Michael Flynn Is Worse Than a Liar; The Atlantic, December 4, 2018

Harry Litman, The Atlantic;

Michael Flynn Is Worse Than a Liar

[Kip Currier: Insightful and important distinctions made by Harry Litman, former US Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania (--and, I just discovered, brother of University of Michigan copyright scholar Jessica Litman), between "process crimes" and "fraud".]

"The word “lie” has lost its power in the Trump era. Try replacing it with “fraud.”

"The criticism is part of the overall discounting of the value of truth in the Trump era. Lies, it’s implied, are a rampant, and ultimately trivial, feature of public life. But here’s another word for what Mueller’s chasing that has not yet lost its sting: “fraud.” That sounds a lot less benign than “lie” or “process crime,” and for good reason. The fraudster, more than just fooling the victim, aims to exploit, to implement a scheme that deprives the victim of something of personal or financial value.

Under the law, fraud is a deliberate, material deception to secure an unlawful gain. The bread and butter charge of the white-collar prosecutor is fraud of some sort—wire fraud, bank fraud, or tax fraud—which constitutes about 10 percent of the federal docket and about 75 percent of all white-collar offenses. As a prosecutor, I brought dozens of fraud cases, and in my current legal practice, I routinely sue people and companies in civil court who have defrauded the government.    

At the core of every fraud is a lie:  an important lie that the defendant tells knowingly in order to influence a victim’s action."

In defending Trump’s reaction to the murder of a U.S.-based columnist, Utah Rep. Stewart says ‘journalists disappear’ all the time; The Salt Lake City Tribune, December 4, 2018

Thomas Burr, The Salt Lake City Tribune; In defending Trump’s reaction to the murder of a U.S.-based columnist, Utah Rep. Stewart says ‘journalists disappear’ all the time

"Rep. Chris Stewart defended President Donald Trump’s dismissal of CIA findings that Saudi Arabia’s crown prince was complicit in the killing of a U.S.-based journalist, noting that America needs relationships with some countries with which it doesn’t always agree.

And, Stewart noted, “journalists disappear” all over the world.

Stewart appeared on CNN on Tuesday not long after a bipartisan group of senators received a closed-door briefing by CIA Director Gina Haspel about the killing of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, who was reportedly slain and dismembered inside a Saudi consulate in Turkey.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was a “wrecking ball” and that “he’s complicit in the murder of Mr. Khashoggi to the highest level.”

“There’s not a smoking gun — there’s a smoking saw,” Graham said, referencing a bone saw that was apparently used in the consulate to dismember Khashoggi’s body."

Threat to journalists at highest level in 10 years, report says ; The Guardian, December 4, 2018

Jim Waterson, The Guardian; Threat to journalists at highest level in 10 years, report says

"Journalism is more dangerous – and more under threat – than at any point in the last decade, according to a report, which found that 78 journalists were killed last year while doing their job.

The rise of authoritarian governments and the threat of internet censorship has redoubled pressures on reporters globally, according to the human rights organisation Article 19, which found that a further 326 journalists were imprisoned for their work during 2017, a substantial increase on the previous year.

More than half of those behind bars were held in Turkey, China, and Egypt, often on charges of opposing the state.

“The price of protecting the right to freedom of expression and information has become extremely high: death, detention, and fear loom large for communicators and activists across the globe, and the space for meaningful discussion and communication is under siege,” said Thomas Hughes, the executive director of Article 19. “More than ever we need informed citizens, strong institutions, and the rule of law.”"

'Killed for speaking the truth': nine journalists murdered in 2018; The Guardian, December 5, 2018

Aamna Mohdin and Bibi van der Zee, The Guardian; 'Killed for speaking the truth': nine journalists murdered in 2018

"Over 30 journalists – including Jamal Khashoggi – have been murdered so far this year. With the help of colleagues and relatives, or in their own words and pictures, we pay tribute to some of them here."

