Quotulatiousness

November 13, 2009

Red light cameras are great . . . for increasing traffic fine revenues

Filed under: Government, Law, Liberty, Technology — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 01:09

For driver safety, not so much:

In Los Angeles the LAPD claims accidents are down after they installed cameras, but are they telling the whole truth or just trying to make money off motorists?

We crunched the numbers and the results may surprise you.

“Your data is shocking to me,” Sherman Ellison said.

Ellison is a ticket attorney and part time judge, who believes the cameras are there for one reason.

“No question. Purely a revenue generating device,” Ellison said.

Is it money or safety? We wanted to know actual numbers of accidents at red light camera intersections to see if they really went down.

When we asked, the LAPD became very defensive. The sergeant in charge told me in an e-mail, “The city would hope that it is the goal of KCBS/KCAL to discuss the positive aspects of the photo red light program.”

So we filed a public records request. The department charged us more than $500 for a computer run. When we got the numbers back, they told a different story.

We looked at every accident at every red light camera intersection for six months of data before the cameras were installed and six months after.

The final figures? Twenty of the 32 intersections show accidents up after the cameras were installed! Three remained the same and only nine intersections showed accidents decreasing.

If the reason for installing red light cameras was to increase public safety, they’re a failure. If, however, the real reason for installing them is to increase municipal revenue streams, they’re a slam-dunk success.

November 9, 2009

Remembering the victims of communism

Filed under: Europe, Germany, History, Liberty, Russia — Tags: — Nicholas @ 13:06

October 29, 2009

Rand’s cultural impact

Filed under: Economics, Liberty, Media — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 14:31

Andrew Corsello tries to exorcise the ghost of Ayn Rand:

A weirdly specific thing happens with the books of Ayn Rand. It’s not just the what of the books, but when a reader discovers them — almost always during the first or second year of college. Rand grabs a reader at a time of maximum vulnerability and malleability, when he’s getting his first accurate sense of how he measures up in the world in terms of intellect and talent. The longing to regard oneself as misunderstood and underrated can be powerful; the temptation to project oneself as such, irresistible. But how? How to stand above and apart?

Enter Howard Roark, the heroic and misunderstood architect, square of jaw and Asperger-ish of mien, who at the end of The Fountainhead blows up his own masterpiece after a bunch of sniveling “parasites” and “second-handers” tinker with the blueprints.

GODDAMN!

Then enter Atlas Shrugged‘s John Galt, the heroic and misunderstood engineer, square of jaw and Asperger-ish of mien, who, after persuading “men of talent” to retreat to his Colorado aerie while the country goes to seed (in order to show the “mediocrities” left behind what life is like without their betters), delivers a 35,000-word speech decrying bureaucrats and regulators.

SIXTY PAGES, BITCHES!

Finally, enter Objectivism, the name Rand gave to her moral defense of “reason,” individualism, and unfettered capitalism.

SCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!

And hats off to Nick Gillespie for the best quote in the article:

“In terms of literary influence, only Kerouac compares,” says Nick Gillespie, editor-in-chief of Reason.com and Reason.tv (offshoots of Reason, the libertarian magazine founded in 1968 by a Randian). Pointing out that Atlas Shrugged and On the Road were both published in 1957, he adds, “Kerouac has had a more diffuse influence on American culture. He created a broad-based conception of what was cool and hip. Rand hasn’t brushed the culture as widely. She touches individuals — immensely and deeply. It’s useful to think about her impact in terms of Catcher in the Rye, another novel of individuation. Everyone agrees it’s beautifully written, but it’s losing its grasp on the public imagination. Same with Catch-22. Yossarian was a perfect antihero for the ’60s generation, but does anybody give a shit about him now? Or about Portnoy? A few days ago, I was watching an old clip of Andrew Dice Clay’s stand-up act from 1987. He made a joke about jerking off into a liver, and no one in the audience knew what he was talking about. Think about that. You can still make Howard Roark jokes that play, but it’s been at least twenty years since you could do that with Portnoy. Portnoy’s dead. Philip Roth is a great writer, but his signature character has had far less purchase on the collective imagination than Galt or Roark. No matter what you think of Rand, there’s no denying that the woman just swings a really big dick.”

October 22, 2009

It’s not a clever satire

Filed under: Liberty, Media, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:58

John Dvorak thought that this was “meant to be satire or commentary (or is it?) on where London is heading with it’s multiple cameras on every street and where the former East Germany was. And were we could eventually go if we aren’t vigilant.” I don’t think so:

The link provided goes to the LAPD website. Creepy.

