Quotulatiousness

August 11, 2011

You have to wonder why it took them this long

Filed under: Law, Media, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:20

The New York City police department announced that it’s setting up a group to monitor Facebook, Twitter, and other social media in order to detect criminals who are stupid enough to boast about their crimes online:

According to The New York Daily News, freshly-appointed assistant commissioner Kevin O’Connor — styled as the NYPD’s “online and gang guru” — will head the new unit, which will trawl Web 2.0 for information on “troublesome house parties, gang showdowns, and other potential mayhem”.

The idea is to pinpoint net-savvy un-savvy juveniles who divulge their criminal plans on the web or boast about crimes already committed. You might think of them as Idiots 2.0.

In his former post with a north Manhattan gang unit, O’Connor apparently tapped the net for vital information on “a number” of shooting cases. In March, the Daily News says, the NYPD nabbed an eighteen-year-old who was part of a fatal beating after he boasted about the killing on Facebook.

Everything you need to know about the typical UK looter

Filed under: Britain, Law — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:12

… is contained in this Guardian article about the “fast track justice” system being used to process the arrestees:

One of the people dealt with by the court overnight included a woman with 96 previous convictions for theft who pleaded guilty to stealing alcohol, cigarettes and mobile phone accessories.

Linda Boyd, 31, was one of a series of defendants who appeared before Manchester magistrates court, which sat late into the night on Wednesday.

The court heard that she was drunk and had found an orange bin liner filled with the stolen goods in Manchester city centre, and began dragging it away, intending to share it with friends.

Her case was adjourned until 16 August, when she will be sentenced at Manchester crown court. Boyd stalked from the glass-walled dock telling the district judge who presided over the magistrates court to “go away, shut up.”

Yes, you did read that right, “a woman with 96 previous convictions for theft” was one of the people arrested in the aftermath of a night of rioting. That was 96 convictions, not arrests or charges. That’s an example of the sort of people who were delighted to discover that the police weren’t cracking down on vandalism or looting, and decided to get in on the act.

July 28, 2011

Is Breivik sane enough to prosecute?

Filed under: Europe, Law, Media — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:20

Douglas Murray points out that Breivik’s actions even before the attacks would have marked him as insane:

Anders Behring Breivik believed himself a Knight Templar and awarded himself various military ranks accordingly. He also believed that he and other self-described Islamophobic racists had common cause with jihadis and that the USA has a Jewish problem. So even before he planted a car bomb in a civilian area and gunned down scores of young people, it would have been clear to anyone who bothered to question him that Breivik was insane.

Of course, no discussion of the Oslo massacre is complete without considering the media reaction:

But in the coverage since his atrocities first broke on to the world, two troubling tendencies have converged. The first is the search for reason in a mind that was clearly a stranger to it. The second is the tendency — particularly strong on the left — to use any horrific act as a megaphone for existing prejudices. In the aftermath of the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford in January, the left-wing media and politicians hunted for the right-wingers who they claimed had inspired the attack. That the gunman was not only a loner but a psychotic maniac was largely ignored as they rushed off excitedly to attack their ideological enemies. And so it is with Breivik.

For the past decade and more, every time an Islamist has blown something up, a chorus of voices — mainly from the left — has rightly said that ‘we shouldn’t jump to any conclusions’. But this time it was different. The Labour MP Tom Harris observed, with great frankness, that a ‘palpable relief that swept through the left when the identity of the terrorist was made known… Here, thank God, was a terrorist we can all hate without equivocation: white, Christian and far right-wing. Phew.’ So never mind not jumping to conclusions. When it seemed to emerge that, among many other things, the killer also claimed to be opposed to immigration and was fearful of Islam, that jump became a great leap towards group blame.

July 21, 2011

This is why the British media is wall-to-wall Murdochmania

Filed under: Britain, Law, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:28

Andrew Orlowski explains how the show trial of Rupert Murdoch has sucked the oxygen out of every other story in the British media:

For the past fortnight, TV and newspaper editors in the UK have pushed aside stories of famine and the European financial crisis — which is greater now than the credit crunch three years ago — in favour of saturation coverage of the troubles of a rival media company.

This rival has real troubles, to be sure, which I will not attempt to diminish. But the volume and intensity of coverage is defined by the real size and reach of News Corporation. And this is not reality, but a myth. Just as children want a Santa, so too do editors and Prime Ministers want a “Murdoch” that resembles the omniscient movie villain/myth Keyser Soze. They’ve defined themselves by this myth.

“Never again should we let a media group get too powerful,” PM David Cameron said today, tuning in to the editors’ mood music. But like so many politicians before him, and specifically the past two Prime Ministers, he has done everything he could to bolster the Murdoch Myth himself. For most of the past two decades, politicians have tugged their forelocks at the Aussie-born tycoon, increasing his perceived influence with each pull.

