Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 8/7/2016: Kubernetes 1.3, New Linux Foundation Events





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • Releasing our own source code, Free as in Freedom
    Today we release all of our own source code as Free/Open Source Software.


  • Wise Awards 2016: Why we need more women in open source


  • Tsuru open source PaaS puts developers first
    A new open source PaaS, Tsuru, is out to ease the application deployment process by reducing it to little more than a Git push command.

    The workflow for Tsuru, according to its documentation, consists of writing an app, backing it with resources like databases or caching, and deploying it to production with Git. Tsuru handles the rest, including crating up the apps in Docker containers and managing their workloads. Its creators claim it can be deployed both locally and on services like AWS, DigitalOcean, or Apache CloudStack.


  • Mouser Now Stocking the Hexiwear Open Source IoT Platform from MikroElektronika and NXP
    Mouser Electronics, Inc. is now offering Hexiwear wearable platform products from MikroElektronika. Completely open source and developed in partnership with NXP, the Hexiwear device incorporates a low-power NXP Kinetis K64 microcontroller, Bluetooth€® low energy (BLE) and wireless connectivity, and six onboard sensors into a compact wearable form factor for developers who need a complete Internet of Things (IoT) toolkit. With Hexiwear’s low-power yet versatile hardware, compatible smartphone and iOS apps, and cloud connectivity, developers can prototype and build devices such as cloud-connected edge nodes, wearable devices, or complex controllers for industrial IoT applications.


  • A Discussion on Contributing to Open Source
    Are you wondering how to get involved in an open source project? Maybe this episode from the Mondern Web podcast will give you some ideas.


  • Events



    • GIMP at Texas LinuxFest
      I'll be at Texas LinuxFest in Austin, Texas this weekend. Friday, July 8 is the big day for open source imaging: first a morning Photo Walk led by Pat David, from 9-11, after which Pat, an active GIMP contributor and the driving force behind the PIXLS.US website and discussion forums, gives a talk on "Open Source Photography Tools". Then after lunch I'll give a GIMP tutorial. We may also have a Graphics Hackathon/Q&A session to discuss all the open-source graphics tools in the last slot of the day, but that part is still tentative. I'm hoping we can get some good discussion especially among the people who go on the photo walk.




  • Web Browsers



    • Mozilla



      • Tor Privacy settings coming to Firefox
        Mozilla works on uplifting privacy settings of the Tor browser project to the Firefox web browser to provide privacy conscious users with additional privacy-related options.

        While the Tor browser is based on Firefox ESR, it is modified with additional privacy and security settings to protect users of the browser while using the program.


      • Announcing Rust 1.10
        The Rust team is happy to announce the latest version of Rust, 1.10. Rust is a systems programming language focused on safety, speed, and concurrency.


      • Rust 1.10 Programming Language Update
        Version 1.10 of the Rust programming language is now available.

        Rust 1.10 brings the -C panic=abort flag as their most-requested feature for yielding 10% smaller binaries and about 10% faster compilation time. Rust 1.10 also brings the new cdylib crate type for compiling Rust as a dynamic library to be embedded in another language. Rust 1.10 also has build system changes to allow it to be built with Rust 1.9 and that trend will continue to be supported for future releases.


      • Buyer beware: Mozilla deal demands up to $1 billion after Yahoo’s sale, Recode says
        According to a contract seen by Recode, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer struck a deal with Mozilla in 2014 specifying annual payments of $375 million to the browser creator in exchange for Yahoo's search engine appearing in the default position on Firefox. That $375 million price tag will be paid out every year until 2019 one way or another—even if Mozilla doesn’t like the company that buys Yahoo and decides to walk away.

        Of course, if Mozilla decides it likes whichever company buys the embattled search giant, then payments continue as before and the new owner of Yahoo’s search engine retains the default position on the browser.


      • Under Mayer deal, Mozilla could walk away and still get more than $1 billion if it doesn’t like Yahoo’s buyer
        Under terms of a contract that has been seen by Recode, whoever acquires Yahoo might have to pay Mozilla annual payments of $375 million through 2019 if it does not think the buyer is one it wants to work with and walks away.


      • Mozilla's Context Graph Reimagines Browsing Experiences
        Mozilla has a way of popping up with unexpected projects that it opens up for community development, and it has now unveiled a project called the Context Graph. The effort is focused on the answer to this question: "What if web browsers were immediately useful instead of demanding input when you launched them?"






  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice



  • CMS



  • Healthcare



    • Push to promote open source software in healthcare
      Belgian, British and German advocates of open source in healthcare want to join efforts, hoping to raise interest, and to strengthen the network of software healthcare specialists. A conference is tentatively being planned in London (UK) early next year.




  • Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)



  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC



    • gdbm Switch to Git


    • Friday Free Software Directory IRC meetup: July 8th
      Join the FSF and friends Friday, July 8th, from 12pm to 3pm EDT (16:00 to 19:00 UTC) to help improve the Free Software Directory.

      Participate in supporting the Free Software Directory by adding new entries and updating existing ones. We will be on IRC in the #fsf channel on freenode.

      Tens of thousands of people visit directory.fsf.org each month to discover free software. Each entry in the Directory contains a wealth of useful information, from basic category and descriptions, to providing detailed info about version control, IRC channels, documentation, and licensing info that has been carefully checked by FSF staff and trained volunteers.




  • Public Services/Government



    • France’s Inria unveils open source preservation project
      France's national computer science institute, Inria, has unveiled its Software Heritage archive. The project aims to “collect, organise, preserve, and make accessible all the source code for all available software”.


    • Bulgaria passes law requiring all government-developed software to be open source
      Bulgaria has signed into law a new rule that will require all software developed for, and used by, the government to be open source.

      Bozhidar Bozhanov, a software engineer who has been advising the deputy prime minister, blogged that the Electronic Governance Act has been amended to state that "all software written for the government [is] to be open source and developed as such in a public repository".

      Bozhanov continued: "That does not mean that the whole country is moving to Linux and LibreOffice, neither does it mean the government demands that Microsoft and Oracle give the source to their products.


    • Bulgarian Government Embraces Open Source
      Bulgaria's Parliament recently passed legislation mandating open source software to bolster security, as well as to increase competition with commercially coded software.

      Amendments to the Electronic Governance Act require that all software written for the government be Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)-compliant. The new provisions reportedly took effect this week.

      Software developer Bozhidar Bozhanov, advisor to one of Bulgaria's four deputy prime ministers, orchestrated the new law.


    • The ‘Bad Guys’ Have An Advantage In Bulgaria’s New Open Source Government
      This move is supposed to improve government transparency, give citizens a tangible return on their tax dollars, and improve the quality and security of sometimes-shoddy bespoke government software. The law was seen as a win by advocates of open source software, but it also means Bulgaria must face the double edge of open sourcing.


    • New European contest to promote IT reuse
      The European Commission will reward software and services that have been proven to be shared and reused in the public sector and which have a potential for wider reuse in Europe.


    • Italy to stop emphasising open ICT architecture
      The government of Italy will stop highlighting the importance of an open, interoperable ICT architecture. The government will no longer require the Agency for the Digitalisation of the Public Sector (Agenzia per l'Italia Digitale, AGID) to assess public administration’s ICT plans, and is also scrapping publication and maintenance of a list of open ICT standards that are to be used by public administrations.




