Kickstarter For Hand-Drawn Video Game Manuals Shuts Down Due To IP Threat
from the book-burning dept
You may recall that about a year ago we discussed one man's attempt to digitize the game manuals for really old games. Notably, that project didn't appear to face any threats over copyright laws by the normal companies -- Nintendo, Konami, etc -- though that almost certainly was partially the result of the project not being a commercial endeavor, but a simple attempt at art preservation that would clearly be covered by fair use. But the overall point is that there is a thirst for this sort of thing, especially when you realize that some of these game manuals are endangered species, close to being lost for all eternity.
Well, apparently there is at least one company out there that is not so keen on letting something similar to that go forward if it means anyone is going to collect money over it. A Kickstarter for hand-drawn recreations of the sorts of video game guides that were popular decades ago, which far exceeded its initial goal, voluntarily shut itself down after facing unspecified legal threats.
Near the end of a staggeringly successful Kickstarter campaign, Hand-Drawn Game Guides was cancelled. Philip Summers, the individual behind this campaign, cancelled his Kickstarter due to legal pressure from unknown parties. In a statement released on Hand-Drawn Game Guides' Kickstarter, Summers says:
"Tonight I pulled the plug on the Hand-Drawn Game Guides Kickstarter. Yes, for exactly the reason you think it’s for. I had hoped that I could successfully navigate any legal trouble, but alas I wasn’t able to do so."
Summers made it clear elsewhere that none of this was unforeseen, nor is he particularly angry about it. The source of the legal threats was never specified, but it's clear that Summers is facing some kind of copyright or trademark threat by one of the gaming companies that owns the rights for the games he's creating new manuals/guides for. It could be one of many companies, of course, though it won't surprise regular readers here to learn that I very much suspect it's Nintendo. If it is, the company can certainly argue it has a valid copyright claim on these manuals, assuming it has the relevant IP rights for them. But, as is always the question, why does Nintendo or whichever company made these threats feel the need to go this route?
Summers started his campaign seeking $20k, but ended up amassing over $300k in pledges for the project, all for hand-drawn video game guides for very old games.
Summers' guides deal with IPs by Nintendo, including The Legend of Zelda and Metroid. Just recently, Nintendo issued a cease and desist for Metroid Prime 2D, a game starring Samus Aran and based on the Metroid series, and not long ago they hit The Legend of Zelda: The Missing Link a fan-game that bridged Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. Contra and Ninja Gaiden guides backers could have purchased, so legal pressure Konami, Koei Tecmo, or Nintendo is possible but not confirmed by any party. As we've seen previously, fan-made projects ending due to legal reasons is nothing new for the industry.
This campaign aimed to bring guides of retro video games to the masses, which were completely hand-drawn and went over the workings of each title. This included tips and tricks, maps of dungeons and other levels, and more.
If there is an actual threat in any of that to any of the named companies, I am failing to see it. Instead, I only see the desire for total control over intellectual property playing out in such a way so as to destroy an otherwise wildly successful Kickstarter by someone who is obviously a very big fan of retro video games and the guidebooks of the past. And if that doesn't sound like Nintendo, I don't know what does.
For now, Summers and his publisher are making it clear that the project isn't necessarily 100% dead, asking backers to stay tuned. But in the meantime, the funding for the Kickstarter has been canceled, all because someone had to kill the fun.
Filed Under: crowdfunding, hand drawn video game manuals, manuals, video games
Companies: kickstarter
Critics Of Patent Waivers Are Claiming They Were Right... Despite No Patent Waiver Actually Issuing Yet
from the say-what-now? dept
We were surprised, but pleased, when the US announced plans to support a patent waiver for COVID-19 treatments and vaccines (over Hollywood's strenuous objections). As you'll recall, the TRIPS agreement (an onerous, oppressive set of "intellectual property" rules that many countries have agreed to) includes a "waiver" process, in which the WTO will effectively waive international patent protection on certain patented items in an emergency situation. The COVID-19 crisis seemed to fit the exact intent of the waiver process, and yet there's been a lot of pushback from patent and copyright maximalists who hate the very idea of waiving copyright or patent monopoly rights on anything for any reason at all.
