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What is it with judges and prior restraint lately? A judge in a Los Angeles Superior Court has issued a temporary restraining order blocking an anti-abortion group from releasing a video. And, yes, obviously, anything involving abortion is going to be controversial, no matter what your stance on the issue is — and this also involves the same group that made plenty of headlines recently over some other videos involving Planned Parenthood. I’m hoping that folks here will pay attention to the First Amendment issue, rather than get into any sort of ideological argument over the parties involved or their campaigns because you’re not going to convince anyone, no matter what side you’re on, and you’re likely to just piss everyone else off — so leave those debates for other sites please.

Instead, the real question here is whether or not a court can actually do this. As per usual, Popehat has a good post detailing why this is most likely unconstitutional prior restraint, but might not be. Kinda. Sorta. Barely.

You can read the filing for the restraining order (h/t to Adam Steinbaugh who dug out the complaint), which comes from a life sciences company named StemExpress, and makes all sorts of claims, which can basically be summed up as "we thought our conversations were private!" And you can read the actual temporary restraining order, which is much more limited than what StemExpress requests.

It appears the crux of the argument is (1) that California is a two party consent state for recordings (which is stupid, but that’s another issue for another day) and (2) the representatives for the faux company who were actually a part of this group that set up the meeting signed a non-disclosure agreement. The first part probably doesn’t much matter for the question of the restraining order (it absolutely could lead to other legal issues and problems for the group that made the recording), as it’s still a form of prior restraint. The second issue, however, is at least a bit more compelling because one could make an argument that the group that made the recording proactively waived their First Amendment rights in signing that agreement — and thus the court was effectively enforcing the agreement that the parties had agreed to themselves.

Still, as Popehat notes, there is woefully little discussion of the First Amendment/prior restraint questions:

Remarkably, StemExpress’ TRO application contains no prior restraint analysis whatsoever. Its sole concession to the First Amendment is an argument that (1) this isn’t a First Amendment violation because it’s an illegal recording, and (2) it’s not a First Amendment violation because the defendants are free to speak or write about what happened at the meeting, they just can’t release the recording. We don’t have a transcript of the hearing, and we don’t know what other arguments the court may have considered, but this is troubling.

In my opinion, StemExpress could have made a decent argument if it had focused on the apparent fact that CMP signed nondisclosure agreements and then violated them. First Amendment rights are broad, but can be deliberately waived. That’s why confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements are often enforceable. While the state of the law isn’t perfectly clear, there’s a colorable argument that threatened breach of a nondisclosure agreement may be a basis for prior restraint if the underlying confidentiality interest is strong enough. It’s not a bulletproof argument, but it’s much better than ignoring the prior restraint issue entirely.

In sum: if the court based the prior restraint on a violation of California’s secret-recording law, I think it probably violates the First Amendment. But the order might be sustainable because CMP engaged in the dubious practice of signing a pledge of confidentiality with the intent of breaking it.

Of course, Popehat also notes that if the group already gave the video to someone else — such as a journalist — the court can’t block that group from releasing it, as that is definitely prior restraint.

In short, chances are that this video is going to get out no matter what eventually — and to some extent, this lawsuit and request for a restraining order is only likely to draw more attention to the whole thing in the first place (and the fact that StemExpress doesn’t want it to come out).

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via Techdirt.
Judge Bars Anti-Abortion Group From Releasing Video… Raising Serious First Amendment Questions

Every time Microsoft releases a new version of Windows, its servers get slammed. To help alleviate this burden, Windows 10 can download updates from other users’ computers. The problem is, it can use up your bandwidth and data caps to do so. Here’s how to turn it off.

