At a regional summit this month in Mexico, attended by the leaders of 11 Latin American and Caribbean countries, officials declared that “the authorities in consumer countries should explore all possible alternatives to eliminate exorbitant profits of criminals, including regulatory or market options.”

“Market options” is diplomatic code for decriminalization.

A loaded gun went through security at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, a 12 News investigation revealed.

The incident, which happened on December 27, 2008, involved a cover-up and policy violations by Transportation Security Administration managers and remained hidden from public knowledge for three years.

A whistleblower says, “There are people that are in high management at TSA that were involved in a major cover-up.”

A one-of-a-kind website enabling the online sale of preowned digital-music files got a major legal boost late Monday when a federal judge refused to shutter it at the request of Capitol Records.

ReDigi, which opened in October, says it’s a modern-day, used-record store that provides account holders with a platform to buy and sell used MP3s that were purchased lawfully through iTunes. The platform’s technology does not support other digital files such as those purchased from Amazon or ripped from a CD.

The brief ruling (PDF) by US District Judge Richard Sullivan of New York did not clearly outline the reason for the decision. But among other things, the legal questions before him included the first-sale doctrine, the legal theory that people in lawful possession of copyrighted material have the right to sell it.

Just don’t give them away. That’s illegal.

The most frustrating part of the discussion around SOPA has been watching politicians and commentators fail to acknowledge the vast resources we already devote to protecting copyright in the United States. Over the past two decades, the United States has established one of the harshest systems of copyright enforcement in the world. Our domestic copyright law has become broader (it covers more topics), deeper (it lasts for a longer time), and more severe (the punishments for infringement have been getting worse). These standards were established through an alphabet soup of legislation: the No Electronic Theft (NET) Act of 1997, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998, and the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO-IP) Act of 2008. And every few years, there’s a call for more.

Many features of existing U.S. copyright law are harsh by international standards. The U.S. penalizes the attempt to access digital material against a rights-holder’s wishes, even when the material itself is not protected by copyright. We guarantee large monetary awards against infringers, with no showing of actual harm. We effectively require websites to cooperate with rights-holders to take down material, without requiring proof that it’s infringing in court. And our criminal copyright law has such a low threshold that it criminalizes the behavior of most people online, instead of targeting infringement on a true commercial scale.

At Priceonomics, we firmly believe that resale value is the best objective indicator of product quality. If you wanted to figure out the best cell phone, you could look at all the reviews, test out all the phones, talk to all the experts, but still your assessment will be subjective. Or you could let the market tell you which phones are the highest quality by seeing which ones best retain their value over time.

Priceonomics phone pricing data strongly indicates that Apple phones are a better value than smartphones on other platforms. The market has spoken, and Android and Blackberrys do not age well.

A wave of clerical sex abuse scandals have cost the Catholic Church over two billion dollars (1.5 billion euros) but the real price is the blow to its reputation, two U.S. experts said on Wednesday.

“It is probably reasonable to estimate that the actual ‘out of pocket’ cost of the crisis to the Church internationally is well in excess of two billion dollars,” Michael Bemi and Patricia Neal said at a Vatican summit on the issue.

The cost could be much higher though as at least some dioceses in the Church “made many confidential settlements over the years, the total value of which may never be known,” said the two consultants for the U.S. Catholic Church.

Bemi and Neal asked Catholic leaders from around the world: “How many hospitals, seminaries, schools, churches, shelters for abused women and children and soup kitchens could we have built with this amount of money?

A $698 million class action against Goldman Sachs will proceed, after a federal judge certified a class arising “out of a single offering … of certificates derived from a pool of securitized fixed-rate, second-lien home mortgages.”

U.S. District Judge Harold Baer Jr. in Manhattan certified the Public Employees’ Retirement System of Mississippi as representative of a class of more than 150 investors.

“All of the mortgage loans underlying the certificates were originated by New Century Financial Corp. (‘New Century’) and purchased by defendants in late 2005 to be securitized,” according to Baer’s Opinion and Order. “The Second Amended Complaint (‘Complaint’) asserts that the Offering Documents for the Certificates contained untrue statements and omitted material facts …

“Plaintiff contends that New Century failed to follow its own stated underwriting standards and used improper appraisals overstating the collateral value, and that defendants failed to conduct adequate due diligence when acquiring the loans for securitization. Consequently, the statements in the Offering Documents concerning compliance with underwriting and appraisal standards were materially untrue when they were made, and as a result, plaintiff and the class purchased certificates that were far riskier than represented.

While the file-sharing ecosystem is currently filled with uncertainty and doubt, researchers at Delft University of Technology continue to work on their decentralized BitTorrent network. Their Tribler client doesn’t require torrent sites to find or download content, as it is based on pure peer-to-peer communication. “The only way to take it down is to take the Internet down,” the lead researcher says.