Many of those against the waiver insisted that their reason for being against the waiver is that it wasn't patents that were holding up vaccines and treatments, but larger supply chain issues. They ignore, of course, that some of those supply chain issues are also because of overly aggressive intellectual property laws, or that both things can be true. Either way, Michael Rosen, who insisted that a waiver was a terrible idea, has now penned a piece for The Hill insisting that his view has proved correct because the waiver process has done nothing to help deal with COVID-19.
Of course, the reason it's done nothing is because people like the author have been getting groups to protest the waiver and so it hasn't even been approved yet. I mean, the piece even admits that the problem here is not the waiver, so much as the slowness of the WTO in approving it.
... the WTO is uniquely unsuited to move quickly on the proposal given its bureaucratic and consensus-driven nature. Opposition to the waiver proposal in late July, primarily from the European Union (EU), has delayed further discussion until at least October, because “disagreement persisted on the fundamental question of what is the appropriate and most effective way to address the shortage and inequitable access to vaccines and other COVID-related products.” By the time the TRIPS waiver receives proper consideration, the Delta wave may have passed.
But... that's not an argument against the waiver. It's an argument for the WTO to get its shit together, and for people to stop trying to oppose the damn waiver.
The other two reasons Rosen gives are no better.
First, the suspension of intellectual property (IP) rights will not quickly deliver shots in arms in the developing world, as the past four months have amply shown.
No one is saying that's the only thing that needs to be done -- but, also, how the hell can you say that it won't deliver shots when the waiver still hasn't come to pass yet?!?
... generic manufacturers cannot simply flip a switch and begin producing doses; instead, they must master the formulation of complex compounds (some of which involve mRNA), and their medicines must undergo local regulatory scrutiny for safety and effectiveness.
Yeah. You know what would help them get the ball rolling so that they can get those processes up and running sooner? Not having to worry about bogus patent infringement claims.
> And, of course, this kind of thing wouldn't be complete without a bogus claim of the great innovation incentive that patents bring.
Finally, the suspension of vaccine-related IP rights fundamentally undermines the global innovation regime that brought us these miraculous drugs in the first place — wildly effective vaccines developed in absolute record time.
That's bullshit.
>The incentive to produce these vaccines was not patents, but saving the damn world.
> Second, the first of those vaccines, from Moderna, was developed in just two days because Chinese researchers uploaded the details of the coronavirus and made it openly available to researchers, rather than locking it up. In other words, it wasn't locking down information with patents that got us this vaccine, it was the opposite.
Filed Under: covid, ip waiver, patent waiver, patents, trips, vaccines, wto
Dallas PD Hid Massive Data Deletion For Months From City Officials, District Attorney's Office
from the how-many-terabytes-can-be-swept-under-a-rug? dept
No one does a coverup like a cop shop. When a bunch of data -- including criminal evidence -- was deleted, the Dallas, Texas city council was pretty much the last to know about it.
On March 31, a city IT employee accidentally deleted troves of police data while transferring it to a new server. The deletion could potentially impact prosecutors’ ability to try the corresponding criminal cases. Top city officials including Broadnax and Police Chief Eddie Garcia became aware of the deletion, if not its scale, in April. It’s only in the last two weeks that the City Council and Dallas County District Attorney’s office learned about it.
That update was published by Dallas Magazine on August 19. That means those who did know didn't tell their oversight for nearly four months. Some of this delay is almost explicable. Almost.
The Dallas PD originally thought it could recover the data, so the unexpected data deletion originally didn't seem like a big deal. All the same, it would have made sense to inform the PD's city oversight of the issue, just in case it turned out the data was lost for good.
This lack of communication -- one that also kept the District Attorney's office out of the loop -- led to a city council meeting where the phrases "in hindsight" and "in retrospect" were thrown around by police officials. Hindsight and retrospect are pretty much useless in situations like these. It only prevents them from offering the same excuses the next time it happens. And let's hope it doesn't, because "troves of police data" is an understatement.
