- Unemployed people who use the Internet for a living…use the Internet when they’re unemployed.
- Won’t someone please think of the children! Relatedly, NPR had a good series on the bail bond industry earlier this year.
- Wait, you mean “Top Secret America” didn’t fix the problem?
- Google’s privacy dilemma.
Tag: civil liberty
Linkwad.
Linkwad.
- The ACLU starts pushing for gun rights. No word on who Fox News will use as a liberal boogeyman now (via Radley Balko).
- I don’t really understand much except the first sentence.
- No one makes phone calls anymore.
- The Arcade Fire’s pretty-great new album, The Suburbs, is streaming on NPR.
- The Mythbusters get interviewed.
Linkwad.
- For $250, ColorWare will prettify your iPhone 4, and might fix that “death grip” problem (which, in turn, might not be such a problem after all. Even if it is, it also might be (but probably not) getting fixed on the DL).
- The “Son of Sam” killer’s image gets burnished while he’s in jail. I’ve always loved the phrasing of the “Hello from the gutters of New York” Breslin letter, regardless of authenticity.
- Who do you write like? Based on this post, I write like Stephen King. My mom is apparently a H.P. Lovecraft fan.
- The FCC’s “indecency rules” are bullshit, says the Court of Appeals. Crappy-drawers whiners including the Parents Television Council and Concerned Women for America are appealing.
- Fuck what you heard, gang nicknames are awesome. I would love it if people called me “Bloody Batman.” (Via @Maryvale)
Linkwad (updated).
- Make your own Android apps (Via Engadget).
- Lawsuit over Apple’s AT&T lock-in, App Store moves forward.
- Harry Reid and Sharron Angle’s fair-use fight.
- Radley Balko interviewed about police-recording arrests.
- Update: YouTube now supports 4096p video.
And the law won.
Johannes Mehersle, the Oakland cop who shot an unarmed, handcuffed man in the back, avoided a murder charge, and was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. Mehersle’s defense, that he meant to draw his Taser instead of his gun, was questionable at best, and wasn’t good enough for a judge during a preliminary hearing.
Whether or not Mehersle actually intended to shoot Oscar Grant, the trial is a reminder of a few things:
- Juries, especially juries where blacks are excluded, are unduly sympathetic to police.
- Even when not confused with guns, Tasers have caused hundreds of deaths in the last decade. However, police still use them freely, even in confrontations with unarmed suspects.
- This trial only came about because of citizen-recorded video, which will get you arrested in several states (Maryland has been particularly incoherent on the subject).
Update: Adam Serwer has a much more complete take on the trial’s import.