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upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Trump's Twitter blocks violate First Amendment rights, appeals court affirms

It's one thing for most of us to block Twitter users who annoy us, but it's a violation of those users' First Amendment rights for the president to do so, a federal appeals court confirmed.

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Tuesday issued an opinion supporting an earlier federal court ruling that as long as Donald Trump is a public official, he cannot block people (which prevents them from reading his feed or responding to his comments) he disagrees with on Twitter.

The opinion (PDF) is narrow, specific, and unanimous, with all three judges concurring. "We do not consider or decide whether an elected official violates the Constitution by excluding persons from a wholly private social media account," the judges write, "Nor do we consider whether private social media companies are bound by the First Amendment when policing their platforms."

But, they continue, "The First Amendment does not permit a public official who utilizes a social media account for all manner of official purposes to exclude persons from an otherwise-open online dialogue because they expressed views with which the official disagrees.... Once the President has chosen a platform and opened up its interactive space to millions of users and participants, he may not selectively exclude those whose views he disagrees with."

"The irony of all this," the opinion concludes, "is that we write at a time in the history of this nation when the conduct of our government and its officials is subject to wide-open, robust debate. This debate encompasses an extraordinarily broad range of ideas and viewpoints and generates a level of passion and intensity the likes of which have rarely been seen. This debate, as uncomfortable and unpleasant as it frequently may be, is nonetheless a good thing. In resolving this appeal, we remind the litigants and the public that if the First Amendment means anything, it means that the best response to disfavored speech on matters of public concern is more speech, not less."

[Update 20190713_080924 UTC: Part of what distinguishes this case from other politician's use of twitter is that on June 6, 2017 it was reported:

At the daily White House press briefing, press secretary Sean Spicer said the President's tweets are considered official White House statements, saying the President is the "most effective messenger on his agenda."

--martyb]

Original Submission

[Editor's note: This story has an interesting viewpoint given the proliferation of "Deep Fake" videos we recently covered here. I see it as a portent of discussions to come. How much can we trust reporting? How much slanting and posturing of "reports" and "studies" are going to be promulgated in the lead-up to the next presidential election? Is this item all a bunch of crap or an indication of things we can expect to come? How much can we trust, and how to we go about assessing the veracity of what is presented to us by not only the main-stream media, but also social media, too? We hereby disclaim any assurance as to the credibility of the accusations made here and present it solely as an example of what may be coming -- and an opportunity to practice techniques at validating/corroborating or challenging/refuting it. The story submission appears after the break.]

An Anonymous Coward writes:

US-North Korea: Trump and Kim agree to restart talks in historic meeting

Donald Trump has become the first sitting US president to set foot in North Korea, after meeting Kim Jong-un in the area dividing the two Koreas. Mr Trump and the North Korean leader posed for handshakes before talking for nearly an hour in the heavily fortified demilitarised zone (DMZ). Both countries agreed to set up teams to resume stalled nuclear talks. Their last summit broke down in February with no progress on denuclearisation in North Korea.

[...] In a meeting apparently arranged after Mr Trump invited Mr Kim on Twitter on Saturday, they shook hands across the demarcation line between the Koreas before Mr Trump briefly crossed into North Korea, a symbolic milestone.

"Good to see you again. I never expected to meet you at this place," a smiley Mr Kim told Mr Trump through an interpreter in an encounter broadcast live on international television. "Big moment," Mr Trump said, "tremendous progress." Looking relaxed, Mr Kim crossed into South Korea and alongside Mr Trump said: "I believe this is an expression of his willingness to eliminate all the unfortunate past and open a new future."

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The US is looking to cap the number of H-1B visas granted to India due to recently enacted "data localization" laws.

India, which has upset firms such as Mastercard and irked the U.S. government with stringent new rules on data storage, is the largest recipient of these temporary visas, most of them to workers at big Indian technology firms. India receives about 70% of all US H-1B visas, but would be limited to between 10% and 15% of the annual quota.