  • Programming/Development



    • [Pulp] Sprint Demo 4 — July 7, 2016


    • 10 Biggest Mistakes in Using Static Analysis
      Static analysis was introduced to the software engineering process for many important reasons. Developers use static analysis tools as part of the development and component testing process. The key aspect of static analysis is that the code (or another artifact) is not executed or run, but the tool itself is executed, and the input data to the tool provides us with the source code we are interested in. Static analysis started with compilers and derived technologies that are well established in the software development world. Each technology applicable for static analysis can choose between several alternatives, set up its own rules, and benefit from using them. What is most surprising to me is that even with a huge set of tools and possibilities, static analysis is not properly used and disregarded in most projects.


    • LiveCode Ltd.'s LiveCode
      The new features in LiveCode 8 are intended to empower a new audience of app makers. Some of these include nine pre-made widgets, 46 new extensions, the all new LiveCode Builder language, a 3.5x performance boost, Script Only stacks for better version control and working in teams, LiveCode for HTML5 and a new Feature Exchange for community funding of new features, among others.






Leftovers



  • Two YouTubers About To Learn That Trust Is A Valuable Commodity That You Can Only Lose Once
    While we've had some reservations in the past about the FTC's guidelines on endorsements and testimonials in the online arena, our concerns have tended to be about the grey areas of the law. The way that reviews for books, music and games often work falls into this grey area, with products and media handed out for review, and the disclosure guidelines the FTC laid out seem overly intrusive. Whatever our reservations about those guidelines, however, the goal of preventing the surreptitious pimping of a product or service by a trusted source that has direct connections with it was laudable.

    Which brings us to two YouTube personalities, TmarTn and Syndicate Project, whose real names are Trevor Martin and Tom Cassell. These two have spent a great deal of time urging their followers to use the CSGO Lotto website while, at best, barely disclosing the site's sponsorship, and never even coming close to acknowledging that they are executives of the company behind the site.


  • Microsoft



    • Microsoft’s attempt to recruit interns is a barrel of cringe
      The best, by which I mean worst, part of the e-mail is that it gets the lingo wrong. "Drank" does not mean "drink." "Drank" means "cough syrup;" specifically, cough syrup containing codeine and promethazine that is consumed recreationally. Opioids like codeine are routinely abused to get high, and, when combined with the antihistamine promethazine, can produce feelings of euphoria.


    • A Longtime Microsoft Exec Just Left the Company
      Kevin Turner, Microsoft chief operating officer for the past 11 years, is moving to Citadel Securities, where he will be chief executive officer. He will also be vice chairman of Citadel, the parent company.




  • Health/Nutrition



    • 'Sham' GMO Bill Advances in Senate Amid Widespread Opposition
      Despite opposition from consumer advocacy groups, a controversial bill on the labeling of genetically modified (GM or GMO) food passed a cloture vote in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, even as critics warned the legislation is needlessly complicated and bends to the agriculture lobby interests.


    • Drug and Device Makers Find Receptive Audience at For-profit, Southern Hospitals
      Where a hospital is located and who owns it make a big difference in how many of its doctors take meals, consulting and promotional payments from pharmaceutical and medical device companies, a new ProPublica analysis shows.

      A higher percentage of doctors affiliated with hospitals in the South have received such payments than doctors in other regions of the country, our analysis found. And a greater share of doctors at for-profit hospitals have taken them than at nonprofit and government facilities.


    • The Dig: Investigating the Safety of the Water You Drink
      Today, The Dig dives into water. Pun totally intended. I’ve received a lot of questions about applying investigative reporting techniques to figuring out whether your water is safe — the stuff in your taps, the stuff in your rivers, the stuff at the beach. Flint, Michigan, has made us all want to be water sleuths.


    • E-Cigarettes Keep Blowing Up In People’s Faces
      E-cigarettes or vaporizers have surged in popularity in recent years, especially among teenagers. But the tobacco-alternative comes with an unexpected health risk: the devices can explode and cause severe burns, according to a slew of lawsuits filed against manufacturers.


    • A Blood Test To Determine When Antibiotics Are Warranted
      Scientists can distinguish between a viral and a bacterial infection by assaying just seven human genes, according to a study published this week (July 6) in Science Translational Medicine. A clinical test based on these findings would enable doctors to more appropriately prescribe antibiotics, which are ineffective against viruses.

      This May, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that doctors prescribe antibiotics when they’re not needed in around 30 percent of cases examined. Overuse of these drugs may promote more widespread antibiotic resistance.

      To address the problem, scientists at Stanford University looked at more than 1,000 patient blood samples to identify gene activation signatures associated with either bacterial or viral infections.


    • The Real Harm of Environmentally Poisonous Lands
      The year 2003 was a game changer when two Pennsylvania State Correction facilities were shut down and relocated to a new facility, the State Correctional Institute at Fayette (SCI Fayette), outside the town LaBelle, which was built directly on top of an old coal mine and adjacent to a fly ash dump – fly ash is “the powdery residue left over from coal combustion” – Kevin Williams reports for Al Jazeera. After thirteen years of operation and many health problems, nothing is being done to combat the effects of the toxic waste site known as the old coal mine. As Williams notes in his article, “‘Poisonous Lands’: Pennsylvania Prison Built Next to Toxic Dump,” prisoners and townsfolk alike are being harmed by the debris.

      Prisons being built on toxic lands are nothing new, but the adverse health effects are not just harming the prisoners. The local townsfolk and the correction officers are also being affected by the state’s choice to cut costs and save money. Although the scale of impact seems to be contained to only this relatively small area, the actuality is that as consumers we are creating this problem. The coal mine site has higher contaminant recordings than the federal and state standards of lead, mercury, arsenic, etc. (Williams, 2016). These contaminants are causing the individuals to develop cancer at a statistically significant rate higher than the general populous. The individuals in this area are experiencing medical issues involving skin, eye, throat, and nose irritation.




  • Security



  • Defence/Aggression



    • Chilcot Report and 7/7 London Bombing Anniversary Converge to Highlight Terrorism’s Causes
      Eleven years ago today, three suicide bombers attacked the London subway and a bus and killed 51 people. Almost immediately, it was obvious that retaliation for Britain’s invasion and destruction of Iraq was a major motive for the attackers.

      Two of them said exactly that in videotapes they left behind: the attacks “will continue and pick up strengths till you pull your soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq . . . . until we feel security, you will be targets.” Then, less than a year later, a secret report from British military and intelligence chiefs concluded that “the war in Iraq contributed to the radicalisation of the July 7 London bombers and is likely to continue to provoke extremism among British Muslims.” The secret report, leaked to the Observer, added: “Iraq is likely to be an important motivating factor for some time to come in the radicalisation of British Muslims and for those extremists who view attacks against the UK as legitimate.”


    • The Iraq War Was an Act of Military Aggression Launched on a False Pretext: Remarks on the Chilcot Inquiry Report
      Before addressing the issues raised in the Iraq Inquiry report, I would like to remember and honour the 179 British servicemen and women killed and the thousands maimed and injured during the Iraq war, and their families as well as the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have died as a result of the invasion and occupation of Iraq launched by the US and British governments 13 years ago.

      Yesterday I had a private meeting with some of the families of the British dead as I have continued to do over the past dozen years.

