Friday, July 26, 2019

FB's $5Billion Privacy-Breach Fine from U.S. Federal Trade Commission > Too Big, Too Little or Not Enough

The so-called 'settlement' agreed to might be an historic penalty of sorts or unprecedented but it does not really settle anything when the value of your privacy is in-the-balance.
Most of the industry and public feedback is thumb pressure tipping the scales for more scrutiny and more penalties for breaches of privacy we all hold close and dear both in democracies and human rights. Stealing your data matters.
The Editorial Board of the New York Times stated their opinion two days ago:A $5 Billion Fine for Facebook Won’t Fix Privacy
The Federal Trade Commission’s record-breaking levy has barely dented the company’s stock price
The Federal Trade Commission issued a $5 billion fine against Facebook on Wednesday. It’s an eye-popping number for sure, one that blows previous fines out of the water.
It’s a number that makes for impressive headlines, but it is largely meaningless. Facebook posted $15 billion in revenue last quarter, at which point it announced that it had set aside $3 billion to pay potential fines. Facebook’s stock price barely budged when the size of the expected fine was first reported this month. After the F.T.C.’s official announcement on Wednesday, the stock price closed slightly higher than at opening. . .
The weightlessness of the fine isn’t the only problem with the deal. The settlement order grants Facebook and its officers immunity in a wide range of possible misdeeds committed before June 12. The agency has also declined to hold Mark Zuckerberg — or anyone else — personally liable for Facebook’s repeated privacy violations. Come again? . .
READ MORE > New York Times PRIVACY PROJECT/Opinion
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Extracts from https://gbhackers.com
Facebook Agreed to Pay Historic Penalty of $5 Billion & Provides New Tools For FTC To Monitor Facebook
By BALAJI N
$5 Billion is the highest penalty ever imposed on any other companies for violating consumers’ privacy or any type of violation by U.S Government, and it is 20 times biggest than the highest penalty for the violation of user privacy.
The $5 billion fine is not a big deal for Facebook which made a profit of $22 billion last year on $56 billion in total revenue through the business model advertisement for its customer’s product and service among more than billion Facebook users. . .
Statement From Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook released an official statement about the penalty and new major changes in structure and privacy controls.
“We’ve formally reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission about privacy. We’ve agreed to pay a historic fine, but even more important, we’re going to make some major structural changes to how we build products and run this company.”
“We have a responsibility to protect people’s privacy. We already work hard to live up to this responsibility, but now we’re going to set a completely new standard for our industry.”
Overall, these changes go beyond anything required under US law today. The reason I support them is that I believe they will reduce the number of mistakes we make and help us deliver stronger privacy protections for everyone. Mark said in his Facebook statement.
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On July 24, 2019 Nicole Lindsey had this question in her headline writing for https://www.cpomagazine.com/

Record-Setting $5 Billion Facebook Fine Too Little Too Late?
For the past eight years, Facebook has managed to evade the full wrath and fury of U.S. regulators . . . The Facebook fine is a penalty for privacy breaches related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which first came to light in early 2018.
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The big question now is whether regulators acted strongly and swiftly enough in order to deter Facebook from future privacy abuses.
DEBATE OVER THE SIZE OF THE FINE
Despite the massive, unprecedented size of the Facebook fine, the overall response from privacy advocates, politicians and security experts is that regulators did not act nearly strongly enough. When considered in the overall context of Facebook revenues and profitability, the FTC essentially slapped Facebook on the wrist with a fine. . .
a $5 billion Facebook fine won’t even make a dent in the company’s overall profitability or force the company to make any real changes in how it approaches user privacy and data
. . .As long as Facebook is allowed to crank out billions of dollars of profit per quarter, it’s reasonable to assume that Facebook will not make any real changes to its underlying business model. Yes, the $5 billion Facebook fine might force the company to re-think upcoming business initiatives (such as the launch of its new Libra cryptocurrency), but does anyone really think that Facebook will make changes to its digital advertising model that relies on sharing data with as many entities as possible?
. . . Judging by the slim 3-2 vote at the FTC that led to the fine that broke along party lines (with Republicans voting for the fine and Democrats voting against the fine), there’s still not any real political consensus about how to regulate Facebook . . . From a long-term perspective, it’s clear that something needs to change in how the U.S. government regulates technology companies, especially when it comes to user privacy and data. For nearly 8 years, Facebook was allowed to grow unchecked and largely unregulated. Now is the time for sweeping new privacy legislation to rein in the big Silicon Valley tech giants.
Critics have long said the United States lags Europe and other parts of the world in digital privacy regulation and that Congress should enact an expansive new data protection law
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Thursday, July 25, 2019

It Ain't Just One "Randy Cop" Here In Mesa > It's The Whole Corrupt System!

