Tag Archives: Crony Capitalism

Uber driver fleeing taxi inspector takes passengers for wild ride

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“An Uber Black driver took three passengers for a wild ride after the driver fled a D.C. taxi inspector and traveled into Virginia.  The passengers climbed in as the inspector was asking for documents to confirm that the driver hadn’t accepted a street hail and had instead used the Uber app to set up the pickup. Only taxis can accept street hails in the District, says Neville Waters, public information officer for the D.C. Taxicab Commission.  The inspector also wanted to make sure the Uber car was returning to Virginia and not dropping off the riders at another location in D.C. Instead of cooperating with the inspector, the Uber driver took off at a high rate of sped, Waters says.”

http://www.wtop.com/41/3660305/Uber-driver-flees-inspector-takes-passengers-for-wild-ride

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Senate Panel OKs $47 Billion Homeland Security Budget

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“The measure also includes a provision to increase the fee paid by travelers who enter the U.S. by commercial sea and air carriers by $2 to $9, using the revenue to pay for 1,000 new customs agents.  The measure funds the government’s newest Cabinet department and is free of contentious issues that dot many of the other 11 spending bills. It increases the budget for Customs and Border Protection by 4 percent and increases funding for detention of people entering the country illegally.  The bill’s chief author, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., who faces a difficult re-election campaign this fall, included $318 million to build six fast response Coast Guard cutters at Bollinger Shipyards in her home state.”

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/senate-panel-oks-47b-homeland-security-budget-24318416

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Supreme Court puts TV-over-Internet startup Aereo out of business

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“Aereo, a TV-over-the-Internet startup whose legal battles have been closely watched, has been ruled illegal by the Supreme Court today. If the company survives at all, its business model will have to change drastically, and it will have to pay fees to the television companies it has been fighting in court for more than two years.  In a 6-3 opinion (PDF), Aereo was found to violate copyright law. According to the opinion, the company is the equivalent of a cable company, which must pay licensing fees when broadcasting over-the-air content.  The court’s majority accepts the copyright arguments of the TV broadcasters who initiated the lawsuits against Aereo.”

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/supreme-court-puts-aereo-out-of-business/

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Deutsche Telekom to follow Vodafone in revealing surveillance

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“Mobile companies, unlike social networks, cannot operate without a government-issued licence, and have previously been reluctant to discuss the extent of their cooperation with national security and law enforcement agencies.  But Vodafone broke cover on Friday by confirming that in around half a dozen of the markets in which it operates, governments in Europe and outside have installed their own secret listening equipment on its network and those of other operators.  Under this direct access system, wires suck up traffic at key points in the network, allowing unfettered access to the content of phone conversations and text messages, and in some cases delivering live location data.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/06/deutsche-telekom-to-also-reveal-surveillance-data

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Cities reluctant to reveal whether they’re using fake cell tower devices

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“The ACLU filed a motion for public access request, requesting documents and information related to stingray use by nearly 30 Florida police and sheriff’s departments.  Among the responses published for the first time on Tuesday was the curious reply from the city of Sunrise, Florida. Sunrise officially denied the request, noting that the city would neither confirm nor deny ‘whether any records responsive to the Request exist and, if any responsive records do exist, cannot and will not public disclose those records.’  Harris requires its law enforcement clients to sign  nondisclosure agreements that forbid those agencies from publicly revealing whether they use the stingray.”

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/03/cities-reluctant-to-reveal-whether-theyre-using-fake-cell-tower-devices/

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Police hid use of cell phone tracking device from judge because of NDA

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“A police department in Florida failed to tell judges about its use of a cell phone tracking tool ‘because the department got the device on loan and promised the manufacturer to keep it all under wraps,’ the ACLU said in a blog post today.  The device was likely a ‘Stingray,’ which is made by the Florida-based Harris Corporation.  Police ‘did not want to obtain a search warrant because they did not want to reveal information about the technology they used to track the cell phone signal,’ the District Court of Appeal ruling said. ‘The prosecutor told the court that a law enforcement officer ‘would tell you that there is a nondisclosure agreement that they’ve agreed with the company.””

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/03/police-hid-use-of-cell-phone-tracking-device-from-judge-because-of-nda/

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How the Tea Party Caused a Plane Crash

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“Cantor’s defeat rocked shares of Boeing. The aircraft manufacturer is down 4% since Cantor’s loss, and continues to sink lower.  Why Boeing? That’s where this tale of crony capitalism gets interesting.  Cantor was the #1 congressional supporter of the Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im), a little-known federal agency whose ostensible purpose is to encourage US exports. Ex-Im makes or guarantees loans to foreign companies, which use those loans to purchase US products.  Without Cantor’s support, Congress may pull the plug on Ex-Im. That would be good news for taxpayers and the airline industry, but terrible for Boeing.”

http://www.caseyresearch.com/cdd/how-the-tea-party-caused-a-plane-crash

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Bill Bonner: ‘Uber Alles’

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Bill-Bonner2

“No one is more determined or more resourceful than a Frenchman who sees his revenue threatened by innovation. The taxi drivers of Paris aim to stop Uber any way they can.  What’s the best way to protect yourself from competition? Regulation! They want the new company so tightly bound it loses its competitive advantage. One proposal, for example, would require Uber drivers to wait 15 minutes before responding to a call.  Yesterday, Uber got the best advertising money can’t buy. Taxi drivers not only blocked traffic on the most popular road in the Paris area, the beltway around town – the ‘periph,’ they also took up positions on bridges and overpasses.”

http://www.bonnerandpartners.com/uber-alles/

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S.F. Taxi Chief Resigns, Predicts Industry Wipeout By Lyft And Uber

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“In a sense, it’s shocking to hear such grim assessments about the state of an industry–one that seems like a basic city service–that has been around for decades. But this is a lesson for other cities: San Francisco’s taxi system is notoriously horrible, with too few cabs on the road, too many cabbies who lie about having broken credit card machines so customers will pay cash, and problematic drivers.  A look at 1,700 customer complaints by the Bay Citizen reveals all sorts of issues, including cabbies smoking, texting while driving, falling asleep at the wheel, and just being rude. Should we surprised that the industry is in danger of toppling over?”

http://www.fastcoexist.com/3031448/heres-an-idea/head-of-san-francisco-cab-company-predicts-lyft-and-uber-will-put-the-industry

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Money Up a Rat Hole: The “Space Fence” Boondoggle

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portallogo3

“It isn’t a fence. It’s a $6 billion radar system that will monitor a tiny fraction of the space junk. One piece of junk, no larger than your thumb, can produce the Kessler effect. At 17,000 miles an hour, the little cannon ball has tremendous force. But the ‘Space Fence’ cannot monitor this size cannon ball.  There is no known solution to this problem. There is no program to solve it. The ‘Space Fence’ merely lets some Air Force enlisted person, who is staring at a screen, watch the chain reaction blow holes in the world’s space-based telecommunications system, impact by impact. Then why build it?  To subsidize the aerospace industry, you big silly.”

http://www.garynorth.com/public/12427.cfm

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