes to kill FCC’s broadband privacy rules.
The Senate’s 50-48 vote Thursday on a resolution of disapproval would roll back Federal Communications Commission rules requiring broadband providers to receive opt-in customer permission to share sensitive personal information, including web-browsing history, geolocation, and financial details with third parties. The FCC approved the regulations just five months ago.
Thursday’s vote was largely along party lines, with Republicans voting to kill the FCC’s privacy rules and Democrats voting to keep them.
[ Further reading: How the new age of antivirus software will protect your PC ]
The Senate’s resolution, which now heads to the House of Representatives for consideration, would allow broadband providers to collect and sell a “gold mine of data” about customers, said Senator Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat.“Your mobile broadband provider knows how you move about your day through information about your geolocation and internet activity through your mobile device,” he said. The Senate resolution “will take consumers out of this driver’s seat and place the collection and use of their information behind a veil of secrecy.”
But critics of the rules say they are expensive to ISPs and subject them to tough privacy regulations not imposed on web-based companies like Google and Facebook.
You can choose not to use Facebook or Google, but there’s no escaping having to use an ISP.
SO NOW THAT WE FIND IT’S A 19-YEAR-OLD AMERICAN/ISRAELI JEW WHO MADE THE JCC BOMB THREATS, a friend on Facebook comments: “The irony is that Trump never said that he thought Jews were behind the hoax calls to the JCCs, hostile media outlets twisted what he said to make it seem like he said that, and now the false quote has been ‘vindicated.'”
How does he pull this stuff off? I blame Russian hackers.
FASTER, PLEASE: U.K. Police Make ‘Significant’ Arrests in London Terror-Attack Investigation.
Mark Rowley, the U.K.’s top counterterror policeman, said in a morning press conference that there was no evidence of further threats but that investigators were trying to determine whether the attacker acted on his own or had accomplices.
“Our determination is to understand if either he acted totally alone, inspired perhaps by terrorist propaganda, or if other people have encouraged, supported or directed him,” he said.
With the two overnight arrests, nine people were now in custody, and one woman was released on bail overnight, he said. Police have seized 2,700 items from searches, including what Mr. Rowley described as “massive amounts” of computer data.
The question is whether an attack at the heart of British government will be enough to shake Britain loose from her cultural complacency.
ANALYSIS: TRUE. Grassley: If you’d filibuster Gorsuch, you’d filibuster anybody.
Related: Chuck Grassley: Chuck Schumer ‘poisoned’ the well for Supreme Court nominees. Go the Reid Option and then some — get rid of the filibuster entirely.
THE ART OF THE DEAL? Trump’s ultimatum: If vote fails, Obamacare stays.
Budget Director Mick Mulvaney has just laid down a gauntlet to House Republicans on behalf of President Trump: pass this bill, or Obamacare remains in place.
Members of the conservative Freedom Caucus want more concessions but, according to Mulvaney, Trump will not negotiate further.
The president demanded a vote tomorrow, and now it appears he will get it. He is all but daring Republicans to vote no.
Nancy Pelosi didn’t allow a final vote on ObamaCare until she knew, privately, that she had enough to win. Is the GOP leadership or caucus that disciplined?
KAROL MARKOWICZ: Dear Rabbis of Liberal Congregations: Stop Dividing Us In The Name Of Fighting Hate. “Too many rabbis and other Jewish leaders are linking the threats against JCCs and other Jewish spaces — like the Brooklyn Jewish Children’s Museum — to President Trump. Sure, you stand against anti-Semitism, and that’s good. But you do it under the umbrella of groups like Get Organized Brooklyn, groups with openly political leftist aims. Your fight against anti-Semitism is part and parcel of your fight against the president. It shouldn’t be. . . . Think about it: The two people arrested so far for making bomb threats against Jewish centers have turned out to be nothing like we may have imagined they’d be. They’re not white supremacists from states you’d probably never visit. No, on Wednesday, an American-Israeli Jewish teenage citizen was arrested for making some of those threats. A few weeks ago, Juan Thompson, a Hispanic leftist writer, was charged with making some. At a time when we need to stand together, you have to know you are fostering an atmosphere that is working against that goal.”
But they don’t care. Because to them, it’s not that leftist politics is superior to Judaism. It’s that leftist politics is Judaism.
NOAH FELDMAN: Democrats’ Misguided Argument Against Gorsuch.