Haven’t they got the memo about Old Media being dead? Why are they so worried?

July 18, 2011

“We used to talk to career criminals all the time. They were our sources”

Filed under: Britain, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:15

A look inside the News of the World newsroom before the closure:

“It was the kind of place you get out of and you never want to go back again.” That’s how one former reporter describes the News of the World newsroom under editor Rebekah Brooks, the ferociously ambitious titian-haired executive who ran Britain’s top-selling Sunday tabloid from 2000 to 2003.

Journalists who worked there in that period describe an industrialized operation of dubious information-gathering, reporters under intense pressure attempting to land exclusive stories by whatever means necessary, and a culture of fear, cynicism, gallows humor and fierce internal competition.

“We used to talk to career criminals all the time. They were our sources,” says another former reporter from the paper who also worked for Murdoch’s daily tabloid, the Sun. “It was a macho thing: ‘My contact is scummier than your contact.’ It was a case of: ‘Mine’s a murderer!’ On the plus side, we always had a resident pet nutter around in case anything went wrong.”

Moral outrage is a bad source of legislative impetus

Filed under: Law, Media, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:53

Steve Chapman attempts to explain why the multiple “Caylee’s Law” proposals in many state legislatures are uniformly bad ideas that will become bad laws:

It was once suggested, as a general rule of staying alive, never to fly on an airline named after a state or the owner. As a general rule of sound government, it’s also a good idea never to enact a law named after a person. Personalizing criminal law usually stems from fruitless outrage at a freakish event.

Plenty of legislators are ignoring that risk. Their proposals, all going by the name “Caylee’s Law,” are an understandable response to the acquittal of Casey Anthony of killing her 2-year-old daughter. Swearing when you stub your toe is also understandable, which doesn’t mean it will do your toe the slightest good.

[. . .]

Targeting parents who fail to report missing kids on a government-approved schedule will probably accomplish nothing useful. Conscientious adults with grounds for concern already call the cops. But the change would burden police with trivial cases that would soon resolve themselves.

Already kids are reported missing at the rate of more than half a million a year, usually because they run away or neglect to tell parents where they are. A 2002 Justice Department study noted that “all but a very small percentage are recovered fairly quickly.”

But a mother whose son has a habit of absconding and reappearing could go to prison for exercising sensible patience. A divorced dad whose ex-wife gets angry when he’s tardy returning the kids from a weekend outing could give new meaning to “custodial parent.”

July 1, 2011

Canadian and US judicial differences

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:49

Conrad Black, who is now very well-versed in the oddities of American court practices, contrasts them with their Canadian equivalents:

This brings me, most happily, to the subject of Canada Day, 2011. I regret to have to write that I have also discovered in this mundane Odyssey that Canada, too, has its share of obtuse judges. But it does not actively encourage pre-trial media lynchings; requires a plausible test before charges are laid and not just the mockery of the grand jury; has reasonably even and impartial procedural rules; the defence speaks last in trials; acquittals are not immediately reversible for sentencing purposes; few prosecutors revert to the private sector in Canada, and very few become politicians; and most judges are not, as they are in the United States, ex-prosecutors. And in Canada, the prison and prosecution industry is not a Frankenstein Monster that incarcerates 1% of all adults as in the United States (only about one-sixth of that, in Canada), or more African-Americans of university age than there are in university, as in the United States. And in Canada, the number of people with “a record,” (even if for impaired driving 10 years ago, or being disorderly at a fraternity party 30 years ago), is not 15% of the entire population, as it is in the United States (47 million people, none of whom is eligible, for that reason, to enter Canada, even on a family holiday to look at the Calgary Stampede).

Canada is not a prosecutocracy amok in a carceral state, and the United States, no matter how fervently tens of millions of Americans may stand, hand over heart, singing their splendid anthems on Monday, is. Above all other things, if I were in Canada this weekend, and a Canadian citizen, I would celebrate the country’s good fortune in having 33 million relatively well-adjusted people in a mighty treasure house of a country, a steadily more geopolitically enviable condition as the developing world, led by China, India, Indonesia, and Brazil, four of the five most populous countries, with 40% of the world’s population, consistently put up six to 10% annual economic growth rates, and buy Canada’s resources. Canadians can also celebrate their good fortune that there was never an economic justification for slavery in Canada; that its only close neighbour has not been militarily aggressive, and that it has the official languages of two of the world’s very greatest cultures.

June 30, 2011

Does exposure to porn increase the incidence of rape?

Filed under: Law, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 14:54

In brief, it appears not:

But while theorising is all very well, it is necessary occasionally to fine-tune such theories by looking at the empirical evidence. And the most obvious fact about porn and rape is that reported rape incidence — at least in the United States, where a National Crime Victimization Survey takes place every year — has been falling in recent decades as porn becomes ever more available.

