I swear some people have absolutely no sense of humor, either that or they couldn’t get a clue if it was stapled to their freaking forehead.

Such is the case of Professor James Miller and his run in with the campus police at the University of Wisconsin (UWS) when they apparently saw something illegal about Miller displaying a poster of Nathan Fillion’s leading character in the cult sci-fi classic Firefly and removed it from his door.

Not one to let stupidity go unanswered Miller posted another poster that said “Warning: Fascism” on his door which not only got him another visit from the campus police but also got  him reported to the “threat assessment team” and threatened with criminal charges.

So what was the Firefly poster that started this whole thing?

Here it is folks .. the big bad nasty threatening poster.

The UWS campus police reasoning for removing the poster?

Walter responded that “the poster can be interpreted as a threat by others and/or could cause those that view it to believe that you are willing/able to carry out actions similar to what is listed.” Walter also threatened Miller with criminal charges: “If you choose to repost the article or something similar to it, it will be removed and you could face charges of disorderly conduct.”

Later on September 16, Miller placed a new poster on his office door in response to Walter’s censorship. The poster read “Warning: Fascism” and included a cartoon image of a silhouetted police officer striking a civilian. The poster mocked, “Fascism can cause blunt head trauma and/or violent death. Keep fascism away from children and pets.”

Astoundingly, Walter escalated the absurdity. On September 20, Walter emailed Miller again, stating that her office had removed the poster because it “depicts violence and mentions violence and death.” She added that UWS’s “threat assessment team,” in consultation with the university general counsel’s office, had decided to have the poster removed, and that this poster was reasonably expected to “cause a material and/or substantial disruption of school activities and/or be constituted as a threat.” College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Interim Dean Raymond Hayes has scheduled a meeting with Miller about “the concerns raised by the campus threat assessment team” for this Friday.

via The Fire

Morons. Really, there is not much else you can say other than Morons.

Makes me wonder what they’d do if they saw a Lazarus Long quote.

Only in America could a professor faces charges for displaying a Firefly poster is a post from: The Inquisitr

There is a war going on right now across the United States. We don’t hear much about it unless you follow people like Thomas Hawk or Carlos Miller, both of whom write about this subject a lot; but the war that is being waged is between the police and photographers; both professionals and amateurs alike.

The latest skirmish is happening in Long Beach, California, where police have decided that they are the only ones who can decide if your photographs are of “aesthetic value” or not.

Apparently the way it works is if a police officer sees you photographing something that they don’t think has any aesthetic value they can detain you.

Long Beach Post has the story of Sander Roscoe who was taking the picture you see above when he was detained by Officer Asif Kahn and was asked to produce his driver’s licence.

Officer Kahn did not reply to repeated attempts to contact him in order to determine what was in his mind when he allegedly detained Wolff; and the LBPD Public Information Office referred pertinent questions to Anderson.

According to Anderson, Kahn claims that Wolff complied with Kahn’s request to see his license, and that it was unnecessary for him to compel Wolff to do so — a version of events Wolff flatly contradicts. “I absolutely asked him if showing him my license was necessary,” Wolff says, “which is when he gave me his little spiel about Homeland Security [allowing Kahn to detain Wolff under the circumstances].”²

Anderson reports that Kahn asserts Wolff denied being a reporter, which Wolff says is untrue. “I never denied being a reporter,” Wolff says. “He never asked me about being a reporter. He asked me why I was taking pictures, and I told him that I was an artist.”

Regarding whether Kahn felt Wolff’s behavior gave him “reasonable suspicion of criminal activity,” Anderson initially replied, “I never asked [Kahn] that question.”

AS an update to the original story Police Chief Jim McDonnell was quoted as saying:

 Police Chief Jim McDonnell has confirmed that detaining photographers for taking pictures “with no apparent esthetic value” is within Long Beach Police Department  policy.

Feel that shiver running up your spine?

Police: We can detain photographers if we feel their photographs have no aesthetic value is a post from: The Inquisitr

Research conducted at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center has found New York to be the ”least free state in the Union” according to a set of criteria that weighs factors including individual freedoms and obligations to government, like taxes.

The study looked at “discal policy, regulatory policy, economic freedom and personal freedom” to determine average freedom by state, and New York- also known for its oppressive income gap (1% of New York City, for instance, controls a staggering 44% of Gotham’s wealth)- came in dead last. Gun laws in New York are strict, there is currently no medical marijuana legality, gay marriage is currently struggling to pass the State’s Senate and spending on public services like welfare and infrastructure is “high above” national norms.