      It is always a humbling experience to witness the resolve and resilience of these families and their unwavering commitment to seek truth and justice for those that they lost in Iraq.


    • MH-17 Probe’s Torture-Implicated Ally
      The Ukrainian intelligence service at the center of the inquiry into who shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 is accused by a top U.N. official of blocking a probe into Ukrainian government torture, reports Robert Parry.


    • Blissful Bush Celebrates Birthday with No War Crime Reckoning
      Almost as if it were planned, former U.S. President George W. Bush rang in his 70th birthday on Wednesday with a remarkable gift: a reminder of his seemingly eternal impunity for war crimes committed in Iraq and beyond.

      The long-awaited publication of the Chilcot Inquiry—the UK government's investigation into the lead-up to and execution of the Iraq War—amounted to a searing indictment of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, accusing him of deceiving the public and British Parliament about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction and following the United States blindly into an "illegal" war.


    • Donald Trump, Who Now Praises Saddam Hussein, Once Called Him a “Madman”
      Donald Trump praises Saddam Hussein these days. “He was a bad guy, really bad guy. But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good,” Trump said on Tuesday. Last fall, Trump said that the world would be “100 percent” better if Saddam Hussein and Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi were still in power.

      But you know when Trump was really angry at Saddam? Back in the early 1990s, when Trump—deep in debt and piling on loans in the midst of a recession—blamed the Iraqi leader for his business woes.

      In August 1990, Trump couldn’t break even on his Taj Mahal casino hotel and the Trump Shuttle airline—but it wasn’t his fault. “Nobody projected that oil prices would go through the roof because of some madman in the Middle East,” Trump said, according to Newsday. “This just adds to and makes the recession worse.”

      Trump owed his creditors $245 million for the Trump Shuttle, and he had had missed a $1.1 million interest payment. The airline merged with another company in 1992.


    • Chilcot Report on Iraq Invasion Shows Threat of Lesser Evils
      After almost a decade of waiting, the Chilcot report is finally being released today promising to uncover the real reasons for the UK’s disastrous decision to invade Iraq. While British political elites are dealing with the aftermath of this political bombshell, the media and population are once again demanding answers for this costly and unnecessary war.

      Perhaps the most salacious expectation is the possibility that top leaders such as Tony Blair could be brought up on charges as a “war criminal”. For many families of the fallen and citizens in general, it is an opportunity to hold politicians to account for the real casualties of their policies. When it comes to tens to hundreds of thousands of death at home and abroad, electoral defeat is simply not punishment enough.


    • Obama Delays U.S. Withdrawal From ‘Precarious’ Afghanistan (Video)
      Barack Obama has delayed his planned troop withdrawal in Afghanistan, meaning there will now be 8,400 US forces in the country when he leaves office in January.

      The US president’s most recent estimate for that figure was 5,500. In 2012, he promised that the war would be over by 2014.

      In a surprise White House statement on Wednesday, Obama warned that a “precarious” security situation in Afghanistan could yet provide support to terrorists some 15 years after the September 11 attacks that first led to western military intervention.


    • Death Squad Revelations and the New Police in Honduras
      On June 21, 2015 the London-based Guardian newspaper published an article describing the testimony of a soldier who says he deserted the army after his unit was given an order to kill activists whose names appeared on two lists. He reported seeing one list given to his Military Police unit that formed part of the Xatruch task force, and a second for a Military Police unit that formed part of the National Force of Interinstitutional Security (FUSINA) task force. The second contained the name of Lenca indigenous leader Berta Caceres, murdered on March 3, 2016.


    • The Chilcot Report about the Iraq War
      Here is an interview I did yesterday about the long-awaited Chilcot


    • The General Who Lost 2 Wars, Leaked Classified Information to His Lover—and Retired With a $220,000 Pension
      It’s been more than a year since I first tried to connect with the retired four-star general and ex–CIA director—and no luck yet. On a recent evening, as the sky was turning from a crisp ice blue into a host of Easter-egg hues, I missed him again. Led from a curtained “backstage” area where he had retreated after a midtown Manhattan event, Petraeus moved briskly to a staff-only room, then into a tightly packed elevator, and momentarily out onto the street before being quickly ushered into a waiting late-model, black Mercedes S550.


    • Bangladesh Eid day attack: Liberal cleric was target, suspect police
      Thursday’s suspected militant attack on Bangladesh’s biggest congregation to celebrate Eid was possibly aimed at a liberal cleric who has led a public campaign against Islamist radicals in the country, police said.

      Maulana Farid-uddin Masud, the chief cleric of the main mosque in Kishoregunj town that was attacked, collected more than 100,000 signatures, including from leading Islamic scholars and intellectuals, against a recent wave of extremist attacks in the country targeting atheists, religious minorities.

      Masud had described radical Islamists as pursuing “empty Islam” and said those perpetrating violence in the name of the faith would “go to hell”.

      “We believe he was the target,” Tofazzal Hossain, assistant superintendent of police in Kishoregunj, told Hindustan Times.


    • Interview with psychologist Nicolai Sennels: “Muslims instinctively see our lack of reaction as fear, its an invitation to attack”


    • The Truth About Chilcot
      The death toll from the horrific recent Iraq bombings has risen over 250. If Blair had not been absolutely determined to attack Iraq on the basis of a knowing lie about WMD, they would be alive now, along with millions of other dead. ISIS would never have taken control of territory in Iraq and Syria. Al Qaeda would never have grown from an organisation of a few hundred to one of tens of thousands. We would not have a completely destabilised Middle East and a massive refugee crisis.

      Do not expect a full truth and a full accounting from the Chilcot panel of establishment trusties today. Remember who they are.


    • Thoughts After Chilcot
      Blair is still a creature of absolute self-serving slime. His attempt yesterday to justify the invasion of Iraq as an effort to prevent a 9/11 on British soil is dishonest in every way. Blair knew full well that Iraq had nothing at all to do with 9/11 – that was his still friends and financiers the Saudi elite. The intelligence advice in advance of the invasion he received was unequivocal that it would increase the threat to the UK, and it directly caused the attacks of 7/7.


    • More Obscuration From The British Establishment
      Remember, there was a leaked memo from the head of British intelligence that the intelligence justifying the Iraqi Invasion was “fixed” or orchestrated to produce the justification for the invasion, a war crime under the Nuremberg standard established by the United States. Chilcot’s job was to make this fact go away or assume less importance and to protect the Butler Inquiry’s orchestrated verdict that, despite the word of the head of British intelligence, the intelligence was not fixed.


    • Putin LOSES IT, Warns Journalists of War
      The Russian president was meeting with foreign journalists at the conclusion of the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 17th, when he left no one in any doubt that the world is headed down a course which could lead to nuclear war.

      Putin railed against the journalists for their "tall tales" in blindly repeating lies and misinformation provided to them by the United States on its anti-ballistic missile systems being constructed in Eastern Europe. He pointed out that since the Iran nuclear deal, the claim the system is to protect against Iranian missiles has been exposed as a lie.




  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • The CIA Is Preventing Congress from Learning that the Worst Allegations against Hillary Pertain to Drones
      You probably heard that Jim Comey testified to the House Oversight Committee for over four hours today. You’ll see far less coverage of the second panel in that hearing, the testimony of Inspector Generals Steve Linick (from State) and Charles McCullough (from the IC).

