Our government has a history of characterizing information (like encryption technology) and ideas (like socialism or Islam) as dangerous and likely to lead to violence. A free society cannot give the government unbridled discretion to make those choices, because of the systematic oppression that such a government can engage in...

...It’s dangerous for the Executive Branch to have so much control over the public’s right to share information online. Without meaningful restrictions on how and when the State Department can exercise its power, the risk of politically motivated censorship is extremely high.

In absence of laws dictating when the government can and can’t use this power, politically motivated censorship is unavoidable. As EFF argued in our amicus brief, echoing concerns raised by the Supreme Court, “Human nature creates an unacceptably high risk that excessive discretion will be used unconstitutionally, and such violations would be very difficult to prove on a case-by-case basis.” Under the same law, the government could try to bar activists from sharing instructions for treating the effects of tear gas and other chemical weapons, or researchers from spreading information about the government’s use of mass surveillance tools.

Or it could bar technologists from publishing the encryption technologies that we all use to protect ourselves from criminals online. In the 1990s, EFF successfully argued that it was unconstitutional for the government to use these export regulations to ban the online distribution of computer code used for effective encryption. Two decades later, the government has again used this unconstitutional export control regime in a way that gives it broad control over who can share information about a wide range of technologies online, with no safeguards ensuring that it doesn’t ban certain speakers for political reasons...

Our government has a history of characterizing information (like encryption technology) and ideas (like socialism or Islam) as dangerous and likely to lead to violence. A free society cannot give the government unbridled discretion to make those choices, because of the systematic oppression that such a government can engage in...

...It’s dangerous for the Executive Branch to have so much control over the public’s right to share information online. Without meaningful restrictions on how and when the State Department can exercise its power, the risk of politically motivated censorship is extremely high.

In absence of laws dictating when the government can and can’t use this power, politically motivated censorship is unavoidable. As EFF argued in our amicus brief, echoing concerns raised by the Supreme Court, “Human nature creates an unacceptably high risk that excessive discretion will be used unconstitutionally, and such violations would be very difficult to prove on a case-by-case basis.” Under the same law, the government could try to bar activists from sharing instructions for treating the effects of tear gas and other chemical weapons, or researchers from spreading information about the government’s use of mass surveillance tools.

Or it could bar technologists from publishing the encryption technologies that we all use to protect ourselves from criminals online. In the 1990s, EFF successfully argued that it was unconstitutional for the government to use these export regulations to ban the online distribution of computer code used for effective encryption. Two decades later, the government has again used this unconstitutional export control regime in a way that gives it broad control over who can share information about a wide range of technologies online, with no safeguards ensuring that it doesn’t ban certain speakers for political reasons...

Our government has a history of characterizing information (like encryption technology) and ideas (like socialism or Islam) as dangerous and likely to lead to violence. A free society cannot give the government unbridled discretion to make those choices, because of the systematic oppression that such a government can engage in...

...It’s dangerous for the Executive Branch to have so much control over the public’s right to share information online. Without meaningful restrictions on how and when the State Department can exercise its power, the risk of politically motivated censorship is extremely high.

In absence of laws dictating when the government can and can’t use this power, politically motivated censorship is unavoidable. As EFF argued in our amicus brief, echoing concerns raised by the Supreme Court, “Human nature creates an unacceptably high risk that excessive discretion will be used unconstitutionally, and such violations would be very difficult to prove on a case-by-case basis.” Under the same law, the government could try to bar activists from sharing instructions for treating the effects of tear gas and other chemical weapons, or researchers from spreading information about the government’s use of mass surveillance tools.

Or it could bar technologists from publishing the encryption technologies that we all use to protect ourselves from criminals online. In the 1990s, EFF successfully argued that it was unconstitutional for the government to use these export regulations to ban the online distribution of computer code used for effective encryption. Two decades later, the government has again used this unconstitutional export control regime in a way that gives it broad control over who can share information about a wide range of technologies online, with no safeguards ensuring that it doesn’t ban certain speakers for political reasons...