City officials discovered an additional 15 terabytes of Dallas police evidence and files from the city secretary’s office were missing during its ongoing audit of a massive erroneous data deletion, according to emails obtained Monday by The Dallas Morning News.
The city also fired an information technology employee Friday in connection with the lost evidence, according to the emails.
The discovery brings the total loss of files, as of Monday, to about 22.5 terabytes. The audit was initiated this month after Dallas County prosecutors learned an information technology employee improperly moved police evidence from a storage cloud to a local server resulting in the permanent loss of about 7.5 terabytes of information in April.
About 14 terabytes have been recovered from the botched data migration. And some of the files lost during the move from cloud storage to physical storage belonged to the city secretary's office, which means this total includes files that didn't come from the Dallas PD.
Despite not knowing the extent of everything lost until just recently, the Dallas Police Chief felt confident enough to claim the lost data did not include evidence about crimes against people. But the Dallas DA -- rightfully -- isn't taking this statement at face value, considering the DA's office was one of the last parties informed about the data loss. Multiple cases are now under review to determine whether they're affected by the terabytes of data that are, so far, unrecoverable.
And that review process means the people tasked with taking criminals off the street are, for the time being, putting accused criminals back on the street.
A murder suspect was released from the Dallas County jail earlier this month because prosecutors said on the day of his trial that they needed more time to make sure his case wasn’t among those impacted. Last week, the Dallas County Public Defender’s Office called for independent audits for 18 murder cases.
>> While the eye-grabbing part of this story is the botched migration that resulted in the deletion of 23 terabytes, the more concerning aspect is the part that involves the shielding of a data catastrophe until it was impossible to keep it hidden any longer. Mistakes happen, but the decision to exclude the city council and, more disappointingly, the prosecutor's office was deliberate. That shouldn't be excused even if PD officials firmly believed the data deletion was reversible. There was always the chance that it wasn't. People's lives and freedoms are on the line and the DA's office was kept out of the loop. This indicates the Dallas PD felt it was better to bury its 23-terabyte problem, rather than allow people affected by the sudden disappearance of evidence to find out about it.
Filed Under: dallas, dallas pd, data, deleting evidence, evidence
Commentator Insists That Fact Checking Is An Attack On Free Speech
from the that's-not-how-this-works dept
There are some really bizarre ideas out there -- and one that has popped up a bunch recently is the idea that fact checking is antithetical to free speech.
>> We've seen a few faux "conservatives" arguing that fact checkers should be regulated and that they're not protected by the 1st Amendment. This is wrong of course. Fact checking is (1) speech, and (2) stating an opinion on the veracity of some other content. It's quintessential protected opinion.
But, the most bizarrely stupid version of this argument was published recently in the Hill, by columnist Armstrong Williams, in a piece entitled: Uninhibited Speech is the Ultimate Weapon in the Fight Against Misinformation. You might think from this title that he would support fact checking -- which is part of that "uninhabited speech." Instead, he seems to think it's an infringement on rights.
For too long, Big Tech has controlled what we say by imprinting into the minds of the masses a certain worldview. Big Tech has silenced dissenters, making those who dare to disagree with them outcasts. The “fact-checkers,” both manual and automated systems, review social media posts and censor them when they determine a post to be false or misleading. The very notion that a company would hire someone to fact-check private speech is outrageous. We should not tolerate lies, but it is not the job of a powerful few to label something as a “lie”; it is the job of the content consumer to do so. Giving a few entities the power to brand people as liars gives them disproportionate power to determine truth by labeling some lies as “fake news” but not others, according to their agenda.
So... we should have uninhibited free speech... unless that speech is coming from a big tech company? Because that's no longer uninhibited.
Now, there is a legitimate point buried amidst all the muck here, noting that just because someone has done a "fact check" on a piece of content, does not necessarily mean that the fact check is accurate. But a fact check is, undeniably part of the "more speech" approach. Williams isn't mad about "fact checking." He's mad that he doesn't agree with the results of these fact checks. Indeed, he could have made a stronger point if he had argued not against fact checking (which is clearly speech), but what is then done with the results of those fact checks (though, again, moderation decisions by private companies are also protected expression). Either way, when you get to the crux of his argument, it's that companies who fact check don't deserve any free speech rights to do so.