This new distribution method works a lot like torrents do. Everyone has Windows 10 on their machine, so each person seeds a little bit of the files to those who need it, distributing the load across multiple computers and helping everyone download updates quickly. This is a great feature for those who have no data cap and want fast updates. The problem is, many ISPs have some form of data cap. This can potentially use up your allotment of data without you even realizing it’s happened. To turn it off, follow these steps:

1. Search for “Check for updates” in the Start menu.
2. Under “Windows Update” choose “Advanced options.”
3. Under “Choose how updates are installed” click “Choose how updates are delivered.”
4. Disable the toggle under “Updated from more than one place.”

This will prevent your computer from being used as a peer-to-peer server in distributing updates. Of course, the downside is that it also prevents you from receiving updates from other users, so you’re stuck with the possibly slower Microsoft servers. Whenever the next update rolls around, it may be worth turning this back on. Just watch your data usage when you do.

Windows 10 steals your bandwidth to send other people updates | The Next Web

via Lifehacker
Windows 10 Uses Your Bandwidth to Distribute Updates, Disable It Here

The recent Suicide Squad footage gave us a glimpse of Batman’s cameo in the film—but there’s even more to it than we realized. A new interview with Batman v Superman director Zack Snyder and his collaborators has revealed a lot more about how these films will connect up.

Snyder and company spoke to Empire Magazine (which is where you get the photo above, these, and some new ones below) about the entirety of the DC movie universe, how the films link up, how they’re being constructed, and specifics about multiple story points in Batman v Superman. Here are the highlights.

Minor spoilers follow.

• Batman is the one who personally captured every single member of the Suicide Squad and in the trailer, we’re seeing a flashback to how he captured Harley Quinn. (No mention if he gets the Joker, too.)
• Justice League was the jumping off point for this whole DC universe idea. “What we are doing is ground up all the way. It is one giant story,” Snyder said. “The first thing we had was the Justice League concept. The other movies, in a way, have to support that. That is our Wonder Woman, our Aquaman. They have their own creative concepts that supports them, but they do serve Justice League in the coming together of those heroes. I want all the other directors of the other films to be able to stretch their legs and do what they want, but at the same time there is a big interconnected universe. I have given everyone amazing access to our story, to me, and what we are doing. All the films have like-minded conceptual jumping on points.”
• Batman will have a lot of history to him. “We are playing him 45 or 46” years old, Snyder said. “He has been Batman for 20 years. All the history is there. Was there a Robin at one time? Possibly. We want to assume that Batman has reached this point in his life and career as a superhero, and Superman represents a sort of philosophical change. He is a paradigm shift for Batman: ‘I’ve been fighting criminals all my life, trying to find justice, and now I am confronted with a concept that is transcendent to me.’ In the face of Superman, a man robbing a bank doesn’t matter. He’s having a crisis of conscience. ‘Am I really just a vigilante who stalks the alleys of Gotham?’ It is rich stuff that he deals with. Ben does an amazing job.”
• The Batman v Superman trailer already reveals that Robin has died, but this interview strongly suggests Commissioner James Gordon will also already be dead. This would confirm a rumor that surfaced several months back.
• To some, Batman may be considered the villain of Batman v Superman: “It’s a point of view thing,” said Snyder. “That is why ‘Dawn of Justice’ is the full title. What it does is allow us to start this conversation.”
• Bruce Wayne will not be living in Wayne Manor in Batman v Superman. He’s in a lakeside house called “The Glasshouse.”
• Snyder was very intimidated at the thought of doing a Batman solo film. “If it was a Batman movie it would be a much more difficult proposition because of how good Chris’ movies are,” said Snyder. “We live in gratitude to those movies. Chris set a tone for the DC Universe, and separated us from Marvel in a great way. We are the legacy of those movies.”
• Clark Kent and Lois Lane are now “shacking up” together in Metropolis.
• Aquaman has an “elusive cameo” in Batman v Superman. “You will understand he exists,” Snyder said.

