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A hacker stole $31 million from the blockchain company MonoX Finance, by exploiting a bug in software the service uses to draft smart contracts.
The article goes on to talk about how common these sorts of attacks are. The basic problem is that the code is the ultimate authority — there is no adjudication protocol — so if there’s a vulnerability in the code, there is no recourse. And, of course, there are lots of vulnerabilities in code.
To me, this is reason enough never to use smart contracts for anything important. Human-based adjudication systems are not useless pre-Internet human baggage, they’re vital.
Tandem_fusion Francisco Machado
10 hours ago
Actually expanding the Federal government's power to mandate laws that the states can or cannot legislate is the very clear purpose of the second sentence of the 14th amendment: "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Thus no state may make a law that infringes on a right that one has with respect to the Federal government. So, for example, prior to the 14th amendment, the 5th amendment Eminent domain clause ("nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.") did not apply to states: they were free to take property without compensation. IT was a right that existed only vis a vis the Federal government. Subsequent to the passage of the 14th, the Federal government was able to mandate that state laws which allowed uncompensated taking were voided.
The Federal government has no power to require that a state MUST pass a given law, but it does have the power, via the court, to prohibit it from having certain laws.
Francisco Machado Tandem_fusion
9 hours ago
"it does have the power, via the court, to prohibit it from having certain laws" - That power is bounded by two principles: If the state law infringes upon powers delegated by the Constitution to the federal government or that law is in violation of the Constitution. "deprive any person of life..." may depend upon the interpretation of what constitutes a "person." Clearly the phoetus is alive (I think there's no question there) and isn't a citizen since the constitution specifically says "born" - but I suspect it would require an act of Congress to define at what stage it is Constitutionally protected as a person. For precedent: A felon who kills the mother, causing the death of a phoetus, can be charged with two counts of murder.
Tandem_fusion Francisco Machado
5 hours ago
As to your first point: obviously.
As to your second, you're little out in left field. The due process clause acts only upon the state. the STATE may not deprive a person of life, etc. That has nothing to do with abortion, but rather with the taking of life by the government.
To the matter of defining so-called "personhood", it is nothing more than a distraction, It is not necessary to determine, nor is possible to determine empirically if there is a actual distinction between a live human and a person, as opposed too a mere semantic distinction. .The Federal government can define all it wishes, but it cannot mandate that a state use that definition to nay purpose at all. Absent a Federal nexus —and there is essentially none in abortion— congress has no power to mandate anything.
Tot the matte of fetal homicide laws you're assuming a bit much. Not all states have fetal homicide law. 38 states have fetal homicide laws; 29 from the earliest state of development. It is inaccurate to say that " a felon who kills the mother" etc., etc., since fetal homicide laws vary widely among the 38 states, but in general terms they do not require that the mother be killed, only that the fetus be killed. And related to the other matter of defining persons, those laws are dependent not on semantics but rather on the desire and intent of the legislature. They are not bound by the questions of whether the fetus is a person
SchroedingersDog Tandem_fusion
7 hours ago
"they were free to take property without compensation."
They could do it without running afoul of the specific words in the Constitution, but they could not do it would breaking the underlying code of the USA. That is, citizens have natural rights. Rights are not granted by the State, the State has no natural rights. Instead, The People grant limited authority to the government which they may revoke after a process.
That's the theory. Eventually, people fall to their usual vices and they bid the Government to enact their passions, such as to rule over others. The Republic was designed to frustrate those impulses, but as predicted it has slid towards Democracy, the system where the passions of the mob (oft directed by a few) become rule.
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Tandem_fusion SchroedingersDog
5 hours ago
Read Barron v. Baltimore, 32 U.S. 243. It is the leading case on the matter of Federalism, which is what we are actually discussing here, and dealt specifically with 5th amendment takings clause. If you do so carefully you will come to an understanding that the Federal government had no role in preventing states from engaging in behavior which the Federal government could not engage in. State sovereignty was not just a vague concept, it was the operative force in the relationship between the Federal government, the states and the people.
Scott Morefield
@SKMorefield
QAnon Shaman gets 41 months in prison for walking around the Capitol.
Leftist Antifa member gets probation & a fine for taking an axe to a senator's door, and the FBI even returned the axe.
Sounds about right.
