The same way societies have been doing this for decades—through the creation of permanent underclasses whose only effective ways out of poverty are through criminal activities or military service.
Does anyone seriously think that (with maybe some meaningful statistical variance for cowardice and seeing value in your society created through actual meaningful community) BIPOC Americans register for military personnel positions (i.e. "enlist" for "military service") because allntue claimed "other options" just don't "give them the same meaning", or whatever tye curremt running tagline of bullshit the propagandists at the Department of War to maximize troop enlistment numbers to back imperialism?
Rome privatized the Legions for similar, fucked up reasons. It's why Reagan's goons privatized military service. They couldn't get another "draft", so in order to keep endless war as a thing, they helped crush BIPOC communities and make it such that Poor folks have only ONE viable option to "get out of ghettos", "military service".
So, to these oligarchic fucks, it genuinely doesn't matter "how bad" a tour of duty is.
Do people honestly think military service today is better than when my father & his friends in USMC Force Reconn during the Vietnam War (particularly, 1968–1970) used to respond to threats by military personnel that if they didn't mind, they'd be "Court Marshalled", by laughing, while mockingly retort, "WHAT ARE THEY GONNA DO‽ SEND ME TO THE NAM‽ 🤣 THREE SQUARE MEALS A DAY AND NOBODY IS SHOOTING AT ME‽ WHERE DO I SIGN‽"
When that's the attitude of your military regulars, is it any wonder military personnel created the idea of "fragging" superiors? If your current situation may well get you killed, and "prison sounds like a cakewalk", then what's 20-years in Leavenworth when compared with your life or the lives of your fellow soldiers?
For everyone's academic interest, this is one of the primary reasons why military service in some ways have gotten even worse than they were in the past. At least, when the military was more "socialist", everyone was generally miserable together, and one was likely to actually get paid. Nowadays, soldiers have (for over a decade) been screwed out of correct pay. In days past, if the War Department tried this crap, like trying to cut your pay because THEY made a fuck up, the unit of the person in question might well mutiny. And that's just if it was one or two people. Wars have been lost or fought over soldiers getting paid on time. Just look at all those times the legion marched on Rome over pay.
This problem isn't new, and unless soldiers are planning on "unionizing" even when doing so is considered illegal, don't expect Congress to fix it anytime soon.
When Republicans cite "antitrust" law, should we now conclude that they are using old school inverted language like Israel? When I say, "antitrust" what I mean is, "state approved trust/monopoly"?
I begin to wonder, when Republicans will just drop the facade and start issuing monopoly permits/charters just like the British Crown?
Should we expect that Musk will be "gifted" a "social media charter" for the "only permissible social media platform in 'Merica" in the next few years?
While that seems outlandish, what's to stop it if AG's are now resorting to bolster the creation of antitrust by using state power to protect firms at the detriment to the general public or other businesses?
I'll be interested to see if they actually go that far once Musk gets his illegal "conspiracy to defraud the US Taxpayer" federal agency. For remember, class, when Republicans (and many Democrats) claim to be creating something for "efficiency", what they REALLY mean is to collude in the creation of or protection of monopolies.
This situation reminds me that it's about damn time bar associations start dealing with these abuses of power of their own. Just because you are AG does not give you the justification to do something that might well get a non-AG disbarred by, you know, collusion.
Imagine how a regular attorney would get TEABAGGED for this kind of "dual loyalty", and ask yourself, "What justifiably insulates or should insulate a state AG from disbarment or suspension of their law license/right to practice in a state or federal court?"
This made me ponder something—what would happen if a non-lawyer, or as might be phrased, someone without rights or qualifications to the bar (the olden timey way of saying, act as a lawyer to represent another in a given court of law)?
I know about old customs like having just one member of the bar who will act as an "advisor" or "mentor" to a given lawyer designed to help junior lawyers get experience prior to passing the bar exams (or in the events of one lawyer being out of state & for some reason not having cross-juridictoom bar rights).
But, it makes me wonder — in the CRAZY world that people like Trump offer us, just what would happen if an "unqualified" AG somehow got appointed/approved/nominated and confirmed? Like, without anyone willing to stick their neck out for them? i.e., in the seemingly unlikely scenario that no lawyer was willing to stick their neck out and risk their own license for said rube?
These out of control AGs make me wonder if a bar association actually got the intestinal fortitude to call out said AG and disbar them, what would be the consequences beyond a publicity stunt, such as disbarring Bill Clinton?
I wanted to comment on editorial grounds since not everyone reading BestNetTech (and ideally so) is going to be accustomed to the intricacies of legal jargon.
The author used the acronym "TRO" to indicate a "Temporary Restraining Order", which was admittedly a bit confusing given I'm used to having this read as "an injunction". Ideally, tough or lesser used acronyms should be defined (even as a footnote) for lay readers and the general public. I have been a long time reader of BestNetTech for well over 10-years and plan to continue well into the future (so long as my body takes breath) as I hope for others — it has been an incredibly useful site for hard-hitting journalism in an ever accelerating and consolidating capitalist dystopian hellscape (read, arguably, in the most generous of terms so as not to alienate my own readership with my own inherent biased).
I know, unfortunately, that BestNetTech lacks the sort of powerful, army of techflexing editorial staff to rope its (oftentimes legal scholars) contributors writirng on vital stories of significance to both industry and the general public.
Antitrust law being critical to maintaining an open and efficient marketplace that is free of ridiculous barriers to entry or other artificial obstructions that might harm it.
Thankfully, it's a term that readily came up without much difficulty (thanks in major part to the likewise army of activists and scholars who have made such internet facing resources free and publicly available to anyone with an open internet connection). However, it could have equally have been a commonly used, but less easily searched term that might have thrown some readers.
I have appreciated Mike wnd other writers' consistent transparency as part of their efforts doing journalism, often in an incredibly restrained and restricted budget—journalism forced to live on an anorexic (loss of appetite) restricted Caloric intake as though truth and good journalism were some kind of super morbidly obese cardiac and diabetes patient with congestive heart failure, and therefore needs to be managed and limited at all costs—🙄 I know, it's a travesty to say the least—but BestNetTech has consistently kept afloat and operating — thanks in great measure to our fellow generous readers who choose to give back. I want to likewise thank those people involved in the process and sing their praises.
