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This sounds like a successful implementation of the conjoined triangles of success :)


Looking at the first page, the circumstances surrounding the indictment are infuriating. I thought that search warrants had to be specific to avoid just that kind of fishing expedition. The initial warrant was for terrorism related charges, it seems they found no evidence of it. How come they can then turn around and go for other charges?


You would think so. Strangely, even though warrants have to be specific, police are allowed to seize things they come across during the search, even if those things aren’t on the warrant ( https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/496/128/ ).

It’s not a free-for-all, though. If the warrant is for a stolen car, the police can’t open up pill bottles during the search; they have to look in places where a stolen car could be hidden ( https://www.fletc.gov/audio/execution-search-warrant-i-mp3 , do a text search for “elephant”). And the things being seized have to be obvious contraband ( https://www.rothdavies.com/criminal-defense/frequently-asked... ).


If a cop happens to see evidence of a crime, they don't need a warrant to arrest you for it nor for you to be charged for it. Unfortunate for this man, but he shouldn't have had drugs on him (he also had cocaine in addition to marijuana).


Law enforcement dishonesty is so frequent, state lists exist to track them ("Brady List").

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brady_disclosure

https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewconten...

https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/minnlrev/vol107/iss2/3/

This administration revoked an executive order from the previous administration ("EO 14074") providing for a National Law Enforcement Accountability Database. And so, for the time being, citizens and journalists are left to collect, aggregate, and disseminate this information until the next administration takes office.

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/05/31/2022-11...

https://bjs.ojp.gov/national-law-enforcement-accountability-...

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2026/01/26/police_miscondu...

Obligatory "Don't Talk To The Police"

Video: https://archive.org/details/youtube-d-7o9xYp7eE

Paper: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1998119

HN Threads: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwa...


No downside, all upside. Qualified immunity, etc. There are no consequences for this behavior by law enforcement and prosecutors unfortunately.

"Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome."


Well, also just looking at the first page, while I think there are analogous circumstances where this would've been infuriating (e.g., the government executes an unrelated search warrant, discovers both marijuana and the gun and charges him with it), in this case, it seems as though he both surrendered the gun to them and freely admitted to using marijuana which he also directed them to. That said, the search warrant was related to terrorism and it's very likely it would've authorized the agents to search for any drugs and firearms or other weapons.


Not a bad idea honestly. Would be interesting to see how it affects tech companies since they rely on hypergrowth. My one worry is that instead of divesting they would just play shell games with complex ownership structures.


Most big tech could relatively easily split into meaningful separate entities. These are all going to be contentious, but ...

Looking at the companies on the top image for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Tech ... it's outdated, but close enough.

Apple: Computers, Phones, maybe even break out Operating Systems

Microsoft: Hardware, Gaming, Operating Systems, Office/other software, Cloud Services, Consulting

Alphabet: Google Search, Ads, Android, Chrome, Cloud Services, Other consumer services, Waymo

Amazon: Retail, Warehouse, Shipping, Cloud Services

Tesla: Cars, Batteries, Charging Network, Solar, Scammy bullshit

Berkshire Hathaway: it's a holding company, spin out the big holdings

Nvidia (this one is tougher): Ethernet, Video Cards, AI cards; maybe chipsets vs cards?

Meta: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp. Or ... split out the internal Cloud Services from the frontends.

TSMC: I dunno what to do here, but it's also not a US corp, so yeah. You could spin off fabs by node maybe.

United Health: not a tech company, but Insurance (possibly spin out regionally), Regional Healthcare Providers, Pharmacy Stuff

There's potential to break up some of the other companies along regional lines, like the Baby Bells ... but IMHO, that doesn't make that much sense for most of these.

Have some sort of phase-in, but if ownership between formerly related companies remains similar, contracts between them need to be a) public, b) terms must be available to others (FRAND). For cases where the spun-off companies are still market dominant (a lot of what I've suggested), constrain the company from entering other markets; this doesn't end the monopoly, but it prevents using one dominant position to establish another.