8:42 PM · Nov 29, 2021 //
Starks pled guilty to the destruction of government property. Federal sentencing guidelines recommended that he get between 10-16 months. But instead, he was given probation and only had to pay $2,784 in restitution. He even got the ax he used in the commission of the offense back. Starks mocked the FBI for giving the ax back to him. //
More differences? Starks got to raise money for his defense on GoFundMe while the effort to raise money for Kyle Rittenhouse was pulled by GoFundMe officials.
Three North Dakota Democratic officials even donated to Starks. //
We are a country based on the rule of law, which includes the concept of equal treatment under the law. But when we see things like this, it eats away and erodes that basic foundational principle of our government. It makes us question if there still is that equal treatment under the law or whether your politics determine how you will be treated. It would be an incredibly dangerous thing to lose that cornerstone on which we were built.
Consider these suggestions for strengthening legislation that combats the anti-Israel, anti-Semitic movement, consistent with First Amendment rights //
But many states are fighting back. Thirty-five of them have passed anti-BDS laws, resolutions or executive orders opposing boycott, divestment, and/or sanctions against Israel. Some are modeled on anti-boycott legislation the United States passed back in the 1970s to counteract the Arab boycott. U.S. law forbids taxpayers from participating in a foreign boycott of Israel. //
Anti-Israel groups have targeted anti-BDS laws for extermination. In the course of litigation, they have shone a spotlight on the laws’ strengths and weaknesses. Here are some suggestions for strengthening anti-BDS legislation consistent with First Amendment rights.
93.6% of Americans Agree:
“In general, parents have the constitutional right to
make decisions for their children without government interference
unless there is proof of abuse or neglect.” - 2010 Zogby Poll
Children need to be raised and represented by parents who love them, not by disconnected government officials.
Justin Hart
@justin_hart
Did you hear of the guy who was acquitted of murder by pleading self-defense today? No not that guy Kyle… This guy…
8:10 PM · Nov 19, 2021 //
It is interesting that there are no cries of injustice, systemic racism, or a weighted judicial system on the Andrew Coffee IV trial. In fact, it didn’t even hit the national press, mainly because it does not fit their chosen narrative of gun control and dangerous white men with guns.
But the same trial-by-jury system, and the same gun freedoms and gun laws upheld the rights of two young men: one White, the other Black, to defend themselves. The same American court system in different states affirmed those rights for both men. It is absolutely schizophrenic, not to mention disingenuous, to cry that the system worked for one person because of their race, but didn’t work for another in spite of theirs.
And remember the lesson of the Fauxnly Ones, just in case your legal defense is that you weren't sure the scary person you resisted was really an "Only One."
The defense had previously raised two issues.
The first is that the prosecution improperly infringed on Kyle Rittenhouse’s constitutional right to remain silent when, during questioning, ADA Thomas Binger tried to suggest that Rittenhouse hadn’t made a comment until he was able to hear everyone else testify. That caused fireworks with the judge admonishing the prosecutor and saying he was on the line and maybe over it.
The second issue was that the prosecution had tried to introduce evidence that the judge had already ruled they could not introduce. The judge had also admonished the prosecutor over that, saying that he didn’t believe the prosecution when Binger claimed that he didn’t think the judge’s ruling applied to the evidence he, Binger, was trying to introduce. The judge chastised Binger, saying “Don’t get brazen with me,” “I don’t believe you,” and “There’d better not being another incident.”
Now, in a formal filing for a motion for mistrial with prejudice that they made on Monday, the defense mentions those issues but also raises another — that the prosecution withheld evidence from defense. The defense argues that on November 5, the prosecution turned over a compressed version of a drone video that had been taken on that day showing some of the incident of Rittenhouse running into the lot with Joseph Rosenbaum chasing him and then the shooting. Meanwhile, the defense is saying that the prosecution had a clearer version of the video that they did not provide until after both sides were finished presenting their cases. //
‘The problem is the prosecution gave the defense a compressed version of the video. What that means is the video provided to the defense was not as clear as the video kept by the state.’
The motion goes onto explain that the file size of the defense video is just 3.6MB while the prosecution’s is 11.2MB.
Unfortunately for this young family, though, their nightmare was not over. Instead, two months after their child was returned to them, they received a letter from DCFS notifying them that their names were being added to the state’s registry of child abusers.
It’s “like a nightmare that won’t end,” the father, Chris, told WDSU in their report.
But it is all too common.
Yes, even when the parents have been found “not guilty” of any criminal charges. Even when the family court judge orders the baby returned, declaring that the home is safe.