That said — I also want to be able to toss a BestNetTech article at a random, far less informed friend (only to have them scream in horror at what seemingly new horror is being doled out by corporate interests), and have them not have to run an internet search for terms (for I try not to assume everyone knows the [define] function or even, sadly, where to look up a decent dictionary online, or has easy access to dictionaries, the time, proclivity, patients, nor necessarily even the raw attention span to look such content up — I have a diverse group of friends is all I'll say on the matter [those with a less impressive grasp on English, let alone, legalese]). I want to be able to toss articles and have them accidentally learn something while they are perusing an article (just like was my privilege upon reading the finely crafted articles of my own youth) I share.
I frequently get nitpicked about my own choice of terms, so I admit this may be an extension of my own efforts at readability, but when I (a generally well informed reader) came across an acronym that I was unacquainted with (in this case, "TRO" or "Temporary Restraining Order"), it threw me for a sec. I had to do the aforementioned web search to figure out the definition. I'm the type inclined and able to put said time into writing, so its easier for me to parse said articles. But not everyone is — even if we might like it to be otherwise.
Some might accuse me of unnecessarily trying to "dumb down" BestNetTech with this comment — I don't see it that way myself; rather, I see myself trying to help writers help their readers in what to me is a much loved periodical, or news/research/nonfiction publication. (Though, Lord knows there are those who would claim that's all that is done here — but I try not to let my worldview be guided by the Heritage Foundation's 2025 policy of reactionary jurisprudence.)
In future, if possible, I encourage writers at BestNetTech (and editors, if BestNetTech can even afford or has access to them) to try to, at least once, define either in tye article or a footnote, any acronym or particularly technical term. You've probably done it thousands of times before, but as my own friends remind me — journalism is supposed to assume at most a 6th grade reading capability, which itself is generous given what was expected of 6th graders' vocabulary when those policies [or to those ardently strict journalism purists, "laws"] were first instituted into the halls of journalism well over one hundred years ago.
Anyhow, thank you Timothy and thanks to Mike and everyone at BestNetTech. I appreciate everyone's work and passion (even when it doesn't get said nor sai$ sufficiently for the Common Good). So, here's my metaphorical box of epic cookies to have and share with your colleagues. And while you all [?] munch away, please, take pity on your prospective readership, he says with the affirmationed now to the powers that be.
… Instead of focusing on the superficial, we have to acknowledge that the reality that no US jurisdiction is going to permit one of its defense contractors from having the legitimate liability of "rendering criminal assistance" nor Racketeering. Given the knowledge that the item in question would in all likelihood be used for criminal activity (violations of international law), it is reasonable to assume, IMO, NSO Group is complicit in racketeering and rendering criminal assistance in the assassination of Khashoggi. Saudi Arabia is on record for such crimes and more, is a notorious violator of international law, which US courts are responsible to enforce for all instances where the US Government has signed treaties, as well as other related factors.
At the same time, it is also reasonable to assume that given the incestuous nature of NSO Group and the US government, it was unlikely that the court would act6hold the organization criminally nor financially liable for selling such materials when they knew Saudi Arabia would in all likelihood use it for a criminal action or conspiracy. Furthermore, evidence revealed that other firms, such as McKinsey & Company, aided in the tracking of dissident critics of the Saudi government—when they knew beyond a reasonable doubt that such materials would likely be used to suppressed dissidents and violate international law. Under a sane system, that actually applies the law, the rule of law, in a universally consistent fashion would hold all of these firms criminally liable and financially liable for aiding and abetting the murder of khashoggi because they damn well should have known and likely knew to a reasonable enough degree that selling or providing such material would enable such an event even if they did not know specifically about khashoggi.
We see the same kind of charges brought against people who sell dual use technologies to people the United States government doesn't like. Such as Iran. Centrifuges have numerous non-weapons development related purposes, and yet it has been established that you cannot sell centrifuges to the state of Iran because it is established the state of Iran Will in all likelihood use those centrifuges for the development of nuclear weapons. And as part of non-proliferation treaties and the general desire for the United States and other related countries to maintain their nuclear dominance, it is generally made illegal both specifically and indirectly for the selling of such dual use technologies. Because the technologies that are sold by NSO group can be used both for lawful and unlawful purposes under international law, if a country or a group is likely to use that for unlawful purposes, then you're not supposed to sell it to them. Otherwise, anything that they use that material for potentially makes you liable for knowingly selling it to someone who has established a criminal track record. I mean, how else do you think they lock up all those poor schmucks as part of a larger racketeering case? It just happens to be that because the federal government is not going after the Saudi government using RICO, It becomes more difficult in a civil case. Although I find it rather difficult to believe that there is not sufficient evidence to demonstrate such probabiliability, and ultimately it demonstrates to me that the courts are inherently bent towards the side of established institutional power. If it was just some regular peon, don't kid yourself into thinking that they would be held liable.
If I for example were to develop such technology and sell it to another country that while technically was not barred under US or international law at the time of sale, if it was known at the time that that country violated the rule of law and did so on a frequent and regular basis, I find it highly doubtful that I would not be held criminally liable were I in some way a critic of the United States or other related factor which would make me a desired target of retaliation.
But we may argue and say that such an action would be punitive reprisal and unlawful, we all know reasonably here that that is a common practice used by the federal government and by other governments around the world even if technically they're not supposed to do that. And they get away with it too in many cases. So I think it rather foolish to think than under such circumstances Mrs. khashoggi had no basis for mounting a suit against NSO group. Rather I think the major issue is the biased way in which the federal government and in particular the federal judiciary meets out justice based upon the selective security interests of the United States security apparatus and economic interests at a high level. They could frankly give a fuck what you or I want or need, or whether it actually violates the rule of law and a universal sense, because as has been shown again and again what matters to them is not universal justice or natural law, but rather their own self-interest in a limited fashion.