Although the critics of Citizens United might well be right to condemn it and to call for a constitutional amendment to overrule it, they are misguided in their reliance on the refrain that "money is not speech." Of course, money is not "speech." Money is money, a car is a car, and a ribbon is a ribbon. These are objects, not speech. But all of these objects, and many more besides, can be used to facilitate free speech.

(…)

Like a car or a ribbon, money is not speech. But when government regulates the use of money for speech purposes, it implicates the First Amendment. Suppose, for example, an individual at an Occupy protest burns a dollar bill to convey her disdain for corporate America. A dollar bill is not speech, fire is not speech, but a government law prohbiting any person to burn money as a symbolic expression of opposition to corporate America would surely implicate the First Amendment.

(…)

This is not to say, however, that the government cannot constitutionally regulate the use of money in politics. The fact that an object is used to facilitate speech does not mean that it is immune from regulation. The use of a loudspeaker is speech, but the government can regulate the decibel level. Burning a dollar bill for expressive purposes is speech, but the government can prohibit anyone from doing so near an open gas line. And the same is true for campaign contributions and expenditures. When the government attempts to regulate the use of money for expressive purposes it implicates the First Amendment, but it does not necessarily violate it.

If the critics of Citizens United and the advocates of a constitutional amendment to overrule it want to be taken seriously, they must move beyond superficial slogans and focus on the real issue at stake: When should the government be allowed to regulate political contributions and expenditures — even if they are speech?

“Our firm’s reputation for providing quality service reflects the high standards we demand of ourselves. Our high standards, responsive service and specialized staff spell the difference between our firm and the rest.”

He cried — and the judge cut him loose.

A disgraced NYPD detective convicted of planting drugs on an innocent couple was looking at jail time when he walked into court on Thursday.

He walked out with probation after blubbering that he was ashamed of himself and pleading for mercy.

“I can’t look at myself in the mirror anymore,” Jason Arbeeny told Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Gustin Reichbach.

“Sir, I am begging you, please don’t send me to jail.”

A cold front that has raged across much of Europe over the past week has brought arctic temperatures, icy high winds and dozens of deaths. In addition to its human toll, it has been a marketing snafu for BMW AG’s Mini brand.

[..]

A marketing agency for Mini decided that BMW should bet on a sponsorship that would make potential customers associate Mini’s new roadster with brisk but sunny weather. For €299 ($394), it bought the name for a 2012 high-pressure area and dubbed it Cooper. It spent another €199 on a low-pressure system and secured the name Minnie.

It is “a wind- and weatherproof idea,” the Munich agency, Sassenbach Advertising, said on its website in late January, as the Cooper-driven front began to make its way from Siberia.

But as Cooper swept through Eastern Europe, it brought more than the wintry sunshine Mini had hoped for. Temperatures sank to below minus 30 degrees Celsius, or minus 22 Fahrenheit, and more than 250 people have died, mostly in Ukraine, Poland and Romania.

“I, Galileo Galilei, son of the late Vincenzio Galilei of Florence, aged 70 years, tried personally by this court, and kneeling before You, the most Eminent and Reverend Lord Cardinals, Inquisitors-General throughout the Christian Republic against heretical depravity, have before my eyes the Most Holy Gospels, and laying on them my own hands; I swear that I have always believed, and I believe now, and with God’s help I will in future believe all which the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church doth hold, preach, and teach.

But since I, after having been admonished by this Holy Office entirely to abandon the falso opinion that the Sun was the center of the universe and immoveable, and that the Earth was not the center of the same and it moved, tand that I was neither to hold, defend, nor teach any manner whatever, either orally or in writing, the said false doctrine; and after having received a notification that the said doctrine is contrary to Holy Writ, I did write and cause to be printed a book in which I treat of the said already condemned doctrine, and bring forward arguments of much efficacy in its favor, without arriving at any solution: I have been judged vehemently suspected of heresy, that is, of having held and believed that the Sun is the center of the universe and immoveable, and that the Earth is not the center of the same, and that is does move.

Nevertheless, wishing to remove from the minds of your Eminences and all faithful Christians this vehement suspicion reasonably conceived against me, I abjure with sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I curse and detest the said erors and heresies, and generally all and every error and sect contrary to the Holy Catholic Church. And I swear that for the future I will neither say nor assert in speaking or writing such things as may bring upon me similar suspicion; and if I know any heretic, or one suspected of heresy, I will denounce him to this Holy office, or to the Inquisitor and Ordinary of the place in which I may be.

I also swear and promise to adopt and observe entirely all the penances which have been or may be by this Holy Office imposed on my. And if I contravene any of theses said promises, protests, or oaths (which God forbid!) I submit myself to all the pains and penalties which by the Sacred Canons and other Decrees general and particular are against such offenders imposed and promulgated. So help me God and the Holy Gospels, which I touch with my own hands.

I Galileo Galilei aforesaid have adjured, sworn, and promised, and hold myself bound as above; and in token of the truth, with my own hand have subscribed the present schedule of my abjuration, and have recited it word by word. In Rome, at the Convent della Minerva, this 22nd day of June, 1633. I, Galileo Galilei, have abjured as above, with my own hand.”