Something's rotten-to-the-core here and it's gonna take way more than a charge of sexual harassment to bust it up > Basically, City officials here in Mesa need to buy the loyalty of members of the Mesa Police Department to guarantee results in elections. 
Laurie Roberts writing an opinion piece  in The Arizona Republic asked this question
What does it take to get rid of a randy cop?
". . . .While he was the city’s SWAT team sergeant, various female officers complained that he gave them naked pictures of themselves – pictures he had drawn based upon photos of them fully clothed – and/or notified them via text that he was masturbating as he thought about them. . . .
Based upon the many women accusing Neese of randy behavior, this guy put the a-s-s in sexual harASSment.
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Policing Pensions
Shocking abuse of authority in California shows how far some public unions will go to protect their contracts.
Michael Hendrix
September 27, 2018
City Journal 
These tactics draw on what’s widely called “the playbook.”
It was written by the Costa Mesa Police Officers Association’s now-defunct law firm, Lackie, Dammeier, McGill & Ethir.
It advises unions to “focus on a city manager, councilperson, mayor, or police chief, and keep the pressure up until that person assures you his loyalty and then move on to the next victim.” Clients were told to employ work slowdowns and sick-outs, to “storm city council,” and, above all, to convince the public that higher compensation and pension benefits ensured continued public safety.
Police patrol the “thin blue line” between order and disorder.
Their service on that line of duty is not free, nor should it be, but when the unions representing those in uniform abuse their members’ privileged status to secure lucrative payouts, they risk crowding out essential public services—and even bankrupting cities.
“Public officials should not be extorted over public benefits,” concluded Righeimer’s colleague, former Costa Mesa city councilman Steve Mensinger. That’s a lesson that many more cities in California, and beyond, may learn in the coming years.
_________________________________________________________________________Mesa Police Chief Tried to Curb Horrific Brutality Problem, So 95 ...
The Free Thought Project
Because the Mesa police chief said cops shouldn't beat up innocent people, nearly the entire department voted to remove him.
Despite trying to hold Mesa police officers accountable, Batista has been incredibly ineffective, and now, we likely know why—the entire department thinks accountability amounts to intimidation.
This is in spite of the fact that the Mesa police department is an incredibly violent unit.
As TFTP has previously reported, this is the same department that responded to the hotel room of an innocent unarmed father and murdered him on video as he begged for his life on his knees. . .
Playing victim when there are literally pools of blood left behind by these officers — from innocent people — is a kick in the teeth to all that is just.
This situation shows the problem with policing.
It is not just one bad apple either. That is inaccurate. In this case 95 percent of the department is acting out in support of bad apples, in turn, making them all bad apples. Until this culture of protecting bad cops is brought to a halt, we can continue to see this problem get worse until American police departments are completely filled with violent unaccountable criminals perpetually playing the victim card
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Super-Star Cities?

Attempts to turn cities outside of Silicon Valley into superstar cities by making them tech hubs have met with mixed success. . . The internet can’t yet replace the face-to-face communication required for rapid-fire innovation.
Where You Should Move to Make the Most Money: America’s Superstar Cities
A tech-driven concentration of talent since the 1980s has helped the rich get richer. But it has also sharpened an urban-rural divide that, some say, threatens growth
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HUH? Who's talking there? Christopher Mims in The Wall Street Journal
Did he create a Mass Migration to so-called "Super-Star Cities"?
Write to Christopher Mims at christopher.mims@wsj.com
Copyright ©2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the December 15, 2018, print edition as 'America’s Top Digital Cities.'
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6 days ago:
As U.S. 'superstar' cities thrive, weaker ones get left behind - Reuters
As U.S. 'superstar' cities thrive, weaker ones get left behind
WHERE THE GROWTH IS ... AND ISN’T
The U.S. economy entered a second decade of growth this month, marking the longest expansion on record.
In many ways the country has seemingly recovered from a 2007-2009 recession that was the worst downturn since the 1930s. Unemployment is near a 50-year low, household income has been rising, and the country is at a point in the business cycle when workers typically see their most robust gains.
But a Reuters analysis of federal data shows just how unevenly the spoils of growth have been divided.
In a ranking of 378 metropolitan areas by how their share of national employment changed from 2010 to 2017, 40% of the new jobs generated during that time went to the top 20 places, along with a similar share of the additional wages.
Those cities represent only about a quarter of the country’s population and are concentrated in the fast-growing southern and coastal states. None were in the northeast, and only two were in the “rust belt” interior . . .
The 40 top job-generating metro areas saw employment expand 23% during those years. Jobs in other metro areas grew around 11%, and in counties outside of metro areas the job growth rate was around 4.5%. 
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". . . When economists talk about “superstar” anything, they’re referencing a phenomenon first described in the early 1980s. It began as the product of mass media and was put into overdrive by the internet. In an age when the reach of everything we make is greater than ever, members of an elite class of bankers, chief executives, programmers, Instagram influencers and just about anyone with in-demand technical skills have seen their incomes grow far faster than those of the middle class.
In this winner-take-all economy, the superstar firms—think Apple, Google and Amazon, but also their increasingly high-tech equivalents in finance, health care and every other industry—appear to account for most of the divergence in productivity and profits between companies in the U.S.
As firms cluster around talent, and talent is in turn drawn to those firms, the result is a self-reinforcing trend toward ever-richer, ever-costlier metro areas that are economically dominant over the rest of the country. Ironically, the internet that many of the firms power isn’t helping. While it was supposed to erase distance, it can’t yet replace high-quality face-to-face communication required for rapid-fire innovation.
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Turning Point USA’s Student Summit Turned Into a Trump SPOOF

