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Judge slams Tacoma for not releasing stingray records
A judge in Washington state has excoriated the Tacoma Police Department for withholding public records pertaining to its use of cell-site simulators, also known as stingrays. Back in 2016, the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington state sued the TPD on behalf of four community leaders, arguing that the department has not adequately responded to their public records requests concerning the use of stingrays, which included asking for a blank form authorizing its use.
"The [Public Records Act] establishes a positive duty to disclose public records unless they fall within specific exemptions," Judge G. Helen Whitener wrote in her Monday opinion. "This mandates that the City, upon receiving a request for documents, must first do an adequate search and then must produce the documents requested if there is not an exemption. The PRA does not require the City to analyze the reasons why the document is requested or to determine the relevance of the documents requested even if they are blank forms. The blank form taken in context of the other forms may have meaning to the requestor, and it is not for the City to analyze its relevance. To adopt the City's interpretation of the PRA would defeat the broad mandate of the PRA to allow access to public records not covered by and exemption."
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @09:55PM (19 children)
The civil war rhetoric is quite new, the last month or two maybe. Perhaps more looney fringe people have been going on about it, but then again you're prepping to live in a south american jungle sooooo.... yeahhhhhh.....
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday July 02 2018, @10:06PM (10 children)
It just means someone published a book or wrote an influential op ed. Doesn't mean a thing in the absence of blood in the street.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @10:50PM (2 children)
In my original timeline, the riots began in late August this year.
Divergence can cause small changes between timelines that otherwise present larger features leading to convergence in a Stein's gate.
President Hillary Clinton will be remembered for the FEMA concentration camps. President Trump may be remembered for the ICE concentration camps. The larger features are the ruling class' attempts to resolve the inherent contradictions of the system that gave them their aristocracy. They will try anything and everything, even reducing every major city to irradiated ruins, to retain that power.
Unless
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 05 2018, @04:18AM (1 child)
Whatever.
it just doesn't happen that way, eh?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday July 05 2018, @04:25AM
You stumbled into the weird Steins;Gate [wikipedia.org]/John Titor [wikipedia.org] fan.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Monday July 02 2018, @11:11PM (2 children)
Chris Hedges has some interesting comments on how quickly things can can change:
(Score: 3, Disagree) by frojack on Tuesday July 03 2018, @02:06AM
There's been a Chris Hedges or three around every decade.
Come on for christ sake, read a little history.
Thomas Malthus ring any bells?
Aldous Huxley maybe?
Al Gore?
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/science/18tier.html [nytimes.com]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 05 2018, @05:00AM
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday July 02 2018, @11:45PM (2 children)
Actually, if you will note in my response to you, violence is here, and this was not an op-ed, but a group of people talking. Conservatives and Liberals on the panel both agreeing to that sentiment. No real push back that the idea was crazy, but seriously discussed.
Homeless person saying the world is ending is one thing, a major newspaper putting Civil War on the front of it is another. One deserves more concern.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 03 2018, @04:02PM
I've been expecting inevitable chaos for some time.
Though, realisically, a civil war may not be able to materialize. That's because we have mixed ideologies to the point that distinct groups don't really form. So you will have the neighbor v.s. neighbor chaos that will be total chaos rather than an organized war. Or maybe organization will happen, with the internet, it's possible.
It would be really nice if we could provide more independence and freedom. You might not agree with everyone else's way of living, but you're much less likely to get into a fight with someone if you don't try to force them to do what you think is the "right" thing.
That being said, corporations can exert too much power and should be treated differently. We can curtail the power of mega-corporations by enacting more fair contract consent laws, prohibiting arbitration agreements, eliminating trade secrets laws, making NDAs illegal, reducing copyright duration, restricting indemity agreements, prohibitng corporate ownership of corporations, etc.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 05 2018, @04:43AM
Not really. There's still high drama over a single death last year.
Not at all. The latter has no more likelihood or interest in being right than the former.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday July 03 2018, @01:45AM
Its merely the talking point of the week by the smoking ruin of the Democratic party.
When the same phrase is use on all the left media sites as if on queue, you know who got the memo.
SCOTUS says President DOES have the authority to stop immigration from certain countries. (Several Circuit court judges bitch-slapped in the process). Next talking point - Hurry!!
Lets Eliminate ICE.!!!
SCOTUS says you don't have to suppress your religion to bake a cake for Gays? Next talking point - Hurry.
Someone go kick Sanders out of a public restaurant.
Next few weeks? Character Assignation on a grand scale regardless of WHO gets Nominated.
So predictable. So ineffective. So childish.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by edIII on Monday July 02 2018, @11:42PM (7 children)
No, these are mainstream conservative, liberal, libertarian, .etc people that are saying it. Looney fringe people though still seem to get time on Fox :)
What's wrong with a South American jungle? I'm going there because of all the pluses, not the minuses. It's not indicative of insanity, but intelligent planning for retirement.
#1 is insanely valuable. We get to concentrate all of our energy expenditures into the refrigeration systems for the food, and waste none of it on heating and cooling our little houses. In fact, it's in the Japanese style where normally everything is open air.
#2 & #3 have an actual monetary value to it. Non-GMO, organic, and grown in the Andes. Thousands of dollars per month in good fruits and vegetables, and the beginnings of a kick-ass orchard. In order to afford that in the US, I would need a 6 figure salary. Down there, I can be a relative poor person on Social Security and live some rich pampered c-suite. Not to mention, the sale of the coffee and vegetables finances all of our very modest monthly costs.