And of course "just avoid these services" is going to be difficult or near impossible. Convincing your friends, families, acquaintances to ditch zoom is hard enough. But what do you do when you get a zoom link for a job interview? Tell them you object to using zoom and basically cost yourself the job? Or do you only use it when you really have to? In which case, how many interactions do they need from you to collect all the data they need?


It seems like no one else is bothered by the fact that more and more we are being forced to interact with third party companies - companies with which the consumer has no direct relationship - as a precondition for doing things in daily life.

To eat at a restaurant you give a phone number and suddenly have an account with Resy. Renting an apartment means signing up for a service to access the move-in documents and then another to unlock the door.

These services rarely benefit the consumer. I’m not sure why it bothers me so much. Maybe it’s the erosion of agency. Maybe it’s the over-complicating of what should be a simple activity. But it’s becoming more frequent.


It's up there with being forced to install random extensions to view any website. You trust the endpoint, not arbitrary middlemen they decide to bring into the transaction.

You don't need to look far to find a reason to abhor this. If you have a need to verify your identity on Twitter, you're handing your personal information to an Israeli firm (AU10TIX) beyond all accountability and reach of western justice systems.


I don’t trust the endpoint.


That’s always been the case with how supply chains work.


It's already happening with AI interview tools. Some of them have god-awful privacy policies that, depending on the interpretation, allow them to retain and use your likeness and voice for training their models or even marketing purposes.

The move is to review those polices, and decline.

It's actively hostile.

It should be treated as such.

The pain of declining on the privacy or personal rights grounds is intentional on their part. They do not respond to inquiries. And in my experience, companies that just use those tools decline to answer inquiries about it.


Except that the "quality" of their tanks was not exactly top notch, worse they used a lot of resources. At that point it was just a desperate gamble: "if we can make an invincible tank, then it won't matter how few we have", we both know it did not pay off, not even close.


This is part of why I now tend to go for the cheapest. I do a bit of research of course, but most goods have been commodified (and corners cut). Nowadays the only guarantee you have when paying more is that you have less money in your wallet.


From my recollection, the plan was to grant French citizenship to every British citizen and vice versa, in effect "forcing" the governments to defend their citizens to the end. This was very ambitious, hence why it probably did not happen. But if it had happen, I have a hard time seeing how it could be undone, stripping people of their citizenship, even if they have a second one is no trivial matter.


Isn't that exactly how the iPhone won though? As another commenter said, once the cool gadget becomes a must have for executives, IT will be told to find a way to make it work.


The general public also get sold on the rosy idea that copyright (and patents to a certain extent), protect the little guy, that thanks to this mechanism their work will not be stolen by opportunistic freeloaders. It also resonates with the "one day I will strike rich" mentality.

What they usually "forget" to tell you is that your IP is absolutely worthless if you don't have the resources to defend it in court, which in turns actually advantages freeloaders who either have relatively low costs to sue (patent trolls are basically an example of this) or enough money that they don't feel the pain if they lose.

The current system basically incentivizes suing over IP NOT creating it.


To add to the list of things that they "forget" to tell you, is that the real origin of copyright is fundamentally tied to censorship as well [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright

Overall, IP seem to be a massive mistake.


Also: almost no works make any money at all after 5 years.

Copyright terms longer than a reasonable 5 years are only benefitting Disney and the other big copyright cartels.

They are not serving the purpose of copyright: To encourage creation.


There is also the angle of: even if there is an appropriate amount of controllers in the tower at a given time, how they do it can also hint at the issue. Being an ATC is a taxing job, mandatory overtime and 60 hours work weeks screams understaffing to me.


It is possible for ATC to be understaffed as a profession, LGA to be understaffed as an airport, individual controllers to be overworked, and for it to be 100% reasonable to have a single controller at LGA in the middle of the night.


Its weird that there strict laws that limit pilot hours to under 40 hours a week but no laws that restrict number of hours ATC works.


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