Olives @olives@qoto.org

https://reclaimthenet.org/new-york-bill-calls-for-a-background-check-on-anyone-that-wants-to-buy-a-3d-printer

"New York lawmakers are proposing a bill that could destroy the right to privacy and increase surveillance to an unsettling extent. The bill, spearheaded by State Senator Jenifer Rajkumar, posits that New Yorkers seeking to purchase 3D printers would first be subject to a criminal background check before the buy. This proposition poses substantial implications, particularly related to personal privacy and the potential to open the Pandora’s box of surveillance."

"Why the proposed law? The rationale behind the proposed legislation’s genesis lies in connecting the dots to the gun industry. Phantom weapons, aka “ghost guns,” are guns that lack identification numbers for tracking, and are, therefore, untraceable."

That's not the only thing someone might do with a 3D printer though.

https://www.al.com/news/2023/10/small-town-police-sued-for-planting-drugs-on-drivers-in-north-alabama.html

"After a small-town police officer was indicted this year in a scheme to frame drivers for drug possession in north Alabama, one driver is suing for wrongful arrest, arguing that former Centre officer Michael Kilgore planted drugs in his car and used a police dog from another department to find the contraband."

"After (Officer) Kilgore’s scheme was exposed, the charges against Plaintiff and numerous other victims of the scheme were dropped. Accordingly, plaintiff brings this action for wrongful arrest and malicious prosecution,” said a complaint in the lawsuit filed in federal court last month."

"His lawsuit claims he was forced to sleep on the concrete jail floor which caused a shoulder injury. His name, mugshot and charges were published in the local paper."

"I am afraid this case is just scratching the surface of the damage Officer Kilgore has done to the innocent people he arrested for possessing or distributing drugs, drugs that he planted on them so he could get another drug bust to his credit,” said Jon Goldfarb, Blevins’ attorney."

Bad faith actors don't even seem to realize that over-censorship actually leads to someone viewing more content they don't like. There are quite a few reasons for that.

One is that someone might just pursue more permissive (or incompetent) avenues. Still, they seem overly paranoid regardless.

Apparently, there has been some interesting discourse in Japan with Ken Akamatsu. If you remember, he was the mangaka, and free expression advocate (though, also a bit of a copyright advocate for better or worse) who got elected to Japan's upper house, the House of Councilors, last year as part of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

He appears to be looking into commercial AI art. I'm not sure how practical it would be in practice (it could be quite burdensome), however, he wants to figure out how to compensate artists who created works in the training sets (one idea is to take a cut of the proceeds and to put it in a shared fund to be dispensed).

Frankly, I think AI art is less interesting than manually drawn art, especially when you've seen enough of it.

He also suggests that we must be vigilant for attempts to push for restrictions on expression and to vigorously oppose them.

https://reclaimthenet.org/israeli-minister-calls-for-arrest-of-journalists-and-citizens-that-share-information-that-harms-national-morale

"In a moment where the essence of free speech is under scrutiny worldwide, a controversial move by Israel’s Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi has sparked profound concern among proponents of free expression and the principles of a democratic society. Karhi is in the process of advancing regulations, authorizing the arrest of individuals and seizure of property based on the subjective judgment that their communication undermines “national morale” or aids enemy propaganda."

"Broad in their scope, these regulations aren’t confined to potential misinformation or enemy rhetoric but extend to factually accurate statements and mainstream media coverage, both domestic and international. It would allow Israeli police to arrest Israeli citizens, including journalists, for sharing information that is critical of Israel."

I see Julie is mad? at Discord because they reckon that scanning for abuse in livestreams would be prohibitively expensive? Aren't there like a hundred cases in any particular year in the world? I recall someone (who used to work at FB) came up with a number like this in 2021 (I don't pay close attention to it).

There's a religious savior group which claims higher, however, they're accused by progressive outlets of having a history of making misleading exaggerated claims.

It feels like another case of "let's find an excuse to be mad at tech companies"? This is not going to grow your tech sector, Julie.

She is also upset that companies aren't invading user privacy, because of course she is. She also appears to be advocating measures which would likely have extremely high rates of false positives, because of course she is.

Even if someone doesn't directly and deliberately do it at any particular time, they might still instinctively push themselves towards it... Come on.

Whatever the case, I don't buy this claim. It feels like someone really wants to pretend that porn is this spooky and magical thing.

I see a British shill is this time claiming porn makes someone sexual, rather than an earlier onset of puberty for a particular person pushing them to consume porn sooner.

Ugh...

https://reclaimthenet.org/new-digital-id-system-to-be-pushed-on-austrians-this-december What do you think of this?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/poland-election-coaliiton-1.6997607 Looks like PiS is out in Poland.

The Finnish Sexpo Foundation is an interesting looking organization which provides therapeutic services relating to, well, as the name suggests, sex and relationships. They came to international attention a number of years ago for supporting "child sex dolls" (though, this language can be problematic) with one argument being that it leads to less child abuse (1) (it seems the science has since come even more on that side).

They appear to have a program which they pitch as leading to less crime (though, (3) would appear to apply here) in at least a few articles. It's funded by Finland's Ministry of Justice. Their website appears to be markedly less justice oriented.