Given the US has since 1972 backed the Saudi Royal Family and Saudi Arabia through once secret oil protection money for oil banking monopoly treaties, it is little wonder why the Saudi government gets away with assassinations like this without suit or damages. You should read the stories about how many people the current prince has raped/murdered, and how he gets away with it scot free. No repercussions because of petrodollar recycling.
Instead of focusing on
Given the news that Reddit is now axing privacy rules altogether by preventing users from opting out to having their ad data "personalized"/sold to the highest bidder, I immediately thought of "what would Aaron think?" and this article was the first thing to pop up in my search. @MikeMasnik
A friend of mine and professor of physics (he's and elderly Englishman who came to the US in the early 1960's) gave me an interesting notion that the great philosophers in America were laywers (like my 7th great grandfather James Wilson). They were often country laywers like Lincoln. Educated on their own or through small farming schools or land grant universities. Students' education was not free, but subsidizrd by the community.
Professors made substantially less, but they were professors as a civic duty. Much like teachers. It was also a stable job. A guarenteed job in many ways.
We also would talk about an American professor on media ecology named Neil Postman. Founder of the NYU school of media ecology. Postman took off where Korzybski, McLuhan, and many others took off, in education, technology (of which he was a skeptic to some extent, but for good reason), and a variety of other subjects.
Postman's arguably greatest achievement was analyzing the American social narrative and producing tools to said us as a society described our social narratives and determine what problems exist in our society, and how best to deal withthem. Narratives are building blocks which explain to us our purpose and outlook on the world.
I've been slowly laying out a paper on the topic. It would probably be of great value to the legal world (Postman's theories--not necessarily anything I create), by allowing us to better understand that within any institution there exists narrative--stories--gods to which we serve, and when those meaning making devices break down or are no longer fuctioning satisfactorily, the institution breaks down. People claw onto whatever they can find, or find solace in total disillusionment.
Postman writes about looking to the 18th and early 19th century to find components and narrative elements to which we can fasten ourselves to, and thereby use to propel ourselves into the 21st century.
The bridge we are constructing--what are we to take with us?
What we have brought with us obviously does not serve us.
We need to look back at what has come before and find new narratives from which to serve, and to serve us. Presently, we have very few if any gods to serve--narratives. Often people get stuck in dogmatism and fundamentalism, because they have no competing narratives to serve.
In the legal profession, this seemily great tidal wave of formalism may be a direct response to our loss of narrative that was solidified in the 1950's and 1960's with the racial equality movements and the anti-war protest movements where people learned to distrust their society and government. We have to so great an extent given up on living as a society where as a community we can intellegently solve any problem that comes before us, instead replacing this society of idealist lawyers, farmers, and dreamers who took the impossible and made it real (the American dream) with a culture of clans and culture wars--group tribal mentality. We have in so many ways regressed as a society in this pos-intellectual age. People can no longer put their faith and trust in social narratives and institutions which they had at one time confidently confided their fears, hopes and dreams. The social order fell apart. I don't think it was broken for a bad reason, but the after effects have been catastrophic, as no one has come in to set things right--no narratives exist--outside, perhaps, a few good movies or those developed through social movements like Occupy or other left-libertarian movements--that can fill the gaps left by the great American social purge.
Overall, no meaningful narratives present themselves outside of the occasional film, book, or television show that tell us about ourselves and what our world should look like, or what it does look like, but these stories are like the nightly news--they do not represent themselves inside meaningful order or context. They are merely entertainment as opposed to something the the Greek epics in Ancient Greece, which existed as a platform for human experience and expression. Young Greecians would run about reciting Homer. The society used these stories for many years to fill in the context of life until Olato changed that, replacing it with his Academy, which served for nearly a thousand years as the center for meaningful human endevors. Today, our stories, which could provide us some valuable context for our world are tossed about ineptly in our society. Monty Python has phrase well suited to the world in which we live, "And now for something completely different."
We live in a time where meaningful context is a near impossibility.
To endeavor to improve our world, improve our laws, improve our system of government, we need first a meaningful context and social narrative in which to serve, and which may in turn serve us. One that will guide us forward, providing some meaningful order to the world in which we find ourselves. Once these are in place, as it has in past times, society will fall into step behind our new narratives--provided the narratives are functional and mean ngful for the times--but far too often we allow our narratives to stagnate and die, or do not even know they exist. It has come time in our development that we become cognizant of our narratives and seek to improve them or replace them when times and change necessitates it--we must not lose track of who we are or where we have come, lest we will become lost--as we now find ourselves
We fight, live and die for our narratives, without even knowing they exist.
The Constitution is no different. We have quite clear purposes and narratives listed in the documents, but our people (judges, lawyers, political leaders) serving other gods--the gods of fundamentalism, social opportunism, and formalism (toname but a few) are conspiring to overwhelm us, because they provide to these men and women the meaningful context for their age. They have no other eak out a life for themselves or hope to move effortlessly through the vast and complex multitudes of change that occur in our world everyday, and they see latching onto these narratives (plugging themselves into the Borg Hive Mind as it were) as a meanigful solution to their woes.
We who think differently, obviously have fashioned our own narratives of sorts--obviously built out of the culture of the geek-centric world. I don't know what that constitutes, but it's some sort of ready-made patchwork of ideas and past narratives that allows us to survive and provide meaning for our world.
For the rest of humanity--or at least American humanity (whether life without meaning is even life at all, I cannot say)--no such escape is near. They latch onto whatever they can in the hopes of survival.
I suspect our problems in patent law are just one superficial example of this fundamental problem with our world.
This probably explains why Einstein worked in a patent office for some years. It was a wonderful place to keep up with tech. Fewer patents get introduced each year. I've wondered if the tech is just that much more complex, or if it really is a result of our system? Same goes with copyright.
