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Comment To be fair.... (Score 1) 273

... if a person *is* driving other people to places for purposes of commercial gain, then they should probably have to get a special kind of license to do so... just like a cab driver.

And of course, there's the issue that even if you weren't making a profit, as long as you are giving rides to complete strangers, then technically, you are really just picking up hitchhikers.

So yeah.... I can kind of see the problem that they might have with something like Uber.

Comment Re:WTF over?! (Score 1) 131

Most people who might be willing to take something that belonged to somebody else, especially if they felt the person wouldn't find out about it (or wouldn't notice until they had at least gotten away with taking it) are not likely to commit any kind of violent crime, even if not because there are limits on what kinds of immoral practices they might engage in, it could fall to the simple notion they would probably feel less likely to be able to successfully get away with such an act than one that is performed without anyone seeing them.

Most thefts are crimes of opportunity, and not associated with any kind of threat of violence.

Comment Re:In other news (Score 1) 131

Will the car refuse to start if the camera is obscured and the driver can't be identified?

Probably... but only if the owner cannot be reached by phone/text message.

Although I realize it's not difficult to imagine scenarios where this would actually cause problems... perhaps the developers of this tech are anticipating that the number of actual complaints which arise as a result of actual experienced difficulty will be small enough that they can still afford to lose those customers' business.

Comment Re:Legal protection, and reality (Score 1) 286

If the police want to search your phone after you have clearly told them that you do not consent to any such search, then you can sue the cop. Politely inform the cop that you are aware that such a search without a warrant would be a violation of your constitutional rights, and that if the search is carried out in spite of this, then you will hold the officer accountable for that violation. This may or may not be considered by a dickhead police officer as a a threat, but if it is, again politely remind the officer that while you're not going to try to stop him from doing his job, you are informing him that you do not consent to such a search without a warrant, and that you will not allow your rights to be violated without also taking the matter before the courts.

Even a complete asshole police officer will probably just let you go at that point... as you've made it clear that you're not going to actively try to do anything to actually stop him from doing anything that he might think he needs to do right then and there, so he won't have a convenient excuse to throw handcuffs on you, and you've only reminded him of the potential lawful consequences for doing things that he's not supposed to. He'd have to genuinely believe that he was lawfully in the right to still carry out said search... but of course, as I said, you could sue the cop afterwards.

Comment Re:let them so it gets thrown out? (Score 1) 286

The question is, however, if you do not actually *do* anything to stop them from searching your phone, can your lack of doing anything be construed as implied consent? I mean, I might even say out loud, multiple times, that I don't want you to search my phone, but if I don't actually *DO* anything to stop you from searching, doesn't that mean that you could infer my actual intent from my actions, or lack thereof, and ignore what I'm saying as easily as if I were saying something that was complete nonsense?

Comment Re:If it is true, is it defamation? (Score 1) 268

Being true doesn't make something not defamation, it just makes it *exponentially* harder to win a suit on the grounds of alleged defamation. Basically, when the information is factual, the person being published about would have to show that either it was somehow more likely that the publisher was providing that information solely from sense of malice (eg, the information is relatively confidential and does not serve any kind of public interest, such as publishing that a person had cheated on their spouse), or else the factual information is provided in a way that a reasonable person might come to an unfactual wrong conclusion about the matter, usually because although the provided information is true, relevant facts are unstated which could significantly alter the kind of conclusion a reasonable person would come to. For example, suppose that a person has a legitimate medical reason to have a prescription for morphine, and they are required to be consuming fairly high dosages of it regularly, and then someone goes and publishes that this person appears to have a morphine addiction (which can be reasonably argued to be true, since they are only publishing that is how things *appear*) because of how often they (factually) use it, then even though the information can be considered factual, that person might reasonably be sued for defamation, but even then, since the person being published about was actually taking high dosages of morphine, the publisher of such information could probably claim genuine belief on their part as a defense and the defamation suit would likely fail. The onus would be on the person suing to show that the publisher had somehow deliberately framed the facts that they published in such a manner as to create an impression that is *not* factually true. This is not necessarily always impossible to do, but it would also probably not be a remotely easy thing for the person being published about to accomplish, no matter how much money they spent on lawyers.

Comment But is it false? (Score 4, Insightful) 268

I know that defamation suits can be filed (and sometimes even won) even if the information being published is true (if it's false, then one could further sue for libel) but it's my understanding that in the case where the published information is true, the onus is on the person who is suing to show that the *intent* of the publishers was to actually defame them... which of course is quite difficult to do in court. They would have to, using factual evidence, show how it was somehow considerably more probable that there was actually any malicious intent on the publisher's part than any claim the publisher the might make to contrary being true. Unless the publishers actually confess that this is the case, this will not be easy... no matter how good their lawyers are.

Comment Re:Law (Score 1) 404

I just assumed it was referring to metered parking. Every city that I've lived i, the prime parking spots are always paid, or else on private property. I guess there's also free parking along the residential streets of the suburbs, but I wouldn't think that such parking would generally be in demand in the first place. Even the residential streets that are too close to any kind of major artery tend to have restrictions on who is allowed to park there... ie, you would need to have a tag hanging on your rear view mirror similar to a handicapped vehicle tag that indicates the vehicle is owned by a resident along that street, and untagged vehicles which are there for more than about 15 minutes or so will usually get ticketed, and sometimes even towed.

Comment Re:Law (Score 1) 404

Well, for one thing, it's illegal to loiter.

If you are sitting in your car at a parking meter, and keep putting change into the meter to keep it from running out until somebody who has offered you enough money for your presumably prime parking position comes along and you vacate that spot for them, are you still considered to be loitering in the interim?

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