Sentencing for white-collar crimes — and for child pornography offenses — “has largely lost its moorings,” according to the Justice Department, which makes a strong case that the matter should be re-examined by the United States Sentencing Commission.

This probably makes more sense when you’re wearing a magic green jacket.

As a result, the big-name internship has become coveted capital — a reality that was showcased in the extreme when the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights recently auctioned media internships to help raise money for its cause. The opportunity to work — unpaid — went for some pretty big amounts: $2,900 at Vanity Fair, $9,000 at the Huffington Post — and an eye-popping $42,500 at Vogue.

Why pay someone to work when you can donate entrée to an unpaid job so a nonprofit can auction it off to the highest bidder?

gOfficialblog:

Nine days ago the data protection authority (DPA) in Hamburg, Germany asked to audit the WiFi data that our Street View cars collect for use in location-based products like Google Maps for mobile, which enables people to find local restaurants or get directions. His request prompted us to re-examine everything we have been collecting, and during our review we discovered that a statement made in a blog post on April 27 was incorrect.

In that blog post, and in a technical note sent to data protection authorities the same day, we said that while Google did collect publicly broadcast SSID information (the WiFi network name) and MAC addresses (the unique number given to a device like a WiFi router) using Street View cars, we did not collect payload data (information sent over the network). But it’s now clear that we have been mistakenly collecting samples of payload data from open (i.e. non-password-protected) WiFi networks, even though we never used that data in any Google products.

Not “accidentally” or “inadvertently”: mistakenly.

This seems ill-conceived all around: a private protest likely to transform impersonal corruption into personal persecution (where shouting, say, at least can attract attention); an expensive surrogate for one of the few things the poor have (speech); a general approach to a problem that is everywhere specific; and so on. And, of course, who are these people too poor to pay a bribe but not too poor to print a jpeg from the web? Third parties might intervene by printing and distributing them to the poor — central banks for anticorruption. But who knows?

Also available in Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayam.

( World Bank | Felix Salmon )

A former South Dakota lawmaker convicted of [a bunch of awful stuff] has sent news organizations what he claims is a copyright notice that seeks to prevent the use of his name without his consent. A letter and an accompanying document labeled “Common Law Copyright Notice” said former state Rep. Ted Alvin Klaudt is reserving a common-law copyright of a trade name or trademark for his name. It said no one can use his name without his consent, and anyone who does would owe him $500,000.

Plan B: the national-security argument.

The joint audit by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction and the United State Department of State Inspector General released yesterday does not, as some press reports have suggested, allege that Blackwater was ever complicit in overbilling the United States government for work it performed in Iraq in 2006 and 2007.

The audit does not even state that the government overpaid Blackwater for staffing issues. All it suggests is that invoices spanning a period of time are reviewed. A $55 million penalty has in no way been determined.

In fact, the government contracting officer determined that Blackwater was compliant with the terms of the contract at the time for which they were reviewing and the therefore did not apply any deductions or penalties. Blackwater only billed for services provided.

But we thought you were “Xe.”

(yeti)

Coverage: PC Mag, Ars Technica, CNET.

See also: “Litigator as artist.”

Your avatar’s arms are never going to be long enough to box with a game god whose software controls arm length.

Or, as we used to put it: he who would snack with the Devil must needs use a long spork…

( jotwell | froomkin )

Indeed: WiReD.

…“plainclothes” (modulo the assault rifle) Kerik escorting Susan Rosenberg (ca. ’83?; SR playing ping pong here)…

…authentic arrest scenes…

…and, indeed, pretty much his entire rise and fall. Except for his mugshot:

The kommissar disappears:

(Left: Flickr, plemeljr, 8 Feb ’05 [detail]; right: m3t00, 11 Oct ’09.)

People who’ve signed an NDA in order to see ACTA’s “internet text”:

Emery Simon (Business Software Alliance [BSA]), Jesse Feder (Business Software Alliance [BSA]), Bill Patry (Google), Daphne Keller (Google), Johanna Shelton (Google), Lisa Pearlman (Wilmer Hale), Robert Novick (Wilmer Hale), Bob Kruger (eBay consultant), Brian Bieron (eBay), Hillary Brill (eBay), Sarah Deutch (Verizon), David Weller (Wilmer Hale), Steve Metalitz (International Intellectual Property Alliance [IIPA]), Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP), Veronica O’Connell (Consumer Electronics Association [CEA]), Jim Burger (Dow Lohnes, Intel counsel), Jonathan Band (Jonathan Band PLLC), Gigi Sohn (Public Knowledge), Rashmi Rangnath (Public Knowledge), Sherwin Siy (Public Knowledge), Maritza Castro (Dell), Jeff Lawrence (Intel), Mathew Schruers (CCIA), David Sohn (Center for Democracy and Technology [CDT]), Michael Pericone (Consumer Electronics Association [CEA]), Ryan Triplette (Intel), Janet O’Callaghan (News Corp), Chris Israel (PCT Government Relations), Alicia Smith (Sony Pictures Entertainment), Cameron Gilreath (Time Warner), Seth Greensten (Constantine Cannon LLP, for Consumer Electronics Association [CEA]), Daniel Dougherty (eBay), David Fares (News Corp)