October 21, 2009

Can Twittering be sufficient cause for arrest?

Filed under: Law, Liberty — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:07

Regardless of your opinions on the particular cause, the recent arrest of a protest organizer should cause concern. Harry A. Valetk looks at the case from a legal standpoint:

“SWAT teams rolling down 5th Ave. … Report received that police are nabbing anyone that looks like a protester. … Stay alert watch your friends!” Pennsylvania State Police arrested New York social worker Elliot Madison last month for being part of a group that posted messages like those on Twitter. The arrest took place in a Pittsburgh motel during protests at the Group of 20 summit. In all, almost 5,000 protesters demonstrated throughout the city during two days, and about 200 were arrested for disorderly conduct.

But Madison wasn’t among those protesting on the street. Instead, published reports say he was part of a behind-the-scenes communications team using Twitter to “direct others, specifically protesters of the G-20 summit, in order to avoid apprehension after a lawful order to disperse.” A week later, FBI agents spent 16 hours in Madison’s home executing a search warrant for evidence of federal anti-rioting law violations.

This isn’t, at least based on the initial reports, a criminal mastermind perpetrating some atrocity . . . this is someone trying to help others falling afoul of legal entanglement. If it turns out that he was attempting something that is clearly illegal, then the courts will sort it out — but that isn’t what appears to be the case here.

Presumably, officers believed that Madison violated this statute when he warned other protesters on Twitter about “impending” police apprehension. But this prohibition assumes that the warning is given to fugitives or others committing a crime. Can we make this broad assumption about an entire group of protesters? Not likely. And, even so, the statute specifically allows warnings to bring that individual into compliance with law (e.g., a motorist warning a speeder about a speed trap).

Still, it seems this arrest is really about speech — what you can say to others during a public protest. Can you warn others online by saying, “Hey, don’t go down that street because the police have issued an order to disperse”?

Canadian press freedoms slip a few notches

Filed under: Cancon, Liberty, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:12

Reporters Without Borders (known by their French initials, RSF) show Canada’s press is less free this year, compared to other countries:

Canada fell to 19th place this year from 13th last year on Reporters Without Borders’ index of freedom of the press. The analysis covers print, broadcast and online journalism in 175 countries.

The Paris-based group, also known by its French acronym RSF, says court challenges to journalists’ rights to protect their sources precipitated Canada’s drop six spots from last year’s ranking.

Lawsuits intended to silence critics under the weight of the hefty cost of a legal defence — known as strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPP suits — also factored into the drop, said Dennis Trudeau, a spokesman for Reporters Without Borders’ Canadian chapter.

“There are issues like real protection of sources,” he said.

“Where a reporter could theoretically face jail or a fine for not revealing his sources is in our view, especially when we’re dealing with public issues, a unreasonable restriction on freedom of the press.”

October 14, 2009

QotD: Our expanding Nanny state

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Liberty, Quotations — Tags: — Nicholas @ 12:35

How can Americans be expected to wrestle with the myriad dangers that confront them each day? Insalubrious cereal? Unregulated garage sales? Pools of death? Sometimes it’s too much to process.

You know what we desperately are crying out for? An army of crusading federal regulatory agents with unfettered power. Who else has the fortitude and foresight to keep us all safe?

Mercifully, as The Washington Post recently reported, many of President Barack Obama’s appointees “have been quietly exercising their power over the trappings of daily life … awakening a vast regulatory apparatus with authority over nearly every U.S. workplace, 15,000 consumer products, and most items found in kitchen pantries and medicine cabinets.”

If there’s anything Americans are hankering for in their everyday lives, it’s a vast regulatory apparatus. Hey, it’s dangerous out there.

David Harsanyi, “They’re Tragically Delicious: Confronting Big Cereal, unregulated garage sales, and other evils”, Reason.com, 2009-10-14

October 7, 2009

Jon writes to his Member of Parliament

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:01

I sent a link to Jon the other day, asking if he’d really voted for this guy. This prompted Jon to send this to his Member of Parliament:

Dear Mr. Van Loan —

Just wondering if you could comment on the Michael Geist article that appears at the following locations:

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4424/135/
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/701824
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/curious+case+access+request+that+wasn/2045337/story.html

I am wondering if you could elaborate on why you are using the kidnapping case mentioned in the article as an example of why law enforcement agencies require increased access to internet service provider (ISP) information without oversight by the courts. Considering that ISP information seems to have played no role in this case, the case does not sound like a particularly good example of why such access is required.