Given the sad statistics, it’s probably no surprise that migration to other states is at an all-time high. The Mercatus Center, a “libertarian think-tank,” offers the following suggestions to bring New York up to speed with other, freer states:

1. The most liberal state in the country can surely find the political will to legalize same-sex partnerships of some kind.
2. Cut spending in all the areas mentioned above, privatize (and rate-regulate) transit systems, and cut taxes across the board.
3. Reduce the burdensome testing, notification, and recordkeeping requirements on homeschoolers.

Freest state in the union according to the study? New Hampshire, whose motto is “Live Free or Die.”

[Study]

Least Free State in the US is New York, According to Study is a post from: The Inquisitr

The umbrella of content deemed Not Safe For Work (NSFW) got a bit bigger this week when the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a biology teacher’s termination over a Google Image Search for the word “blonde.”

While hair color is certainly a relative topic to biology, that didn’t protect teacher Robert Zellner’s job after he turned off safe search and his search term unsurprisingly turned up quite a few pornographic thumbnails, on which he did not click. Muddying the case is the fact that Zellner had just engaged in “constitutionally protected criticism” affecting his employer before the tenuous link leading to his termination was discovered.

Wired lays out the 67 seconds of searching that wound up costing Zellner his job:

First, Zellner disengaged the “safe search” filter. He then typed “blonde” into the Google search box. The search produced 20 “thumbnail” images, all of them pornographic, with links to more images within and outside the Google website. He then clicked to display the next 20 images. Zellner then clicked a link entitled “more of these” adjacent to images from www.ardentes.free.frblonde.com. When Zellner did so, another 20 pornographic “thumbnail” images were displayed on his monitor for a total of 17 seconds. Zellner did not click on any of the photographs displayed in his search. The entire incident took 67 seconds.

Sound like something that could feasibly happen to any employee of any company who uses Google for any purpose? Scarily, the court did, too, but ruled against him anyway:

“While it is abundantly clear that the relationship between the union and the district was contentious, combative and miserable, and that Zellner and the district played a central role in the relationship, Zellner ignores the discovery of his Nov. 6 Google image search,” the appeals court ruled. “It is undisputed that the search violated the district’s policy, that Zellner admitted that he performed the search, and that he knew he violated the policy. Accordingly, the school board had a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason to terminate Zellner’s employment.”

The court also ruled that the firing was “unrelated” to Zellner’s union activity and critical comments made about the school district in the press. Do you think such a ruling gives employers too much leverage over tenured or otherwise protected employees? Should employees granted internet access at work be held responsible for what the web may or may not spew back at them before they’ve got a chance to close the page? Do we need a work-internet five second rule?

[Wired]

Court of Appeals upholds firing over GIS search for ‘blonde’ is a post from: The Inquisitr

OMG Twitter has a bug.

OMG Facebook has a security (or privacy, or arrogance, or whatever gets everyone’s panties in a bunch on any given day) problem.

OMG Apple is going to fail because Android is selling more phones than them (while everyone is waiting for the expected refresh of the iPhone line).

Anyone would think that the tech blogosphere is obsessed with jumping all over each other like a bunch of horny kids at a frat party rehashing exactly the same moronic news as the next person. Well they’d be right – just look at Techmeme right at this moment

But what about news that truly will have an incredible impact not just on our technology but also our society?

Where is the outrage over things that have the potential to impact us like nothing else let alone whether Twitter lets you force someone to follow you or that Apple is under attack by Android?

When I first heard about the news that the FCC had granted permission to Hollywood big media to enable what is called Selective Output Control (SOC) on set-top boxes I figured all hell would break loose.

You know what happened?

<sound of crickets>Zzzzzzzzzzzz *YAWN* Zzzzzzzzzzz

Yup, that’s about it.

With the exception of very few blogs this news basically died on the vine.

But here is why it shouldn’t have and why there are days that the tech blogosphere both disappoints and disgusts me.

The thing is that there are two huge dangers here that when you look at the implications of this decision by the FCC has the potential to not only affect our everyday media viewing abilities but also affect how we use our computers.