Members of ITAC 15 (the Industry Trade Advisory Committee on Intellectual Property Rights) who’ve received the ACTA “internet text” who are:

Anissa S. Whitten (Motion Picture Association of America [MPAA]), Eric Smith (International Intellectual Property Alliance [IIPA]), Neil I. Turkewitz (Recording Industry Association of America [RIAA]), Sandra M. Aistars (Time Warner), Stevan D. Mitchell (Entertainment Software Association), Thomas J. Thomson (Coalition for Intellectual Property Rights [CIPR]), and Timothy P. Trainer (Global Intellectual Property Strategy Center, PC, and Zippo Manufacturing)

Members of ITAC 8 (the Industry Trade Advisory Committee on Information and Communications Technologies, Services, and Electronic Commerce) who’ve received the ACTA “internet text” who are:

Jacquelynn Ruff (Verizon), John P. Goyer (U.S. Coalition of Service Industries), and Mark F. Bohannon (Public Policy, Software and Information Industry Association)

(WiReD)

The whole issue has become a minefield for some wealthy families. Many offshore accounts are held in the names of several family members, who do not always agree on what they should do. Bruce Zagaris, a tax and criminal defense lawyer in Washington, said that in some instances, one family member was pushing to disclose an offshore account, while another wanted to keep the money hidden. One of his cases involves parents with an offshore trust for their three children, only two of whom had disclosed the assets. If the parents want to disclose the accounts, “they have to rat on one of their kids,” he said.

It’s tough being dishonest.

Elliot Madison, 41, from Queens, had his home raided and was put on $30,000 (£19,000) bail after he and Michael Wallschlaeger, 46, were tracked to the Carefree Inn motel in Pittsburgh during the summit on 24 and 25 September. The pair were found sitting in front of a bank of laptops and emergency frequency radio scanners. They were wearing headphones and microphones and had many maps and contact numbers in the room. Official police documents allege the two men used Twitter messages to contact protesters at the summit “and to inform the protesters and groups of the movements and actions of law enforcement”.

OTOH…

During the summit, the police openly monitored Twitter to listen in to the protesters’ communications.

“Openly.”
(rp)

We are not here because the domain name could cause confusion. We do not have a declaration from the president of the international association of imbeciles that his members are blankly staring at the Respondent’s website wondering “where did all the race baiting content go?” We are here because Mr. Beck wants Respondent’s website shut down. He wants it shut down because Respondent’s website makes a poignant and accurate satirical critique of Mr. Beck by parodying Beck’s very rhetorical style. Beck’s skin is too thin to take the criticism, so he wants the site down. Beck is represented by a learned and respected legal team. Accordingly, it is beyond doubt that his counsel advised him that under the First Amendment to the United States’ Constitution, no action in a U.S. Court would be successful. See, e.g., Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988). Accordingly, Beck is attempting to use this transnational body to circumvent and subvert the Respondent’s constitutional rights.

(discourse.net)

Before warlords toppled Somali dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, Somalia had a kind of stability recognized by the “community of nations.” As early as 1971, Somalia’s fishery was considered an increasingly promising economic resource. By 1982, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, the UK, and the USSR had negotiated fishing deals with the Somali government.(20) The so-called “piracy” we’re witnessing today seems to have started about 15 years ago in response to the international fleets that moved in to plunder the country’s rich fishery after the Barre regime collapsed.(21) [...]

But Somalia is without a functional government, and boats from many countries now freely ignore Somali territorial sovereignty. Foreign fishermen steal an estimated US$300 million worth of Somali tuna, shrimp, and lobster each year. And they reportedly use such internationally prohibited fishing gear as very small mesh-size nets and sophisticated underwater lighting systems.(23) Peter Lehr, of the University of St. Andrews, characterizes the recent incidents of “piracy” as “a resource swap,” where “Somalis collect up to US$100 million a year from ‘pirate ransoms’ off their coasts [while] the Europeans and Asians poach around US$300 million a year in fish from Somali waters.”(24) [...]

Illegal fishing wasn’t the only assault that forced these young men to sea: the illegal dumping of toxic and nuclear waste in their waters was another powerful motivator.

The UN’s Somalia envoy, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, claims that the UN has “reliable information” that European and Asian companies are dumping toxic and nuclear waste off the Somali coastline, but he refuses to disclose their names for legal reasons.(26) Undertaking its own research, in 2005 the European Green Party presented the world press and the European Parliament in Strasbourg with copies of contracts signed by two European companies — the Swiss firm, Achair Partners, and the Italian waste broker, Progresso — and representatives of the warlords then in power to accept 10 million tonnes of toxic waste in exchange for US$80 million.(27) Both Switzerland and Italy signed and ratified the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, which came into force in 1992, yet they’ve made no effort to prosecute either company.(27) Reports from Kenya have also implicated companies from France, Spain, Greece, and the UK in the dumping(29), though no paper trail has yet substantiated those claims.