[...]Most affected by any such caps would be India’s more than $150 billion IT sector, including Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Infosys Ltd, which uses H-1B visas to fly engineers and developers to service clients in the United States, its biggest market. Major Silicon Valley tech companies also hire workers using the visas.

Shares in Indian IT firms fell in early trade on Thursday after the Reuters story. Wipro Ltd fell around 4%, while Infosys and TCS fell more than 2% each. The broader Nifty IT index’s 1.8% fall was its biggest intraday percentage decline in over five weeks.

Also at: Fortune, The Economic Times (India), and MSN.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Hong Kong pushes bill allowing extraditions to China despite biggest protest since handover

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam vowed on Monday to push ahead with amendments to laws allowing suspects to be extradited to mainland China a day after the city's biggest protest since its handover from British to Chinese rule in 1997.

Riot police ringed Hong Kong's legislature and fought back a hardcore group of several hundred protesters who stayed behind early on Monday after Sunday's peaceful march that organizers said drew more than a million people, or one in seven of the city's people.

"I don't think it is (an) appropriate decision for us now to pull out of this bill because of the very important objectives that this bill is intended to achieve," a somber Lam told reporters while flanked by security and justice chiefs.

Also at NYT.

See also: Here’s How Hong Kong’s Proposed Extradition Law Will Impact Its Competitiveness

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Ohio bakery awarded $11 million in libel lawsuit against Oberlin College over alleged racial profiling

An Ohio jury has ordered Oberlin College to pay $11 million to a bakery which said it was libeled and wrongfully accused of racially profiling students.

The case stems from the November 2016 arrests of three black Oberlin students at Gibson's Bakery and market near the college's campus in Oberlin, Ohio. One student, Jonathan Aladin, was accused of attempted robbery for allegedly trying to "steal wine or otherwise illegally obtain wine" from the bakery, according to a defamation lawsuit. He would eventually confess in a written statement to buying alcohol illegally. Two other suspects, Cecelia Whettston and Endia J. Lawrence, were arrested and accused of misdemeanor assault, court documents state.

After that, Oberlin staff members tried to discredit the family-owned bakery, the lawsuit says. Oberlin College staff -- including deans and professors -- and students engaged in demonstrations in front of Gibson's Bakery following the arrests of the three students, the lawsuit stated. The suit also said Oberlin Vice President and Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo and other college staff members "handed out hundreds of copies" of a flier to the community and the media stating that Gibson's Bakery and its owners racially profiled and discriminated against the three students.

A mass email sent by Oberlin College's Vice President and General Counsel to school alumni criticized the decision of the jury, despite the trial not being over. The email was sent ahead of a punitive damages hearing, which may triple the amount Oberlin College has to pay.

Also at Inside Higher Ed.

Update: Bakery suing Oberlin College for libel wins $33M in damages
Oberlin College hit with maximum PUNITIVE DAMAGES (capped at $22 million by law) in Gibson's Bakery case

Original Submission

takyon and an Anonymous Coward writes

Tiananmen Square: China minister defends 1989 crackdown

China has defended the crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in a rare public acknowledgement of events. Defence Minister Wei Fenghe told a regional forum that stopping the "turbulence" was the "correct" policy.

[...] [After] a wide-ranging speech about trade and security at a regional forum in Singapore, General Wei Fenghe was asked about Tiananmen by a member of the audience. Mr Wei questioned why people still said China had not handled the events properly.

"That incident was a political turbulence and the central government took measures to stop the turbulence, which is a correct policy," he told the forum. "The past 30 years have proven that China has undergone major changes," he said, adding that because of the government's action at that time "China has enjoyed stability and development".

Also at NBC and Al Jazeera.

Thirty years ago, from April 15 to June 4, 1989, the world was gripped by coverage of some of the largest protests in modern Chinese history. As many as a million people occupied the central Tiananmen Square in Beijing in protest against inflation, government corruption, and restrictions on freedom of speech and political participation. There are no official reports on the actual number of dead, though they are estimated to be in the thousands.