Graham ties Saudi crown prince to Khashoggi killing: 'There's not a smoking gun — there's a smoking saw'; NBC News, December 4, 2018

Garrett Haake and Dartunorro Clark, NBC News; Graham ties Saudi crown prince to Khashoggi killing: 'There's not a smoking gun — there's a smoking saw'

"Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on Tuesday that the evidence connecting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the brutal killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi was so strong, it amounted to "a smoking saw."

“There’s not a smoking gun — there’s a smoking saw," Graham said after leaving an intelligence briefing by CIA director Gina Haspel for a small group of senators. "You have to be willfully blind not to come to the conclusion that this was orchestrated and organized by people under the command of MBS and that he was intricately involved in the demise of Mr. Khashoggi.""

Einstein’s ‘God Letter,’ a Viral Missive From 1954; The New York Times, December 2, 2018

James Barron, The New York Times;
Einstein’s ‘God Letter,’ a Viral Missive From 1954

[Kip Currier: This article is interesting in and of itself, but as someone teaching IP, where we frequently look at issues of digitization, I was especially intrigued to learn about the ongoing Einstein Papers Project. Knowing how phenomenally useful Cambridge University's Darwin Correspondence Project's digitized letters were for my own dissertation research exploring Charles Darwin's information behaviors, I can imagine the treasure trove of insights relevant to many disciplines that will be gleaned--and now made accessible to diverse worldwide users--from Einstein's digitized writings.

These kinds of massive "knowledge access for the public good" projects (--like Harvard's recently inaugurated Caselaw Access Project) are commendable exemplars of the positive intersections that technology, academic scholarship, and research institutions like CalTech and Cambridge can promote and achieve on behalf of global audiences.]

"Diana L. Kormos-Buchwald, a professor of history at the California Institute of Technology and the director of the Einstein Papers Project, said that Einstein was “not particularly thrilled at the special place that Gutkind devotes to Einstein’s science as the — how shall we put it — the best example of Jewish deterministic thought.”"

Podcaster Sued for Copyright Infringement for Using Music without Permission - Remember ASCAP, BMI and SESAC Licenses Don’t Cover All the Rights Needed for Podcasting; Lexology, November 29, 2018

Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP - David Oxenford, Lexology; Podcaster Sued for Copyright Infringement for Using Music without Permission - Remember ASCAP, BMI and SESAC Licenses Don’t Cover All the Rights Needed for Podcasting 

"The bottom line – don’t use music in podcasts without getting permission."

"Fighting for the Better Good"..."Don't Give Up"..."Don't Surrender", December 2018

Kip Currier: Good touchstone for anyone "fighting for the better good"--in bad times and good times.

I Wanted to Stream Buffy, Angel, and Firefly for Free, But Not Like This; Gizmodo, November 30, 2018

Alex Cranz, Gizmodo; I Wanted to Stream Buffy, Angel, and Firefly for Free, But Not Like This

"This is TV that should be accessible to everyone, but Facebook Watch? Really? In order to watch Buffy take on a demon with a rocket launcher you have to be willing to sit there and stare at a video on the Facebook platform—the same place your cousin continues to post Daily Caller Trump videos and that friend from high school shares clips of a Tasty casserole made of butter, four tubes of biscuit dough, baked beans, and a hot dog? The price for complimentary access to three of the best shows produced is bargaining away your data and privacy?

No, thanks.

But Facebook is hoping we’ll all say yes, please. Facebook’s user growth in the U.S. notably hit a wall over the summer and it’s been trying to fix things. It’s also trying to make itself more “sticky,” so people stay on Facebook to get not just family and friend updates and memes, but also the streams and standard videos more commonly found on YouTube. Last year Facebook launched Watch, its YouTube competitor that was, from the start, filled with trash. But things have slowly improved, with the show Sorry for Your Loss gaining rave reviews."