The system is deeply flawed, preventing most parents from getting any kind of legal due process until after their name has been added to the roll.
At least in Louisiana, it looks like their names are not added until their appeal is waived or concluded. Chris and Tess won their appeal, so their names never actually went on the list. But this is not the norm in every state. And the harm to families is real.
Attorney Andrew Brown of the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) is an ally of the Parental Rights Foundation, working together to bring reform in this area. Andrew was also quoted in the WDSU report: “When you separate a child from their family, you are guaranteed to cause trauma to that child, even if it’s just for a week.”
That’s why we drafted a model bill to provide due process before a parent’s name goes on the list. It’s why we introduced that model to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in 2019 and secured their endorsement of it.
It’s why we supported the work of Brown’s TPPF to bring that model to fruition in Texas during the 2021 session. And it’s why we’re gearing up to introduce similar legislation in additional states in 2022. //
If you know a lawmaker willing to champion such a bill, send them the model (available online here) as a starting point. Then email Michael@ParentalRights.org and let me know who you’ve reached out to (and, ideally, any response you receive).
It Takes Tulsi Gabbard Just 20 Seconds to Explain Everything Wrong With Rittenhouse Trial – RedState
Tulsi Gabbard 🌺
@TulsiGabbard
The prosecutor in the Rittenhouse trial clearly didn’t do due diligence before making the decision to prosecute. This tragedy never would have happened if the government carried out its responsibilities to protect the safety, lives and property of innocent people.
7:01 PM · Nov 10, 2021
The phrase "a jury of peers" dates back to the signing of the Magna Carta in England. At that point, the provision ensured that members of the nobility were tried by a jury comprised of fellow nobles, rather than being judged by the king. Now, however, this phrase more accurately means "a jury of fellow citizens."
While courts don't have to ensure that a defendant's race, gender, or age group is represented in the jury pool, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that courts may not remove a potential juror based solely on their race or gender. In practice, however, potential jurors often are removed for what appears to be their gender or race, even though the removal is for other stated reasons (or for no particular reason at all).
Most speech, hateful or not, is protected by the Constitution. To pretend otherwise is foolhardy.Most speech, hateful or not, is protected by the Constitution. To pretend otherwise is foolhardy. //
What speech should be protected by the First Amendment is open to debate. Americans can, and should, argue about what the law ought to be. That’s what free people do. But while we’re all entitled to our own opinions, we’re not entitled to our own facts, even in 2019. In fact, the First Amendment is broad, robust, aggressively and consistently protected by the Supreme Court, and not subject to the many exceptions and qualifications that commentators seek to graft upon it. The majority of contemptible, bigoted speech is protected. //
American courts don’t balance the benefits and harms of speech to decide whether it is protected—they look to whether that speech falls into the First Amendment exceptions noted above. As the Supreme Court recently explained, the “First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech does not extend only to categories of speech that survive an ad hoc balancing of relative social costs and benefits. The First Amendment itself reflects a judgment by the American people that the benefits of its restrictions on the Government outweigh the costs. Our Constitution forecloses any attempt to revise that judgment simply on the basis that some speech is not worth it.”
Welcome back to my lawsplainer series on Anti-SLAPP statutes. In Chapter One, I explained why the existing civil justice system is inadequate to protect defendants from meritless lawsuits targeting free speech. In Chapter Two I explained how anti-SLAPP statutes address that problem by providing a special procedural vehicle to dismiss bogus and censorious lawsuits. It’s time for Chapter Three: what makes a good or bad anti-SLAPP statute?
The case comes from New York and is called New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. This is a thumbnail sketch of the issue. For 108 years, the state of New York has severely curtailed the ability of ordinary citizens to carry concealed weapons outside their homes. New York follows what is called a “may issue” standard for obtaining a license to carry your weapon. What that means is that to carry a firearm outside your home, you must convince some state apparatchik that you have a “proper cause” to do so. //
The main arguments of the left seemed to revolve around the fear that New York was much more violent than the 41 “shall issue” states. //
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. pointed out that constitutional rights do not have to be justified, such as the Second Amendment right to bear arms. “The Constitution gives you that right,” Roberts said. “And if someone’s going to take it away from you, they have to justify it.” //
Roberts responded: “I’m not sure that’s right. I mean, regardless of what the right is, it would be surprising to have it depend upon a permit system. You can say that the right is limited in the particular way, just as First Amendment rights are limited. But the idea that you need a license to exercise the right, I think, is unusual in the context of the Bill of Rights.”
