Tag: You’re Doing it Right

Citizen Patrol Aimed at Defending Against Police Shootings

Neighborhood watch, as it currently exist in the United State, is a concept born of the rape and murder of Kitty Genovese. The watches were created in response to the lack of intervention from onlookers of the crime. Today there are still groups of individuals who patrol their neighborhoods in the hopes of preventing crime. But there is one crime most neighborhood watches fail to consider. Shooting by the largest violent gang operating in our neighborhoods, the police, often go unchallenged by neighborhood watches. A group of individuals in Dallas are looking to change that. They have established a neighborhood watch expressly for the purpose of protecting the people from the police:

A new group calling itself the Huey P. Newton Gun Club launched armed self-defense patrols Wednesday with one stated purpose: to protect Dallas neighbors from police.

Group leader Charles Goodson said recent unrest in Ferguson, Missouri over the killing of an unarmed black teen named Michael Brown by a white police officer is only part of the reason for the new Dallas patrols.

The group is named after Huey P. Newton, a founder of the Black Panther Party in the 1960s who was killed by a rival militant in 1989.

“We don’t think that what happened to Michael Brown in St. Louis is an isolated incident. We have so many Michael Browns here in the city of Dallas,” Goodson said.

Another leader, Huby Freeman, said the group wants to educate neighbors about the right to bear arms and the need for it.

“We believe we can police ourselves and bring security to our community, ridding our community of black-on-black crime, violence, police terror, etc., etc.,” Freeman said.

Police brutality is a major problem in this country and it’s nice to see people looking for a solution other than begging the state to be a little less vicious. It’s unfortunate but police officers are unlikely to face consequences for committing acts of murder. Even if evidence against an officer is damning it’s common for him or her to receive a paid vacation and then get reinstated once the media is no longer covering the event. Once in a great while an officer will get fired from the department but that’s a rare enough occurrence to almost be relegated for folklore.

Who watches the watchmen? In most cases nobody. But if this idea takes off there could be watchmen overseeing the watchmen and that could decrease police brutality. If nothing else it would be nice if there were neighborhood watches that would intervene when police officers decided to go all ‘roid rage on somebody.

Real Heroes

Tor is a great tool for those in need of anonymity online. But online anonymity is something spy agencies don’t like because it makes their job much harder. Therefore it seems highly probable that agents within the National Security Agency (NSA) are actively investing resources into compromising Tor. In fact all evidence indicates the agency, and other spy agencies, are doing exactly that. Thankfully evidence also indicates that there are real heroes working within those agencies to undermine such efforts:

British and American intelligence agents attempting to hack the “dark web” are being deliberately undermined by colleagues, it has been alleged.

Spies from both countries have been working on finding flaws in Tor, a popular way of anonymously accessing “hidden” sites.

But the team behind Tor says other spies are tipping them off, allowing them to quickly fix any vulnerabilities.

While the leviathan that is government is powerful it is also composed of people, many of whom have a conscience. Because of this many of the government’s nefarious acts are undermined by people within itself. If the NSA is attempting to compromise Tor then it’s very likely some of its agents are anonymously tipping off Tor’s developers, which renders the NSA’s overall efforts futile.

These are real heroes who should be celebrated. They actively put themselves at risk to fight against the illegal government activities and therefore make the world a better, and safer, place.

Armslist.com not Responsible for Murder Committed with Weapon Obtained via Site

There has been a lawsuit open against Armslist.com because an individual obtained a weapon from a person who advertised it on the site and used it to commit murder. Much to the dismay of gun control advocates Armslist.com has been declared not responsible for what happened:

The case decided Tuesday by the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals concerns a woman murdered in 2011 with a .40-caliber handgun that a Seattle man advertised on Armslist for $400. A Canadian man bought the weapon.

Demetry Smirnov, the gun purchaser, murdered Jitka Vesel in Chicago with that weapon after an online romance soured. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison. The man who sold him the gun, Benedict Ladera, was handed a year in jail for illegally selling the firearm, as federal regulations prohibit the transfer of weapons to people in another state or country, the appeals court said.

There is no other way this case could have been ruled in a logical universe. It isn’t possible for one individual to know the intent of another individual just like it is impossible for a third-party to know the intent of two individuals who happen to use its services. Claiming that Armslist.com was responsible for what happened would be no different than claiming Google was responsible for a murder because the weapon used was traded between two individuals via Gmail.

Of course there are a lot of gun control advocates who believe otherwise. Their belief stems solely from the fact that they want to see fire and brimstone brought down upon anybody who is in any way involved with a firearm (except for their armed guards, of course). There is no logical argument for such a position though, it’s merely the product of a desire for petty hatred. Fortunately the 7th Us Circuit Court of Appeals understood this and save another business from unnecessary legal burden.