It's the great legal balancing act--purpose as opposed to method. When you forget the purpose, it's really easy to get lost creating convoluted methods--rabbit holes that lead nowhere, or at least that lead to a place determined by someone like the lawyers for big patent mills. You let the Congress publish laws that do not represent the intents given in the Constitution, and people who are meant to be sure law is consistent (law A is in keeping with internal consistency of purpose) i.e judges, and you wind up with laws and enforcement built to support large isolated companies who don't care about inovation, but sustained profits. They don't have to produce anything for them, and since our society is so entrenched in this money game as Hedges and Lessig write about, we end up just letting it happen.
Meh... the real problem is people are taught to believe law is some esoteric subject they cannot understand. 200-years ago, people read up on this stuff all the time. -shakez head-
I'm always surprised at the number of patent lawyers who post on these BestNetTech discussions. Just goes to show that progress in these fields happens in surprising places :)
I've learned more about law here than any place else. ;)
But, small and inovative businesses are generally not using their patents to bludgeon preemptively any and all "competition", even if open-source. The examples previously given are cases were businesses should look at the open-source project in question and try to resolve things peacefully first.
It seems, however, the vast majority of suits and injunctions that are causing all the trouble originate from either large multinational corporations attempting to exact monopolistic practices onto an unsuspecting market thereby obliterating any and all future competition, or patent farms seeking to purchase broadly defined patents (which the courts need to redefine less broadly and more clearly) and use them to syphen off businesses the world around. This is where we need some limit on patents--either use them, or lose them, or make up some kind of compromise that will prevent patent farming.
I think this just goes to show we are failing in America at producing fine lawyers. We think Law school is everything, abandoned reading the law, and worst, obliterated our liberal arts education and intellectual society for a posr-intellectual mess. Now, look what it has given us--lawyers incapable of comprehending the subtleties of law, and a complete ignorance and abandonment of a common law system. I wonder if these judges have even read half of the court's previous opinions, let alone the greater body of their peers work (i.e. those that came before on the court and leading scholars of our time)?
I hope this is sarcasm. The constitution clearly specifies what patents are to be used for in America (irrespective of past common law precedent). Patents are for the benefit of the public trust--to promote the arts and sciences, the general welfare, and not the patent holder. Whether a particular patent meets this description is for the court to decide.
It is up to the court to determine whether it is even possible for patents to be issued that equally affect all parties while equally distributing the purpose cited in the copyright and patent section of the US Constitution.
Moreover, it is not necessary that the government issue them. It is freely up to the PEOPLE whether this is to be done--the people and the courts. Kinda like the inherent contradictions of "seperate, but equal", a.k.a. "seperate and unequal". ;)
Problem is that modern legal theory says the Preamble is meaningless, and the court is not in a position to decide what constitutes these "vague" terms like "the public trust". Law to these people is a deductive science void of any moral underpinnings. Basically, the court is an entity for the purpose of following law verbatim. Problem, of course, is that law is written (as has been written for many years in the past) with specific purposes. These purposes are affected by things like precedents, but formalists won't accept this. I've been getting in arguments with an aquaintence of mine who is graduating from Law School next term.
It's really a mess, but apparently this formalist trend has infected the court and threatens to usurp 200-year precedents. It's bewildering.
It seems as though there is an opinion that if I write a preface that provides intent and purpose the court will ignore this, even when that purpose is for the law itself. A.k.a. the Constitution's Preamble is for politicians vs judges. Meh... what utter nonsense.
Note: I use the term 'legal' to mean "all means possible in the legal system... not necessarily permissable, as permissablility changes given the legislative acts and judicial rulings, which are subject to change in the long term."
Edit: ...because you are not locked into a contract, but do have free publicity and a huge market from which to now choose your distributor for the maximum price...
The content creators are told that were the market place to become saturated there exists the possibility that artists such as "The Beatles" would not be in a position to make the astronomical sums of money they did in an open market.
They operate under the lifeboat plan: those who are in their lifeboat do not wish to help the freezing passengers drowning from the now sinking Titanic, because their lifeboat might tip over or sink, so they will beat people off the boat. In our case, use all legal means to keep the market closed. If they do this they ate guarenteed safety-- or so they think.
What they do not take into consideration is that the marketplace is best suited to them, not distributors. The market protects bad artists as it now operates that can meet with the look and feel the industry wants to sell--what "creation" it can best market.
True music artists are not "pop" sensations. They don't necessarily have "blockbuster" written all over themselves. Content creators who are making boatloads of money, don't want to risk the scenario whereby they might tip the boat--in our case, have their talent be subpar.
As citizens and consumers, in our nation as it is theoretically possible to operate under our as written Constitution, it is in our court to set price. Consumers have all the power. Companies have used their powers developed through market manipulation to press government and manipulate the socioeconomic system to such a degree that they are able to get passed that places market control--price control--in their hands, to the detriment of consumers.
A better question: " Is it possible for citizens who generally act as consumers to play the middle out of both ends, or can they only support consumers, as any deviation will fundamentally deminish social welfare?"
"The same way we've been doing it for years, Pinky."
The same way societies have been doing this for decades—through the creation of permanent underclasses whose only effective ways out of poverty are through criminal activities or military service. Does anyone seriously think that (with maybe some meaningful statistical variance for cowardice and seeing value in your society created through actual meaningful community) BIPOC Americans register for military personnel positions (i.e. "enlist" for "military service") because allntue claimed "other options" just don't "give them the same meaning", or whatever tye curremt running tagline of bullshit the propagandists at the Department of War to maximize troop enlistment numbers to back imperialism? Rome privatized the Legions for similar, fucked up reasons. It's why Reagan's goons privatized military service. They couldn't get another "draft", so in order to keep endless war as a thing, they helped crush BIPOC communities and make it such that Poor folks have only ONE viable option to "get out of ghettos", "military service". So, to these oligarchic fucks, it genuinely doesn't matter "how bad" a tour of duty is. Do people honestly think military service today is better than when my father & his friends in USMC Force Reconn during the Vietnam War (particularly, 1968–1970) used to respond to threats by military personnel that if they didn't mind, they'd be "Court Marshalled", by laughing, while mockingly retort, "WHAT ARE THEY GONNA DO‽ SEND ME TO THE NAM‽ 🤣 THREE SQUARE MEALS A DAY AND NOBODY IS SHOOTING AT ME‽ WHERE DO I SIGN‽" When that's the attitude of your military regulars, is it any wonder military personnel created the idea of "fragging" superiors? If your current situation may well get you killed, and "prison sounds like a cakewalk", then what's 20-years in Leavenworth when compared with your life or the lives of your fellow soldiers? For everyone's academic interest, this is one of the primary reasons why military service in some ways have gotten even worse than they were in the past. At least, when the military was more "socialist", everyone was generally miserable together, and one was likely to actually get paid. Nowadays, soldiers have (for over a decade) been screwed out of correct pay. In days past, if the War Department tried this crap, like trying to cut your pay because THEY made a fuck up, the unit of the person in question might well mutiny. And that's just if it was one or two people. Wars have been lost or fought over soldiers getting paid on time. Just look at all those times the legion marched on Rome over pay. This problem isn't new, and unless soldiers are planning on "unionizing" even when doing so is considered illegal, don't expect Congress to fix it anytime soon.
