The upshot of Facebook’s grievous exposure of “product information” to the Russian’s Cambridge Analytica is that Zuck pulled out the loose change in the couch and they set aside some cash to pay whatever fine the Federal Trade Commission decides to impose.

On Wednesday, The Washington Post reported that the social network was in negotiations with the Federal Trade Commission over fines relating to the company’s misuse of user data in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Around the same time, Facebook made it public that it was setting aside between $3 billion and $5 billion for the fine.

Let’s assume the fine is at the top of the range, $5 billion. It’s chump change to Facebook, which brings in around $15 billion in revenue per quarter. And that’s bugging the crap out of some people because they want Facebook to feel the sting, to hurt, to suffer, and while even $3 billion would probably be hard on most of us, not Zuck. Continue reading →

Tensions at a prominent university burst last week when protestors swarmed the campus administrative complex demanding popular Astronomy professor Dr. Charles Schlossman be fired over ill-advised comments about women in the workplace allegedly made at a conference twenty-seven years ago.

While no audio, video, or written record of these alleged comments exists, protestors in attendance agreed Schlossman’s termination wasn’t enough. Their official list of demands included President Julius Wolfenbarger’s immediate resignation, a statement from the school denouncing institutionalized misogyny, and every protestor in attendance getting a free maple bacon glazed donut. Except for Mandy Rose, a Junior in the drama department, who’s vegan. She’ll requires tofu. Continue reading →

While it’s clear that the federal government cannot conscript state officers to serve their cause, can they hold a state judge culpable for allegedly thwarting it? The government has decided to take a stand against Massachusetts District Court Judge Shelley M. Richmond Joseph.

“This case is about the rule of law,” said United States Attorney Andrew E. Lelling. “The allegations in today’s indictment involve obstruction by a sitting judge, that is intentional interference with the enforcement of federal law, and that is a crime. We cannot pick and choose the federal laws we follow, or use our personal views to justify violating the law. Everyone in the justice system – not just judges, but law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and defense counsel – should be held to a higher standard. The people of Massachusetts expect that, just like they expect judges to be fair, impartial and to follow the law themselves.”

Continue reading →

Speaker of the New York City Council, Corey Johnson, got to have his say:

“You have a right to free speech,” Mr. Johnson said in an interview. “But you don’t have a right to a committee on the City Council.”

Nobody has a right to a committee on one of the most woke legislative clubs around, one that will let no right stand in the way of subjugating a constitutional right to the benefit of the oppressed. But that’s not the question raised by Johnson’s actions. He didn’t stand accused of refusing to give a committee to anyone, but of stripping two elected City Council members of the committees they were already given.

After a New York City councilman said that the Council was “controlled by the homosexual community,” his influential committee — created at his request — was dissolved. Continue reading →

A meter maid, let’s call her Rita, chalks your car tire so that when she returns a couple of hours later, she will know whether you parked your car too long on a city street. On the face of it, the meter maid has violated your Fourth Amendment right to be free from an unreasonable search because the poor woman chalked your tire.

That’s according to the Sixth Circuit. Taylor v. City of Saginaw, No. 17-2126 (6^th Cir. Apr. 22, 2019) (in a case of first impression and with no precedent clearly on point, reversing Judge Thomas L. Ludington’s grant of a motion to dismiss issued pursuant Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim in a civil case brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and remanding for further proceedings [code for a motion for summary judgment under Rule 56]).[i]

Because I don’t know the answers to the many profound questions that the Taylor opinion raises, I am asking the readers of Simple Justice to help me out. Continue reading →

Lobbyists lobby, because otherwise their job title would seem silly. Sometimes they lobby for good reasons and sometimes just for cash. Hey, it’s a job, even if it’s an unseemly job. Or is it?

After his son was accused and subsequently expelled from Washington University in St. Louis last year through the school’s Title IX process, a leading Jefferson City lobbyist launched a campaign to change the law for every campus in the state.

Richard McIntosh has argued to legislators that Title IX, the federal law barring sexual discrimination in education and mandating that schools set up internal systems to police sexual violence, is tilted unfairly against the accused. His proposals — made first as a failed amendment to an unrelated bill near the end of the 2018 session and then this year as a full-fledged bill — create more protections for those accused of Title IX violations.

Continue reading →

What if Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross decided it was a good idea to ask a few interesting questions on the next decennial census?

• How many people in your home had premarital sex?
• How many people in your home have a smartphone?
• How many people in your home know how to drive a stick shift?

Since the Constitution compels a census to be taken every ten years, and requires, per the Fourteenth Amendment, Section 2, that it count “the whole number of persons in each State,” why not seize upon the opportunity to throw in a few extra questions of interest? Would anyone care?

Except Ross chose to ask a different question, one about citizenship. There are substantive reasons why this is a problem, that it will likely produce a significant undercount, estimated to be about 5%, and thus undermine the purpose of a census. And since its use is to divvy up congressional districts and funding, it means those undercounted will be denied representation and money to which they are constitutionally entitled. Continue reading →

As Cathy Young notes, maybe Professor Jeffrey Sachs was “a bit premature announcing the victory of free speech principles on campus.” Who would have thunk? Williams College faculty sought to amend its campus policy toward free speech. Uh oh.

A faculty petition at Williams College to adopt the Chicago principles, which many free speech advocates consider the gold standard of free speech philosophy, has divided the campus and pushed administrators to review the college’s policies.

Williams is in “meltdown,” said Luana S. Maroja, an associate professor of biology and one of the faculty members who led the charge for the college to endorse the Chicago principles, known formally as the University of Chicago’s “Report of the Committee on Freedom of Expression.”

Continue reading →

While New York tries desperately to dig its way out of the Supreme Court’s consideration of its regulation by suggesting that a proposed change to its rules would moot the case, there is another group arguing in favor of guns. They’re not led by some crazed militia leader or some semi-automatic gun nut. Their spokesperson is Emily Bazelon.

When gun control advocates discuss how to restrict access to lethal weapons, they mostly talk about permit requirements and background checks. But that coin has another side: punishment for people accused of possessing guns without the state’s permission.

New York City is no gun haven. It’s not that there aren’t guns in New York. There are. They just aren’t possessed lawfully, at least according to the regulations of the New York City Police Department, charged with issuing permits for the possession and carry of a firearm. And unless you’re an ex-cop, or have some serious political connections, you’re not getting a permit. Even legit claims for the need for a gun by those carrying large and legal sums of cash or briefcases filled with diamonds are routinely turned away. NYPD does not want anyone to carry a gun, except them. Continue reading →

The Supreme Court has granted cert in three cases, a two-to-one circuit court split, to decide the question of what “sex” means under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This is the worst nightmare of gay and transgender advocates, who have worked hard to accomplish through lawfare what they have failed, over and over, to accomplish through legislation. Given their perhaps overly simplistic view of the Court’s partisan players, political hacks when feared, this could spell the end for their efforts to change the meaning of one critical word: Sex.

Will the Supreme Court Protect Gay and Transgender Workers?

The framing of the headline question in the New York Times editorial gives away its posture. If it’s a referendum on supporting gay and transgender workers, then it comes out one way. And if it comes out any other way, then it means the Court endorses discrimination against those workers, because surely it would rule to protect them if the Court wasn’t homophobic and transphobic. Continue reading →