Did we need fact-checkers to end the idea that slavery was “natural,” as Aristotle said? Did we need fact-checkers to guide our Founding Fathers’ hands in writing the Constitution? No, what we needed was the natural, unfiltered flow of ideas from one person to another.
And... some of that "natural, unfiltered flow of ideas" is someone fact checking the content. That's how the marketplace of ideas works. You can criticize the fact checkers and the end result of their fact checks. That's reasonable. Fact checkers often get stuff wrong. But to argue that their speech somehow impinges on someone's speech is nonsense.
>>> It's really funny how much he wants to silence speech in favor of letting speech flow if he likes that speech. I mean, this paragraph is just pure nonsense:
Rational thought spread like wildfire without the need of social media, and irrational thought died with the few patrons who consumed it. The world was changed by the thoughts of a few ordinary people who dared to think. Of course, people disagreed, and some even became violent, but a person’s right to open his mouth and unleash volumes of unique ideas upon his neighbors should not be stifled by the vitriol that their thoughts create.
Apparently, a person's right to open his mouth should not be stifled unless that person is fact checking.
Does Williams have no principles at all?
Labels make it easy to destroy people. They shift burdens of proof to the party being labeled, making it impossible to peel away the label one is given.
Labels are speech, dude. If you disagree, you should speak up and explain why the label is incorrect, misleading or inappropriate. That is uninhibited speech. But fact checking and labels (and moderation decisions) are all speech in themselves.
We should all continue to express our thoughts honestly, unfiltered and uninhibited.
Unless you're a fact checker or someone who labels people in a way that Armstrong Williams does not like?
Every person should conduct his or her own research to determine whether something someone says appears to be true.
Again, unless you're a fact checker or someone who labels people in a way that Amstrong Williams does not like?
Each of us must consider the facts, connect the dots, and come to our own conclusions.
And, a fact checker is part of that discussion. No one says you have to believe everything a fact checker says.
Sure, we might get it wrong; everyone does that sometimes because we are human. But right always prevails over wrong, the truth overcomes fallacies, and good triumphs over evil.
Apparently, Williams believes this applies to everyone... except fact checkers.
What a bunch of censorial garbage.
Filed Under: armstrong williams, fact checking, free speech, more speech, social media
Companies: facebook, twitter
Apple Patches Up Devices In Response To The Exposure Of Yet Another NSO Group Exploit
from the soon-they-will-make-a-board-with-a-nail-so-big-it-will-destroy-them-all dept
Israeli digital arms merchant NSO Group continues to sell its malware to a wide variety of governments. The governments it sells to, which includes a bunch of notorious human rights abusers, continue to use these exploits to target dissidents, activists, journalists, religious leaders, and political opponents. And the manufacturers of the devices exploited by governments to harm people these governments don't like (NSO says "criminals and terrorists," long-term customers say "eh, whoever") continue to patch things up so these exploits no longer work.
The circle of life continues. No sooner had longtime critic/investigator of NSO Group's exploits and activities -- Citizen Lab -- reported the Bahrain government was using "zero click" exploits to intercept communications and take control of targeted devices then a patch has arrived. Apple, whose devices were compromised using an exploit Citizen Lab has dubbed FORCEDENTRY, has responded to the somewhat surprising and altogether disturbing news that NSO has developed yet another exploit that requires no target interaction at all to deploy.
Apple released a patch Monday against two security vulnerabilities, one of which the Israeli surveillance company NSO Group has exploited, according to researchers.
The updated iOS software patches against a zero-click exploit that uses iMessage to launch malicious code, which in turn allows NSO Group clients to infiltrate targets — including the phone of a Saudi activist in March, researchers at Citizen Lab said.