When Republicans "antitrust", does this now mean "to protect or to help create monopolies"?
When Republicans cite "antitrust" law, should we now conclude that they are using old school inverted language like Israel? When I say, "antitrust" what I mean is, "state approved trust/monopoly"? I begin to wonder, when Republicans will just drop the facade and start issuing monopoly permits/charters just like the British Crown? Should we expect that Musk will be "gifted" a "social media charter" for the "only permissible social media platform in 'Merica" in the next few years? While that seems outlandish, what's to stop it if AG's are now resorting to bolster the creation of antitrust by using state power to protect firms at the detriment to the general public or other businesses? I'll be interested to see if they actually go that far once Musk gets his illegal "conspiracy to defraud the US Taxpayer" federal agency. For remember, class, when Republicans (and many Democrats) claim to be creating something for "efficiency", what they REALLY mean is to collude in the creation of or protection of monopolies.
Time to Disbar? What happens if an Attorney General is Disbarred? What happens if someone without bar privileges (like a non-lawyer) somehow gets elected to the position of Attorney General?
This situation reminds me that it's about damn time bar associations start dealing with these abuses of power of their own. Just because you are AG does not give you the justification to do something that might well get a non-AG disbarred by, you know, collusion. Imagine how a regular attorney would get TEABAGGED for this kind of "dual loyalty", and ask yourself, "What justifiably insulates or should insulate a state AG from disbarment or suspension of their law license/right to practice in a state or federal court?" This made me ponder something—what would happen if a non-lawyer, or as might be phrased, someone without rights or qualifications to the bar (the olden timey way of saying, act as a lawyer to represent another in a given court of law)? I know about old customs like having just one member of the bar who will act as an "advisor" or "mentor" to a given lawyer designed to help junior lawyers get experience prior to passing the bar exams (or in the events of one lawyer being out of state & for some reason not having cross-juridictoom bar rights). But, it makes me wonder — in the CRAZY world that people like Trump offer us, just what would happen if an "unqualified" AG somehow got appointed/approved/nominated and confirmed? Like, without anyone willing to stick their neck out for them? i.e., in the seemingly unlikely scenario that no lawyer was willing to stick their neck out and risk their own license for said rube? These out of control AGs make me wonder if a bar association actually got the intestinal fortitude to call out said AG and disbar them, what would be the consequences beyond a publicity stunt, such as disbarring Bill Clinton?
Editorial Comment for Lay Readers
I wanted to comment on editorial grounds since not everyone reading BestNetTech (and ideally so) is going to be accustomed to the intricacies of legal jargon. The author used the acronym "TRO" to indicate a "Temporary Restraining Order", which was admittedly a bit confusing given I'm used to having this read as "an injunction". Ideally, tough or lesser used acronyms should be defined (even as a footnote) for lay readers and the general public. I have been a long time reader of BestNetTech for well over 10-years and plan to continue well into the future (so long as my body takes breath) as I hope for others — it has been an incredibly useful site for hard-hitting journalism in an ever accelerating and consolidating capitalist dystopian hellscape (read, arguably, in the most generous of terms so as not to alienate my own readership with my own inherent biased). I know, unfortunately, that BestNetTech lacks the sort of powerful, army of techflexing editorial staff to rope its (oftentimes legal scholars) contributors writirng on vital stories of significance to both industry and the general public. Antitrust law being critical to maintaining an open and efficient marketplace that is free of ridiculous barriers to entry or other artificial obstructions that might harm it. Thankfully, it's a term that readily came up without much difficulty (thanks in major part to the likewise army of activists and scholars who have made such internet facing resources free and publicly available to anyone with an open internet connection). However, it could have equally have been a commonly used, but less easily searched term that might have thrown some readers. I have appreciated Mike wnd other writers' consistent transparency as part of their efforts doing journalism, often in an incredibly restrained and restricted budget—journalism forced to live on an anorexic (loss of appetite) restricted Caloric intake as though truth and good journalism were some kind of super morbidly obese cardiac and diabetes patient with congestive heart failure, and therefore needs to be managed and limited at all costs—🙄 I know, it's a travesty to say the least—but BestNetTech has consistently kept afloat and operating — thanks in great measure to our fellow generous readers who choose to give back. I want to likewise thank those people involved in the process and sing their praises. That said — I also want to be able to toss a BestNetTech article at a random, far less informed friend (only to have them scream in horror at what seemingly new horror is being doled out by corporate interests), and have them not have to run an internet search for terms (for I try not to assume everyone knows the [define] function or even, sadly, where to look up a decent dictionary online, or has easy access to dictionaries, the time, proclivity, patients, nor necessarily even the raw attention span to look such content up — I have a diverse group of friends is all I'll say on the matter [those with a less impressive grasp on English, let alone, legalese]). I want to be able to toss articles and have them accidentally learn something while they are perusing an article (just like was my privilege upon reading the finely crafted articles of my own youth) I share. I frequently get nitpicked about my own choice of terms, so I admit this may be an extension of my own efforts at readability, but when I (a generally well informed reader) came across an acronym that I was unacquainted with (in this case, "TRO" or "Temporary Restraining Order"), it threw me for a sec. I had to do the aforementioned web search to figure out the definition. I'm the type inclined and able to put said time into writing, so its easier for me to parse said articles. But not everyone is — even if we might like it to be otherwise. Some might accuse me of unnecessarily trying to "dumb down" BestNetTech with this comment — I don't see it that way myself; rather, I see myself trying to help writers help their readers in what to me is a much loved periodical, or news/research/nonfiction publication. (Though, Lord knows there are those who would claim that's all that is done here — but I try not to let my worldview be guided by the Heritage Foundation's 2025 policy of reactionary jurisprudence.) In future, if possible, I encourage writers at BestNetTech (and editors, if BestNetTech can even afford or has access to them) to try to, at least once, define either in tye article or a footnote, any acronym or particularly technical term. You've probably done it thousands of times before, but as my own friends remind me — journalism is supposed to assume at most a 6th grade reading capability, which itself is generous given what was expected of 6th graders' vocabulary when those policies [or to those ardently strict journalism purists, "laws"] were first instituted into the halls of journalism well over one hundred years ago. Anyhow, thank you Timothy and thanks to Mike and everyone at BestNetTech. I appreciate everyone's work and passion (even when it doesn't get said nor sai$ sufficiently for the Common Good). So, here's my metaphorical box of epic cookies to have and share with your colleagues. And while you all [?] munch away, please, take pity on your prospective readership, he says with the affirmationed now to the powers that be.