Tesla Taking Car Security Seriously

One of the neat and odd things I saw in the Defcon vendor area was a Tesla car. This is especially true when talks about hacking cars are given regularly:

The guys in that video are awesome presenters by the way. As it turns out Tesla was at Defcon preciously because it doesn’t want to be featured in one of these videos:

Tesla is one of the only household corporate names with an official presence this year at Def Con, an annual security conference held in Las Vegas, where attendees try to hack the hotel elevators and press room. The company is here courting hackers who can help it find holes in the software that controls its cars. It’s looking to hire 20 to 30 security researchers from Def Con alone, Ms. Paget says. Moreover, hackers who report bugs to Tesla get a platinum-colored “challenge coin.” If they show up at a Tesla factory and give the security team a heads-up, they get a free tour.

This is something I’m happy to read about. Computer security in the automotive industry, like the medical industry, is seldom considered. I’m not surprised by this fact since security costs time and money, which means it’s only considered after products have been fallen to widespread exploitation. Your computer and smartphone are only as security as they are (which isn’t to say they’re very secure but they are veritable fortresses compared to systems from earlier days) is because corporate and personal computers have been the targets of an almost uncountable number of exploits. Each industry seems destined to experience these same mistakes instead of learning from other industries that have already done so. Tesla, on the other hand, is acting more like a smartphone company in this regard by taking security seriously enough to hire people dedicated to ensuring its cars’ computers are at least somewhat secure.

This will pay off in the long run for Tesla. As vehicles become more integrated with technology they are going to become bigger targets for malicious attackers. If automotive manufacturers don’t nip this in the bud now they’re going to suffer many years of lawsuits related to their lack of on-board computer security.

Great Organic Fair Trade Conflict-Free Product For Sale

I must say that I love the Internet. If there is a want out there somebody on the Internet will eventually serve it. For example:

At the more extreme end of socially progressive marketing strategies used by online dealers are those that involve the promotion of drugs on the basis of supposedly “ethical”, “fair trade”, “organic” or “conflict-free” sources of supply.

The story is talking about cocaine and opium, not coffee. This shouldn’t surprise anybody since hipsters need their fix as well. I’m greatly amused by the fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) managed to shutdown the original Silk Road and were rewarded by a notable increase in website selling unpatentable drugs. Now the online drug dealers are marketing to hipsters, which probably means they are making a nice premium (if Whole Foods is any indicator hipsters are willing to pay quite a bit more for the same product with the words “fair trade”, “organic”, or “conflict-free” on the label).

Hidden services have no only reduced violence in the drug trade but now they’re ensuring more drug users’ needs are met.

You Can’t Stop the Signal

The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) really though it was hot shit after shutting down the original Silk Road. But the Internet doesn’t take kindly to censorship and markets cannot be stifled. Since the original Silk Road was taken down others have popped up to replace it. And online advertisements for unpatentable drugs have actually increased:

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) closed down the original online illegal drug market, Silk Road, in 2013.

But new figures suggest the trade has actually increased since then.

And other research indicates one in four British drug users has accessed hidden websites.

This is a beautiful thing. Silk Road, in addition to providing for the wants of drug consumers, also reduced the amount of violence in the drug trade. Nobody should be surprised by this since violence is much harder to perpetrate when both parties in a transaction are anonymous. It’s also much harder for the biggest perpetrators of violence in the drug trade, the police, to storm the homes and kill the dogs of drug consumers if they cannot identify them.

It’s always nice to see the state’s control slipping through its fingers. The war on unpatentable drugs is untenable because markets always win. Agorism is such a powerful tool against the state precisely because it relies on markets, which are the manifestation of human action.

San Diego Police Department’s Ploy to Bypassed Strip Club’s Cover Charge Results in Lawsuit

There are so many excellent jokes that could be made from this article:

Nothing screams “fuck the police” quite as much as a few dozen strippers slapping the San Diego Police Department with a fat lawsuit this month. The suit refers to an incident back in March, when ten police officers—who were armed and wearing raid vests—busted into Cheetahs Gentlemen’s Club in San Diego and allegedly harassed the strippers for nearly two hours. The media has made this out to seem like an isolated incident, but this kind of behavior is pretty standard for the SDPD’s vice unit, which is the law enforcement equivalent of a bunch of party-hungry frat bros.

[…]

Brittany Murphy is a dancer at Cheetahs who told me that the police raid left her feeling “creeped out” and “humiliated.” Murphy doesn’t have any tattoos, but the officers insisted on taking photos of her anyway. She was wearing the outfit she wears when she dances: two sheer leotards layered on top of each other.

“The flash was going off, and I’m sure they could see my nipples,” she told me. “I mean, I am a stripper, but… there were girls ahead of me who were saying, ‘Do you have to do this?’ and the police officers, like, reached for their gun holsters, in a threatening way. Like, what are you going to do, shoot her if she doesn’t take semi-naked photos?”

Another San Diego club, Exposé, reported similar harassment from the police during an inspection, and now 30 strippers from both clubs are suing the SDPD for violating their Fourth Amendment rights.