Spokesmen for Puntland’s irregular “coast guards” claim that the dumping has gone on for almost 20 years(30), and the tsunami of December 2004 provided evidence to substantiate that claim. The waves that battered northern Somalia brought in tonnes of nuclear and toxic waste.(31) According to a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) assessment, there are hundreds of cases of respiratory infections, mouth ulcers and bleeding, abdominal hemorrhages, and unusual skin infections among people living along the Puntland and Somaliland coasts — symptoms consistent with radiation sickness.(32) And in the period since the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on their beaches, more than 300 local residents have died.(33) Nick Nuttall, of UNEP, notes that, in contravention of general principles of international law, “European companies [have] found it to be very cheap to get rid of the waste, [with dumping off the Somali coast] costing as little as US$2.50 a tonne, where waste disposal costs in Europe are something like US$1000 a tonne.”(34)

Where are all the Slashdottirs when you need them?

It’s a fact…

By the time an American or Canadian youth is 21 years old, they’ll be tasered by at least one police officer. Men, women, children — even pregnant women, are all going to be tasered at least once by a police officer who doesn’t like them, doesn’t like what they’re saying, or who mistakes them for another subject.

Infractions as minor as jaywalking or a traffic ticket give the police officer authorization to taser a subject. Where a nightstick used to be the compliance tool of choice for the police officer, tasering a subject has proven to be much less work for the police officer than having to use full blows with the nightstick. After reloading, a police officer can taser many more subjects into compliance within minutes.

[...]

Using the Taseler™ for KIDS! on your own children will have the dual benefits of conditioning their body to 40,000 volts of electricity, as well as getting immediate compliance after the use of your Taseler™ for KIDS! (and having well behaved kids!). That means your children will easily handle the 50,000 volts when the police officer decides to use their electronic compliance tool on your child. Conditioning has proven to last over 8 years after four electronic compliance sessions (Taseler™ for KIDS! Barbed Spike Refills are only $1.99 in 100 quantity!).

Their solution:

B1FF.ORG!!! doesn’t pimp commercial interests, but in this case we’ll make an exception: we’ve been satisfied customers of Sandman for years. Support your local satirist.

“New Calls for Regulating Airspace over Hudson”

Go team.

“It is evident that we have been exceeding the expectations of copyright owners, the media and internet users[....] So, we have changed our policy to move in more line with the industry standard approach, whilst still taking the issues of copyright infringement and illegal internet activity seriously.”

Shouldn’t be an issue, as long as Karoo doesn’t mind being treated similarly by, say, Inland Revenue.

(BNA’s Internet Law News [Geist])

Reuters:

• Berkshire cuts Moody’s stake to 16.98 pct
• First reported reduction since 2000
• Moody’s shares sink 10.6 pct after-hours[...]

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N) (BRKb.N) this week lowered its stake in credit ratings provider Moody’s Corp (MCO.N) [no friends! :( ] to 16.98 percent from 20.4 percent, the first reported reduction since 2000. The sale of about 8 million shares was revealed three months after Moody’s stripped Berkshire of its own “Aaa” rating, and a day after the Obama administration proposed new disclosure and conflict of interest rules for rating agencies.

And the stock exchanges are hotornot, full of outstretched arms holding cellphones up to snap a pic in the mirror.

(felix salmon)

See also: “QOTD,” “eBankrun.”

“Google represents a serious threat [to MOFT],” said Tom Austin, an analyst at Gartner, who compared the rivalry between the two companies to the browser wars that shaped the early internet. With the free version of its software, “Microsoft is responding as vigorously as it did against Netscape”, he added.

Four great moments in that ‘vigorous response’:

See also: “Judge to Ballmer: ‘GIVE IT UP FOR ME’.”

(image: Wikipedia)

Randy Cohen, who currently “writes the The Ethicist for The New York Times Magazine” and will write another weekly column (“Moral of the Story”) “examin[ing] a news story from an ethical perspective,” shows either (a) sloppy writing, (b) a complete disregard for national sensibilities, or (c) a sort of carpet-bombing ignorance of the arts and sciences when he writes:

There’d be no reason to visit Pere Lachaise if it did not provide a physical link to Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison.

Except for, say, Abelard and Heloise, Apollinaire, Balzac, Bernard, Bichat, Bizet, Bourdieu, Champollion, Colette, Comte, Corot, Daumier, Delacroix, Vivant Denon, Doré, Duncan, Éluard, Ernst, Fontaine, Fourier, Fuller, Gay-Lussac, Haussmann, Lyotard, Marceau, Méliés, Merleau-Ponty, Modigliani, Moliere, Nadar, Nerval, Ophuls, Piaf, Pissarro, Proust, Rossini, Roussel, Saint-Hilaire, Seurat, Signoret, Stein, and Toklas. And the Mur des Fédérés.

(photo: agramainio)

Admit that the image attached hereto as Exhibit 1, with the caption, ‘Destroy Capitalism, Support Piracy,’ is a true and correct copy of an image that was posted to the Internet by your counsel.

The image:

Aye!

(ao)