      In addition to OGR Chair Jason Chaffetz suggesting the committee convene a secrecy committee akin to the one Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan convened back in the 1990s (which would be very exciting), McCullough revealed something rather startling regarding a letter he sent to Congress back in January (this was first reported by Fox). The letter was his official notice to Congress that some of the information in Hillary’s emails was claimed by an agency he didn’t name to be Special Access.
    • Jim Comey, Poker Face, and the Scope of the Clinton Investigation(s)
      I write this post reluctantly, because I really wish the Hillary investigations would be good and over. But I don’t think they are.

      After having watched five and a half hours of the Clinton investigation hearing today, I’ve got new clarity about what the FBI has been doing for the last year. That leads me to believe that this week’s announcement that DOJ will not charge Clinton is simply a pause in the Clinton investigation(s). I believe an investigation will resume shortly (if one is not already ongoing), though that resumed investigation will also end with no charges — for different reasons than this week’s declination.

      First, understand how this all came about. After the existence of Hillary’s server became known, State’s IG Steve Linick started an investigation into it, largely focused on whether Hillary (and other Secretaries of State) complied with Federal Records Act obligations. In parallel, as intelligence agencies came to complain about State’s redactions of emails released in FOIA response, the Intelligence Committee Inspector General Charles McCullough intervened in the redaction process and referred Clinton to the FBI regarding whether any classified information had been improperly handed. As reported, State will now resume investigating the classification habits of Hillary and her aides, which will likely lead to several of them losing clearance.


    • FBI Director James Comey Breaks Federal Prosecutor Rules by Smearing but Not Indicting Clinton Over Emails
      Comey, a Republican appointed as FBI director by President Obama, crossed all three of those lines. Very few commentators noted that Comey shouldn’t have said anything at all, and how unusual it was that he did. One exception was Benjamin Wittes, editor in chief of the Lawfare blog and a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution.


    • Darrell Issa Calls For Government Shutdown If Hillary Clinton Is Not Charged
      Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) once claimed that he “never voted for a [government] shutdown and never will.” But Issa is so angry the FBI recommended Hillary Clinton not be indicted for using a private server for her email that he suggested on Wednesday that he is rethinking his promise. He proposed that now might be a good time for the Republican leadership to shut down the federal government, in protest of what he called “an imperial president” who will not “enforce criminal charges against a criminal.”


    • FBI Vacuums Up Local Law Enforcement Documents To Block Open Records Requests About Orlando Shooting
      Presto! Instant blanket exemption from disclosure at both federal and state level. The FBI takes care to point out which Florida Sunshine Law exemption local agencies can use to withhold documents from requesters.

      There's significant public interest in these documents, especially those related to EMS/police response to emergency calls. This obviously conflicts with the FBI's determination that its ongoing investigation -- which now apparently contains every document created by every responding law enforcement agency in Florida -- should preempt any and all requests for documents via Florida open records laws.

      Not for nothing have there been several efforts mounted to alter blanket exemptions like the one the FBI is using to insert itself into local level records requests. Unfortunately, it's very likely the FBI's wielding of this "open investigation" exemption will be granted deference by the federal court currently presiding over an open records lawsuit between the Orlando Sentinel and the City of Orlando, even though this fight never should have included a federal agency conducting its own concurrent investigation of the mass shooting.


    • Loose Lips Sink Ships: Clinton's Criminal Negligence Hurts More Than the Election


    • Lawyer: Here's To The 'Hillary Defense' ... Because Many People Have Been Punished For Doing Much Less
    • Ex-NSA Lawyer: Clinton Aides Can Be Punished
    • James Comey Has Been Covering Up The Clintons’ Messes For Decades




  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature



    • Wisconsin Said Frac Sand Mining Is Safe In A Report That Groups Say Used Industry Data
      Ever since the hydraulic fracturing boom began in the mid-2000s, Wisconsin has been a leader in mining the silica sand the fracking industry uses in a watery mix with other chemicals to extract oil and gas trapped in shale rock. And similar to fracking, some have long worried that sand mining harms the environment and public health, polluting air and water.


    • Past presents warning on greater warming
      Reconstruction of climate events long before the Ice Ages shows that failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions could eventually lead to temperatures rising by up to 10 degrees.


    • SEC Charges "Frack Master" Chris Faulkner, Shale CEO and Industry Advocate, with $80 Million Fraud
      At the start of June, Chris Faulkner, Chief Executive Officer of Breitling Energy, was a high-flying shale company executive and media darling, often interviewed on CNN, Fox Business News and even the BBC. During his most recent appearance on CNN on June 2nd, he weighed in on the financial prospects for drillers who survive low oil prices despite the spate of bankruptcies sweeping the shale industry.


    • Sweden should keep coal in the ground, not sell it off
      The history of the fossil fuel industry can feel like it is told in complicated deals the public isn’t meant to understand. This is what is happening in Sweden. The government-owned energy company, Vattenfall, is demanding the sale of its coal mines and power plants based in Germany to a Czech company, EPH. The deal includes some of Germany’s largest coal mines – and three of the top 10 most polluting coal plants in Europe. They are going to a deeply unattractive buyer – EPH, a company hell-bent on burning as much coal as possible.

      In the next couple of weeks, Swedish prime minister, Stefan Löfven, is facing a stark choice. On one hand, he could approve the sale of the most climate-destroying assets in Europe, breaking his own election promises in the process. Or, he could promote a transition to keep coal in the ground – and support a liveable climate – in an unprecedented decision by a government to keep fossil fuels in the ground. Coal is the most polluting of all fossil fuels, and lignite or ‘brown coal’ is the most polluting type of coal and the greatest threat to EU climate goals.


    • Will Democrats Get It Right on Climate Before It's Too Late?
      Democrats need to get serious about climate change—and time is running out for them to do so.

      Environmentalists see the upcoming full Democratic Platform Committee meeting in Orlando as a final opportunity to ensure the party takes meaningful action on climate change over the next four years.






  • Finance



    • Commission’s CETA proposal violates EU law
      The Commission’s proposal on provisional application of the Canada-EU trade agreement (CETA) violates EU law.

      The EU can only provisionally apply those parts of the international agreement over which it has exclusive powers. However, in today’s proposal, the Commission is seeking to provisionally apply CETA in its entirety. This violates the founding treaties of the EU.

      The Commission has already shown it is not sure it has the power to do this, by asking EU judges to rule on the division of power in the EU-Singapore Free Trade deal. This judgement is expected later this year or early next year.

      Instead of waiting for this important Court ruling, the Commission is hastily pushing for a decision that may be contrary to what the ECJ decides.


    • Commodifying Dissent: Media, the Arts and the Hope in Cooperatives
      But it is just another day at the office for the 1%. They own the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of government. As Chris Hedges frequently stresses: “We’ve undergone a corporate coup d’etat in slow motion. And it’s over. We’ve lost, and they’ve won.”


    • Brexit: Which Kind of Dependence Now?
      But, as usual, things are more complicated. We should hope that, in one respect, Britain’s exit from the EU will create a kind of dependence that did not exist while it was still a member of the union.