Lots of information, some of which might help you make sense of all these new photos:

[Empire, H/T Superhero Hype]

via Gizmodo
Batman’s Role in Suicide Squad is Even More Crucial Than We Thought

Digital coupons are the online cousins of the tried and tested discount stamps. Both work the same way. But instead of scissors to cut them out you just use the copy-paste function. In this part of our online marketing series, we will show you how entrepreneurs can successfully use this tool. What is Digital Couponing? Online coupon campaigns take a more than 100 years old marketing tool and transfer it to the virtual world: the tried and tested discount stamps. You don’t have to collect them anymore, though. Nowadays it’s all about coupon codes. When buying something online, you will come across a field at checkout where to type in a promotional code. This way, you will save the fixed amount in dollars or percent that is promised with the coupon code. The discount is the buying incentive and therefore it’s what this marketing tool is all about. So this makes it rather obvious where online coupons are used most frequently: coupon codes are most suitable for online stores selling stuff, especially in the B2C retail industry. When doing such a campaign, it’s important to come up with an efficient way to distribute the code, to get the message out. […]

via noupe
Online Marketing Basics #10: The Pros and Cons of Online Coupon Campaigns

If you followed a previous article where we highlighted the plight of Brian Fletcher, there’s a big question looming as to whether or not you have a duty to inform law enforcement (or anyone) as to whether or not you … Read More

The post Do You Have a Duty To Inform? Here Are Answers For All 50 States appeared first on The Truth About Guns.

via The Truth About Guns
Do You Have a Duty To Inform? Here Are Answers For All 50 States

When you’re walking your dog and want to stop somewhere for a few minutes to rest or chat with a neighbor, a carabiner makes it easy to secure a leash to a fencepost or bench leg.

Carabiners are useful for all kinds of things. They’re also super light weight, so it’s easy to clip one to the end of your dog’s leash and just leave it there. If you need to stop and don’t want to keep your hand on the leash, a quick clip of the carabiner secures the leash around pretty much anything. Sure, you could feed the leash through the handle loop and achieve the same effect, but that requires taking the leash off your dog first.

7 Carabiner Life Hacks | CrazyRussianHacker

via Lifehacker
Secure Your Dog’s Leash to Just About Anything with a Carabiner

Well, here’s one we did not see coming at all. Both former Homeland Security boss Michael Chertoff and former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden have said that they actually disagree with current FBI director Jim Comey about his continued demands to backdoor encryption. Given everything we’ve seen in the past from both Chertoff and Hayden, it would have been a lot more expected to see them both toe the standard authoritarian surveillance state line and ask for more powers to spy on people. At the Aspen Security Forum, however, both surprised people by going the other way. Marcey Wheeler was the first to highlight Chertoff’s surprising take:

I think that it’s a mistake to require companies that are making hardware and software to build a duplicate key or a back door even if you hedge it with the notion that there’s going to be a court order. And I say that for a number of reasons and I’ve given it quite a bit of thought and I’m working with some companies in this area too.

First of all, there is, when you do require a duplicate key or some other form of back door, there is an increased risk and increased vulnerability. You can manage that to some extent. But it does prevent you from certain kinds of encryption. So you’re basically making things less secure for ordinary people.

The second thing is that the really bad people are going to find apps and tools that are going to allow them to encrypt everything without a back door. These apps are multiplying all the time. The idea that you’re going to be able to stop this, particularly given the global environment, I think is a pipe dream. So what would wind up happening is people who are legitimate actors will be taking somewhat less secure communications and the bad guys will still not be able to be decrypted.

The third thing is that what are we going to tell other countries? When other countries say great, we want to have a duplicate key too, with Beijing or in Moscow or someplace else? The companies are not going to have a principled basis to refuse to do that. So that’s going to be a strategic problem for us.

He’s right on all accounts, and does an astoundingly good job summarizing all of the reasons that many experts have been screaming about ever since Comey first started whining about this bogus "going dark" claim. But then he goes even further and makes an even more important point that bears repeating: it’s not supposed to be easy for law enforcement to spy on people, because that has serious risks:

Finally, I guess I have a couple of overarching comments. One is we do not historically organize our society to make it maximally easy for law enforcement, even with court orders, to get information. We often make trade-offs and we make it more difficult. If that were not the case then why wouldn’t the government simply say all of these [takes out phone] have to be configured so they’re constantly recording everything that we say and do and then when you get a court order it gets turned over and we wind up convicting ourselves. So I don’t think socially we do that.