The same firms that volunteered to represent 9/11 terrorists pro bono now have no interest in defending the American citizens languishing in prison since January. //
At least 50 high-powered law firms that went out of their way to defend foreign terrorists in Guantanamo Bay free of charge are nowhere to be found as hundreds of American citizens languish in prison for charges related to entering the U.S. Capitol building during the January 6 riot.
When foreign terrorists, including the accused mastermind who helped plan the 9/11 attack, were being held in the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, law firms from across the country volunteered to represent them pro bono. Now, nearly 600 Americans face an intense legal battle over their participation in the events of January 6, and these same firms are leaving them defenseless. Not one of the legal firms that assisted Gitmo terrorists have helped any of those charged with ties to January 6. //
Without a strong criminal defense, the government can take away individual rights without a clear demonstration of the guilt of the accused. The firms who trumpeted the right to a strong defense for everyone charged in the American legal system when it came to Guantanamo Bay are well aware of the need for a competent defense for citizens today, yet they have not allocated any resources to an equal defense for some accused of crimes.
Guiding Principles in Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement
- Our primary goal in GPL enforcement is to bring about GPL compliance.
- Legal action is a last resort. Compliance actions are primarily education and assistance processes to aid those who are not following the license.
- Confidentiality can increase receptiveness and responsiveness.
- Community-oriented enforcement must never prioritize financial gain.
- Community-oriented compliance work does not request nor accept payment to overlook problems.
- Community-oriented compliance work starts with carefully verifying violations and finishes only after a comprehensive analysis.
- Community-oriented compliance processes should extend the benefit of GPLv3-like termination, even for GPLv2-only works.
Copyleft itself is not a moral philosophy; rather, copyleft is a strategy that software freedom activists constructed to advance a particular set of policy goals. Specifically, software copyleft was designed to ensure that all users received complete, corresponding source for all binaries, and that any modifications or improvements made anywhere in the chain of custody of the software were available in source form to downstream users. As orginially postulated, copyleft was a simple strategy to disarm proprietarization as an anti-software-freedom tactic.
The Corruption of Copyleft
Copyleft is a tool to achieve software freedom. Any tool can be fashioned into a weapon when wielded the wrong way. That's precisely what occurred with copyleft — and it happened early in copyleft's history, too. Before even the release of GPLv2, Aladdin Ghostscript used a copyleft via a proprietary relicensing model (which is sometimes confusingly called the “dual licensing” model). This business model initially presented as benign to software freedom activists; leaders declared the business model “barely legitimate”, when it rose to popularity through MySQL AB (later Sun, and later Oracle)'s proprietary relicensing of the MySQL codebase.
In theory, proprietary relicensors would only offer the proprietary license by popular demand to those who had some specific reason for wanting to proprietarize the codebase — a process that has been called “selling exceptions”. In practice, however, every company I'm aware of that sought to engage in “selling exceptions” eventually found a more aggressive and lucrative tack. //
Most proprietary relicensing businesses work as follows: a single codebase is produced by a for-profit company, which retains 100% control over all copyright in the software (either via an ©AA or a CLA). That codebase is offered as a gratis product to the marketplace, and the company invests substantial resources in marketing the software to users looking for FOSS solutions. The marketing department then engages in captious and unprincipled copyleft enforcement actions in an effort to “convert” those FOSS users into paying customers for proprietary licensing for the same codebase. (Occasionally, the company also offers additional proprietary add-ons, improvements, or security updates that are not available under the FOSS license — when used this way, the model is often specifically called “Open Core”.)