Dark web dealers voluntarily ban deadly fentanyl; The Guardian, December 1, 2018

Mark Townsend, The Guardian; Dark web dealers voluntarily ban deadly fentanyl

[Kip Currier: Noteworthy development, and hopefully this will save lives. Interesting to ponder what ethical theory this "commercial decision" might fall under: 

[excerpted from the article] "...dark web marketplace operators appeared to have made a commercial decision, because selling a drug that could lead to fatalities was more likely to prompt attention from police."]

"Major dark web drug suppliers have started to voluntarily ban the synthetic opioid fentanyl because it is too dangerous, the National Crime Agency has said.

They are “delisting” the high-strength painkiller, effectively classifying it alongside mass-casualty firearms and explosives as commodities that are considered too high-risk to trade. Fentanyl can be up to 100 times stronger than heroin and can easily cause accidental overdoses, particularly when mixed with heroin.

Vince O’Brien, one of the NCA’s leads on drugs, told the Observer that dark web marketplace operators appeared to have made a commercial decision, because selling a drug that could lead to fatalities was more likely to prompt attention from police.

It is the first known instance of these types of operators moving to effectively ban a drug."

Mueller Exposes the Culture of Lying That Surrounds Trump; The New York Times, December 1, 2018

Sharon LaFraniere, The New York Times; Mueller Exposes the Culture of Lying That Surrounds Trump

"If the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has proved anything in his 18-month-long investigation — besides how intensely Russia meddled in an American presidential election — it is that Mr. Trump surrounded himself throughout 2016 and early 2017 with people to whom lying seemed to be second nature.

They lied to federal authorities even when they had lawyers advising them, even when the risk of getting caught was high and even when the consequences for them were dire.

 

Even more Trump associates are under investigation for the same offense. They are part of a group of people surrounding Mr. Trump — including some White House and cabinet officials — who contribute to a culture of bending, if not outright breaking, the truth, and whose leading exemplar is Mr. Trump himself."

I’m a journalist in a Turkish jail. Why is Erdogan afraid of people like me?; The Washington Post, November 30, 2018

Max Zirngast, The Washington Post; I’m a journalist in a Turkish jail. Why is Erdogan afraid of people like me?

"My case, and others like it, belies the notion that Erdogan is any kind of believer in press freedom or human rights — an image he’s tried to cultivate in the wake of Saudi Arabia’s killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul. My arrest was a perverse confirmation of the authoritarianism I’ve spent the past several years chronicling and opposing...

Journalists have been caught up in the web of anti-terrorism pretexts, too. Last December, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported that “every journalist CPJ found jailed for their work in Turkey is under investigation for, or charged with, anti-state crimes, as was true of last year’s census.”"

The memoir I wish George H.W. Bush had written; The Washington Post, December 1, 2018

Carlos Lozada, The Washington Post; The memoir I wish George H.W. Bush had written

"So many of the things Bush said and wrote may seem quaint, but today they are also vital and increasingly fragile. “It is not fashionable in these days of tearing down our institutions to say ‘trust me,’ ” he said in a 1976 speech as CIA director. “Yet Americans have to have faith and trust in some degree or none of our governmental systems will work."

The godfather of fake news: Meet one of the world’s most prolific writers of disinformation; BBC News, November 2018

Anisa Subedar, BBC News; The godfather of fake news:
 
Meet one of the world’s most prolific writers of disinformation

"As the conversation winds down, I ask Blair - this godfather of fake news - and the man who tracked him down, if they have any parting words.

“Don’t ever stop doing what you’re doing,” Blair says.

And, with a hint of respect in his voice, Schenk replies:

“Likewise."

It’s Almost 2019. Do You Know Where Your Photos Are?; The New York Times, November 29, 2018

John Herrman, The New York Times; It’s Almost 2019. Do You Know Where Your Photos Are?

"Jason Scott is a founder of Archive Team, a loose network of archivists and programmers that creates tools for extracting data from services that are at risk of disappearing. Flickr has given users options to export everything from the site; the Archive Team is working on alternatives, just in case.

