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Appeals Court Rules That People Can't Be Locked Up Indefinitely For Refusing To Decrypt Devices
Former Philadelphia policeman Francis Rawls has been locked up since 2015 for refusing to decrypt external hard drives the government claims contain child porn images. The government's claims are based on Rawls' sister's statements. She said Rawls showed her "hundreds" of child porn images that …
Cops Are Running Ring Camera Footage Through Their Own Facial Recognition Software Because Who's Going To Stop Them
Ring is swallowing up the doorbell camera market with aggressive marketing that includes the free use of taxpayer-funded services. It calls over 600 law enforcement agencies "partners." In exchange for agency autonomy and free cameras, police departments all over the nation are pushing cameras o…
Elizabeth Warren's Feud With Facebook Over 'False' Ads Just Highlights The Impossibility Of Content Moderation At Scale
You may have heard over the past few days about a bit of a feud between Presidential candidates -- mainly Elizabeth Warren -- and Facebook about how the company handles political ads with false information. It began a week or so ago when the Trump campaign started running a bunch of Facebook ads…
Massive Study Proves Once And For All That No, Net Neutrality Did Not Hurt Broadband Investment
The biggest study (pdf) ever of its kind has found that net neutrality rules had absolutely no impact on broadband investment whatsoever. The study took an incredibly detailed look at CAPEX data for more than 8,577 different companies (270+ of which were telecom providers) and concluded:
Another Way In Which Patents Contributed To The Opioid Crisis: Hospitals Ordered Not To Use Better, Less Problematic Medicines
Two years ago, we wrote about a stunning (and horrifying) study that explained how patents deeply contributed to the opioid crisis. It described the lengths that drug companies -- including OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma -- went through to block any and all generic competition. It was quite a sto…
The Streaming TV Sector Still Doesn't Realize Exclusives Will Drive Users Back To Piracy
So we've noted a few times now that the rise of streaming video competitors is indisputably a good thing. Numerous new streaming alternatives have driven competition to an antiquated cable TV sector that has long been plagued by apathy, high rates, and comically-bad customer service. That's long…
ACLU Asks CBP Why It's Threatening US Citizens With Arrest For Refusing Invasive Device Searches
The agents proceeded to search my belongings and demanded that I unlock my smartphone and laptop. This was rather concerning for me. My phone and laptop are property of my employer and contain unreleased software and proprietary information. I’ve signed a non-disclosure agreement promising not t…
Big Win For Open Access, As University Of California Cancels All Elsevier Subscriptions, Worth $11 Million A Year
As Techdirt has reported over the years, the move to open access, whereby anyone can read academic papers for free, is proving a long, hard journey. However, the victories are starting to build up, and here's another one that could have important wider ramifications for open access, especially i…