[. . .]

Now yes, it is absolutely true that correlation and causation are not the same thing. But at first glance we’d have a hard time claiming that the greater availability of porn led to more rapes: simply because there are fewer rapes reported while there’s definitely more porn.

[. . .]

In D’Amato’s paper, he uses Freakonomics-style statistics (one of his colleagues wrote the Freakonomics abortion and crime paper with Levitt) to try to tease out evidence of something more than just correlation.

What he found is that the lower the internet penetration in 2004 in a US state, the higher the rape rate had risen and that the higher the internet penetration, the lower rate had fallen.

We expect, for those societal reasons, that the reported rape rate will have risen over the time period. And where there’s no or limited internet access, it has. Where there is high internet access it has fallen, the fall being greater than the general societal rise.

Thus we have an empirical connection between internet access and lower rape figures. Whether it’s porn or not is a different matter: they could all be playing Second Life instead. An unlikely way to bet though really.

June 28, 2011

When headline writers go feral, or a typical day at The Register

Filed under: Law, Media, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:44

I mean, really. How else can you describe an article headlined like this:

Drunken bust-up woman sprays cops with breast milk
Ohio jub juice bandit faces substantial rack of charges

An Ohio woman is facing a substantial rack of charges after allegedly getting drunk at a wedding reception, assaulting her husband and then spraying cops with breast milk.

Stephanie Robinette, 30, (pictured) was cuffed in the early hours of Saturday morning outside a banqueting hall in Westville. Delaware County sheriff’s deputies responded to a call that she was having a bit of a ding-dong with her other half.

Having allegedly whacked her husband various times, an “intoxicated” Robinette locked herself in their car, and refused to get out when officers moved in with the cuffs.

According to the Columbus Dispatch, Robinette loudly declared she was a breastfeeding mother, “removed her right breast from her dress and began spraying deputies and the car with her breast milk”.

The Daily Mail tries to drum up moral outrage (again)

Filed under: Britain, Law, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:23

Patrick Hayes views with disdain the latest Freedom of Information trolling exercise performed by the Daily Mail in an attempt to spice up their “news” coverage:

Is Britain in the grip of a hidden crimewave? Are thousands of crimes being committed each year by feral youths, which the police know about but are powerless to prevent? Is Britain being stalked by troublemaking toddlers, committing vandalism with no comeuppance for their ‘crimes’ because of their tender age?

In a word, no. Though you’d never know that by reading yesterday’s hysterical news reports. ‘As many as 3,000 criminals, including rapists, robbers and burglars, escaped punishment last year because they were too young to be prosecuted’, declared the Daily Mail. The paper published the results of a pretty shameless trawling exercise, having placed Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to police forces around Britain about underage crime. It managed to dredge up various accounts of childish ‘criminal’ activity, including a ‘rape’ in Levenmouth committed by two eight-year-old boys, a ‘kidnapping’ in Rochdale also carried out by an eight-year-old, and a ‘spate of vandalism’ conducted by a three-year-old boy and four-year-old girl.

The Mail received responses to its FOI request from 30 out of 52 police forces, discovering that ‘1,605 crimes were blamed on someone aged under 10 in the last financial year’. Guestimating how many crimes might have been committed by kids in those parts of Britain policed by the 22 forces that did not respond to its requests, it came up with a total of 3,000 offences. And rather than caution its readers that these figures only cover accusations of a crime, rather than guilt having been proven, the Mail implies its findings could be the tip of the iceberg: ‘Many police forces do not even record crimes where they believe youngsters under 10 have been responsible.’

June 25, 2011

Reason.TV reporter arrested for “disorderly conduct” and “trespassing”

Filed under: Government, Law, Liberty, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:15

June 20, 2011

Radley Balko dispels a few myths about the justice system

Filed under: Law, Liberty, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:50

In his new column at the Huffington Post, Radley Balko discusses some common myths in US criminal justice:

Myth 1: You Can’t Be Tried More Than Once For The Same Crime

The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that no person shall “be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” This protection against “double jeopardy” is intended to prevent the government from retrying the same defendant over and over until prosecutors can get a conviction.

But there are some exceptions. First, the protection only comes into play once a jury has convicted or acquitted a defendant. So in trials that end with a hung jury or a mistrial, the prosecution can usually bring the same charges again. One particularly egregious example is Curtis Flowers of Mississippi, who has been tried an incredible six times for the murder of four people in 1996.

Second, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the government can charge a defendant with both a crime and the conspiracy to commit that crime without violating the constitutional prohibition on double jeopardy. This gives the government two opportunities to convict for is essentially the same offense. Conspiracy is often easier to prove than the underlying crime. It also gives prosecutors a way to rope in alleged offenses they can no longer charge separately due to statutes of limitations.