    • Brexit and the Derivatives Time Bomb
      Sovereign debt – the debt of national governments – has ballooned from $80 trillion to $100 trillion just since 2008. Squeezed governments have been driven to radical austerity measures, privatizing public assets, slashing public services, and downsizing work forces in a futile attempt to balance national budgets. But the debt overhang just continues to grow.


    • My 350 on BREXIT: Fighting for youthful minds in Latvia


      The most disappointing consequence of Brexit for foreigners living in the UK has become the unexpected rise of xenophobia. According to the behavior of locals, the EU open door policy has completely failed. Brits have made it clear that foreigners are not welcome. Not only immigrants from conflict areas, but people from Poland and Baltic States face insults or even physical violence, hear offensive words and the call to pack their bags and leave.


    • Britain supports EU free trade deal with Canada despite Brexit
      Britain supports EU free trade deal with Canada despite Brexit: Freeland

      Britain has assured Canada it will push for speedy ratification of the mammoth free trade deal with the European Union, despite its intention to leave the 28-country bloc, says International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland.


    • Greenwashing the Trans-Pacific Partnership: Fossil fuels, the environment, and climate change
      There has been much controversy over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – a plurilateral trade agreement involving a dozen nations from throughout the Pacific Rim – and its impact upon the environment, biodiversity, and climate change.

      The secretive treaty negotiations involve Australia and New Zealand; countries from South East Asia such as Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, and Japan; the South American nations of Peru and Chile; and the members of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Canada, Mexico and the United States. There was an agreement reached between the parties in October 2015. The participants asserted: ‘We expect this historic agreement to promote economic growth, support higher-paying jobs; enhance innovation, productivity and competitiveness; raise living standards; reduce poverty in our countries; and to promote transparency, good governance, and strong labor and environmental protections.’ The final texts of the agreement were published in November 2015.


    • U.S. trade chief says China offer falls short, UK could join TPP


    • 'Largest-ever' Silicon Valley eviction to displace hundreds of tenants
      Iris Milano could hardly sleep after she got the news that her family would be kicked out of their two-bedroom apartment in San Jose.

      “You’re always thinking and worrying. It’s something that is always with me,” said Milano, 47, a skin-care technician who lives with her husband and 14-year-old son in an apartment protected by rent control in the northern California city. “We are being forced to move. This is our home.”

      Milano, who is originally from Venezuela and has lived in the area for 13 years, is one of roughly 670 tenants who are being displaced from their homes in what local housing advocates believe to be Silicon Valley’s largest-ever mass eviction of rent-controlled tenants.

      The 216-unit complex called the Reserve Apartments that is being demolished to make way for a development of market-rate housing – located five miles away from Apple’s headquarters, 14 miles away from Google and 20 miles away from Facebook – is the latest example of rising income inequality in a region home to many of the world’s wealthiest technology companies.


    • Consumer confidence 'falls after Brexit vote'
      Consumer confidence has seen its sharpest drop in 21 years after the UK vote to leave the EU, a survey suggests.

      The market research firm GfK conducted a one-off online survey of 2,000 people after the result was known.

      Its confidence index fell by eight points to minus nine, a drop not since seen December 1994.

      Less confident consumers tend to curb their spending, which accounts for about two-thirds of the UK economy.

      It is also one measure watched by the Bank of England when deciding its next move on interest rates. Governor Mark Carney has already warned the UK's economic outlook is "challenging" following the decision to leave the EU.

      The Gfk survey also suggested that 60% of consumers expect the general economic situation to worsen over the next year, compared with 46% in June. Just 20% expect it to improve, down from 27% last month.


    • Democrats and the TPP: Who Speaks for the Future?
      Texas populist Jim Hightower will present the Democratic Party platform committee with a Bernie Sanders-sponsored amendment to the draft platform when it meets in Orlando this Friday and Saturday. It will read:

      It is the policy of the Democratic Party that the Trans-Pacific Partnership should not get a vote in the lame duck session of Congress and beyond.

      This should be a no-brainer. All of the Democratic candidates for the presidential nomination were opposed to the TPP trade deal, as of course is Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee.




  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics



    • Jill Stein’s Green New Deal Deserves to Be Heard by Widest Audience Possible
      This is a crucial time for Dr. Jill Stein. It’s a test of whether she can move her presidential campaign from the fringes into the mainstream of an election that she says “has tossed out the rule book.”

      “We are here to keep the revolution going,” Stein, the prospective Green Party presidential candidate, told me in a telephone interview Tuesday. “Bernie [Sanders] supporters are grieving over the loss of the campaign, of their hard work, their vision, but they are remobilizing. Our events are absolutely mobbed with Bernie supporters.”

      We spoke in the morning, before FBI Director James Comey threw yet another twist into the presidential race by announcing that while the bureau would not recommend criminal charges in the Hillary Clinton email affair, she had been “extremely careless” with her use of a personal email address and a private server for sensitive communications.


    • Sanders Files Permit Request for Huge Rally on Eve of Democratic Convention
      Bernie Sanders' next signature rally may take place in Philadelphia—the night before the Democratic National Convention.

      The Vermont senator's campaign has applied for a permit to hold an event that will reportedly host between 15,000 to 40,000 people on July 24 at Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park. It is one of 10 such pro-Sanders events requesting permission from the Philadelphia mayor's office, the Burlington Free Press reports.

      Sanders spokesperson Michael Briggs said last month that the senator was planning to deliver a "victory statement" in Philadelphia, but said on Wednesday that plans for the rally are still being finalized.

      The campaign is gearing up for the convention, where Sanders has promised to bring a floor fight over the Democratic National Committee (DNC) platform after a slew of his proposals—including banning fracking and blocking U.S. Congress from voting on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)—were overruled or watered down during previous negotiations.


    • How political megadonors can give almost $500,000 with a single check
      On May 17, Donald Trump announced an arrangement with the Republican National Committee (RNC) that will allow individuals to donate almost $500,000 each to a joint fundraising committee between Trump, the RNC and 11 state Republican parties. In 2012, Mitt Romney’s joint fundraising committee could only raise $135,000 from each individual. What happened in the last four years to make these numbers so much higher?


    • Voters Have Heavy Responsibility In November
      It seems like a nightmare, but it is reality: The Democratic Party has chosen a criminal as its presidential candidate. And the liberals said that Reagan wore teflon!




  • Censorship/Free Speech



    • When Free Speech Signifies Nothing
      The United States touts its commitment to free speech but American discourse has degenerated into self-absorbed info-tainment and trivia, ignoring many of the most pressing issues of the day, writes Michael Brenner.


    • Apple's IP Lawyers May Force YouTube MacBook Repair Videos Offline Over Schematic
      It's no secret that Apple does not want you to monkey around with your device's innards or to take it anywhere but to its own stores for repairs. The company has continually screwed around with the screws that keep its hardware together in an effort to prevent DIYers and non-Apple-approved repair shops from opening its devices.

      Now, Apple can't legally prevent anyone from utilizing third parties for repairs, as explained in this Motherboard article by Jason Koebler. A 40-year-old piece of legislation states companies can't void warranties simply because the devices have been opened.


    • The censorship must stop
      Over the past two months, the public broadcaster has been embroiled in unconstitutional pronouncements aimed at compromising and more importantly censoring information intended for public consumption.


