U.S. District Judge throws out evidence gathered by DEA officers using a stingray without a warrant, ruling that "(a)bsent a search warrant, the government may not turn a citizen's cell phone into a tracking device." Judge Pauley is the first federal judge to rule against law enforcement in this manner, by the way, and good for him. I'll brook no silliness from the you-can't-expect-privacy-on-the-internet crowd, as if the Fourth Amendment is just something we'll have to give up so we can have nice toys.
North Carolina government enacts law making police body camera footage unavailable to the public without police consent. And the "public," in this case, includes folks who want the footage to prove the police officers broke the law, which is a violation of their rights, particularly since they'd have to pay court costs to overrule the police department. And I wouldn't call this a Fifth Amendment issue, either, since a video isn't testimony per se -- we'd more accurately call interpretation of the video "testimony." On balance, though, thanks to easily-obtainable smartphones with built-in HD cameras -- over which this bill would exert no control -- I'd say the horses are out of the barn.
Ho hum, "centrist Dems" seem to be iffy about ever passing a public option for health insurance in America. Because it doesn't have "bipartisan support," you see, as if anything worthwhile will ever win Republican support again. By that logic, they must also not support Medicare, since Republicans wish to destroy that as well, but of course they would never say that out loud. The good news? At least two of these Senators have zero chance of getting re-elected in 2018, and a third is in serious trouble -- and maybe, just maybe, since this is starting to happen all the time, Democrats will stop letting their right wing dictate what they fight for. (Personal to Mark Warner, talking about the "29 to 30 hour cliff" supposedly created by the 30-hour-work-week mandate in the Affordable Care Act: so you'd rather have the 39-to-40-hour cliff back, as Republicans do?)
Charles Koch, in an interview with Fortune magazine, says choosing between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is like deciding between "cancer or heart attack." Don't you believe it! Just like everyone else, he's got almost four months to rationalize himself into voting for Mr. Trump. You know how else I know he's going to vote for Mr. Trump? Because he did not raise the possibility of supporting Libertarian Gary Johnson even one time during his Fortune interview.
Finally, Politico talks to a few U.S. Senators who forecast that the Trans-Pacific "Partnership" doesn't have the votes in the Senate to pass. Don't you believe this, either! Rob Portman's "concerns" about "currency manipulation" will disappear; Thom Tillis and Richard Burr will throw their tobacco interests overboard, and Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee don't really care about "biologics." All they care about is money, and they won't protect relatively narrow interests at the expense of protecting money. And Politico, like the rest of them, thinks it's perfectly OK to report that the TPP's best chance for passage is in the lame-duck session, like that isn't abject cowardice or dereliction of duty.
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