Finally, there is the “separate sovereigns” exception to double jeopardy. This allows a defendant to be tried, convicted and sentenced for the same crime in both state and federal court. The most well-known example of the separate sovereigns exception is when the Los Angeles police officers who beat Rodney King were acquitted in state court, then convicted in federal court of violating King’s civil rights.

June 18, 2011

Is it right to name and shame the Vancouver “fans”?

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Liberty, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:08

Ken at Popehat discusses the charges that outing the misbehaving fans on Facebook is somehow “vigilantism”:

Vigilantism: Exposing people to the social consequences of their misbehavior is not vigilantism. Subjecting them to physical danger is. That’s why decent people involved in this process don’t post home addresses or phone numbers, and delete them when they are posted.

Proportionality: The proportionality argument is at least somewhat misguided. First of all, bad behavior doesn’t go viral on the internet unless it’s really notable. Garden-variety assholes don’t get top Google ranking. You’ve got to be somewhat epic to draw this modern infamy — by, say, being a water polo star on a scholarship trying to torch a cop car because your hockey team lost. Second, lack of proportionality is self-correcting. If conduct is actually just not that bad, then future readers who Google a bad actor’s name will review the evidence and say “meh, that’s not so bad. Everyone acts up now and then.” Saying that bad behavior should not be easily accessible on the internet is an appeal for enforced ignorance, a request for a news blackout. It’s saying, in effect, I’m more wise and measured than all the future people who might read about this; they can’t be trusted to evaluate this person’s actions in the right light, like I can.

“They Just Made A Mistake”: The argument that bad actors shouldn’t become infamous because they “just made a mistake” is a riff on proportionality. The same criticisms apply: it takes a hell of a mistake to go viral, and future viewers can make up their own minds. Plus, this argument is often sheer bullshit. Trying to torch a cop car because your hockey team lost is not a mere faux pas; normal and decent people don’t do it.

June 12, 2011

QotD: A scene from an Australian National Park

Filed under: Australia, Bureaucracy, Environment, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:53

A few years ago, two National Park rangers were doing a similar service while assorted tourists looked on and took their happy-snaps. The birds, whatever they were, had moved along the road a few yards when a dingo walked out of the long grass, killed one and started to stalk the remainder.

The two Rangers became embroiled in an ideological argument as to which protected specie was to be left alone. The tourists, appalled at the slaughter, then chased the dingo away. The Rangers were instantly reconciled and started issuing citations to the offending tourists for trespassing in a National Park, threatening protected species, obstructing traffic, affray, foul language etc. The tourists were told their cars could be impounded and all, eventually, got court summonses. Fines were levied and they were warned that the offences potentially carried jail time.

One disgruntled victim opined that he should have run over the Rangers and the birds. This was overheard by ‘authority’ and he was hauled into court again.

Visitor numbers at the National Park declined dramatically.

Roger Henry, posting to Railroad_Modeling_Still_Makes_Me_Grumpy@yahoogroups.com, 2011-06-11

June 6, 2011

SlutWalk arrives in Britain

Filed under: Britain, Liberty, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:32

Brendan O’Neill is not impressed with the SlutWalkers, calling them “the most anti-social sluts on earth”:

The most annoying thing about the SlutWalk phenomenon, which arrived in Britain at the weekend, is not its knowingly provocative name or even its attempt to make a serious political project of the frazzled Nineties pop trend of Girl Power (“I wear sexy stuff, therefore I am powerful!”). No, it is its inherently anti-social nature. These are the most anti-social sluts on earth. Where I grew up, the catty phrase “she enjoys the company of men” was often used as a euphemism for “slut”, but you could never say that of those taking part in SlutWalk. On the contrary, many of the SlutWalkers seem to see interaction with men — especially cocky, swaggering men — as a dangerous and risky thing, best avoided.

Of course, no one — except maybe Peter Sutcliffe — disagrees with SlutWalk’s spectacularly uncontroversial message that women should be free to dress as they please without getting raped. But it is quite different to expect to be able to dress as you please without attracting *any* attention from blokes. Yet that is what some SlutWalkers seem to be demanding: effectively the right to dress provocatively without ever being looked at, commented on, whistled at or spoken to by a member of the opposite sex. Unless such interaction is clearly solicited, of course.

[. . .]

The high-minded feminists who make up SlutWalk’s supporters and cheerleaders seem to want to opt out of this everyday social interaction, to dress as sluttishly as they like while also being surrounded by some magic forcefield, legally enforced perhaps, which protects them from any unwanted male gaze or whistle. They are prudes disguised as sluts, self-styled victims pretending to be vixens, astonishingly anti-social creatures who imagine it is possible to parade through society dressed outrageously without any member of that society ever making a comment about or to them. This is the highly individuated politics of fear — fear of men, fear of unplanned-for banter, fear of sexual licence — dressed up as radical feminism. But to update an old saying: no slut is an island.

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