button presses will be my downfall
… Instead of focusing on the superficial, we have to acknowledge that the reality that no US jurisdiction is going to permit one of its defense contractors from having the legitimate liability of "rendering criminal assistance" nor Racketeering. Given the knowledge that the item in question would in all likelihood be used for criminal activity (violations of international law), it is reasonable to assume, IMO, NSO Group is complicit in racketeering and rendering criminal assistance in the assassination of Khashoggi. Saudi Arabia is on record for such crimes and more, is a notorious violator of international law, which US courts are responsible to enforce for all instances where the US Government has signed treaties, as well as other related factors. At the same time, it is also reasonable to assume that given the incestuous nature of NSO Group and the US government, it was unlikely that the court would act6hold the organization criminally nor financially liable for selling such materials when they knew Saudi Arabia would in all likelihood use it for a criminal action or conspiracy. Furthermore, evidence revealed that other firms, such as McKinsey & Company, aided in the tracking of dissident critics of the Saudi government—when they knew beyond a reasonable doubt that such materials would likely be used to suppressed dissidents and violate international law. Under a sane system, that actually applies the law, the rule of law, in a universally consistent fashion would hold all of these firms criminally liable and financially liable for aiding and abetting the murder of khashoggi because they damn well should have known and likely knew to a reasonable enough degree that selling or providing such material would enable such an event even if they did not know specifically about khashoggi. We see the same kind of charges brought against people who sell dual use technologies to people the United States government doesn't like. Such as Iran. Centrifuges have numerous non-weapons development related purposes, and yet it has been established that you cannot sell centrifuges to the state of Iran because it is established the state of Iran Will in all likelihood use those centrifuges for the development of nuclear weapons. And as part of non-proliferation treaties and the general desire for the United States and other related countries to maintain their nuclear dominance, it is generally made illegal both specifically and indirectly for the selling of such dual use technologies. Because the technologies that are sold by NSO group can be used both for lawful and unlawful purposes under international law, if a country or a group is likely to use that for unlawful purposes, then you're not supposed to sell it to them. Otherwise, anything that they use that material for potentially makes you liable for knowingly selling it to someone who has established a criminal track record. I mean, how else do you think they lock up all those poor schmucks as part of a larger racketeering case? It just happens to be that because the federal government is not going after the Saudi government using RICO, It becomes more difficult in a civil case. Although I find it rather difficult to believe that there is not sufficient evidence to demonstrate such probabiliability, and ultimately it demonstrates to me that the courts are inherently bent towards the side of established institutional power. If it was just some regular peon, don't kid yourself into thinking that they would be held liable. If I for example were to develop such technology and sell it to another country that while technically was not barred under US or international law at the time of sale, if it was known at the time that that country violated the rule of law and did so on a frequent and regular basis, I find it highly doubtful that I would not be held criminally liable were I in some way a critic of the United States or other related factor which would make me a desired target of retaliation. But we may argue and say that such an action would be punitive reprisal and unlawful, we all know reasonably here that that is a common practice used by the federal government and by other governments around the world even if technically they're not supposed to do that. And they get away with it too in many cases. So I think it rather foolish to think than under such circumstances Mrs. khashoggi had no basis for mounting a suit against NSO group. Rather I think the major issue is the biased way in which the federal government and in particular the federal judiciary meets out justice based upon the selective security interests of the United States security apparatus and economic interests at a high level. They could frankly give a fuck what you or I want or need, or whether it actually violates the rule of law and a universal sense, because as has been shown again and again what matters to them is not universal justice or natural law, but rather their own self-interest in a limited fashion.
Petrodollar Recycling | Why Saudi Arabia & the House of Saud are immune to suit.
Given the US has since 1972 backed the Saudi Royal Family and Saudi Arabia through once secret oil protection money for oil banking monopoly treaties, it is little wonder why the Saudi government gets away with assassinations like this without suit or damages. You should read the stories about how many people the current prince has raped/murdered, and how he gets away with it scot free. No repercussions because of petrodollar recycling. Instead of focusing on
This needs a sequel
Given the news that Reddit is now axing privacy rules altogether by preventing users from opting out to having their ad data "personalized"/sold to the highest bidder, I immediately thought of "what would Aaron think?" and this article was the first thing to pop up in my search. @MikeMasnik
When will the US Trademark Office start revoking trademark for Trademark trolling?