When subpoenas don't get served or high crimes and misdemeanors don't get punished, we can resort to pranks.
> Like this image of an altered Presidential Seal
The eagle has two heads instead of one!
The quiver of arrows usually clutched are golf clubs!
And nobody supposedly knows how that happened at the Marriott Marquis in Washington yesterday at the conservative Turning Point USA's Student Summit. The projection appeared to a raucous crowd chanting USA USA to open a 12-minute video illustrating Trump’s rise to the presidency.
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How did Trump end up in front of a presidential seal doctored to include a Russian symbol?
By Michael Brice-Saddler General Assignment Reporter
and Reis Thebault National and breaking news reporter
This story has been updated
Washington Post 25 July 2019
"The image almost resembles the official seal of the president; but a closer examination reveals alterations that seem to poke fun at the president’s golfing penchant and accusations that he has ties to Russia. Neither the White House nor Turning Point know how it got there or who created it.
The eagle has two heads instead of one — a symbol historically tied to empire and dominance. It closely resembles the bird on the Russian coat of arms, and also appears on the flags of Serbia, Albania and Montenegro. Its left talons, rather than clasping 13 arrows, appear to clutch a set of golf clubs.
On the official presidential seal, the eagle’s mouth famously holds a banner with the U.S. motto “E pluribus unum.” It was not clear from photos and video if the words on the parody eagle’s banner were altered as well.
The origins of the knockoff are murky. . . a spokesman for the conservative group said he didn’t know where the altered seal came from or how it ended up on a screen behind the president. He said the mistake probably came from the team that handled the event’s audio and visual production.
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If readers of this blog want to watch the extravaganza at the Turning Point USA Summit, here it is from Fox News
 
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Robert Reich: The Real Reason for Impeachment

Published on Jul 23, 2019
Views: 47,558 at time of upload to this blog
Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich explains why Congress should impeach Donald Trump.
Watch More: How to Impeach a President ►► https://youtu.be/h_qtRhe6zkA
Blogger notes: plenty of reasons for sure, but what's missing is ______________________
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Wednesday, July 24, 2019

The National Nuisance: Private Citizen Trump


Yesterday might have been just another day: A Day of Infamy. IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST: A day in history to go down in the record books:
Trump’s Lawsuit to Keep His Tax Returns Secret Is Unbelievably Silly
By
 
 
 
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Tuesday, July 23, 2019

Brutal Shock: Mesa PD-The Brutal Brailsford Killing of Daniel Shaver > Trauma and Pay-Offs Here In Mesa

