Some people don’t learn, even after losing the hard way in 2016. Despite not being able to convince black voters that Sen. Bernie Sanders was the ideal, perfect, pure-as-driven-snow candidate during the 2016 Democratic primaries, despite arguing that black people were essentially voting against their own interests because we weren’t choosing the senator from Vermont over Hillary Clinton, many on the far left are back at it again.

Instead of recalibrating their thinking or their message, those on the far left seem poised to double down on the same strategy that led to their favorite candidate, Sanders, getting his ass whopped in 2016. They are deluding themselves, believing Sanders’ ability to (barely) beat Hillary Clinton two years ago among young black voters will trump the enormous gap that existed between Sanders and Clinton among all black voters.

They’re even further deluding themselves by going after President Barack Obama for being a “bad president”:

There's no honest debate among 2020 candidates without voters acknowledging Obama was a bad President. They have not done so. I'm going to keep hitting this point because it's simple but unacknowledged. Obama ruined the Democratic Party.
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) December 27, 2018

"There's no way in my world or any world I know that this would have an impact on somebody who's going to go out and buy an illegal gun and use it to kill another person or shoot another person," Mike McCormack, the president of the Toronto Police Association, said Friday...

...The intention is noble, he added, but it's "A notional gesture at best."

Instead, McCormack would rather see more resources poured into policing and social services.

He said his years of experience in policing have taught him something about gun crime — individuals who steal, sell or use guns illegally are already facing mountains of jail time, so they're unfazed by one more law that condemns their actions...

AUSTIN, Texas—During what he called his first ever press conference, Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson announced Tuesday that he would continue to comply with a federal court order forbidding him from internationally publishing CAD files of firearms. Wilson said he would also begin selling copies of his 3D-printed gun files for a "suggested price" of $10 each.

The files, crucially, will be transmitted to customers "on a DD-branded flash drive" in the United States. Wilson also mentioned looking into customer email and secure download links...

...On Monday, Judge Lasnik ordered that the files must stay offline in order to comply with American export law.

By selling them only to people in the United States, Wilson and Defense Distributed have found a way to still comply with the judge's order...

Wilson is in compliance with the order, which says nothing about his ability to sell or distribute within the US.

-Bet the file will be on TPB* within a matter of days.

--The plans have been on TPB for months, if not years already.

---Haaah! I had a feeling this was a dog and pony show for public and politicians. And that the reality was these files have been available online as of about 5 minutes after someone finalized them.

Operation Pipe Dreams
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Operation Pipe Dreams was the code-name for a U.S. nationwide investigation in 2003 targeting businesses selling drug paraphernalia, mostly marijuana pipes and bongs, under a little-used statute (21 U.S.C. § 863(a)). Due to the reluctance of state law-enforcement agencies to contribute resources to the operation, most cases were filed in Iowa and Pennsylvania, taking advantage of the statute's prohibition on the use of "the mails or any other facility of interstate commerce to transport drug paraphernalia."[1]

Hundreds of businesses and homes were raided as a result of Operation Pipe Dreams.[2] Fifty five people were named in indictments and charged with trafficking of illegal drug paraphernalia. While 54 of the 55 individuals charged were sentenced to fines and home detentions, actor Tommy Chong was sentenced September 11, 2003, to 9 months in a federal prison, a fine of $20,000, forfeiture of $103,000, and a year of probation. Chong was charged for his part in financing and promoting Chong Glass Works/Nice Dreams, California-based companies started by his son Paris. Unlike most shops selling bongs, Nice Dreams specialized in selling high-end bongs as collectible works of art. The Chong Glass Works employed 25 glass blowers who were paid $30/hour to produce 100 pipes a day.

Nice Dreams had a policy in place for refusing to sell bongs to states where the statute was being enforced. Federal agents, disguised as head-shop owners, pressured Paris Chong to sell them his pipes and deliver them through the mail to a fictitious shop in the Pittsburgh suburb of Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. When Paris persistently refused, agents went to the place of business in person and ordered a massive quantity of out of stock merchandise. The merchandise was crafted but not picked up and sat idle in the warehouse as federal agents again pressured Paris to ship it. To get the merchandise out of his warehouse, Paris eventually agreed to ship it. In a Plea bargain, Chong agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute drug paraphernalia in exchange for non-prosecution of his wife, Shelby, and his son, Paris. Federal Prosecution admitted to being harsher on Chong in retaliation, citing Chong's movies as trivializing "law enforcement efforts to combat drug trafficking and use."[3]

The estimated cost of Operation Pipe Dreams was over $12 million and included the resources of 2,000 law enforcement officers.

Back in March, as it investigated a spate of armed robberies across Portland, Maine, the FBI made an astonishing, unprecedented request of Google. The feds wanted the tech giant to find all users of its services who’d been within the vicinity of at least two of nine of those robberies. They limited the search to within 30-minute timeframes around when the crimes were committed. But the request covered a total space of 45 hectares and could’ve included anyone with an Android or iPhone using Google’s tools, not just the suspect.

The FBI then demanded a lot of personal information on affected users, including their full names and addresses, as well as their Google account activity. The feds also wanted all affected users’ historical locations. According to court records, while Google didn’t provide the information, the cops still found their suspect in the end.

Outside of concerns around government overreach, the FBI’s remarkable attempt to force Google to assist in its investigation will likely worry all who were disturbed by an Associated Press investigation published on Monday that claimed Google continued to track people even when they turned location features off. The court warrants unearthed by Forbes indicate some at the FBI believe they have a right to that location data too, even if it belongs to innocents who might be unwittingly caught up in invasive government surveillance. And the government feels such fishing expeditions are permissable; it issued the warrant on Google without knowing whether or not the suspect used an Android device or any of the company services at all....