In the time that has passed, the uncensorable Usenet is no longer widely used and rarely even available. Mainland Chinese censors have come down hard and heavy on the rest of Net and, later, the Web since then in an ongoing attempt to rewrite a false history. Sometimes this censorship even has the help of the social control media giants who know which side their bread is buttered on.

"upstart" writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4463

Maine lawmakers pass bill to prevent ISPs from selling browsing data without consent – TechCrunch

Maine lawmakers have passed a bill that will prevent internet providers from selling consumers’ private internet data to advertisers.

The state’s senate unanimously passed the bill 35-0 on Thursday following an earlier vote by state representatives 96-45 in favor of the bill.

The bill, if signed into law by state governor Janet Mills, will force the national and smaller regional internet providers operating in the state to first obtain permission from residents before their data can be sold or passed on to advertisers or other third parties.

[...] the ACLU — which along with the Open Technology Institute and New America helped to draft the legislation — praised lawmakers for passing the bill, calling it the “strongest” internet privacy bill of any state.

“Today, the Maine legislature did what the U.S. Congress has thus far failed to do and voted to put consumer privacy before corporate profits,” said Oamshri Amarasingham, advocacy director at the ACLU of Maine, in  a statement. “Nobody should have to choose between using the internet and protecting their own data,” she said.

Original Submission

aristarchus writes:

From Slate

If we had a fair Supreme Court not driven by partisanship in its most political cases, Thursday’s blockbuster revelation in the census case would lead the court to unanimously rule in Department of Commerce v. New York to exclude the controversial citizenship question from the decennial survey. Those newly revealed documents show that the Trump administration’s purpose in putting the citizenship question on the upcoming census was not its stated one to help Hispanic voters under the Voting Rights Act, but rather to create policy that would be “a disadvantage to the Democrats” and “advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic Whites.” It’s difficult to produce a greater smoking gun than explicitly saying you are hoping to help the GOP by increasing white voting power. But this revelation, coming from the hard drive of a deceased Republican political operative and made available to Common Cause by his estranged daughter, is ironically more likely to lead the Republican-appointed conservative justices on the Supreme Court to allow the administration to include the question that would help states dilute the power of Hispanic voters.

[...]And here is where Thursday’s revelations fit in. The New York Times reported that the hard drive of the late Republican redistricting guru Thomas B. Hofeller contained documents indicating that the real purpose of including the citizenship question was to allow Republicans to draw new congressional, state, and local legislative districts using equal numbers of eligible voters in each district, not equal numbers of persons, a standard that would greatly reduce the power of Hispanics and Democrats in places like Texas. According to the Times, files on Hofeller’s hard drives, subpoenaed in litigation concerning North Carolina redistricting, show that Hofeller “wrote a study in 2015 concluding that adding a citizenship question to the census would allow Republicans to draft even more extreme gerrymandered maps to stymie Democrats. And months after urging President Trump’s transition team to tack the question onto the census, he wrote the key portion of a draft Justice Department letter claiming the question was needed to enforce the 1965 Voting Rights Act—the rationale the administration later used to justify its decision.”

[...]Thursday’s revelations should be damning. The ACLU is already seeking sanctions in the trial court in the census case for government officials lying about the real reason for including the citizenship question. But instead the revelations may help to prop up a case that should embarrass government lawyers to argue.

Yep.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

US Department of Energy is now referring to fossil fuels as "freedom gas"

Call it a rebranding of "energy dominance." In a press release published on Tuesday, two Department of Energy officials used the terms "freedom gas" and "molecules of US freedom" to replace your average, everyday term "natural gas."

The press release was fairly standard, announcing the expansion of a Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) terminal at the Freeport facility on Quintana Island, Texas. It would have gone unnoticed had an E&E News reporter not noted the unique metonymy "molecules of US freedom."

DOE Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy Steven Winberg is quoted as saying, "With the US in another year of record-setting natural gas production, I am pleased that the Department of Energy is doing what it can to promote an efficient regulatory system that allows for molecules of US freedom to be exported to the world."

Artist's depiction of this news.

Original Submission