    • Israeli Opposition Leader Calls for Censorship of MK Zoabi's Speeches
      'I would recommend that Knesset TV not broadcast her words as a matter of principle,' Zionist Union's Herzog. MK Freige: Herzog a 'useful idiot' for Netanyahu and the right.


    • CPJ Advocacy Director Testifies at HRC hearing on Blasphemy Laws and Censorship
      Hearing: Blasphemy Laws and Censorship by States and Non-State Actors: Examining Global Threats to Freedom of Expression


    • Reddit Moderators Censor Refugee Rape Stories
      Reddit’s World News moderators have censored a story about a German woman who didn’t report her rape due of fear of inciting “racism against refugees” while allowing the posting of a story about a young girl lying about about a refugee sex attack.

      The story of the German activist and leader of left wing German youth movement Solid lying about the identities of the men who raped her was reported on by The Washington Times. The article was removed from /r/WorldNews under the belief that it did not constitute worldwide news and was marked as “local news”.


    • Chinese game developers aren’t happy about new censorship rules
      The State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT) of the People's Republic of China announced a rule that meant all games had to be pre-approved by SAPPRFT before going live.

      SAPPRFT has also allowed a three month grace period in which existing games must be submitted and post-approved.

      However, one games developers grievances have been shared around the internet as his game was denied for having English words in it.


    • UK ISP Sky is about to start censoring the web for all of its customers
      The UK government is on a mission to protect the young of the country from the dark recesses of the web. And by the darker recesses, what is really meant is porn. The main ISPs have long been required to block access to known piracy sites, but porn is also a concern -- for politicians, at least.

      As part of its bid to sanitize and censor the web, Sky -- from the Murdoch stables -- is, as of today, enabling adult content filtering by default for all new customers: Sky Broadband Shield. The company wants to "help families protect their children from inappropriate content", and in a previous experiment discovered -- unsurprisingly -- that content filtering was used by more people if it was automatically enabled.

      The government has proposed that all money-making porn sites that operate in the UK need to have an age verification system in place, and in many ways Sky's scheme is just an extension of the idea. Sky's approach, however, the reverse of similar systems used by other ISPs, Rather than asking customers if they want to enable the content filter, the question is flipped on its head so they are asked if they want to disable the option.


    • As Live-Streaming Of Violent Events Becomes More Common, How Are Social Media Companies Handling It?
      The aftermath of the police shooting of Philando Castile, 32, was broadcast to the world when his girlfriend Diamond Reynolds used Facebook Live to document the traffic stop turned fatal in St. Paul, Minnesota. Castile’s death is the latest of a string of police-involved shootings of African Americans, but it’s also part of a growing trend: live-streaming violent events. And social media companies are now being scrutinized for how they handle them.

      Reynolds filmed for 10 minutes, starting just seconds after Castile was shot and slumped over in the driver’s seat, until her phone died. “The only thing y’all didn’t see is when he was shot,” she said during a subsequent Facebook Live broadcast Thursday.


    • Icasa to make ruling on SABC censorship


    • Icasa to rule on SABC's violence ban


    • ICASA strike enters day four


    • Previous Advocate Of Censorship Appointed To North Carolina Board of Education




  • Privacy/Surveillance



  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • Standards Body Whines That People Who Want Free Access To The Law Probably Also Want 'Free Sex'
      You would think that "the law" is obviously part of the public domain. It seems particularly crazy to think that any part of the law itself might be covered by copyright, or (worse) locked up behind some sort of paywall where you cannot read it. Carl Malamud has spent many years working to make sure the law is freely accessible... and he's been sued a bunch of times and is still in the middle of many lawsuits, including one from the State of Georgia for publishing its official annotated code (the state claims the annotations are covered by copyright).

      But there's another area that he's fought over for many years: the idea that standards that are "incorporated by reference" into the law should also be public. The issue is that many lawmakers, when creating regulations will often cite private industry "standards" as part of the regulations. So, things like building codes may cite standards for, say, sheet metal and air conditioning that were put together by the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors National Association (SMACNA), and say that buildings need to follow SMACNA's standards. And those standards may be great -- but if you can't actually read the standards, how can you obey the law. At one point SMACNA went after Malamud for publishing its standards. And while they eventually backed down, others are still in court against Malamud -- including the American Society for Testing & Materials (ASTM), whose case against Malamud is set to go to trial in the fall.


    • Israel Targeting Palestinian Protesters on Facebook
      On the morning of August 28, 2014, two days after the end of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, Sohaib Zahda hopped into a shared taxi in Hebron that was going to Ramallah, where he had a job interview.

      Thirty-three-year-old Zahda, who owns a paintball company, is an unlikely terrorist. An avid cyclist who speaks Arabic, Italian, French, and English, he is a member of Youth Against Settlements, a nonviolent organization that protests against Israeli settlers who live in and around Hebron. He is opposed to Hamas firing rockets into Israel. He likes to tell visitors his grandfather had Jewish friends in Hebron in the 1920s.

      Hebron and Ramallah are about 25 miles apart. To get between them, Palestinians must pass through the “container checkpoint,” manned by Israeli soldiers on a road that connects the southern West Bank to its central and northern cities. At the checkpoint — named for a shipping container once located at the barrier — Palestinian pedestrians queue up to get their IDs checked, while cars wait for inspection and for soldiers to wave them through. When Zahda’s taxi drove up, masked Israeli soldiers stopped the vehicle, asked him to get out, and then handcuffed him.


    • Reimagine and Rebuild Our Broken Democracy—in Time for the Nation’s 250th Anniversary
      “I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions,” Thomas Jefferson wrote. “Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. ... [They] must advance ... and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”

      Jefferson authored the Declaration of Independence 240 years ago on July 4. Today, we often congratulate ourselves for serving as the model of democracy for the rest of the world, yet our country has perhaps never been so polarized, so divided and so dysfunctional. More and more Americans have a vague and increasing sense that our government is simply incapable of addressing basic challenges like immigration, guns, entitlements, trade, climate and environment, privacy and security, the federal budget, spiraling inequality, money in politics … or even a health emergency like the Zika virus. It is no longer hyperbole to say that American democracy is broken.


    • Missing the Biggest Story about Trump’s Twitter Images
      It's no accident that Trump's social media feeds keep using neo-Nazi imagery; he's actively courting hate.


    • Ohio Court Sanctions Lawyer For Sharing Publicly-Available Court Documents With Journalists
      Pattakos' mild urging that a Scene writer "get their reporting pants on" is akin to shouting "Fire!" in a crowded forest… and then walking away while it burns? Because the defendants claimed this single article adversely affected its settlement attempts, the court has decided this lawyer should be punished for doing something lawyers do every day -- and something that is apparently permitted by the rules governing attorney conduct.

      But the opening of the same decision condemning Pattakos' behavior opens with a recitation of the events leading up to this decision, which includes a period of three years (February 2012-January 2015) where the defendants made zero effort to make counteroffers to the plaintiff's settlement demands. It appears the defendants truly believed the jury would side with it and allow it to escape litigation without having to pay a settlement and are now looking for someone to blame because it ended up paying out $400,000 to the plaintiff and opposing counsel.


    • 'Circumstances' So 'Exigent' Narcotics Agents Could Have Watched 'Gone With The Wind' And Had Time To Spare
      So, four hours of narcotics agents milling around, trying to find an excuse to search a residence without a warrant. And nothing to show for it but claims that the appellant sometimes sold pseudoephedrine to one of the people who answered the knock and talk, a bag of opened OTC drug packages, and a white, non-illicit powder.