Would be nice if the Patent office did likewise—you act like total fuckheads, abuse your trademark, make frivolous suits, patent or trademark troll, and after some serious fines (like a % of annual global profits like the EU is suggesting for violations to its new BigTech regulatory laws), the firm loses its trademark and has a freeze on applying for new trademarks (possibly an FTC ban on acquisitions of new trademarks) for a period of years. Maybe, going so far as to have criminal charges against the powers that be in said corp. Like, if I abuse emergency services, I can be arrested and charged for criminal misconduct and abuse of these vital services. Patent and trademark trolls waste precious time, resources, and harm the very integrity of IP/©/®/™/etc., the courts, the processes, and harm consumers and the marketplace. If we put forth meaningful blueprints for said legislation—a roadmap to demand legislature approval state/federal, it would do all of us a lot of good—wouldn't it be great to read articles about how these trolls get penalized for their abuses, as opposed to continuing to hear about frivolous suits that have little to no merit. One thing the article didn't tell me, though—when did the Fishing company start using the logo? Is it part of their name? Does this predate Monster's application for Trademark, etc.? There's quite a bit of useful info not included. I'm gonna check the linked article, but if that also doesn't mention that, I figured that might be good info for future reference. My favorite articles on this sort of topic at BestNetTech have offered a bit more insight/details on the situation. I wish to thank monster-mash dept and Timothy Geigner
Re:
And yet even those had "Letters to the Editor" as does most journals where people comment on the journal articles in question. :P
Re: Re: Re: Re: Hardliners
A friend of mine and professor of physics (he's and elderly Englishman who came to the US in the early 1960's) gave me an interesting notion that the great philosophers in America were laywers (like my 7th great grandfather James Wilson). They were often country laywers like Lincoln. Educated on their own or through small farming schools or land grant universities. Students' education was not free, but subsidizrd by the community.
Professors made substantially less, but they were professors as a civic duty. Much like teachers. It was also a stable job. A guarenteed job in many ways.
We also would talk about an American professor on media ecology named Neil Postman. Founder of the NYU school of media ecology. Postman took off where Korzybski, McLuhan, and many others took off, in education, technology (of which he was a skeptic to some extent, but for good reason), and a variety of other subjects.
Postman's arguably greatest achievement was analyzing the American social narrative and producing tools to said us as a society described our social narratives and determine what problems exist in our society, and how best to deal withthem. Narratives are building blocks which explain to us our purpose and outlook on the world.
I've been slowly laying out a paper on the topic. It would probably be of great value to the legal world (Postman's theories--not necessarily anything I create), by allowing us to better understand that within any institution there exists narrative--stories--gods to which we serve, and when those meaning making devices break down or are no longer fuctioning satisfactorily, the institution breaks down. People claw onto whatever they can find, or find solace in total disillusionment.
Postman writes about looking to the 18th and early 19th century to find components and narrative elements to which we can fasten ourselves to, and thereby use to propel ourselves into the 21st century.
The bridge we are constructing--what are we to take with us?
What we have brought with us obviously does not serve us.
We need to look back at what has come before and find new narratives from which to serve, and to serve us. Presently, we have very few if any gods to serve--narratives. Often people get stuck in dogmatism and fundamentalism, because they have no competing narratives to serve.
In the legal profession, this seemily great tidal wave of formalism may be a direct response to our loss of narrative that was solidified in the 1950's and 1960's with the racial equality movements and the anti-war protest movements where people learned to distrust their society and government. We have to so great an extent given up on living as a society where as a community we can intellegently solve any problem that comes before us, instead replacing this society of idealist lawyers, farmers, and dreamers who took the impossible and made it real (the American dream) with a culture of clans and culture wars--group tribal mentality. We have in so many ways regressed as a society in this pos-intellectual age. People can no longer put their faith and trust in social narratives and institutions which they had at one time confidently confided their fears, hopes and dreams. The social order fell apart. I don't think it was broken for a bad reason, but the after effects have been catastrophic, as no one has come in to set things right--no narratives exist--outside, perhaps, a few good movies or those developed through social movements like Occupy or other left-libertarian movements--that can fill the gaps left by the great American social purge.
Overall, no meaningful narratives present themselves outside of the occasional film, book, or television show that tell us about ourselves and what our world should look like, or what it does look like, but these stories are like the nightly news--they do not represent themselves inside meaningful order or context. They are merely entertainment as opposed to something the the Greek epics in Ancient Greece, which existed as a platform for human experience and expression. Young Greecians would run about reciting Homer. The society used these stories for many years to fill in the context of life until Olato changed that, replacing it with his Academy, which served for nearly a thousand years as the center for meaningful human endevors. Today, our stories, which could provide us some valuable context for our world are tossed about ineptly in our society. Monty Python has phrase well suited to the world in which we live, "And now for something completely different."
We live in a time where meaningful context is a near impossibility.
To endeavor to improve our world, improve our laws, improve our system of government, we need first a meaningful context and social narrative in which to serve, and which may in turn serve us. One that will guide us forward, providing some meaningful order to the world in which we find ourselves. Once these are in place, as it has in past times, society will fall into step behind our new narratives--provided the narratives are functional and mean ngful for the times--but far too often we allow our narratives to stagnate and die, or do not even know they exist. It has come time in our development that we become cognizant of our narratives and seek to improve them or replace them when times and change necessitates it--we must not lose track of who we are or where we have come, lest we will become lost--as we now find ourselves
We fight, live and die for our narratives, without even knowing they exist.
The Constitution is no different. We have quite clear purposes and narratives listed in the documents, but our people (judges, lawyers, political leaders) serving other gods--the gods of fundamentalism, social opportunism, and formalism (toname but a few) are conspiring to overwhelm us, because they provide to these men and women the meaningful context for their age. They have no other eak out a life for themselves or hope to move effortlessly through the vast and complex multitudes of change that occur in our world everyday, and they see latching onto these narratives (plugging themselves into the Borg Hive Mind as it were) as a meanigful solution to their woes.