#4 Definite value to that. You cannot undervalue a good and clean water supply. FFS, they charge like $15/day for water in Northern California. Every fucking bottle at least $1.99. That's for the privilege of sucking down OUR FUCKING WATER from our OWN FORESTS that Nestle apparently thinks they're entitled to plunder. So yeah, water is a very critical component.
#5 is just a plain delight.
#7 is also very nice. Being able to pay a penny for medicine you pay $100 for? Fucking Priceless :D
So, is my idea of living out the rest of my life there really that insane? Think not. Enjoy surviving in suburban America where the inflation in rent prices can be an order of magnitude greater than increases in wages :P
Ohhhh, and I will still have Internet! Hopefully, I will have enough free time at the point to help with coding Soylent with TMB :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Tuesday July 03 2018, @01:07PM (4 children)
And if you get appendicitis? An abscessed tooth? Lupus? Diabetes? (Many of the people that develop adult-onset diabetes get it because of bad eating habits or a sedentary lifestyle or both, but some people just have unlucky genetics and will develop the disease no matter what they do.) Some kind of infection? Then what?
My parents lived almost their whole life in a rural part of the US. But as they got into their 60s and developed age-related ailments they had to move closer to major cities for the first time in their lives in order to get decent care. My wife's parents moved to a rural area after they retired, and they're in their late 70s and doing fine. So it can work. But they've simply been lucky, there are a host of medical problems they could develop that would require hours of travel for every medical appointment.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Tuesday July 03 2018, @05:27PM (3 children)
You mean afford medical in the future, in the USA? What are you smoking?! LOL. If I stayed up here, we would be poor as fuck, because rents keep going up faster than wages. Medical is unaffordable NOW. Anything serious happens, and BOOM, half a million in medical debt.
You make concessions. Being 15 minutes from a major hospital is one them. I would rather be free, living like a c-suite emperor in an island paradise, than a wage slave at 75 in the USA, in debt, and still requiring help with medical coverage that mandates I be poor to receive it.
The US can burn in hell.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Tuesday July 03 2018, @07:33PM (2 children)
I can understand wanting to leave, for the reasons you state. But I would try to head to Denmark, Finland, Germany, Japan, South Korea... maybe not as beautiful as South America, but your medical options are better.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday July 03 2018, @08:00PM (1 child)
Too much money. I'm not rich as fuck, so Denmark and Finland are out. Germany isn't the place I want to be right now with all the Syrian refugee crap going on there. It's moving back towards fascism. Japan is an interesting consideration, but again, not enough money to purchase land and buildings we would want. South Korea has one hell of a shitty neighbor :)
You seem to be very concerned over medical, but the truth is, unless you're very very rich in the US, you don't get it. The poor don't get medical treatment, but just enough to get them stabilized and out the door, and back to being good production units. Or worse, back to your section 8 housing to continue sucking down benefits with no hope of ever getting better, no hope of getting off the "government tit". Believe me, I know. You get cancer? Hospice. None of this shit where they try to get you into trials, contact a friend at John Hopkins, new expensive treatments. Palliative care is all you get. The Middle Class in this country barely receive enough medical, and we are stuck in the mid 30's for which country is numero uno in health care. Poor? Might as well be on the streets in New Delhi, shitting in them.
You left out one country though quite critical to this discussion; Cuba. Cuba has an amazing medical system for a country under a double embargo. Amazing to the extent the WHO stands up for them as a medical community we can learn from. They even have a diabetes drug that saves the feet, whereas in the US, chop chop. Watch the Michael Moore documentary at the end and you see a lady get years worth of medication for the price of one treatment in the US.
For the price of one Ecuadorian passport, a trip, I can be in Cuba for medical tourism. The costs there are actually quite affordable. Cuba still is an option for me too as far as permanent residence. I can do good telco work there, and they would provide me with actual medical care. It's amazing how cheap it can get when there are not rich fuckers demanding their pound of flesh for everything, including breathing air in a fucking hospital room.
In the end, I would rather live with 19th century medical, then to live in 21st century USA. If I defect to Cuba, I get the best of all worlds. Sucking down authentic Mojitos, dancing with Cuban women, and enjoying medical care comparable to the US.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Wednesday July 04 2018, @02:07AM
I don't want to defend the status quo for health care and health insurance costs. The situation is unforgivable. But for example my parents are in their early 60s and spent the last year and a half unemployed and on Medicaid in Pennsylvania. My mother has an autoimmune disorder that attacks lung function, and she was seen by specialists in Temple University Hospital, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, and UPenn Hospital and they even started the preparation process for lung transplants. All while on Medicaid.
That's somewhat better than being homeless in New Delhi.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday July 03 2018, @03:44PM (1 child)
I'm no fan of our current government, but at least here they're not likely to be involved when you get kidnapped and ransomed by druglords. Or is that mostly in Central America, not South?
Remember that when you get bitten/eaten by something because you're living in the jungle...
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday July 03 2018, @05:23PM
LOL. It's not that scary. We also have three Rottweilers on the property. Largest animal that comes around is a Puma, and I don't recall anyone saying they've seen a Jaguar. There are about 12 local people that live in the mountain valley with us. All friendly people too, and the kids love taking lemons off our trees. It's just very remote.
One of the locals, that's a family friend too, lives with us. Certified nurse, and we are a small substation for medical. So if I got bit, I would walk a couple hundred feet, sit down on a bench, and wait to be treated :)
Honestly, I'm more worried about mountain lions in Northern California.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.