The backdoor being closed involves a pretty clever trick of the trade. Since links require clicks and images don't, the exploit utilizes a tainted gif to crash Apple's image rendering library, which is then used to launch a second exploit that gives NSO customers control of these devices, allowing them to browse internal storage and eavesdrop on communications.
It's not the first time NSO has developed a zero-click exploit that affects iOS devices. It's just the latest exposed by Citizen Lab's incredible investigation efforts. Thanks to Citizen Lab, more Apple device users around the world are better protected against malicious hackers… working for a company that sells exploits to government agencies. And whatever can be nominally exploited for good (the terrorists and criminals NSO continues to claim its customers target, despite an ever-growing mountain of evidence that says otherwise) can be exploited by governments and malicious hackers who don't even have sketchy "national security" justifications to raise in the defense of their actions.
The arms race continues. It appears marketers of exploits will continue to do what they've always done: maintain over-the-air superiority for as long as possible. And while it may seem this is just part of the counterterrorism game, NSO Group's tacit approval of the targeting of dissidents, journalists, and others who have angered local governments (but have never committed any terrorist or criminal acts) shows it's not willing to stop profiting from the misery of people being hunted and harmed by repressive regimes.
Filed Under: ios, iphone, malware, patches, surveillance
Companies: apple, nso group
Daily Deal: The 2021 Complete All-in-One Adobe Creative Cloud Suite Course Bundle
from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept
The 2021 Complete All-in-One Adobe Creative Cloud Suite Course Bundle has 12 courses designed to teach you about video editing, animations, photography, design, and more. Courses cover popular Adobe products like Lightroom, After Effects, Photoshop, and Adobe XD. The bundle is on sale for $34.
Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.
Filed Under: daily deal
I Am Rupert Murdoch's Total Lack Of Shame: Now Demanding Intermediary Liability Protections For News Corp.
from the hypocrisy dept
Let's talk a bit about Rupert Murdoch. To his slight credit, in the early 2000s, he seemed to realize that the internet would be big for media. He also realized that he might be missing out. He went on an internet buying spree. It got to the point where Newsweek was praising Murdoch's "smart bets" on the internet. The cornerstone of Murdoch's digital empire was MySpace; a site that was once so dominant, the media insisted that no one could ever surpass it -- not even a dumpy little startup like Facebook.
We all know how that all turned out. Within a few years, people realized that nearly every one of Murdoch's internet ventures was a total and complete flop (often embarrassingly so).
Since then, it has seemed that Murdoch has been at war with the internet. The man who spent years using his various media properties to insist that we needed "less" government, and more "free market" wasted no opportunity to demand that the government step in and regulate, breakup, or tax the internet companies which out innovated Murdoch's News Corp. He's even been occasionally successful in getting governments to burden his competitors with ridiculous regulations.
Over the last few years, Murdoch and News Corp. have been one of the leading voices attacking Section 230. Murdoch seems consistently angry at anything deemed good for the internet. News Corp. has been lobbying against Section 230. Fox News' most popular host, Tucker Carlson, regularly (if consistently ignorantly) rails against Section 230. Trump's attacks on Section 230 in 2020 were completely consistent with Murdoch's views.
That's why we found it grimly ironic last week when an Australian court ruled that media companies could now be held liable for 3rd party comments on social media. This was an upside down version of Section 230 Down Under, that reached way beyond social media sites being liable. Instead, it made the news organizations that posted links on social media liable for the comments that came under them.
I joked that perhaps Murdoch would finally realize why Section 230 was important, and it did not take long for News Corp. to demand that the law be changed to protect... organizations like News Corp. from some 3rd party liability:
The ruling was "significant for anyone who maintains a public social media page by finding they can be liable for comments posted by others on that page even when they are unaware of those comments," News Corp Australia executive chairman Michael Miller said in a statement.
"This highlights the need for urgent legislative reform and I call on Australia's attorneys general to address this anomaly and bring Australian law into line with comparable western democracies," Miller added.
You don't say? You mean, it might be helpful if there were some sort of law? One that made it clear that intermediaries and media organizations should not be held liable for comments from random commenters? Someone should tell Tucker Carlson...