Also, should the “lawful access” legislation pass, what guarantees are there that government agencies will not abuse such access for political purposes? I suspect that this sort of thing already happens in Canada, but such abuse is currently (in theory) illegal. Removing the requirement for a warrant and providing open access to an ISP’s customer records is something that seems to be wide open to abuse.

Please advise as time permits.

Thanks and best regards —

Jonathan [Redacted]

In a separate email, he also explained that he’d met Van Loan once before, with less-than-perfect meeting of the minds:

Ah yes. We knew however many years ago it was when we first voted for the guy what he would be doing. That whole telepathy and prescient seeing thing is working very well for us. Explains my success at Casino Rama.

Snark aside, though, I will admit that I put on the badge of shame years ago when I asked the guy at a local event about the child care tax credit — you know, the $100-per-month-per-kid-beer-and-popcorn fund. When I asked why they did not just reduce parents’ taxable income by $1200 per year rather than give us back our own money (less interest and opportunity cost, of course), he said that “But then people who have no income wouldn’t get anything.” My wife and I responded in unison: “Well, that’s their problem!”<flea-asterisk>**</flea-asterisk>

Van Loan and I looked at each other and I think we both regretted that I had voted for him.

<flea-asterisk>**</flea-asterisk><flea-snark>That sentence could also be emphasised as “”Well, that’s their problem, [right there]!”</flea-snark>

October 5, 2009

Challenging Canada’s prostitution laws

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:52

Canada’s archaic laws governing the sex trade are being challenged in court:

If she could do it herself, Terri-Jean Bedford would strike down Canada’s prostitution laws, perhaps using the riding crop she plans to bring to court.

Instead, the Toronto dominatrix and two other sex workers have launched a sweeping constitutional challenge to the legislation, arguing it perpetuates violence against women.

The landmark case gets underway Tuesday in a University Ave. courtroom where Bedford, in a nod to traditionalism, is promising to arrive conservatively attired, even if she is packing a tool of her trade.

Prostitution is legal in Canada: that fact always seems to be a surprise to most people. What isn’t legal are all the other activities surrounding the act: soliciting customers, having a safe place to conduct your business, and so on. This has always made prostitutes more liable to be injured or killed because they have to ply their trade in unsafe conditions, and they are rarely taken seriously when they attempt to get the police protection they should be entitled to.

The 49-year-old Toronto grandmother, along with prostitutes Valerie Scott, 51, and Amy Lebovitch, 30, is asking Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice to invalidate Criminal Code provisions that serve as Canada’s policy response to the world’s oldest profession.

They argue that prohibitions on keeping a common bawdy house, communicating for the purposes of prostitution and living on the avails of the trade force them from the safety of their homes to the insecurity of the street, where they are exposed to physical and psychological violence.

Anonymous and the Church of Scientology

Filed under: Liberty, Religion, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:41

Julian Dibbell looks at the beginnings of the “Anonymous” campaign against the Scientologists:

In the evening of January 15, 2008, a 31-year-old tech consultant named Gregg Housh sat down at the computer and paid a visit to one of his favorite Web sites, the message board known as 4chan. Like most of the 5.9 million people who visit the site every month, Housh was looking for a few cheap laughs. Filled with hundreds of thousands of brief, anonymous messages and crude graphics uploaded by the site’s mostly male, mostly twentysomething users, 4chan is a fountainhead of twisted, scatological, absurd, and sometimes brilliant low-brow humor. It was the source of the lolcat craze (affixing captions like “I Can Has Cheezburger?” to photos of felines), the rickrolling phenomenon (tricking people into clicking on links to Rick Astley’s ghastly “Never Gonna Give You Up” music video), and other classic time-wasting Internet memes. In short, while there are many online places where you can educate yourself, seek the truth, and contemplate the world’s injustices and strive to right them, 4chan is not one of them.

Yet today, Housh found 4chan grappling with an injustice no Internet-humor fan could ignore. Days earlier, a nine-minute video excerpt of an interview with Tom Cruise had appeared unauthorized on YouTube and other Web sites. Produced by the Church of Scientology, the clip showed Cruise declaring himself and his co-religionists to be, among other remarkable things, the “only ones who can help” at an accident site. For the online wiseasses of the world, the clip was a heaven-sent extra helping of the weirdness Tom Cruise famously showed on Oprah. But then, suddenly, it was gone: Scientologists had sent takedown notices to sites hosting the video, effectively wiping it from the Web.