We who think differently, obviously have fashioned our own narratives of sorts--obviously built out of the culture of the geek-centric world. I don't know what that constitutes, but it's some sort of ready-made patchwork of ideas and past narratives that allows us to survive and provide meaning for our world.
For the rest of humanity--or at least American humanity (whether life without meaning is even life at all, I cannot say)--no such escape is near. They latch onto whatever they can in the hopes of survival.
I suspect our problems in patent law are just one superficial example of this fundamental problem with our world.
Patents, physics, and nerds, OH MY!
This probably explains why Einstein worked in a patent office for some years. It was a wonderful place to keep up with tech. Fewer patents get introduced each year. I've wondered if the tech is just that much more complex, or if it really is a result of our system? Same goes with copyright.
It's the great legal balancing act--purpose as opposed to method. When you forget the purpose, it's really easy to get lost creating convoluted methods--rabbit holes that lead nowhere, or at least that lead to a place determined by someone like the lawyers for big patent mills. You let the Congress publish laws that do not represent the intents given in the Constitution, and people who are meant to be sure law is consistent (law A is in keeping with internal consistency of purpose) i.e judges, and you wind up with laws and enforcement built to support large isolated companies who don't care about inovation, but sustained profits. They don't have to produce anything for them, and since our society is so entrenched in this money game as Hedges and Lessig write about, we end up just letting it happen.
Meh... the real problem is people are taught to believe law is some esoteric subject they cannot understand. 200-years ago, people read up on this stuff all the time. -shakez head-
Post-Intellectual society, welcome.
Re: Re:
I'm always surprised at the number of patent lawyers who post on these BestNetTech discussions. Just goes to show that progress in these fields happens in surprising places :)
I've learned more about law here than any place else. ;)
Thanks all!
Re: Re: more dissembling
Edit ...where* businesses should look...
Re: more dissembling
But, small and inovative businesses are generally not using their patents to bludgeon preemptively any and all "competition", even if open-source. The examples previously given are cases were businesses should look at the open-source project in question and try to resolve things peacefully first.
It seems, however, the vast majority of suits and injunctions that are causing all the trouble originate from either large multinational corporations attempting to exact monopolistic practices onto an unsuspecting market thereby obliterating any and all future competition, or patent farms seeking to purchase broadly defined patents (which the courts need to redefine less broadly and more clearly) and use them to syphen off businesses the world around. This is where we need some limit on patents--either use them, or lose them, or make up some kind of compromise that will prevent patent farming.
Meh... such a complex mess.
Re: Re: Hardliners
I think this just goes to show we are failing in America at producing fine lawyers. We think Law school is everything, abandoned reading the law, and worst, obliterated our liberal arts education and intellectual society for a posr-intellectual mess. Now, look what it has given us--lawyers incapable of comprehending the subtleties of law, and a complete ignorance and abandonment of a common law system. I wonder if these judges have even read half of the court's previous opinions, let alone the greater body of their peers work (i.e. those that came before on the court and leading scholars of our time)?
For some reason, I find it doubtful.
Re: Re: ...Wha...?
I hope this is sarcasm. The constitution clearly specifies what patents are to be used for in America (irrespective of past common law precedent). Patents are for the benefit of the public trust--to promote the arts and sciences, the general welfare, and not the patent holder. Whether a particular patent meets this description is for the court to decide.
It is up to the court to determine whether it is even possible for patents to be issued that equally affect all parties while equally distributing the purpose cited in the copyright and patent section of the US Constitution.
Moreover, it is not necessary that the government issue them. It is freely up to the PEOPLE whether this is to be done--the people and the courts. Kinda like the inherent contradictions of "seperate, but equal", a.k.a. "seperate and unequal". ;)
Hardliners
Problem is that modern legal theory says the Preamble is meaningless, and the court is not in a position to decide what constitutes these "vague" terms like "the public trust". Law to these people is a deductive science void of any moral underpinnings. Basically, the court is an entity for the purpose of following law verbatim. Problem, of course, is that law is written (as has been written for many years in the past) with specific purposes. These purposes are affected by things like precedents, but formalists won't accept this. I've been getting in arguments with an aquaintence of mine who is graduating from Law School next term.
It's really a mess, but apparently this formalist trend has infected the court and threatens to usurp 200-year precedents. It's bewildering.
It seems as though there is an opinion that if I write a preface that provides intent and purpose the court will ignore this, even when that purpose is for the law itself. A.k.a. the Constitution's Preamble is for politicians vs judges. Meh... what utter nonsense.
Re: one further point
Note: I use the term 'legal' to mean "all means possible in the legal system... not necessarily permissable, as permissablility changes given the legislative acts and judicial rulings, which are subject to change in the long term."
Re: Either, or... problems
Edit: ...because you are not locked into a contract, but do have free publicity and a huge market from which to now choose your distributor for the maximum price...
one further point
On Content creators:
The content creators are told that were the market place to become saturated there exists the possibility that artists such as "The Beatles" would not be in a position to make the astronomical sums of money they did in an open market.
They operate under the lifeboat plan: those who are in their lifeboat do not wish to help the freezing passengers drowning from the now sinking Titanic, because their lifeboat might tip over or sink, so they will beat people off the boat. In our case, use all legal means to keep the market closed. If they do this they ate guarenteed safety-- or so they think.
What they do not take into consideration is that the marketplace is best suited to them, not distributors. The market protects bad artists as it now operates that can meet with the look and feel the industry wants to sell--what "creation" it can best market.
True music artists are not "pop" sensations. They don't necessarily have "blockbuster" written all over themselves. Content creators who are making boatloads of money, don't want to risk the scenario whereby they might tip the boat--in our case, have their talent be subpar.
As citizens and consumers, in our nation as it is theoretically possible to operate under our as written Constitution, it is in our court to set price. Consumers have all the power. Companies have used their powers developed through market manipulation to press government and manipulate the socioeconomic system to such a degree that they are able to get passed that places market control--price control--in their hands, to the detriment of consumers.
A better question: " Is it possible for citizens who generally act as consumers to play the middle out of both ends, or can they only support consumers, as any deviation will fundamentally deminish social welfare?"