“The sad thing about the tech industry is they built everything on subsidized lies: ‘This is going to cost you nothing and you’re going to get amazing things,’” Mr. Scott said. It’s not as easy to imagine a future without Google as it might have been to imagine a future without Zing, or even Yahoo. But it shouldn’t be hard.

“It’s 100 percent like Flickr,” Mr. Scott said. “Tech companies are still selling a lot of very neophyte people a lot of problematic lies about things that matter a lot to them.”"

DC's Doomsday Clock #8 Leaked Thanks to... Vladimir Putin?; Comic Book Resources, November 30, 2018

Vincent Pasquill, Comic Book Resources; DC's Doomsday Clock #8 Leaked Thanks to... Vladimir Putin?

[Kip Currier: Read the two sentences excerpted below from an 11/30/18 Comic Book Resources article about a soon-to-be-released comic book published by DC Comics...

"In Russia, all media depicting President Vladimir Putin has to be passed through the government for approval before publishing. As President Putin appears in the issue, DC reportedly submitted it for review to the Russian government."

and then let it sink in how fortunate we are to have freedom of expression and intellectual freedom in this country. The right to think and say what we want. The right to read what we want. The right to read a comic book of our choosing!

Read the article's first sentence again:

"In Russia, all media depicting President Vladimir Putin has to be passed through the government for approval before publishing."

That is as extraordinary to learn, as appalling as it is to contemplate. The idea that the head of a sovereign nation would be so threatened, so afraid of what might be said about him in a comic book--in any writing, for that matter--that "chilling effects" advance review--censorship--is mandated.

That is the quintessence of weakness and cowardice.

That is the essence of totalitarianism, the default position of autocrats and tyrants the world over.

We must never forget, sadly, that the vast majority of this world's citizens do NOT enjoy freedom of speech or expression, precious rights enshrined in our U.S. Constitution's 1st Amendment. This story is a stark reminder of how exceptional freedom of expression is, how priceless yet vulnerable its hopeful spark is, and how it must be safeguarded and nurtured.

And how important it is to champion freedom of expression for others around the world, as well as for those of us who can exercise this cherished and singular civil liberty. "We the people", indeed.]

The truth is finally catching up with Trump; The Washington Post, November 27, 2018

Dana Milbank, The Washington Post; The truth is finally catching up with Trump

"In the beginning, they proffered “alternative facts.” Later, they told us that “truth isn’t truth.”

All along, President Trump and his lieutenants were betting that Jonathan Swift was correct when he wrote more than three centuries ago that “falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it.”

But after two long years, the truth is finally catching up with Trump and his winged whoppers."

In Yemen, Lavish Meals forFew, Starvation for Many and a Dilemma for Reporters; The New York Times, November 29, 2018

Declan Walsh, The New York Times; 

In Yemen, Lavish Meals for  Few, Starvation for Many and a Dilemma for Reporters

"For a reporter, that brings a dilemma. Journalists travel with bundles of hard currency, usually dollars, to pay for hotels, transport and translation. A small fraction of that cash might go a long way for a starving family. Should I pause, put down my notebook and offer to help?

It’s a question some readers asked after we published a recent article on Yemen’s looming famine."

Navy Official: Concerns About Intellectual Property Rights Becoming More 'Acute'; National Defense, NDIA's Business & Technology Magazine, November 29, 2018

Connie Lee, National Defense, NDIA's Business & Technology Magazine;

Navy Official: Concerns About Intellectual Property Rights Becoming More 'Acute'