It's just one story that's getting more attention all the time - 3 years and 6 months after an incident that the City of Mesa tried hard to cover-up for far too long.
Last week we found out about a new twist to the shameful saga when local mainstream media ABC15 revealed that Mesa Police Officer Philip Brailsford had been granted a pension last year:
"The local five-member PSPRS board, which includes Mesa City Manager Brady, voted in October 2018 to grant Brailsford an accidental disability pension. physical or mental condition .
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BLOGGER NOTES:
1. Foreshadowing all of this in the public record is this statement from Brailsford's attorney at the trial:
"Craig Mehrens previously said Brailsford was “in shock” after he was charged with murder and believes he did nothing wrong, according to the Arizona Republic. "
2. There's plenty of blame to go around - both for the individuals involved and "the entire system" that's broken-down. It needs to get fixed no doubt about that, but some house-cleaning might be in order to clean up the mess here in Mesa.
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Time to Wake-Up Mesa! Evidence is piling-up big time
After murder acquittal, Mesa ex-cop Philip Brailsford made a pension deal
Posted: 6:39 PM, Jul 10, 2019
"Two years after he shot an unarmed man and was fired, former police officer Philip “Mitch” Brailsford was rehired by the City of Mesa in order to obtain a special pension. Now, Brailsford is considered medically retired, not fired, according to a Mesa city spokesman. . .
The Spokesman: City Manager Chris Brady >
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"Brailsford was fired from the police department after the shooting for violations of department policy. He was also charged with murder, but he was later acquitted. Brailsford appealed his termination. . Later in 2018, he signed an agreement with the Mesa City Manager’s Office. The agreement, obtained by ABC15, included that Brailsford would be rehired temporarily to allow him to apply for an accidental disability pension and medical retirement. The terms prevented Brailsford from performing any job duties or getting paid during the period of reemployment. "He was eligible for retirement benefits, so he applied for them," City Manager Chris Brady said.
"More than two years had passed since Brailsford's termination, so he would not have qualified without the special agreement to be rehired. Mesa city officials claim the whole process was held in "abeyance," or put on hold, while Brailsford stood trial."
BLOGGER NOTES: The trial dragged on for a long time. The real-time police body-cam video was first released in an edited version instead of getting released immediately. The judge in the trial, justifying the delay for months, said viewing the video is "prejudicial".
If that might seem a questionable assertion and a picky legal point, watch the video if you have not seen it before.
The voice you here at the opening is from this guy at right >
He skipped outta town afterwards to The Philippines.
The quote is an example of the "Command-and-Control" training tactics used by the military and special operations forces deployed in combat zones to attack the enemy.They are now civilian warriors who escalate encounters to justify 'Shoot-to-Kill."
As far as "legalities go", there's a father-son family history in the Mesa Police Department that might help to explain the outcome of the case, and the new twist in the story.
His Father Was a Lieutenant in the Mesa PD’s Internal Affairs Unit - Brailsford's father, also named Philip Brailsford, left the Mesa Police Department last year to join a local law firm.
He was a lieutenant and had worked in the department’s Internal Affairs Unit. According to a press release from the law firm where he now works, Fennemore Craig, the elder Brailsford was a police officer for 19 years, and also served in Afghanistan as a member of the U.S. Army.He graduated from Arizona State’s law school._________________________________________________________________________
> There's another twist to this story that has not been picked up in mainstream media and by no means relieves anyone of culpability or blame for their actions while "on-duty".
The Free Thought Project has been given photos and background on Philip Brailsford—the cop acquitted for murdering an unarmed innocent father of two—which paint a much different picture than a cold-blooded killer.
Philip Brailsford: How the Police State
Made a Mormon Missionary a Cold-Blooded Killer
Philip Brailsford went from spreading love in the Mormon church to gunning down an unarmed innocent father of two for no reason.
 
What happened?
 
Miscarriage of Justice Here In Mesa Gets More National Attention: The Case of Philip Brailsford
Image credit: TomTingle
 Arizona Republic via AP
Daniel Shaver Killing: Cop Applied for a Pension and got it.
The opening image for this post - with the cop looking back over his shoulder - is taken from the first of a number of articles used in this report.
He Killed an Unarmed Man, Then Claimed Disability
The latest twist in the police shooting of Daniel Shaver
by Conor Friedersdorf
Staff writer at The Atlantic  Jul 18, 2019
EXCERPT: In 2010, Brailsford, like many of the Mormon missionaries before him, would travel to Ecuador to help people and to spread his faith
BLOGGER NOTE: Missions usually last for two years.
Brailsford became a rookie cop in 2013. . . While TFTP will not pretend to have psychoanalyzed Philip Brailsford, this is not necessary to grasp the alarming trend among police that has been increasing over time.
Policing in the United States metamorphosed drastically over the last few decades after the NDAA in 1990 allowed departments to obtain surplus military equipment free of charge. With the weapons and gear of war likewise came the warrior ethos. Though unprepared to handle accouterments of the battlefield, hapless American police waged war on the very communities in their charge — an epidemic level of violence by law enforcement has since erupted.
And the military-industrial complex is still making a killing (literally and figuratively) at taxpayer expense from the transformation of small-town police forces—“kitted out with Marine-issue camouflage and military-grade body armor, toting short-barreled assault rifles, and rolling around in armored vehicles”—into extensions of the military.
 
MesaZona 20 July 2019
 





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