But I think I’ll take the high road and discuss the irony in this paragraph:

The vice unit is a special division of the police force that maintains regulatory control over “morality crimes” like underage drinking and prostitution. Vice detectives basically spend their week attending peep shows and strip clubs, hanging out in bars, searching for prostitutes on Craigslist, and cruising down El Cajon Boulevard, San Diego’s famous hangout for hookers.

Having police enforce “morality crimes” is kind of like having foxes guard hen houses. Modern policing is about the most amoral thing there is. They wield civil forfeiture laws to steal property from people who haven’t even been convicted of a crime, shoot family pets during no-knock raids, beat people whose skin contains a bit too much melanin, expropriate wealth from motorists, and otherwise be amoral individuals. Unlike police officers, strippers provide a service that people voluntarily pay them for. If anything the strippers should be overseeing police departments. This country has it all backwards.

Something to Get the Neocon’s Panties in a Bunch

If there are two things neocons hate it’s people who don’t show blind obedience to the state and people who don’t fit the traditional Christian idea of gender and sexuality. Fortunately the universe hates neocons and therefore trolls the living shit out of them from time to time:

Defence secretary Chuck Hagel has approved gender treatment for Pte First Class Manning, who was formerly known as Bradley.

The move came after the bureau of prisons rejected the Army’s request to transfer her from a military facility.

Needless to say this has some of my neocon acquaintance very upset because, you see, “Our tax dollars are paying for this!” Of course the very people bitching about our tax dollars going to provide Chelsea her treatment are the ones who demanded the situation be created in the first place. When Chelsea did the world a huge favor by making public the war crimes being committed by the United States military it was the neocons who were the loudest in demanding her head. Well they got exactly what they wanted. She’s will be rotting in a cage for 35 years, which makes her medical needs the state’s responsibility.

Maybe if those neocons had recognized Chelsea’s act for what it was, a necessary release of information needed to keep the military honest, they wouldn’t have demanded this very situation be created.

I can’t even begin to express how happy this decision makes me. If for no other reason then it jabs those neocon fuckwits in the side for demanding she be punished for doing the right thing. While this isn’t justice it’s at least something.

Suddenly Everything Changed in Washington DC

It’s amazing how quickly things can change. Last week a federal judge ruled that Washington DC’s ban on carrying a firearm was unconstitutional. That was a surprising ruling in of itself but most people, myself included, expected that the Washington DC police would simply ignore the ruling. In another surprising turn of events the Washington DC Police Chief has ordered his soldiers to not arrest people who are lawfully carrying within the city’s borders:

As of 6:24 p.m. on July 27, 2014, this is a welcome development. Many have said that the D.C. political establishment will ignore the judges order. This shows that Police Chief Lanier is, at minimum, unwilling to be found in contempt. Notice the broad extent of the order: no arrests for a person who can legally carry a gun in D.C. or any State.

Mind you I wouldn’t want to be a guinea pig because I’m not convinced that the DC police will actually leave people carrying within the city alone. But the fact that the city’s Police Chief ordered his troops not to is pretty shocking on its own.

I wonder how long it will be until the city finds a way to reimplement a ban that meets the arbitrary requirement of constitution.

More Democracy

Somebody started a campaign to put a meaningless item on the ballot in California. That meaningless item is a proposal to split California into six states:

SAN FRANCISCO — A plan backed by venture capitalist Tim Draper to split California into six states has gained enough signatures to make the November 2016 ballot, the plan’s backers say.

A Twitter account belonging to the nonprofit Six Californias tweeted on Monday that “#SixCalifornias will be submitting signatures in Sacramento tomorrow for placement on the November 2016 ballot. Stay tuned for coverage!”

On Tuesday, Draper told USA Today the campaign had garnered 1.3 million signatures, well over the approximately 808,000 needed.

I say that the ballot item is meaningless because even if it does pass the California and federal government will never allow it to happen. But that hasn’t stopped people from getting their panties in a bunch over this. Not surprisingly lovers of democracy have demonstrated once again that they will only love so much democracy because the biggest debate surrounding this proposal is the fact that it would create 10 new senators. This is apparently bad because, well, I don’t fucking know.

I just don’t understand most advocates of democracy. They spend a lot of time talking about the need for choices to vote for but when you give them a lot of choices they complain. When Minneapolis had 35 mayoral candidates people started bitching because there were too many and demanded that the filing fee be increased to $500.00. People here are also bitching about the governor race. As it turns out the fact that the Independence Party has fielded a candidate has pissed off a lot of people because they only want a choice between a Democrat or a Republican. Again, they spend a lot of time talking about the need for choices but when they get choices they complain.

Now a proposal that would create 10 new senators is being put to a vote and fans of democracy are again complaining… because it would create more senators. I guess this could tip the scale of balance between the two party facade in this country or something. Like I said, I don’t understand it. What I do understand is that everybody loves democracy so long as the only choices available are the choices they personally approve of.

In regards to the proposal itself I think it falls a bit short. I believe California should be split up into approximately 38.04 million separate states. But cutting it into six is a start.