...Despite limiting the search to users who’d been at two of the locations within certain timeframes, Medvin said the government didn’t go far enough. “This is a general search, which is prohibited under our Constitution. It is not particularized, a legal prerequisite to obtain a warrant under U.S. law,” she said. “The Supreme Court explained that the purpose of the particularity requirement is to make general searches impossible and to prevent ‘a general, exploratory rummaging.’

Back in March, as it investigated a spate of armed robberies across Portland, Maine, the FBI made an astonishing, unprecedented request of Google. The feds wanted the tech giant to find all users of its services who’d been within the vicinity of at least two of nine of those robberies. They limited the search to within 30-minute timeframes around when the crimes were committed. But the request covered a total space of 45 hectares and could’ve included anyone with an Android or iPhone using Google’s tools, not just the suspect.

The FBI then demanded a lot of personal information on affected users, including their full names and addresses, as well as their Google account activity. The feds also wanted all affected users’ historical locations. According to court records, while Google didn’t provide the information, the cops still found their suspect in the end.

Outside of concerns around government overreach, the FBI’s remarkable attempt to force Google to assist in its investigation will likely worry all who were disturbed by an Associated Press investigation published on Monday that claimed Google continued to track people even when they turned location features off. The court warrants unearthed by Forbes indicate some at the FBI believe they have a right to that location data too, even if it belongs to innocents who might be unwittingly caught up in invasive government surveillance. And the government feels such fishing expeditions are permissable; it issued the warrant on Google without knowing whether or not the suspect used an Android device or any of the company services at all....

...Despite limiting the search to users who’d been at two of the locations within certain timeframes, Medvin said the government didn’t go far enough. “This is a general search, which is prohibited under our Constitution. It is not particularized, a legal prerequisite to obtain a warrant under U.S. law,” she said. “The Supreme Court explained that the purpose of the particularity requirement is to make general searches impossible and to prevent ‘a general, exploratory rummaging.’

If you’re looking to print out something in 3-D, don’t bother going to a Broward County library because theirs have been temporarily shelved over concerns they could be used to make a gun or other dangerous weapons.

Broward libraries took their 3-D printers out of circulation Monday to come up with policies about what the printers can be used for. Officials do not know how long the printers will be unavailable to the public.

“I’m concerned with any weapon that could be printed on a 3-D printer,” Broward Library Director Kelvin Watson said. “It’s about all weapons and anything that could be printed to harm other customers and staff … especially in light of what happened last week at the
Main Library.”

On Aug. 7, a man was shot outside the Main Library in downtown Fort Lauderdale near the homeless tent encampment. The man’s injuries were not life-threatening, officials said.

C​reation Station Lab
Makerspace/Gadget Lab Audio/Video Production • Electronics Kits • Arts & Crafts • Computer Programming​ • Virtual Reality Equipment
Looking for somewhere to unleash your creativity and ideas? We have just the place. Nestled in downtown Fort Lauderdale, is a makerspace/gadget lab on the first floor of the Main Library. It's the first free community center in Broward equipped with tools such as state-of-the-art computers and gadgets as well as public access to the latest virtual reality equipment.​​

Lab hours: Monday, Thursday-Saturday: 10AM-6PM; Tuesday-Wednesday: Noon-8PM; Sunday: Closed
Creation Station Lab Events​

Additional Labs
One space just isn't enough. Concentrating on specific creative areas, two other Broward County Libraries are available makerspaces. The Northwest Regional Library in Coral Springs features equipment/space for hands-on projects and a large, open space with work tables.

Operation Pipe Dreams was the code-name for a U.S. nationwide investigation in 2003 targeting businesses selling drug paraphernalia, mostly marijuana pipes and bongs, under a little-used statute (21 U.S.C. § 863(a)). Due to the reluctance of state law-enforcement agencies to contribute resources to the operation, most cases were filed in Iowa and Pennsylvania, taking advantage of the statute's prohibition on the use of "the mails or any other facility of interstate commerce to transport drug paraphernalia."[1]

Hundreds of businesses and homes were raided as a result of Operation Pipe Dreams.[2] Fifty five people were named in indictments and charged with trafficking of illegal drug paraphernalia. While 54 of the 55 individuals charged were sentenced to fines and home detentions, actor Tommy Chong was sentenced September 11, 2003, to 9 months in a federal prison, a fine of $20,000, forfeiture of $103,000, and a year of probation. Chong was charged for his part in financing and promoting Chong Glass Works/Nice Dreams, California-based companies started by his son Paris. Unlike most shops selling bongs, Nice Dreams specialized in selling high-end bongs as collectible works of art. The Chong Glass Works employed 25 glass blowers who were paid $30/hour to produce 100 pipes a day.

Nice Dreams had a policy in place for refusing to sell bongs to states where the statute was being enforced. Federal agents, disguised as head-shop owners, pressured Paris Chong to sell them his pipes and deliver them through the mail to a fictitious shop in the Pittsburgh suburb of Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. When Paris persistently refused, agents went to the place of business in person and ordered a massive quantity of out of stock merchandise. The merchandise was crafted but not picked up and sat idle in the warehouse as federal agents again pressured Paris to ship it. To get the merchandise out of his warehouse, Paris eventually agreed to ship it. In a Plea bargain, Chong agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute drug paraphernalia in exchange for non-prosecution of his wife, Shelby, and his son, Paris. Federal Prosecution admitted to being harsher on Chong in retaliation, citing Chong's movies as trivializing "law enforcement efforts to combat drug trafficking and use."[3]

The estimated cost of Operation Pipe Dreams was over $12 million and included the resources of 2,000 law enforcement officers.[1][4]

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...