    • Appeals Court Says That Sharing Passwords Can Violate Criminal Anti-Hacking Laws
      Remember David Nosal? He was the former Korn/Ferry executive looking to set up his own competing firm, but one that mainly relied on Korn/Ferry's big database of people. As part of that process, after he left the company to head out on his own, he had some former colleagues who were planning to join him log into their Korn/Ferry accounts to access information. Then after those employees left, they got another former colleague to share her password so they could continue to log in. He was charged with violating the criminal portion of the CFAA, under the theory that convincing his former colleagues to gather info for him was a terms of service violation -- and that meant he had "exceeded authorized access" under the statute. This became a key case in determining whether merely violating a terms of service could be considered criminal hacking under the CFAA. Thankfully, back in 2012, the 9th Circuit rejected such a broad ruling of the CFAA, pointing out that such an interpretation would "unintentionally turn ordinary citizens into criminals" and that couldn't be the intent from Congress. This was a huge win that helped limit some of the worst abuses of the CFAA.

      However, the US government was not yet done with Nosal. It then filed new CFAA charges against him, not over the original information sharing, but rather for getting that last colleague to share her password with Nosal. The feds argued that this fell under the other prong of the CFAA, that it was a version of accessing a computer system "without authorization" (as opposed to exceeding authorization). Unfortunately, the 9th circuit appeals court has ruled that merely sharing a password can be a CFAA violation.


    • Password Sharing Is a Federal Crime, Appeals Court Rules
      One of the nation’s most powerful appeals courts ruled Wednesday that sharing passwords can be a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a catch-all “hacking” law that has been widely used to prosecute behavior that bears no resemblance to hacking.

      In this particular instance, the conviction of David Nosal, a former employee of Korn/Ferry International research firm, was upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, who said that Nosal’s use of a former coworker’s password to access one of the firm’s databases was an “unauthorized” use of a computer system under the CFAA.

      The decision is a nightmare scenario for civil liberties groups, who say that such a broad interpretation of the CFAA means that millions of Americans are unwittingly violating federal law by sharing accounts on things like Netflix, HBO, Spotify, and Facebook. Stephen Reinhardt, the dissenting judge in the case, noted that the decision “threatens to criminalize all sorts of innocuous conduct engaged in daily by ordinary citizens.”


    • Password-sharing case divides Ninth Circuit in Nosal II


    • Outrage after video captures white Baton Rouge police officer fatally shooting a black man


    • Feds asked to investigate live-streamed death of motorist killed by cop
      Gov. Mark Dayton of Minnesota on Thursday asked the Department of Justice to investigate the killing of a black motorist shot by a white police officer. Philando Castile's dying moments were live-streamed on Facebook, and the incident prompted a comment from President Barack Obama.

      Dayton said he wanted an "immediate independent federal investigation into this matter." The governor suggested that racism was to blame for the killing of Castile, a 32-year-old school cafeteria manager, who was shot at least four times by a police officer after being pulled over for a broken taillight in Falcon Heights.

      "Would this have happened if those passengers, the driver and the passengers, were white?," Dayton told a news conference Thursday. "I don’t think it would have. So I’m forced to confront, and I think all of us in Minnesota are forced to confront, that this kind of racism exists."


    • Dallas police shooting: Five officers killed, six hurt by gunmen
      Five Dallas police officers have been killed and six wounded by gunmen during protests against the shooting of black men by police, authorities say.

      Three people are in custody and one man who was in a stand-off with police shot himself dead, US media have reported.

      Gunfire broke out at around 20:45 local time on Thursday (01:45 GMT Friday) as demonstrators marched through the city.

      The protests were sparked by the deaths of Philando Castile in Minnesota and Alton Sterling in Louisiana.


    • There Is No Excuse For The American Police
      If unaccountalbe police brutality continues, will American citizens come to the conclusion that cops are criminal thugs of great danger to the public and must be shot down on sight before they murder again?

      The goon thugs have done a good job of proving that Amerians would be far safer in the absence of police who during 8 years of the iraqi War killed more Americans than we lost troops in combat.


    • France Extending State of Emergency Spells Trouble for Future Freedoms
      On February 17th, 2016, French Parliament voted to extend the nation’s state of emergency for three months.


    • Donald Trump Backs Off Muslim Ban, But It’s Already Way More Popular Than He Is
      Donald Trump may be backing off elements of his proposed temporary ban on all Muslim immigration to the United States, but in the meantime his original proposal has become way more popular than he is, according to many national polls.

      Trump most recently said he was calling for a temporary ban on immigration from “areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States”– rather than all Muslims from anywhere.

      But Trump’s poll numbers have been dropping lately; the Huffington Post’s aggregate of polling data shows that Trump has a 35 percent favorability rating, down from 37 percent in late May. Meanwhile, Reuters/Ipsos’s rolling five-day poll as of July 1 showed that 46 percent of Americans favor temporarily banning all Muslims from entering the country, up from 40 percent in late May.

      An NBC News-SurveyMonkey poll conducted shortly after the deadly shooting in Orlando showed that 50 percent of Americans strongly or somewhat supported the ban, while 46 percent opposed it.
    • Two More Black Victims of Police Violence Become Hashtags #PhilandoCastile #AltonSterling
      As my colleague Liliana Segura noted on Twitter this morning, the documented killing of black Americans by police officers has become so routine that it is hard for even the racists who seek to justify the slaughter in online comment threads to keep up.

      [...]

      That’s why the first reports on the killing of Philando Castile, a 32-year-old cafeteria supervisor at a Montessori School in St. Paul, Minnesota, who was shot while reaching for his license during a traffic stop on Wednesday night, included a comment from a Facebook spokesman. The aftermath of the shooting, as Castile bled to death in the front seat of a car, was streamed live on the social network from the phone of Castile’s distraught girlfriend.


    • Fox News Turns To Infamous Racist For Perspective On Alton Sterling’s Death
      On Wednesday, the world woke to a scene that is all too familiar in America: A black man, Alton Sterling, was shot and killed by the police (an alarm tragically repeated again on Thursday). A cellphone video shows Sterling pinned to the ground beneath two police officers when he is shot several times at point-blank range.

      Protesters immediately gathered outside the convenience store where Sterling was killed. Outrage has mounted online; his death has been called a murder, an assassination, and a lynching. The Department of Justice announced that they would open a civil rights investigation into the case.
    • In Alton Sterling’s Baton Rouge, “Blue Lives Matter”
      Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards called for a federal civil rights investigation on Tuesday into what was at that point the latest fatal police shooting of a black man in the United States.

      But in May, Edwards signed a bill into law that makes targeting a police officer a hate crime. Passage of such bills at the state level is a top priority of a national organization called Blue Lives Matter, which was formed in response to the Black Lives Matter movement .

      Alton Sterling, 37, was shot in the chest at point-blank range by Baton Rouge police early Tuesday morning; it was captured on video by witnesses. Philando Castile, 32, was shot after police stopped his car outside St. Paul, Minn.; his girlfriend livestreamed his death on Facebook.

      But it is the civil rights of police officers that Edwards was concerned about in May, as if theirs were being routinely violated.