"Capt. Samuel Pennington, major program manager for surface training systems, said the fear of losing data rights can sometimes make companies reluctant to work with the government.
“We get feedback sometimes where they’re not willing to bid on a contract where we have full data rights,” he said. “Industry [is] not going to do that because they have their secret sauce and they don’t want to release it.”
Pennington said having IP rights would allow the Defense Department to more easily modernize and sustain equipment.
“Our initiative is to get as much data rights, or buy a new product that has open architecture to the point where [the] data rights that we do have are sufficient, where we can recompete that down the road,” he said. This would prevent the Navy from relying on the original manufacturer for future work on the system, he noted.
The issue is also being discussed on Capitol Hill, Merritt added. The fiscal year 2018 National Defense Authorization Act requires the Pentagon to develop policy on the acquisition or licensing of intellectual property. Additionally, the NDAA requires the department to negotiate a price for technical data rights of major weapon systems."

Did Uber Steal Google’s Intellectual Property?; The New Yorker, October 22, 2018 Issue

Charles Duhigg, The New Yorker; Did Uber Steal Google’s Intellectual Property?

"Levandowski, for his part, has been out of work since he was fired by Uber. It’s hard to feel much sympathy for him, though. He’s still extremely wealthy. He left Google with files that nearly everyone agrees he should not have walked off with, even if there is widespread disagreement about how much they’re worth. Levandowski seemed constantly ready to abandon his teammates and threaten defection, often while working on an angle to enrich himself. He is a brilliant mercenary, a visionary opportunist, a man seemingly without loyalty. He has helped build a technology that might transform how the world functions, and he seems inclined to personally profit from that transformation as much as possible. In other words, he is an exemplar of Silicon Valley ethics.

Levandowski is upset that some people have cast him as the bad guy. “I reject the notion that I did something unethical,” he said. “Was I trying to compete with them? Sure.” But, he added, “I’m not a thief, and I’m not dishonest.” Other parents sometimes shun him when he drops his kids off at school, and he has grown tired of people taking photographs of him when he walks through airports. But he is confident that his notoriety will subside. Although he no longer owns the technology that he brought to Google and Uber, plenty of valuable information remains inside his head, and he has a lot of new ideas."

Facing Backlash, Chinese Scientist Defends Gene-Editing Research On Babies; NPR, November 28, 2018

Rob Stein, NPR; Facing Backlash, Chinese Scientist Defends Gene-Editing Research On Babies

"University of Wisconsin bioethicist Alta Charo, who helped organize the summit, issued an even harsher critique of He's work, calling it "misguided, premature, unnecessary and largely useless."

"The children were already at virtually no risk of contracting HIV, because it was the father and not the mother who was infected," she said.

"The patients were given a consent form that falsely stated this was an AIDS vaccine trial, and which conflated research with therapy by claiming they were 'likely' to benefit," Charo said. "In fact there is not only very little chance these babies would be in need of a benefit, given their low risk, but there is no way to evaluate if this indeed conferred any benefit."

She spoke after Harvard Medical School Dean George Daley alluded to He's claims as "missteps" that he worried might set back a highly promising field of research. "Scientists who go rogue carry a deep, deep cost to the scientific community," Daley said.

Still, Daley argued that He's experiment shouldn't tar the potential work of other scientists. "Just because the first steps into a new technology are missteps, doesn't mean we shouldn't step back, restart and think about a plausible and responsible path forward," Daley said.

"The fact that the first instance came forward as a misstep should in no way leave us to stick our heads in the sand and not consider the very, very positive efforts that could come forward," Daley said. "I hope we just don't stick our heads in the sand."

Daley stressed that the world hadn't yet reached a scientific consensus on how to ethically and safely use new gene-editing techniques to modify embryos that become babies.

But Daley argued that a consensus was emerging that "if we can solve the scientific challenges, it may be a moral imperative that it should be permitted." The most likely first legitimate use of gene-edited embryos would be to prevent serious genetic disorders for which there are no alternatives, Daley said.

"Solving and assessing these deep issues [is] essential," Daley says.

Daley also defended the fact that scientists have long relied on self-regulation to prevent the abuse of new technologies. He's claims represented "a major failure" that called for much stronger regulation and possibly a moratorium on such research, Daley said. "I do think the principle of self-regulation is defensible.""

