Olives @olives@qoto.org

https://reason.com/2023/12/14/congress-renews-warrantless-digital-spying-program-as-part-of-886-billion-spending-bill/

"A bipartisan effort to reform or shutter the federal government's massive warrantless spying regime ended, for now, in failure on Thursday morning as Congress approved a temporary renewal of the program as part of a military funding package."

"A group of Republicans led efforts in both chambers to remove a temporary reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows federal intelligence agencies to collect communications between Americans and foreigners. Congressional authorization for Section 702 was set to expire at the end of the year, but will now continue until April."

""Extending Section 702 robs Congress of the ability to make reforms now, and likely robs Congress of the opportunity to make reforms any time in the next year," Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) argued on the Senate floor. "That means, once again, the intelligence agencies that ignore the constraints on their power will go unaddressed and unpunished. And the warrantless surveillance of Americans, in violation of the Bill of Rights, will continue."

A bipartisan group of 34 senators supported Paul's motion to strip the Section 702 reauthorization from the final version of the NDAA."

#privacy

https://reason.com/2023/12/14/civil-rights-groups-urge-federal-appeals-court-to-strike-down-mississippis-jim-crow-era-felon-voting-ban/

"Civil rights groups are urging a federal appeals court to uphold a ruling that found Mississippi's lifetime felon disenfranchisement law, which ranks among the harshest in the nation, violates the Constitution.

In August, a panel of judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit blocked Mississippi's felon disenfranchisement law in a 2–1 ruling, finding that the state's lifetime voting ban for those convicted of certain crimes constituted cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. Mississippi Republican Attorney General Lynn Fitch successfully petitioned the full 5th Circuit for an en banc rehearing."

"The drafters of Mississippi's 1890 constitution admitted that they intentionally chose a list of crimes they believed most likely to lead to the disenfranchisement of black residents, such as forgery and bigamy. Rape and murder were not added to the list, which now includes 22 offenses, until 1968.

"Its historical origins in noxious, intentional racial discrimination offend the dignity of the individual and society," the brief says. "Its mandatory nature and lack of an accessible, non-arbitrary path to reentry make it functionally irrevocable—even for minor offenses that carry short terms of imprisonment, like writing a bad check for $100—and thus grossly disproportionate.""

#CriminalJustice

Is it possible to create something duller than Facebook's #metaverse?

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/end-geofence-warrants

"Google announced this week that it will be making several important changes to the way it handles users’ “Location History” data. These changes would appear to make it much more difficult—if not impossible—for Google to provide mass location data in response to a geofence warrant, a change we’ve been asking Google to implement for years.

Geofence warrants require a provider—almost always Google—to search its entire reserve of user location data to identify all users or devices located within a geographic area during a time period specified by law enforcement. These warrants violate the Fourth Amendment because they are not targeted to a particular individual or device, like a typical warrant for digital communications. The only “evidence” supporting a geofence warrant is that a crime occurred in a particular area, and the perpetrator likely carried a cell phone that shared location data with Google. For this reason, they inevitably sweep up potentially hundreds of people who have no connection to the crime under investigation—and could turn each of those people into a suspect."

#privacy

https://nichegamer.com/twitch-reverses-stance-on-adult-content-will-allow-animated-nudity/ A good start but it would be better if they went further. #twitch #anime

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/dec/14/students-can-make-provocative-remarks-if-they-do-not-break-law-watchdog-says

"University staff and students can make provocative statements on subjects such as Israel and Gaza as long as they do not break laws on incitement or harassment, under proposals by the government’s campus free speech tsar.

Arif Ahmed, the newly appointed director for academic freedom of speech at the Office for Students (OfS), said universities and colleges in England that infringed the rights to expression of individuals would face fines under the new complaints process."

"Speech that amounts to illegal harassment, stirring up racial hatred, inciting violence, stirring up religious hatred – none of that would be protected."

"Ahmed said it was important that students and academics “be allowed to hear and discuss a whole range of views, including ones that they might find controversial or offensive, or distasteful or shocking”."

#FreeSpeech

https://gizmodo.com.au/2023/12/sam-altman-accused-of-psychologically-abusive-behavior/

So, OpenAI's Board didn't fire Altman (until he came back) because they invented some new AI which is going to "take over the world", they fired him because he was apparently a jerk.

https://www.coe.int/en/web/freedom-expression/-/assessing-the-impact-of-immersive-realities-on-human-rights-committee-of-ministers-informal-meeting In case you forgot about the #metaverse, the Council of Europe was holding a meeting on it not so long ago with Facebook.

"She is like an angel." Someone talking about a civil liberties activist doing activism in the U.K.

Apparently, YouTube's Content ID system is still working hard to, uh, remove remixed parodies (i.e. anime abridged series'), even though I'm fairly sure that is fair use.