I’m not sure who decided that the Democratic critique of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch would be that he doesn’t side with the little guy. It’s a truly terrible idea. Like other liberals, I’m still shocked and upset that Judge Merrick Garland never got the vote he deserved after his nomination by President Barack Obama, and I’d rather have a progressive justice join the court. But the thing is, siding with workers against employers isn’t a jurisprudential position. It’s a political stance. And justices — including progressive justices — shouldn’t decide cases based on who the parties are. They should decide cases based on their beliefs about how the law should be interpreted.
Let’s start at the beginning. Way back in the beginning, in fact. The Hebrew Bible, which sides with the little guy a great deal, has something to say about parties to a case. Specifically, Deuteronomy 16:19 says judges shouldn’t “respect persons,” which is the King James Version’s translation of the Hebrew phrase that literally means “recognize faces.” Justice — which is mentioned in the famous next verse (“Justice, justice shalt thou pursue”) — requires judges to decide cases under the law, not based on preferences for individuals.
If the Bible doesn’t convince you, consider the whole point of a rule-of-law system: It establishes rules so that people can be confident in advance of how decisions are made. That creates regularity and predictability. And in the long run, it protects the little guy a lot better than a system rigged to favor one side, because such systems will naturally tend to favor the rich and powerful, not the poor and downtrodden.
Assuring that the rule of law is followed is in fact the specific role of appellate judges, like Gorsuch.
I think they’re mostly trying to keep their base revved up at the moment.
“I RECOMMEND READING THIS CLOSELY, LOOKING FOR THE WEASEL WORDS:” The NYT struggles to fight off Trump’s use of that NYT headline “Wiretapped data used in inquiry of Trump aides.”
Liu writes that Trump was “misleading” to say that the Times said that “wiretap data” was “used in inquiry of Trump aides.” “Misleading” is NOT the same as false, so Liu really is admitting that it was true. The reason it’s misleading, according to Liu, is that the article doesn’t say that “Mr. Obama ordered surveillance on him.” Did Trump say Obama ordered surveillance on him? There’s no Trump quote to that effect, and it makes me suspicious that Trump is being paraphrased to confine him to what can be refuted, which — talk about misleading! — feels very misleading.
It’s been hard for the press to pivot directly from Leaked Wiretaps Show Trump’s a Putin Stooge all the way to Wiretaps? What wiretaps?
Plus:
That sounds like a concession that Flynn was wiretapped! He may not have been the original target or the official target, but he got swept in, and we shouldn’t even know about that. But there was a leak, and wasn’t the leak targeted on him — a gross violation of law designed to take him down? I can’t believe we’re nitpicking Trump’s use of the term “wiretapped” rather than outraged about a shocking abuse of power for political purposes.
Well, that’s how they try to distract people. And:
Many words are dead metaphors, and “wiretapped” may be one, whether it’s in quotes or not. Who cares if there were “wires” that were “tapped”? It’s like looking for eaves when someone is said to be eavesdropping. I think the stress on the word “wiretapped” is part of an effort to say that some other party was targeted — some foreign official was listened in on — and that caused the overhearing of some Trump-associated persons. There was a wiretap, but the wires tapped (metaphorically) were not a Trump associate’s.
But to use that opportunity — that wiretap — to listen in is a terrible infringement on the non-target, and the law required the protection of these non-targets from an invasion of their privacy. Instead, the leakers did the opposite and took advantage of what they heard and deliberately exposed what they were legally required to mask. That’s what I gather from Liu’s article anyway.
Why doesn’t the NYT care about this problem!
Because it would hurt the narrative. (Bumped).
TONIGHT ON MONSTER-CHILLER HORROR THEATER, COUNT FLOYD PRESENTS DILBERT MEETS THE GELL-MANN AMNESIA EFFECT! AAAAAHHHOOOOH!! Some Fake News About Scott Adams from Bloomberg.
Classical reference in headline; found via Kate of Small Dead Animals, who writes, “If You Believe The Things You Read In The Paper, Try getting interviewed sometime.”
Though as the Insta-Professor is wont to remind us, always record a copy of your interviews – whether you’re being interviewed by Bloomberg or Katie Couric. (Especially if you’re being interviewed by Katie Couric.)
