Tag Archives: ethics

Is a PRC-Style Surveillance State Coming to San Francisco?

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Newly installed San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins wants to empower the city’s police to peer over private citizens’ shoulders and watch in, real-time, any private security cameras those citizens might have.

San Francisco’s new district attorney Brooke Jenkins proposed rules that would allow the police department to tap into privately owned security cameras and camera networks to live monitor “significant events with public safety concerns” and ongoing felony or misdemeanor violations.
Additionally, the ordinance would allow police to “gather and review historical video footage for the purposes of conducting a criminal investigation.”

It may be that Jenkins (who pushed hard for Chesa Boudin’s recall and then enthusiastically accepted his job, just as if there was no conflict of interest there) is no better than Boudin, albeit for different reasons than Boudin.

Is the Iron Curtain Come to California?

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It seems that the University of California Los Angeles has decided to move from college’s PAC-12 Conference to the Big 10 Conference, effective with the 2024 academic/athletic year.

It seems also that California’s Governor Gavin Newsom (D) is unhappy about the alma mater of Lew Alcindor, later becoming the NBA great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, joining the exodus from the State, if only functionally and not physically.

Nobody said, “Mother may I?” to Newsom, and that angrifies him as much as UCLA’s decision to go out from a West Coast conference to a more economically sound area of our nation.

I read about it (is how I found out). No big deal. I’m the governor of the state of California. But maybe a bigger deal is that I’m the chair of the UC Board of Regents. I read about it. Is it a good idea? Did we have a chance to discuss the merits (of the decision)? I’m not aware anyone did. So it was done in isolation. It was done without regental oversight or support. It was done without any consideration to my knowledge.

Now, it may be that there is/was a contractual obligation for UCLA to advise the Board of Regents of the school’s discussions and intentions. However, Newsom didn’t mention any of that in his plaint—only that His Nibs wasn’t consulted.

Regarding those more economically sound areas of our nation—in the new era of Name, Image, and Likeness requirements that allow college athletes to personally profit form the use of their NIL material—here is, UCLA’s Athletic Director Martin Jarmond:

…the move was mostly about increasing “exposure” in the NIL era. By opening the school up to potentially more nationally televised games and East Coast markets, Jarmond says they can now provide an enhanced opportunity for student-athletes to find “their voice and their brand and what’s important to them.”

But not so fast: His Nibs is looking for ways to block the move.

Trust me when I say this: We are not going to be looking into. We are already looking into it within (and have been) minutes after reading about this in the newspaper.

No veiled threat there….

A Lawless DA

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Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon doesn’t like California’s Three Strikes law, which requires prosecutors to include in their charging documents prior felony convictions—which on conviction for the current crime can seriously extend the penalty for that crime. Pursuant to his dislike, Gascon has refused to charge those prior felonies, and he’s ordered the prosecutors in his office to refuse, also.

Subsequent to implementing that practice, Gascon was ordered by the relevant California State district court to cut that out and to charge in accordance to the Three Strikes law. He appealed and lost at the appellate level. He’s still refusing to charge under the law, and now under two court orders, and he’s appealing the whole thing to the State’s Supreme Court.

Gascon’s rationale?

Gascon on Thursday called the appellate court’s decision “a dangerous precedent” and argued that it amounted to “taking the charging decision out of a prosecutor’s hands.”
“The Three Strikes law imposes Draconian penalties on defendants who were previously convicted of certain prior felonies[.]”

Say Gascon is right on both of those—the charging decision has been taken from the prosecutor, and the Three Strikes law leads to draconian penalties. That’s what the law requires, for good or ill. Gascon’s beef is with the political arms of California’s government; he doesn’t get to simply ignore laws of which he personally disapproves. His role as a District Attorney is to prosecute defendants within the bounds, and according to the requirements, of the law.

The recall of George Gascon must proceed to a successful end, so the good citizens of California can be rid of a prosecutor who doesn’t believe in law or in rule of law.

Conspiracy Pushing

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The horror of Wisconsin citizens electing a Republican Governor this fall—current Governor Tony Evans (D) is possessed by it.

We will see elections change to the point where the Legislature makes the final decision and that should scare the living crap out of everybody in this room[.]

And

They (Republicans) will continue doing this until Donald Trump is 6 feet under.

Sure. And for those of the Left who might actually believe that, I might know of some beachfront property north of Santa Fe, NM, that might interest them. Good view of the valley below.

The conspiracy hysteria runs strong in this one.

Excuses

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On the matter of the disagreement between Elon Musk and Twitter over whether the former must buy the latter or the latter has failed to provide the data needed—for instance, to assess the level of bots doing Twitter’s tweeting—to properly assess the value of the purchase target, “data scientists” claim that the number of fake and spam accounts

isn’t easy to objectively determine.

And

Coming up with a precise, objective, and authoritative number of fake or spam accounts, where hundreds of millions of tweets are posted daily, is an impractical task.

It’s hard, so it’s impractical? And hiding behind the vagaries of “precise” (how precise? Five 9s precise? “Close enough” to illustrate the general magnitude of the number?)?

This is just “expert” fee seeking. “Not easy” means possible. It’s time for the obstructionists to stop obstructing, to stop manufacturing excuses, and to get to work.