Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

We've got a double first place winner this week, with one comment hitting the top of both the insightful and funny leaderboards. It's an anonymous comment on our post about the judge who ignored the First Amendment and misread a town law in ordering a resident to remove "Fuck Biden" signs from their lawn — and it's a simple callback to another recent...

3h

This Week In Techdirt History: July 18th - 24th

Five Years Ago This week in 2016, Cy Vance was still arguing for mandated encryption backdoors with an unconvincing legal argument, while Apple was snubbing John McCain's attempts to drag them in to hear complaints about encryption, and a former Homeland Security advisor was trying to place the burden of proving backdoors are bad on tech...

1d

Maine Legislature Ends Civil Asset Forfeiture In The State

The state of Maine recently enacted the strictest facial recognition limitations in the country, prohibiting the use of the tech in most areas of the government and preventing state law enforcement from acquiring it. The tech can still be used, but all searches must be run through either the FBI or the state's database via the Bureau of Motor Vehicles....

1d

FTC Formally Embraces Right To Repair As Movement Goes Mainstream

One of the bigger bright spots in the last few years of often thorny or downright ridiculous policy debates has been the continued ascension of the right to repair movement. Whether it's Apple's wasteful restrictions or bullying of independent repair shops, Sony and Microsoft's efforts to monopolize game console repair, or John Deere's efforts to drive...

2d

10 Steps The Biden-Harris Administration Should Take To Bring Equity To Our Patent System

This post is one of a series of posts we're running this week in support of Patent Quality Week, exploring how better patent quality is key to stopping efforts that hinder innovation. A couple weeks ago, President Biden signed an executive order focused on promoting competition in the interests of American businesses, workers, and...

2d

Court Docs Appear To Show FBI Informants Contributed Two-Thirds Of The Conspirators To The Michigan Governor Kidnapping Plot

The FBI's proclivity for inside jobs has not gone unnoticed here at Techdirt. The FBI primarily considers itself a counterterrorist agency these days, which has led to a lot of undercover work that closely resembles entrapment. Utilizing a large number of informants (some coerced into this work by threats of visa revocation, travel restrictions,...

2d

Techdirt Has Been Released From A Gag Order Regarding A Federal Investigation Into A Silly Comment

I'm going to start off this post with a note that, in general, you should not threaten federal judges. I do understand that people often take out their anger on decisions that go in ways they disagree with by insisting that a judge is corrupt or awful or that something ought to be done, and while I understand the impulse and the instinct to vent in...

2d

Daily Deal: The Complete 2021 SQL Master Class Bundle

The Complete 2021 SQL Master Class Bundle has 7 courses focused on SQL to help you become an expert. SQL has been around for years and is used by many industries to handle data, store it securely, access it quickly, and more. You'll learn how to retrieve, analyze, and manipulate data to gain valuable insights for your company. The bundle is on sale...

2d

Senators Klobuchar And Lujan Release Ridiculous, Blatantly Unconstitutional Bill To Make Facebook Liable For Health Misinformation

On Wednesday, Senator Amy Klobuchar promised to introduce a bill that would somehow hold Facebook liable for medical misinformation. As we wrote in the post about her claims, that doesn't explain how there would be any legitimate underlying cause of action, because nearly all such medical misinformation is still protected by the 1st Amendment. ...

2d

Biden Still Hasn't Picked An FCC Boss, But He Just Tagged A Comcast Lobbyist As Ambassador To Canada

We've noted a few times how consumer groups have grown annoyed at the Biden administration's failure to pick an FCC boss six months into his term. After the rushed Trump appointment of unqualified Trump BFF Nathan Simington to the agency (as part of that dumb and now deceased plan to have the FCC regulate social media), the agency now sits gridlocked...

2d