Why We Must End The Proprietary Relicensing Exploitation of Copyleft
This business model has a toxic effect on copyleft at every level. Users don't enjoy their software freedom under an assurance that a large community of contributors and users have all been bound to each other under the same, strong, and freedom-ensuring license. Instead, they dread the vendor finding a minor copyleft violation and blowing it out of proportion. The vendor offers no remedy (such as repairing the violation and promise of ongoing compliance) other than purchase of a proprietary license. Industry-wide. I have observed to my chagrin that the copyleft license that I helped create and once loved, the Affero GPL, was seen for a decade as inherently toxic because its most common use was by companies who engaged in these seedy practices. You've probably seen me and other software freedom activists speak out on this issue, in our ongoing efforts to clarify that the intent of the Affero GPL was not to create these sorts of corporate code silos that vendors constructed as copyleft-fueled traps for the unwary. Meanwhile, proprietary relicensing discourages contributions from a broad community, since any contributor must sign a CLA giving special powers to the vendor to continue the business model. Neither users nor co-developers benefit from copyleft protection. //
Given the near ubiquity of proprietary relicensing and the promulgation of stricter copylefts by companies who seek to engage (or help their clients engage) in such business models, I've come to a stark policy conclusion: the community should reject any new copyleft license without a clause that deflates the power of proprietary relicensing. Not only can we incorporate such a clause into new licenses (such as copyleft-next), but Conservancy's Executive Director, Karen Sandler, came up with a basic approach to incorporating similar copyleft equality clauses into written exceptions for existing copyleft licenses, such as the Affero GPL. I have received authorization to spend some of my Conservancy time and the time of our lawyers on this endeavor, and we hope to publish more about it in the coming months.
We've finished the experiment. After thirty years of proprietary relicensing, beginning with Aladdin and culminating with MongoDB and their SS Public License, we now know that proprietary relicensing does not serve or extend software freedom, and in most cases has the opposite effect. We must now categorically reject it, and outright reject any new licenses that can be used for it.
The active deregistration of someone’s car — something they likely paid thousands upon thousands of dollars for — just seems wrong. Why can’t they simply be grandfathered in, and then strike forth a date decreeing that in the Year of Our Lord, 2021, no more horseless carriages without FMVSS certificates shall be allowed to register on the king’s roads?
Looking at this without my enthusiast glasses on, I could see how this could simply be looked at as an insignificant issue that upsets a vocal minority of car dorks. And maybe it is.
However, it seems wrong that a state can simply decide one day that your legally registered, legally imported, and legally paid-for vehicle can now suddenly not be driven on the road. No grandfather clause, no refunds, and no exceptions. To that I say — no, thanks. ///
How is this not an ex post facto law? I bought the vehicle and registered it in good faith based on the law at that time. Now you have invalidated the law and caused me to lose the value of my investment. How is that not an unjust taking?
The right to request a religious exemption stems from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which protects workers from discrimination on the basis of religion, among other things. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says employers must provide reasonable accommodations for workers who have sincerely held religious beliefs — unless doing so poses an undue hardship. //
First, employers may probe whether an employee's religious belief is in fact sincere. They may ask questions about that employee's vaccination history or church attendance. If the employer determines the belief is not sincere, it may deny the exemption request.
But even if an employee's religious belief is determined to be sincere, it's the employer who decides what the reasonable accommodation will be. It does not have to be the accommodation requested by the employee. //
In religious exemption cases, undue hardship is defined as "more than a de minimis," or minimal, cost or burden on the operation of the employer's business. Hernández points out that an accommodation that involves shift changes could constitute more than a minimal burden to an employer, allowing the employer to deny such an accommodation.
Most people familiar with these matters understand that the gun control movement was rooted in racism. Despite attempts by hard leftists like those at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to convince the American public that the roots of the creation of the Second Amendment are racist, history clearly demonstrates that the first gun control laws were specifically designed to prevent black Americans from obtaining firearms.
But one of the issues that is not highlighted nearly enough is the fact that gun control laws never actually stopped being racist. What the gun-grabbing crowd won’t tell you is that in many major cities with high black populations, the gun laws are very much prohibitive against black and brown Americans. //
This issue was highlighted recently in an amicus brief that was filed in a Supreme Court case. The brief was filed by an organization called The Black Attorneys of Legal Aid in the case of New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Corlett. The plaintiffs in the case argue that New York’s system for issuing permits to carry guns is unconstitutional. //
For our clients, New York’s licensing regime renders the Second Amendment a legal fiction. Worse, virtually all our clients whom New York prosecutes for exercising their Second Amendment right are Black or Hispanic.
New York enacted its firearm licensing requirements to criminalize gun ownership by racial and ethnic minorities. That remains the effect of its enforcement by police and prosecutors today. //
This is only a small sampling of the laws Democrats have championed that have made it more difficult for black and brown people to obtain firearms. It has created a situation in which minorities living in high-crime areas have to purchase guns illegally in order to defend themselves.
Indeed, it is a common belief that those who obtain illegal firearms are doing so to engage in gang violence. But most often, these individuals are getting them for self-protection. They figure the risk of catching a possession case is not as dangerous as being unarmed if an assailant attempts to harm them.