Housh and other channers knew that Scientology had a long history of using copyright law to silence Internet-based critics. But this time, maybe because the church was stifling not just unflattering content but potential comedy gold, the tactic seemed to inflame the chortling masses. That evening, Housh logged in to an IRC channel frequented by like-minded chuckleheads and started talking with five others about the Cruise video. There was a sense that something must be done, but what? One of them logged out and posted a call to action on 4chan and some similar sites. By the middle of the night, 30 people had joined the chat. Within a couple of days, a consensus emerged: They would take down the main Scientology Web site with a massive distributed denial-of-service attack, or DDoS.

October 4, 2009

Are the Democrats rediscovering a taste for civil liberties?

Filed under: Government, Law, Liberty, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 11:57

There’s been very little I could find to praise in the performance of the current US majority party in both houses of Congress, until very recently. Democrats, including newly minted Senator Al Franken, are appearing to seriously threaten the renewal of several portions of the Patriot Act, due to expire this year:

Some Democratic lawmakers have long wanted to weaken the act, and now, with big majorities in the House and Senate, they have their chance. But the renewal debate just happens to come at a time when recently uncovered domestic terror plots — most notably the Denver shuttle bus driver and his colleagues caught with bomb-making materials and a list of specific targets in New York City — are highlighting the very threats the act was designed to counter. Republicans are fighting to keep the law in its current form.

“These three provisions have been very important for the investigative agencies who are working every day to protect us from terrorist attack,” says Sen. Jeff Sessions, ranking Republican on the committee. “Before the Patriot Act, terrorist investigators had far less authority to get records and documents than a DEA or an IRS agent.”

Democrats have proposed a number of changes, all of which would weaken the law. Sen. Russell Feingold wants to do away with the “lone wolf” provision entirely. Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Judiciary Committee chairman, would make it more difficult for investigators to obtain business records. In addition, Leahy wants to return to legal standards that existed before September 11 regarding “national security letters,” which are essentially subpoenas issued by the FBI and other security agencies. “They are going back to a September 10th mentality — literally,” says one GOP committee aide.

The original Patriot Act was “the most abominable, unconstitutional congressional assaults on personal freedom since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 made it a crime to libel the government” (Andrew P. Napolitano). It was a blank cheque for the one of the most far-reaching extension of law enforcement into the private lives of Americans in over 200 years (ranking with both Prohibition and the War on Drugs as liberty-reduction methods).

September 23, 2009

Information is data, but data is not information

Filed under: Liberty, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:12

Wired obtained several hundred pages of information through a Freedom of Information Act query relating to internal surveillance of Americans by the FBI — including information from hotels, car rental agencies, and at least one department store chain:

A fast-growing FBI data-mining system billed as a tool for hunting terrorists is being used in hacker and domestic criminal investigations, and now contains tens of thousands of records from private corporate databases, including car-rental companies, large hotel chains and at least one national department store, declassified documents obtained by Wired.com show.

Headquartered in Crystal City, Virginia, just outside Washington, the FBI’s National Security Branch Analysis Center (NSAC) maintains a hodgepodge of data sets packed with more than 1.5 billion government and private-sector records about citizens and foreigners, the documents show, bringing the government closer than ever to implementing the “Total Information Awareness” system first dreamed up by the Pentagon in the days following the Sept. 11 attacks.

Such a system, if successful, would correlate data from scores of different sources to automatically identify terrorists and other threats before they could strike. The FBI is seeking to quadruple the known staff of the program.

The last paragraph needs a bit of analysis . . . because just adding more data won’t “automatically” do any good for domestic security or individual privacy. There was no lack of data on the 9/11 terrorists: if anything, there was too much data. Data is useless until it is corelated with other data to form actual information, a pattern of data that shows something of interest. The various intelligence-gathering arms of the US government already gather lots and lots of data, but they haven’t always been able to turn that collection of raw data into useful information . . . at least, not in a timely fashion.

Opsahl cites a October 2008 National Research Council paper that concluded that data mining is a dangerous and ineffective way to identify potential terrorists, which will inevitably generate false positives that subject innocent citizens to invasive scrutiny by their government.

At the same time, Opsahl admits the NSAC is not at the moment the Orwellian system that TIA would have been.