Filed Under: australia, intermediary liability, michael miller, rupert murdoch
Companies: news corp.
Biden 'Competition Council' Urges Biden FCC To Do Things It Can't Do Because Biden Hasn't Fully Staffed It Yet
from the circular-dysfunction dept
Back in July, the Biden administration signed an executive order creating a new "competition council" tasked with taking a closer look at competition and monopoly issues in various business sectors. One of those sectors was telecom, which remains dominated by a handful of politically powerful regional monopolies, resulting in decades of spotty broadband service, high prices, and terrible customer service.
Back in July, the council offered several bits of advice as to how this could be fixed, including forcing ISPs to provide more clear pricing data to government (allowing policymakers to clearly illustrate the harms of regional monopolies), forcing ISPs to be more transparent with consumers about sneaky fees and pricing, and the restoration of the FCC's consumer protection authority stripped away during the Trump-era net neutrality repeal:
"(i) adopting through appropriate rulemaking 'Net Neutrality' rules similar to those previously adopted under title II of the Communications Act of 1934 (Public Law 73-416, 48 Stat. 1064, 47 U.S.C. 151 et seq.), as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, in "Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet," 80 Fed. Reg. 19738 (Apr. 13, 2015);"
Last week the council held its inaugural meeting, including eight cabinet members and the leaders of seven independent agencies, including the FCC and acting chair Jessica Rosenworcel. As it was designed to do, the meeting focused on ways the administration can lower prices, shore up competition, and break down monopolistic logjams across business sectors:
"In the Council’s inaugural meeting, NEC Director Brian Deese (Council Chair) emphasized that the President’s competition agenda is core to the Administration’s plan to Build Back Better and critical to keeping prices low for American consumers, spurring innovation, and allowing small businesses to compete on a level playing field."
But for risk of beating a dead horse, the FCC still can't actually do any of the things the counsel asks of it because the Biden team still hasn't picked permanent agency bosses for either the FCC or NTIA.
Without a permanent boss and 3-2 voting majority, the FCC can't really do much of anything controversial to shore up telecom competition issues, much to the relief of sector giants like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon. Mired in partisan gridlock (quite intentionally by the Trump administration and the speedy appointment of Nathan Simington at the end of his term), it can't do much else of any controversy either, whether that involves media consolidation or disaster preparedness. Worse, Rosenworcel's tenure ends at the end of the year, so if this apathy continues there's a chance the agency could see a 2-1 GOP majority in the new year, leaving it even further incapable of any real reform.
I've spent months talking to folks around DC asking why team Biden hasn't staffed its telecom regulators eight months into his first term, and nobody has a reasonable explanation. While there's clearly a lot going on, the administration wasn't too busy to give top Comcast lobbyist David Cohen a cushy job as the U.S. Canadian Ambassador. At this rate, by the time a permanent FCC boss is seated, a full year of policy time will have been wasted, which doesn't exactly scream "urgency" when it comes to telecom monopoly, media consolidation, or other reform.
The apathy on telecom and FCC staffing is an odd clash with the selection of antitrust-buster Lina Khan at the FTC. But it kind of fits the current DC obsession with fixating exclusively on "big tech," while "big telecom" engages in much of the same (or sometimes worse) behavior. At some point you have to wonder if the apathy on telecom and media reform isn't a screw up but an active policy choice.
Filed Under: broadband, competition, fcc, joe biden, ntia, white house
DOJ Says Federal Agents Will Start Wearing Body Cameras
from the beware-the-asterisk-tho dept
At long last, Department of Justice agencies are joining the 21st century. Years after many local law enforcement agencies (with budgets that amount to rounding errors for DOJ components) have adopted body cameras, the DOJ is finally getting into the act.
Today, the Department of Justice announced the launch of the first phase of its Body-Worn Camera Program that requires department law enforcement personnel use body-worn cameras (BWCs) during pre-planned law enforcement operations. Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Phoenix and Detroit Field Divisions began using BWCs today during these pre-planned operations. Over the course of the next several weeks, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) will begin the first phase of their BWC programs. The department’s plans include a phased implementation of BWCs, and rely upon Congress to secure the necessary funding to equip agents nationwide with BWCs.