Members of Congress may no longer be able to direct federal money to projects back home because of a moratorium on legislative earmarks, but that has not stopped them from trying.

A coalition of budget watchdog groups says that in the absence of the age-old practice of Congressional earmarks, the legislative tools that let members attach pet projects to bills, lawmakers appear to have found a backdoor method: special funds in spending and authorization bills that allow them to direct money to projects in their states.

“We thought we’d gotten rid of earmarks,” said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a budget watchdog group in Washington that is part of the coalition. “But it looks like Congress has just moved on to other methods that are less transparent than the old way, like creating these slush funds.”

Over the years, in a silly and naïve attempt to reduce the influence of money in government and politics, Congress has tried to limit how much job creators and others among the deserving rich could spend or contribute to influence the outcome of elections. But the effect of such laws and regulations has only been to create ever more ingenious vehicles to get around them.

Now, with Citizens United, the Supreme Court has finally declared that “enough is enough.” The court didn’t just remove the limits to what wealthy individuals or corporations could contribute to independent wink-wink front groups. The five-member majority also invited constitutional challenges to limits on direct contributions to campaigns or political parties and to those silly requirements that the source of every contribution be disclosed in a timely manner.

This is a great victory for those of us who believe in free markets and support the sacred constitutional principle that corporations are people and that money is speech. With the legal and political momentum now working in our favor, we must take this campaign to the next level.

After all, no matter how many billions of dollars we might invest in campaigns or independent wink-wink front groups, all we can really do is influence the outcome of campaigns. Given the risks associated with the performance of the candidates, however, we can never truly be certain of the electoral outcomes. And as you all know, what the markets and businesses hate most is uncertainty.

So, I propose that we finally give up the charade that we are not “buying” elections and, in fact, do exactly that — mount an all-out political and legal challenge to laws preventing us from buying votes directly.

As you know, bribing voters is an honored tradition in this country, dating to the early days of the Republic. From the Federalist Papers it’s clear that the practice was known to the Framers; if they had found it incompatible with democracy they surely would have banned it in the constitution. Significantly, they did not — nor did they include the regulation of vote-buying in their enumeration of the powers vested in Congress. Therefore, we would be on solid constitutional grounds in trying to establish a property right of all citizens to vote in federal elections — a right that, like all other property rights, can be sold on the free market.

We at Cato enjoy citing Frederic Bastiat’s 1845 classic of free-trade pamphleteering, the “Petition of the Candlemakers,” which addresses the French Parliament as follows:

…We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the production of light that he is flooding the domestic market with it at an incredibly low price; for the moment he appears, our sales cease, all the consumers turn to him, and a branch of French industry whose ramifications are innumerable is all at once reduced to complete stagnation. This rival… is none other than the sun…

The satire goes on to demand that the government banish the unfair competition and restore proper encouragement to domestic industry by requiring that owners exclude sunlight from all building windows.

Once again real life is making it hard to tell satire from reality — appropriately, in Bastiat’s France. According to an Agence France-Presse account, a French commercial court has ordered Google to pay 500,000 Euros to a local map company for unfair practices that constitute an abuse of the “dominant position of its Google Maps application.” In particular, Google provides its maps for free, unlike complainant Bottin Cartographes, which charges good money and has apparently run into trouble holding onto its customers on that basis.

“If you wake up tomorrow morning and think that saying a few Latin words over your pancakes is going to turn them into the body of Elvis Presley, you have lost your mind. But if you think, more or less, the same thing about a cracker and the body of Jesus, you’re just a Catholic.”

Sam Harris

Indiana’s top elections official could lose his job and his freedom after jurors convicted him of multiple voter fraud-related charges on Saturday, leaving in flux the fate of one of the state’s most powerful positions.

Republican Secretary of State Charlie White has held on to his office for more than a year despite being accused of lying about his address on voter registration forms.

A Hamilton County jury found White guilty of six of seven felony charges, including false registration, voting in another precinct, submitting a false ballot, theft and two counts of perjury. He was acquitted on one fraud charge.

Among the treasure troves of recently released WikiLeaks cables, we find one whose significance has bypassed Swedish media. In short: every law proposal, every ordinance, and every governmental report hostile to the net, youth, and civil liberties here in Sweden in recent years have been commissioned by the US government and industry interests.

I can understand that the significance has been missed, because it takes a whole lot of knowledge in this domain to recognize the topics discussed. When you do, however, you realize that the cable lists orders for the Swedish Government to implement a series of measures that significantly weakens Sweden’s competitive advantage in the IT field against the US. We had concluded this was the case, but had believed things had come from a large number of different sources. That was wrong. It was all coordinated, and the Swedish Government had received a checklist to tick off. The Government is described in the cables as “fully on board”.

So, using foreign laws, like the Swiss or other off-shore locations, to evade taxes if you are rich, that’s fine, but using foreign laws, like the Swedish, to evade copyright laws, that’s bad, and those laws must be changed or else?