First we have to understand just what this Selective Output Control (SOC) means. You see in every set-top box sold in the United States there is a set of hidden flags that are currently not doing anything. However via DRM triggers is stream video those flags can be manipulated – on or off. In the case of this decision the FCC has granted Hollywood media company the right to flip those switches on at their discretion.

In this case the MPAA will be able to deactivate any part of your home theater it wishes but primarily any option that would allow you to record the video being played will no longer work – at least (for now anyway) until the video has finished playing. In effect you no longer have control over your own equipment – even if you are paying ridiculous rental rates for it.

The argument being used by the MPAA and Hollywood is that this will allow them to rent out first-run movies that are also in their first theatrical release  without the fear of them being pirated. This way you would supposedly be able to sit at home instead of having to line up with the rest of the rubes.

Interestingly enough this technology ended up in your set-top boxes based on an argument to the FCC in the first place that the technology would never be used. As mind-numbingly stupid as this may seem the FCC accepted the argument and made it a requirement for manufacturers to include the technology.

However this goes beyond just your set-top boxes because this SOC technology isn’t just usable to control them but also your computers as well.

As Cory Doctorow outlines in his post on this

I’m not just talking about TVs and set-top boxes here. This stuff is targetted squarely at operating system vendors. Both Apple and Microsoft have enthusiastically signed onto adding DRM to their OSes in order to comply with HDCP, DTLA and other “device-based” DRMs.

In the PC world, compliance with DTLA and HDCP rules isn’t just about what features the OS can have, but what features the video cards, hard-drives, network interfaces, motherboards and drivers can have.

So the FCC has just handed the keys to specify drivers and components for general purpose PCs to the thrashing dinosaurs of Hollywood. Because even your cheapo netbook or homebuilt Linux box relies on components that are manufactured for the gigantic mainstream PC and laptop markets.

Now that the mainstream component market has a new de-facto regulator at the MPAA, watch for all of those components to come with restrictions built in.

In effect the FCC has handed the MPAA and Hollywood big business the keys to control our technology. So while you all get faint about some stupid ass flaw in Twitter, or rally around Apple in its death struggle with Android, or setup Facebook pages to complain about the tyranny of Facebook our technology has been sold out from under us.

So much for real reporting or blogging in the tech blogosphere.

The tech blogosphere is full of myopic self-aggrandizing sycophants is a post from: The Inquisitr

It is re-assuring in a point in time where entertainment industry trade groups, like the RIAA, are pressuring governments and ISP by either suing them or helping them write legislation that there are some countries – well one anyway – that isn’t buckling under. At the forefront of putting its citizen’s rights and privacy ahead of those of groups like the RIAA is Norway.

Back on June 10, 2009 the Norwegian agency in charge of data protection instructed two ISP – Tele2 and Lyse Tele – to delete all IP related personal information in their logs that is older than 3 weeks. In addition this instruction will also be applied against the rest of the ISPs in the country.

The fact that data can only be held for just 21 days will see the immediate deletion of IP information held on around 1.6 million subscribers by these Norwegian ISPs. However, the decision flies in the face of European Union rules which say that this type of data must be held for at least 6 months – right now in Norway, data retention can be anything from a few days to five months.

The process of monitoring file-sharers, gathering evidence and then collating it all into an acceptable format can be time consuming. Add this to the time taken to get into the system to obtain a court order from a judge to force the ISPs to hand over data on their customers, and you end up with a period longer than 21 days. By which time the data has gone and the evidence becomes useless, since it’s impossible to identity the alleged infringer.

Source: TorrentFreak

Now add to this the news out today that the law firm who had been granted a temporary license to monitor the countries ISPs in order to track down alleged pirates and collect their IPs won’t have that license renewed. The law firm of Simonsen used that data collected to gather the IP addresses of alleged pirates and then sue them.

Simonsen lawyer Espen Tøndel told Dagbladet that he was very unhappy with developments. “We believe that the decision is politically justified,” he said, noting that there should be no reason why the license shouldn’t be extended.

Tøndel further said that his law firm will object against the non-renewal of their license but if they fail, he fears that copyright holders will be completely powerless to stop illegal file-sharing.

Source: TorrentFreak

It’s good to see a country that actually really cares about its citizens rights in this stupid power play. I wonder if they would have room for a cranky old fart of a blogger?

Norway: It’s nice to see a country who cares about citizen privacy is a post from: The Inquisitr