Caveats, mfers. Caveats. "Pre-planned operations." Let's hope this makes up the bulk of federal law enforcement's interactions with the general public. This means that while federal agents may be wearing body cameras, they won't be using them to record off-the-cuff convos/searches/seizures/arrests that may come up during day-to-day business.
It's a start. It's a start years after the fact. While local cops were obtaining cameras, the DOJ -- as recently as 2015 -- was saying it would not do business with any cop shops rolling cameras during joint operations.
The obvious solution for cops seeking federal help during investigations would be to uninvite agencies unwilling to roll with rolling cameras. But it probably never worked out this way. Given law enforcement's love of opacity, local cops probably loved having a reason to remove their cameras while doing citizens dirty with their federal partners.
It took another five years before the DOJ agreed to allow federal agents tag along on raids and investigations involving local officers wearing body cameras. Now, less than a year into Attorney General Merrick Garland's leadership, federal agents have been ordered to start wearing body cameras.
Keep these public-facing, super-enthusiastic statements in mind when the lawsuits and investigations start rolling in, accusing federal officers of copying their local level compatriots by "forgetting" to activate cameras or being unable to retrieve recorded footage when demanded by plaintiffs in civil rights lawsuits or defendants in criminal trials.
This sounds like a lot of people being forced to smile at gun camera-point:
“ATF welcomes the use of body worn cameras by our agents,” said Acting Director Marvin G. Richardson of the ATF. “The department’s policy reflects ATF’s commitment to transparency as we work to reduce firearm violence in our communities.”
“The Drug Enforcement Administration is committed to the safety and security of the people we serve, our agents, and task force officers,” said Administrator Anne Milgram of the DEA. “We welcome the addition of body worn cameras and appreciate the enhanced transparency and assurance they provide to the public and to law enforcement officers working hard to keep our communities safe and healthy.”
“The FBI remains committed to meeting the need for transparency,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray. “Phasing in the use of BWCs is another important way for us to meet that need.”
Hahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...
OK.
Let's break this down.
The ATF welcomes no additional "transparency." Never has. Never will. And its efforts to "reduce firearm violence" are pretty much entrapment that targets impoverished minorities who the ATF feels will be much easier to bully into lengthy sentences.
The DEA doesn't care about the people it serves. It only cares about racking up incredibly cheap wins in a war it has been losing since its inception. Elvis Presely was given a Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (the DEA predecessor) badge by Richard M. Nixon. Talk about setting yourself up for failure. The DEA does not keep communities safe and healthy. It cannot pretend otherwise.
And fuck the FBI. "Committed to meeting the need for transparency." Really? It's been almost 1,200 days since the FBI promised to correct its count of encrypted devices in its possession -- a number it had overstated by at least 5,000 devices during its neverending agitation against allowing innocent citizens to protect their devices and communications from outsiders. That's just one refutation of the FBI's allegiance to "transparency. " The rest of it is contained in the agency's litigious refusal to hand over documents in response to public records requests.
The FBI not-so-secretly wishes it was the CIA, if not the NSA itself. It does not care about transparency. And it will accept these cameras begrudgingly, ensuring they're turned off any time agents perform a "custodial interview" or engage in anything it considers to be national security related.
While it's great the DOJ says body cams are go, the actual implementation may be far less underwhelming than the GO TEAM TRANSPARENCY enthusiasm expressed in these public-facing statements. These agencies have operated under the public accountability radar for years. The addition of cameras won't change that much.
But let's not let our cynicism be used against us. They should have these cameras. And when footage goes missing or unrecorded in close cases, the benefit of doubt should be awarded to the non-moving (read: non-prosecutorial) party. If this happens often enough, we might finally see some meaningful deployment of cameras -- one that ensures officers are accountable to the people paying their paychecks.