    • What Kind of Democracy Is That
      We're out of words. Two more black men - Alton Sterling, Philando Castile - murdered by police. Two more sorrowful hashtags, two more bloody videos, two more sets of weeping families, two more outraged cities and many more in spirit, two more barrages of tragic parallel stories: They were good guys, they were doing nothing wrong but being black, their awful deaths prove, one more awful time, that whiteness is blindness, and cops are America's terrorists, and black people are tired and hurting - but, alone amidst a well-armed population, not allowed to have guns. We have been here so long that Malcom X spoke of it 55 years ago, and he's still right. We're out of words. Here are his.




  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Verizon 'Competes' With T-Mobile By Raising Prices, Then Denying It's A Price Hike
      For years T-Mobile has been making some welcome changes to U.S. wireless service, implementing everything from free data while roaming internationally, to rollover data plans that let you keep unused data. T-Mobile's strange, new tactic of treating consumers well has paid incredible dividends for the company, which has been adding significantly more postpaid wireless subscribers per quarter than any other major carrier. Between the elimination of consumer pain points and its foul-mouthed CEO, T-Mobile's been a welcome change for the sector (just ignore its attack on the EFF and failure to support net neutrality).




  • DRM



  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Generic Manufacturing Deals For HIV And Hepatitis C Treatments Signed At Medicines Patent Pool
      Today the Medicines Patent Pool announced the signing of nine new sub-licensing agreements for the generic manufacturing of key HIV and hepatitis C treatments.

      According to the MPP press release, it signed licences with Aurobindo (India), Desano (China), Emcure (India), Hetero Labs (India), Laurus Labs (India), Lupin (India) and a new partner, Zydus Cadila (India).

      Aurobindo signed two new sub-licences for lopinavir and ritonavir (both HIV treatments) for Africa. Desano, a Chinese manufacturer and Emcure also signed licences for those treatments.


    • French Bill Could Open Door For Sharing, Selling Of Seeds In Public Domain
      Next week, the French Senate is due to consider a bill on biodiversity for the third time. That bill, which could be modifying several legislations, might allow for the sharing and selling by non-governmental organisations of seeds in the public domain to non-commercial buyers, which is so far not permitted under the current French legislation, according to sources.


    • Trademarks



      • CJEU says that operators of physical marketplaces may be forced to stop trade mark infringements of market-traders
        Can operators of physical marketplaces be considered "intermediaries whose services are used by a third party to infringe an intellectual property right", so that "rightholders are in a position to apply for an injunction" against them, pursuant to the third sentence in Article 11 of the Enforcement Directive? Put it otherwise: how does the landmark decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in L'Oréal v eBay [noted here, here, and here] apply in an offline context?




    • Copyrights







Recent Techrights' Posts

Open letter to the ACM regarding Codes of Conduct impersonating the Code of Ethics
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
With 9 Mentions of Azure In Its Latest Blog Post, Canonical is Again Promoting Microsoft and Intel Vendor Lock-in, Surveillance, Back Doors, Considerable Power Waste, and Defects That Cannot be Fixed
Microsoft did not even have to buy Canonical (for Canonical to act like it happened)
Links 28/03/2024: GAFAM Replacing Full-Time Workers With Interns Now
Links for the day
Consent & Debian's illegitimate constitution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The Time Our Server Host Died in a Car Accident
If Debian has internal problems, then they need to be illuminated and then tackled, at the very least in order to ensure we do not end up with "Deadian"
China's New 'IT' Rules Are a Massive Headache for Microsoft
On the issue of China we're neutral except when it comes to human rights issues
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 27, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 27, 2024
WeMakeFedora.org: harassment decision, victory for volunteers and Fedora Foundations
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 27/03/2024: Terrorism Grows in Africa, Unemployment in Finland Rose Sharply in a Year, Chinese Aggression Escalates
Links for the day
Links 27/03/2024: Ericsson and Tencent Layoffs
Links for the day
Amid Online Reports of XBox Sales Collapsing, Mass Layoffs in More Teams, and Windows Making Things Worse (Admission of Losses, Rumours About XBox Canceled as a Hardware Unit)...
Windows has loads of issues, also as a gaming platform
Links 27/03/2024: BBC Resorts to CG Cruft, Akamai Blocking Blunders in Piracy Shield
Links for the day
Android Approaches 90% of the Operating Systems Market in Chad (Windows Down From 99.5% 15 Years Ago to Just 2.5% Right Now)
Windows is down to about 2% on the Web-connected client side as measured by statCounter
Sainsbury's: Let Them Eat Yoghurts (and Microsoft Downtimes When They Need Proper Food)
a social control media 'scandal' this week
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 26, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Windows/Client at Microsoft Falling Sharply (Well Over 10% Decline Every Quarter), So For His Next Trick the Ponzi in Chief Merges Units, Spices Everything Up With "AI"
Hiding the steep decline of Windows/Client at Microsoft?
Free technology in housing and construction
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
We Need Open Standards With Free Software Implementations, Not "Interoperability" Alone
Sadly we're confronting misguided managers and a bunch of clowns trying to herd us all - sometimes without consent - into "clown computing"
Microsoft's Collapse in the Web Server Space Continued This Month
Microsoft is the "2%", just like Windows in some countries
Links 26/03/2024: Inflation Problems, Strikes in Finland
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/03/2024: Losing Children, Carbon Tax Discussed
Links for the day
Mark Shuttleworth resigns from Debian: volunteer suicide and Albania questions unanswered, mass resignations continue
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 26/03/2024: 6,000 Layoffs at Dell, Microsoft “XBox is in Real Trouble as a Hardware Manufacturer”
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/03/2024: Microsofters Still Trying to 'Extend' Gemini Protocol
Links for the day
Look What IBM's Red Hat is Turning CentOS Into
For 17 years our site ran on CentOS. Thankfully we're done with that...
The Julian Paul Assange Verdict: The High Court Has Granted Assange Leave to Appeal Extradition to the United States, Decision Adjourned to May 20th Pending Assurances
The decision is out
The Microsoft and Apple Antitrust Issues Have Some But Not Many Commonalities
gist of the comparison to Microsoft
ZDNet, Sponsored by Microsoft for Paid-for Propaganda (in 'Article' Clothing), Has Added Pop-Up or Overlay to All Pages, Saying "813 Partners Will Store and Access Information on Your Device"
Avoiding ZDNet may become imperative given what it has turned into
Julian Assange Verdict 3 Hours Away
Their decision is due to be published at 1030 GMT
People Who Cover Suicide Aren't Suicidal
Assange didn't just "deteriorate". This deterioration was involuntary and very much imposed upon him.
Overworking Kills
The body usually (but not always) knows best
Former Red Hat Chief (CEO), Who Decided to Leave the Company Earlier This Month, Talks About "Cloud Company Red Hat" to CNBC
shows a lack of foresight and dependence on buzzwords
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 25, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, March 25, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Discord Does Not Make Money, It's Spying on People and Selling Data/Control (38% is Allegedly Controlled by the Communist Party of China)
a considerable share exists
In At Least Two Nations Windows is Now Measured at 2% "Market Share" (Microsoft Really Does Not Want People to Notice That)
Ignore the mindless "AI"-washing
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Still Has Hundreds of Thousands of Simultaneously-Online Unique Users
The scale of IRC