On top of that, he points out, as we and many others have, that even if you can’t figure out what’s in an encrypted message it does not mean you’ve really "gone dark." There are other ways to figure out the necessary information, and people always leave some other clues:

And I also think that experience shows we’re not quite as dark, sometimes, as we fear we are. In the 90s there was a deb — when encryption first became a big deal — debate about a Clipper Chip that would be embedded in devices or whatever your communications equipment was to allow court ordered interception. Congress ultimately and the President did not agree to that. And, from talking to people in the community afterwards, you know what? We collected more than ever. We found ways to deal with that issue.

Soon after that, at the same conference, Hayden spoke to the Daily Beast and more or less agreed (it is worth noting that Hayden works for Chertoff at the Chertoff Group these days). Hayden’s denunciation of Comey’s plan is not so detailed or thought out, and he admits he hopes that there is a magic golden key that’s possible, but recognizing it’s probably not, he thinks the damage may be too much:

“I hope Comey’s right, and there’s a deus ex machina that comes on stage in the fifth act and makes the problem go away,” retired Gen. Michael Hayden, the former head of the CIA and the NSA, told The Daily Beast. “If there isn’t, I think I come down on the side of industry. The downsides of a front or back door outweigh the very real public safety concerns.”

As the Daily Beast notes, this is — to some extent — a roll reversal between Hayden and Comey who famously clashed over Hayden’s original warrantless wiretapping program after 9/11, with Comey actually arguing against some of the program (though what he argued against wasn’t as complete as some believe). Still, it’s quite amazing to see both Chertoff and Hayden point out what the tech sector has been telling Comey for months (decades if you go back to the original "crypto wars.") This isn’t a question about "not wanting to do the work" but about the fact that any solution is inherently much more dangerous for the public.

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via Techdirt.
Both Michael Hayden And Michael Chertoff Surprise Everyone By Saying FBI Is Wrong To Try To Backdoor Encryption

Even before George Lucas created his Special Editions, the filmmaker was tinkering with Star Wars. Case in point, if you saw the 1977 original in 1977, it didn’t have an “Episode” or even a title beyond “Star Wars.” That was added in 1981 and ever since then, the changes haven’t stopped.

In a series of videos, YouTube user Marcelo Zuniga has done a fairly extensive job of cataloging all of these adjustments, not just for Star Wars but The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi too. As you’ll see, the original film has the most differences. Everything from the 1981 addition of “Episode IV A New Hope” to the crawl, then to the controversial additions in the 1997 Special Edition like Greedo shooting first, Jabba the Hutt appearing in Mos Eisley, and additions to the X-Wing assault at the end.

Both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi have also seen lots of changes over the years. Empire is the most pristine, though the inclusion of a scream to Luke’s final fall is largely frowned upon (tweaks to the Wampa battle and Cloud City are among the most accepted). Jedi not only added the truly embarrassing “Jedi Rocks” sequence to Jabba’s Palace, but Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker to the film’s final moment and more. There are lots of others too, which you can see here.

And while it’s entertaining/infuriating to see the changes in the films presented in this manner, most of it is very well-known. Some of the more surprising additions are the subtle changes made to the 2011 Blu-ray release in terms of color and clarity. Nevertheless it feels like the original films, as they were first released, are forever lost to history. Maybe one day Lucasfilm, 20th Century Fox and Disney will figure something out. Until then, videos like this are some of the best preservations of the history of Star Wars.

[Marcelo Zuniga, H/T Collider]

via Gizmodo
These Videos Show All the Changes Ever Made to the Star Wars Trilogy