March 23, 2017
WHY ARE LEFTIST INSTITUTIONS SUCH CESSPITS OF SEXUAL ABUSE? A Former Student Says UC Berkeley’s Star Philosophy Professor Groped Her And Watched Porn At Work. “Searle, 84, is famous for his work in the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind and has taught at UC Berkeley since 1959. In 2016, the university unveiled the John Searle Center for Social Ontology, which says it is the first center of its kind in the country. . . . The lawsuit comes at a time when both the international philosophy community and the University of California system are grappling with widespread sexual misconduct scandals.”
See, when this stuff was limited to TV preachers and Catholic priests it was fodder for late-night TV humor. Now, not so much.
TEACH WOMEN NOT TO LIE ABOUT RAPE: ‘Hoax’: Texas teen made up widely publicized story of being kidnapped, raped by 3 black men, police say.
Related: Students Furious That Official Described Alleged Rape as ‘Alleged Rape.’ Because when you don’t jump to conclusions, you’re engaging in “victim-blaming and invalidation of rape.” These students should be sent back to high school — or middle school, or day care — as they’re clearly not ready for college. What has happened to Missouri, which was once regarded as a hard-headed place?
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LET ME TRANSLATE THIS FOR YOU: “WE DON’T EXPECT TO CONTROL THE SUPREME COURT FOR AT LEAST A DECADE, SO WE’RE STARTING TO DELEGITIMIZE IT NOW.” Russ Feingold: If Gorsuch is confirmed, the legitimacy of the US supreme court won’t recover.
TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Alabama Girl, 19, Charged With Raping 14 Year Old Boy. “Mekenzie said she and the adolescent boy met through a mutual friend at a McDonalds in December last year and had sex multiple times in her car. She also told police that with permission of the boy’s parents, she stayed for at least a fortnight at his home, where the couple filmed a pornographic video. The video, which Mekenzie sent to the boy’s phone, is said to depict the boy in the nude. Mekenzie, who is now about six weeks pregnant, is charged with a host of offenses, including second-degree rape, enticing a child for immoral purposes, and possession and dissemination of child pornography (the homemade porno).”
IMPORTANT HEALTH NEWS FOR WOMEN: 8 Mind-Blowing Facts About Sperm That May Persuade You to Take a Swallow.
CAN’T SAY I BLAME HIM, EVEN IF IT IS UNCOLLEGIAL: Intel chair won’t reveal source on Trump team surveillance to panel’s top Dem.
BOB WOODWARD: Obama Officials Could Face Criminal Charges For Leaking Trump Surveillance:
The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward warned on Wednesday that there are people from the Obama administration who could be facing criminal charges for unmasking the names of Trump transition team members from surveillance of foreign officials.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said earlier that he had briefed Trump on new information, unrelated to an investigation into Russian activities, that suggested that several members of Trump’s transition team and perhaps Trump himself had their identities “unmasked” after their communications were intercepted by U.S. intelligence officials.
The revelation is notable because identities of Americans are generally supposed to remain “masked” if American communications are swept up during surveillance of foreign individuals.
Laws are for the little people. But Obama officials are little people now.
THE PLOT THICKENS: James Rosen: Potential ‘smoking gun’ showing Obama administration spied on Trump team, source says. “The intelligence is said to leave no doubt the Obama administration, in its closing days, was using the cover of legitimate surveillance on foreign targets to spy on President-elect Trump, according to sources. The key to that conclusion is the unmasking of selected U.S. persons whose names appeared in the intelligence, the sources said, adding that the paper trail leaves no other plausible purpose for the unmasking other than to damage the incoming Trump administration.”
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Dear Girls Who Are (Finally) Ready To Date Nice Guys: We Don’t Want You Anymore.
WELL, WE KNOW BILL AYERS HAS NO REGRETS* OVER HIS OWN EXPLOSIVE PAST, EITHER: Anarchist Cookbook author has no regrets over his bomb-making guide.
* Our source was the New York Times, as Ambassador de Sadesky would say. The September 11th, 2001 edition, bizarrely enough.
THE KOREAN WAR ISN’T OVER — AND THAT’S A DANGEROUS FACT: My latest New York Observer column.
WHICH IS WHY I’M NOT BIG ON 24-HOUR SHIFTS FOR MEDICAL RESIDENTS: What happens if you don’t sleep for 24 hours? You’re basically drunk.
IMPORTANT NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: Staring at boobs may give a boost to male lifespans. Sure, the research is shaky, but why take chances?
UPDATE: Yes, I guess I’m bringing back Blog Sweeps Week. Do you guys mind?