Those false positives may be enough to disrupt the private lives of many Americans and non-citizen residents, because everyone still has things about them they don’t particularly want to be broadcast to the world. Many employers reconsider their employees who are deemed to be “of interest” to the government, leading to potential loss of employment, diminished opportunities for promotion, or other less obvious but still negative consequences. Having “nothing to hide” is no defence . . . in fact, it may make things tougher — if they don’t find anything obvious, they may decide to dig deeper, creating more disruption.

Of course, things could always be worse: the EU is busy working towards their own Precrime database. (Obscure reference explanation.)

September 18, 2009

We’ve gone far past the “let the punishment fit the crime” stage

Filed under: Law, Liberty — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:27

A very disturbing post at Classically Liberal that I urge you to read:

What was once considering a normal rite of passage, typical curiosity that the newly sexualized young have about themselves, their bodies, and the bodies of others, has become a heinous crime. Not long ago a curious adolescent or child, caught exploring, or playing doctor in the back yard, was given a talking-to, sent to bed early, and warned to not do it again — a warning most heeded for at least another few years, after which time warnings were useless. Today, it has been criminalized, and criminalized in a way far exceeding crimes of violence. A youth who has sex with another youth, even if voluntary, could well face legal sentences far worse than if they had killed their friend.

The absurdity of charging a teenager with statutory rape for having sex with another teenager (and sometimes even charging each partner for victimizing the other) shouldn’t need to be discussed — it’s flat-out insane for the legal system to be involved in the vast majority of these cases. They shouldn’t even be cases!

It is literally true that a teen would be punished far less severely for murder than for consensual sexual contact with another teen. A murderer, after a trial is sentenced to a term in prision (with the possibility of parole/early release in many cases). After being released from prison, they’ve “paid their debt to society” and at least in theory can try to resume a normal life.

Someone who gets caught up in the “sexual offender” category will be punished for the rest of his or her life: once their names go on the official register, they will never, ever, be free again. They can’t work in any job that might mean contact with the general public (if they can even get hired at all). They can’t live within arbitrary distances of schools, playgrounds, or other areas where children might gather . . . which in practice means they can’t legally live anywhere.

How is this in any way proportional to the “crime”? How can this be called “justice”?

September 16, 2009

Latest brain fart from the British government

Filed under: Britain, Liberty, Technology — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:54

Cory Doctorow sent a Twitter message yesterday, linking to the OpenRightsGroup.org petition page:

The freedom for each and everyone of us to express our views on the internet is under threat like never before. The UK government is now considering laws that would allow individuals to be cut off from the internet. They say the reason is to protect the economic prosperity of the creative industries.

Our coalition comprises organisations, charities and people who believe disconnection from the internet would mean that people like us would be unable to engage in banking, socialising, campaigning, home admin and many other activities that are increasingly moving online. Worse, disconnection would restrict our long standing right of freedom of expression just at the time when we all need to be able to critique and engage more than ever.

If Lord Mandelson’s plan becomes law, disconnection may start for copyright infringement, with no guarantee it would not be extended for other things.

You don’t have to have much imagination to come up with lots of ways this little policy initiative could go pear-shaped very quickly. Pear-shaped, that is, for the poor folks caught up in the legal machinery. ASBOs were a terrible notion — and appear to be worse in practice than anyone thought when they were first introduced, but they’ll pale into insignificance if this horrible idea gets accepted by the government.

September 2, 2009

QotD: Section 13 violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Liberty, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:54

I have determined that Mr. Lemire contravened s. 13 of the Act in only one of the instances alleged by Mr. Warman, namely the AIDS Secrets article. However, I have also concluded that s. 13(1) in conjunction with ss. 54(1) and (1.1) are inconsistent with s. 2(b) of the Charter, which guarantees the freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression. The restriction imposed by these provisions is not a reasonable limit within the meaning of s. 1 of the Charter. Since a formal declaration of invalidity is not a remedy available to the Tribunal (see Cuddy Chicks Ltd. V. Ontario (Labour Relations Board), [1991] 2 S.C.R. 5), I will simply refuse to apply these provisions for the purposes of the complaint against Mr. Lemire and I will not issue any remedial order against him (see Nova Scotia (Workers’ Compensation Board) v. Martin, 2003 SCC 54 at paras. 26-7).

Athanasios D. Hadjis, Canadian Human Rights Tribunal decision in Warman vs. Lemire, 2009-09-02

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