One of their therapists, Anna Kolster, makes an appearance here (2), though (3) applies a bit to this article too. They cover her life (she appears to have had issues in her own life when it comes to relationships), and she boldly says this at one point: "My clients are not monsters. Many have poor social skills, are very lonely, and have not received any sex education that they have been able to assimilate."

Frankly, "sex education" (though, I'm not sure what this specifically entails) might be a better idea than building a second China in Europe.

P.S. Salter is a very boring (and disingenuous) person (he is practically a male karen), and I'm happy to throw a spanner in the gears of his ideology from time to time.

1 https://qoto.org/@olives/111016310514191221

2 https://svenska.yle.fi/a/7-10000464

3 https://qoto.org/@olives/111242500762655767

It's interesting to see a disingenuous British shill pushing for the chat control when the U.K. is not even part of the E.U. and the U.K. made a big deal out of how they didn't want to have the E.U. involved in their politics.

Ylva appears to be doing the political equivalent of "no u" without realizing (or caring) that it's complete nonsense.

I imagine this disingenuous talking point probably comes from shills / lobbyists from the pressure groups which she favors, as they sound awfully similar to the most bad faith one of all. #chatcontrol

https://edri.org/our-work/activists-come-to-brussels-to-tell-meps-to-ensure-everyones-digital-security-amid-mas-surveillance-measures-in-csa-regulation/

"Between 9 and 11 October, 23 Stop Scanning Me activists from 13 European countries travelled to Brussels. They were students, parents, lawyers, young activists, human rights defenders and technologists. They came on behalf of the 200,000 people who signed the movement petition to tell their EU representatives in the European Parliament that the CSA Regulation proposal must be rejected to prevent mass surveillance."

"As part of EDRi’s “Stop Scanning Me” campaign and our core mission to defend encryption and private, secure communication, we managed to support the travel of 23 volunteers from all over Europe in an action in the European Parliament. Over three days, the activists, coming from Greece, Italy, Czech Republic, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Portugal, Denmark, Romania, Germany, Spain and France had meetings with MEPs from all political groups. They talked about the CSA Regulation and the grave consequences the proposed measures would have on people’s life experiences."

"The discussions happened amidst a newly-published independent investigation by 7 leading news outlets. The news uncovered that parts of the European Commission have been promoting industry interests in its proposed law to regulate the spread of child sexual abuse material online. In addition to these revelations, it became clear that the Commission’s Home Affairs unit has reportedly used prohibited targeting of people based on their religious and political views, in an attempt to manipulate public and political opinion in the member states where governments opposed the law."

"Many of the MEPs were alarmed at the risks as well as the issues with the legitimacy of the policy process. So, they committed to taking further steps to ensure that the CSA Regulation does not put people in the EU under mass surveillance."

https://reason.com/2023/10/16/california-attorney-general-announces-settlement-to-stop-civil-rights-abuses-by-vallejo-police-department/

"For over a decade, local activists, reporters, and attorneys have been sounding the alarm about habitual civil rights violations by police in the Bay Area town of Vallejo, California. Now, California Attorney General Rob Bonta has announced that the state has reached a binding settlement with Vallejo to attempt to reform its troubled police department.

Bonta said in a press conference today that the California Department of Justice has entered into a stipulated judgment with the city of Vallejo and the Vallejo Police Department (VPD) to implement over 45 specific reforms meant to improve oversight, policies, and training in the VPD."

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/10/16/judge-is-rightly-skeptical-that-montana-can-just-ban-tiktok/

"It seemed pretty blatantly obvious that a state can’t just ban a popular app used for speech, but Montana insisted otherwise earlier this year, and gleefully passed a law banning TikTok. The law was immediately challenged, and there’s been a lot of back and forth on the docket, including a ridiculous amicus brief from Virginia and 17 other states (all with Republican AGs), claiming that obviously states can ban any speech they want."

"Incredibly, during the oral arguments, the judge asked the state’s solicitor general if they had turned up any proof during discovery that TikTok was putting people’s data at risk, and the state had to admit “we did not.”"

"Also, perhaps not surprising, Montana’s Attorney General Austin Knudsen (who was said to have actually written the underlying bill) found his own words being used in court to demonstrate just how unconstitutional the bill was."

"[Judge Molloy] took issue with Montana lawyers’ argument that the ban was needed to protect residents’ data privacy, saying it was “totally inconsistent” with statements from Knudsen and state legislators that the sole purpose of the ban was to “teach China a lesson.”"

https://reason.com/2023/10/16/supreme-court-will-hear-this-texas-womans-challenge-to-a-politically-motivated-arrest/

"Supreme Court Will Hear This Texas Woman's Challenge to a Politically Motivated Arrest

Sylvia Gonzalez, an anti-establishment politician, spent a day in jail for allegedly concealing a petition that she organized."

"Four years ago, Sylvia Gonzalez, a newly elected member of the Castle Hills, Texas, city council, was charged with concealing a government record, a misdemeanor that would have resulted in her removal from office if she had been convicted. Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales declined to pursue the case, and it is not hard to see why. The charge, which was orchestrated by Gonzalez's political opponents, was based on what she describes as an honest mistake: After a city council meeting, she says, she accidentally picked up a bundle of petitions against City Manager Ryan Rapelye—petitions that she herself had organized—and placed it in her binder along with other papers."