'Of course it's not ethical': shock at gene-edited baby claims; The Guardian, November 27, 2018

Suzanne Sataline, The Guardian; 'Of course it's not ethical': shock at gene-edited baby claims

"Scientists have expressed anger and doubt over a Chinese geneticist’s claim to have edited the genes of twin girls before birth, as government agencies ordered investigations into the experiment.

A global outcry started after the genetic scientist He Jiankui claimed in a video posted on YouTube on Monday that he had used the gene-editing tool Crispr-Cas9 to modify a particular gene in two embryos before they were placed in their mother’s womb.

He said the genomes had been altered to disable a gene known as CCR5, blocking the pathway used by the HIV virus to enter cells.

Some scientists at the International Summit on Human Genome Editing, which began on Tuesday in Hong Kong, said they were appalled the scientist had announced his work without following scientific protocols, including publishing his findings in a peer-reviewed journal. Others cited the ethical problems raised by creating essentially enhanced humans."

Do You Have Concerns about Plan S? Then You Must be an Irresponsible, Privileged, Conspiratorial Hypocrite; The Scholarly Kitchen, November 26, 2018

Rick Anderson, The Scholarly Kitchen; Do You Have Concerns about Plan S? Then You Must be an Irresponsible, Privileged, Conspiratorial Hypocrite

"Ultimately, though, what is most concerning about Plan S is not the behavior of those hell-bent on defending it by any means necessary. That’s just par for the course. More important is the way in which researchers themselves — the people whose work and whose freedom to choose will be directly affected by its implementation — seem to have been excluded from the process of formulating it. This shouldn’t be surprising, I guess, given the disdain in which authors and researchers are apparently held by Plan S’s creators. After all, as Science Europe’s Robert-Jan Smits puts it: “Why do we need Plan S? Because researchers are irresponsible.”

There you have it. The freedom to choose how to publish isn’t for everyone; it’s only for those who are “responsible” — which is to say, those who agree with Plan S."

Ireland announces women-only professorships to close academia's gender gap; CNN, November 13, 2018

Kara Fox, CNN; Ireland announces women-only professorships to close academia's gender gap

"Ireland has announced a new plan to combat gender inequality in higher education by creating women-only professor positions across its universities and technology institutes.

Minister for Higher Education Mary Mitchell O'Connor said the project would ensure that 40% of Ireland's professor-level positions would be held be women by 2024.

Speaking at the Gender Action Plan for Higher Education's launch in Dublin on Sunday, O'Connor said that increasing female representation at the highest academic level would "underpin the transformation and cultural change" necessary to ensure that Ireland's higher education "fully realizes the benefits of gender diversity.""

Pennsylvania High Court Finds Duty to Safeguard Employee Information; Lexology, November 26, 2018

Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP, Lexology; Pennsylvania High Court Finds Duty to Safeguard Employee Information

"The Pennsylvania Supreme Court handed the state’s employees a major legal victory last week when it decided that employers have an affirmative legal responsibility to protect the confidential information of its employees...

In reversing two lower courts, the justices ruled that, by collecting and storing employee’s personal information as a pre-condition to employment, employers had the legal duty to take reasonable steps to protect that information from a cyber-attack...

The ruling revives a proposed class action lawsuit against the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and one of its hospitals, UPMC McKeesport, after a 2014 data breach in which hackers allegedly stole the personal information of 62,000 former and current employees...

Whether the ruling is viewed narrowly as confined to its facts, or more broadly as establishing a general legal duty to safeguard confidential information, there is little question that the decision marks an important development in tort law governing data breach cases...

The case is Dittman et al. v. UPMC, Case No. 43 WAP 2017."