If Democrats are wise, they will embrace President Donald Trump’s demonstration that there no longer are any unwritten rules in American politics. (I’ve come to think that the key text for understanding our era is the 1997 movie Air Bud: “There’s no rule that says a dog can’t play basketball.”) Democrats should be preparing to exercise power, beginning as early as 2020, with that lesson in mind.

As we all know, Trump and the Republican Party that enables him eat norms for breakfast. A norm is a tacit and mutual agreement that certain exercises of power, while lawful, also are unthinkable. As a result, a willingness to think the unthinkable is itself a source of power. With that willingness, you can deny a president a hearing on a Supreme Court nominee. You can threaten to jail your political opponents and call an election rigged if you don’t win. You can demand investigations of your enemies, you can fire the FBI director investigating you, and you can quite possibly pardon yourself for federal crimes.

Trump and Republicans are not interested in self-restraint. We ought to be past surprise, for example, that the “let the people decide” standard invented by Mitch McConnell to block Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court nomination no longer applies now that Trump can choose a successor for Anthony Kennedy. Those who care about the future of liberal democracy in this country ought to be beyond outrage and ready for something altogether colder and more disciplined.

Democrats should plan to treat political norms, when and if they’re in charge of a unified government, the way Trump and the Republicans do. They should be readying a program of systematic norm-breaking for partisan advantage—but only if they are willing and able to follow it through to its conclusion.

A Pierce County judge has ordered the City of Tacoma to pay nearly $300,000 in penalties and fees for violating the state's Public Records Act regarding documents dealing with a police surveillance tool called a cell site simulator.

Superior Court Judge G. Helen Whitener ruled earlier this year that the city improperly withheld 11 documents from the American Civil Liberties Union. On Monday, Whitener issued a ruling tallying the cost

▪ $182,340 for violations of the Public Records Act.

▪ $115,530 for attorney fees and other costs.

Whitener said in her ruling that the city deliberately withheld several documents that should have been provided, including spreadsheet with entries that included cell site simulator uses, records provided to 37 prior requestors and emails between the city and the FBI...

..."The guardian is better trained," Judd said. "The guardian receives 25% more firearms training than a certified police officer in the state of Florida and has to qualify five points higher than a certified police officer."...

...Around 150 civilians - some young, some old, some new to law enforcement, some former military - are undergoing 144 hours of intensive tactical training, including gun safety, gun handling, shoot/no-shoot scenario training, simulation training, live-fire training and classroom training...

..."These individuals will be responsible for working with the district’s Safe Schools division to provide security to our campuses, conduct necessary drills, oversee crime prevention initiatives and programs with students, conduct surveillance and other security-related tasks," a Polk County Sheriff's Office spokesman said...

...Judd said more than 500 people applied to the school district to become school guardians, but only 150 passed background checks, psychological screenings and drugs tests and were selected to begin training.

“I don’t want to get beaten to death, stabbed and burnt alive,” a slight woman with long blond hair and a checked shirt says. “I want a gun to feel equal.”

She is a member of one of the United States’ fastest-growing gun clubs, the jauntily named Pink Pistols.

Two years after the massacre at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, gay, lesbian and transgender Americans are nervous. According to the Human Rights Center (HRC), a US LGBTI advocacy group, 52 gay people were murdered in the US last year because of their sexuality, and 28 transgender people met the same fate.

In increasing numbers, they are fighting back by taking up arms.

By Jennifer Valentino-DeVries
May 10, 2018

Thousands of jails and prisons across the United States use a company called Securus Technologies to provide and monitor calls to inmates. But the former sheriff of Mississippi County, Mo., used a lesser-known Securus service to track people’s cellphones, including those of other officers, without court orders, according to charges filed against him in state and federal court.

The service can find the whereabouts of almost any cellphone in the country within seconds. It does this by going through a system typically used by marketers and other companies to get location data from major cellphone carriers, including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, documents show.

Between 2014 and 2017, the sheriff, Cory Hutcheson, used the service at least 11 times, prosecutors said. His alleged targets included a judge and members of the State Highway Patrol. Mr. Hutcheson, who was dismissed last year in an unrelated matter, has pleaded not guilty in the surveillance cases.

As location tracking has become more accurate, and as more people carry their phones at every waking moment, the ability of law enforcement officers and companies like Securus to get that data has become an ever greater privacy concern.