Filed Under: atf, body cameras, dea, doj, fbi, transparency
Forfeiture Case Shows Cops Don't Even Need Drug Dogs To Alert To Engage In A Warrantless Search
from the EXTREME-SNIFFING-ACTION! dept
Another magical drug dog case has surfaced, showing yet again why cops like having "probable cause on four legs" on hand to turn stops into searches and searches into seizures. This forfeiture motion [PDF] -- highlighted by Brad Heath -- starts with a stop and quickly devolves into ridiculousness.
A drug investigation involving investigators working with ONSET (Ohio Northeast Smuggling Enforcement Team) culminated in the traffic stop of one of the targets, Emmanuel Trujillo Trujillo. Already suspected of drug trafficking, the stop got a whole lot more interesting for officers once some loose cash was spotted.
Deputy Spires approached the pick-up truck and made contact with the driver, Trujillo Trujillo. While speaking with Trujillo Trujillo, Deputy Spires learned that he did not possess a valid driver’s license.
Deputy Spires observed a large amount of United States currency below Trujillo Trujillo’s feet on the floorboard of the pick-up truck and requested assistance from Franklin County, Ohio Sheriff’s Office Canine Unit Deputy Zach Cooper (“Deputy Cooper”) and his canine partner “Indy” to conduct an open-air sniff of the pick-up truck.
Roughly twenty minutes later, the drug dog arrived. And failed to do what the deputies wanted it to do.
Deputy Cooper arrived at the traffic stop at approximately 6:22 p.m. and approached the pick-up truck with canine Indy. Deputy Cooper noticed that Indy showed an extreme change in behavior when sniffing around the passenger side door and its open window. Indy’s sniffing increased as he stayed and intently sniffed the passenger side door area. As the team moved on, Deputy Cooper noted similar behavior from Indy when he approached the tailgate area of the pick-up truck.
There was no alert from Indy. Just a lot of sniffing. But even the lack of an alert wasn't going to keep these officers from searching Trujillo's vehicle. Since the four-legged cop wouldn't give them permission for a search, the deputies decided to give that permission to each other, with Indy's apparently implicit consent.
Deputy Cooper advised Deputy Spires that Indy did not indicate on a pure odor source, but he believed that Indy’s extreme sniffing behavior indicated that a narcotic odor was present within the pick-up truck.
And with that the search was on. The deputies discovered more cash, receipts for cash transfers, some paperwork from a Chase Manhattan account, and a non-contractor 1099 miscellaneous income form showing $27,815 in compensation to Trujillo. The search did not, however, turn up any drugs, despite the extreme sniffing allegedly demonstrated by the drug dog.
The deputies took $19,104 from Trujillo at this stop. From there, they went to Trujillo's storage unit and took another $32,050. Finally, law enforcement -- using information gleaned from this extreme sniffing -- searched Trujillo's house, where officers found even more cash as well as the drugs the deputies assumed they would find during their initial search of the truck.
And, as if to prove the deputies were right to assume the drug dog had meant to give them explicit permission to search the truck for drugs, there's this additional information in the forfeiture motion.
TFO Taylor changed gloves, obtained the bag containing the United States currency seized from the pick-up truck, and opened it. TFO Taylor took a MX908 test strip and wiped it on the rubber bands holding the currency together. TFO Taylor placed this test strip into the MX908 and received a positive result for the trace presence of cocaine.
So what? I'll bet if TFO Taylor borrowed some cash from someone in the HSI (Homeland Security Investigations) office and tested it, he would very likely have rung up another positive result for the trace presence of cocaine. This is an unlisted "feature" of most US currency. A positive test means nothing more than the bill tested has been in circulation.
This is a stop worth challenging. The deputies admitted they did not see an alert from the drug dog before engaging in a search. That means it's also a seizure worth seizing. And it's yet another data point showing cops love drug dogs because their mere presence at a stop can be converted into probable cause. Even better, these "partners" can't offer up testimony that might undercut assertions made by their handlers. Win-win. Apparently, the drug war needs all the wins it can get, even if certain combatants have to obtain them dishonestly.
Filed Under: asset forfeiture, civil asset forfeiture, drug dogs, emmanuel trujillo trujillo, evidence, legalized theft, ohio, onset
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