Counterfeits in the Digital Marketplace; Lexology, November 7, 2018

Goulston & Storrs PC - Andrew J. Ferren and Jessica Carballo, 

Lexology; Counterfeits in the Digital Marketplace

[Kip Currier: Timely article, on this Cyber Monday, and in light of my IP course's lecture last week on IP Piracy and the Dark Web. 

Anybody else noticing how so many goods fall apart or break really quickly these days?! Glazed gardening pots that crack and disintegrate in one season. Designer metal shower hooks that break off in one year. Ear and nose trimmers that conk out after one use. Clothes that fray--sometimes even after just one wash cycle in cold water. And on and on and on...

As this article makes clear, too, it's annoying when some goods aren't what they claim to be and have a built-in obsolescence of about zero. It's downright dangerous when they explode or catch fire, and when they contain arsenic, lead, and other harmful substances that kids and adults are breathing in and coming into contact with. And let's not forget impacts of counterfeit items on animals, whether farm ones or animal companions, in the form of contaminated feed.

The Trump administration and some federal agencies have made some good steps in the past couple of years in better enforcing IP rights and cracking down on counterfeit goods. The U.S. Congress also needs to take more aggressive action, with civil and criminal consequences, to rein in and hold bad actors and entities accountable and ensure public safety and health are paramount. "Caveat emptor" should not and must not exculpate disreputable sellers from facing the ramifications of their amoral actions.]

"Counterfeiting has moved beyond high-priced luxury goods to low-cost everyday items. Many of these fake products pose real dangers: face masks with arsenic; phone adapters that can electrocute you; computer chargers that fry your hardware; batteries that blow up. These counterfeits infiltrate online marketplaces, where they co-mingle with authentic products in warehouses and ship to unsuspecting consumers. With millions of goods leaving fulfillment centers every day, brand owners and consumers must wrestle with a billion dollar problem: how do you police the largest marketplace in the world?

In January of this year, the U.S. Government Accountability Office filed a report detailing the results of a federal investigation in which 47 products were purchased from five online retailers, including Amazon and Walmart.com. All of the products were advertised as new, shipped from the United States, and sold by third-party sellers with customer ratings above 90%. Nearly half were counterfeit.

How does this happen? The five websites investigated have sizable “marketplaces,” virtual storefronts that let people other than the hosting company sell merchandise. For perspective, more than half of the goods sold on Amazon are from these third-party sellers. Anyone with an ID and a credit card can open a virtual storefront; few identifying details are required to set one up, and these details are regularly falsified. Since 2014, manufacturers from China (the world’s largest maker of counterfeit goods) have been able to sell directly to consumers in the Amazon Marketplace. In fulfillment centers, where products are picked up for packaging and shipment, goods from third-party sellers and goods direct from brand owners co-mingle. The resulting product pool is a mix of authentic and counterfeit goods, all sold as the same product and often for the same price."
 

This is the only Trump syndrome we need to worry about; The Washington Post, November 25, 2018

E.J. Dionne Jr., The Washington Post; This is the only Trump syndrome we need to worry about

"The past week has shown that those who feared Trump’s despotic inclinations were neither deluded nor alarmist. His shameful indifference to the killing and dismembering of the Saudi journalist and Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi was an act of cold collaboration with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s coverup...

But all the tax cuts and judges in the world won’t compensate for the cost to the United States of abandoning any claim that it prefers democracy to dictatorship and human rights to barbarism. The syndrome we most need to worry about is denial — a blind refusal to face up to how much damage Trump is willing to inflict on our system of self-rule, and on our values."

Do You Have a Moral Duty to Leave Facebook?; The New York Times, November 24, 2018

S. Matthew Liao, The New York Times; Do You Have a Moral Duty to Leave Facebook?


“I joined Facebook in 2008, and for the most part, I have benefited from being on it. Lately, however, I have wondered whether I should delete my Facebook account. As a philosopher with a special interest in ethics, I am using “should” in the moral sense. That is, in light of recent events implicating Facebook in objectionable behavior, is there a duty to leave it?"