It happens every time property is seized and used without an associated criminal conviction. Why in the hell is this concept so hard for people, if the property is used or the proceeds of a crime PROVE IT! Anything else is such a prima face violation of the 4th and 5th amendment that I am surprised the founding fathers haven't risen from the grave to kick the ass of whoever supports this crap.

Exactly! Charge and convict the owner for the crime they are alleging took place. How this perversion of the 4th amendment is allowed to stand is anyone's guess. But the fix is obvious, if there isn't enough evidence to convict a person of a crime then there isn't a crime. There is no end run saying the money did it, that like a 4 year old blaming a stuffed animal for throwing food. Civil forfeiture doesn't make any sense and should be repealed, period.

Obligatory car analogy: Would you like it if you took your car in for blown head gasket and they tried to up sell you on a paint job or new tires?

The problem isn't so much that the sales people are trying to make sales(it's what they do), it is that the customer service and tech support is being recruited for that too. If I am calling support for something that means they have failed to deliver on my existing service(billing or technical). That is not when I want to be asked about upgrading a currently unsatisfactory product. And having to barrel through a sales speech just to get a problem fixed is not something anyone should have to put up with, any other industry with true competitors would have them drummed out of business with that level of customer care.

GitHub has it's hand tied as to what it can do in response to DMCA claims because of the safe harbor provisions. They have to treat each claim as valid and take the supposedly infringing content down. I would rather people remember Qualcomm's heavy handed and ridiculously over-broad copyright claims when it comes to selecting products and business partners. I also hope some of the people who were affected by this stunt file a counter notice and take this to court, hopefully exposing these claims as a sham and willful perjury. But that is unlikely to happen because there repositories are most likely independent developers and small businesses who can hardly afford a protracted legal fight.

Inter arma enim silent leges?
Sorry but that idea was bullshit back in Ancient Rome and it is bullshit now. If the country cannot follow the rule of law in wartime how can they expect the citizens to respect it?

That is exactly what is supposed to happen, it is called spoilation of evidence and is very frowned upon. The penalties are supposed to include inferring that the missing evidence is beneficial to the opposing party and civil and criminal penalties against whomever destroyed the evidence. Though I doubt that will happen in this case.

Fire in a crowded theater...if you knew the case behind that piece of hackneyed trash you would never dare utter it in polite company again! Mr white has an excellent take down of that piece of claptrap you call a justification here. Short story, it was used to justify the punishment of critics of the government under the espionage act. Three men where sentenced to ten years under those decisions for writing rather mild criticisms of the draft and government. If he were alive today he would of had code pink clapped in irons. And if prison for criticizing the government sounds like the kind of thing you can endorse and stand behind then you do not belong in this country at all. Go be a sycophant somewhere else.

The ATF doesn't agree with you. People, not the milita but people, are free to make their own handguns/shotguns/rifles as long as it is not intended for sale. 1st amendment allows Mr Wilson to publish the plans, and the 2nd amendment allows individuals to use those plans to make a weapon. Quite frankly I am not sure how much more settled it could be.

Former US District attorney and now defense attorney has several great posts on the first rule of dealing with the police and prosecutors, namely shut up. Anything you may think you can say to help the police can be said with the representation of a lawyer. If, after reading through those examples and explanations, you still wonder why everyone says to shut up then there is no convincing you and you can go on your merry way. May you never have to deal with the police when there are looking to pin someone for a crime and you happen to be in the area.

So let me get this straight, a LEO's weapon, without the watch and any mechanical safeties engaged will fire like normal weapon aka a gun.

Meanwhile a civilian's weapon without a watch or with a watch with error code 0xDD screaming Abort,Retry, Fail, without mechanical safeties engaged will not fire, aka a club.

Yeah, and people wonder why others are complaining about that

One concern that I have is regarding Copyright/patents on this smart gun. Considering it is a new direction in firearms it would be naive to assume this weapon does not have any intellectual property restrictions regarding the technology. Coupling the smart gun mandates already proposed in places like California and New Jersey with the defacto monopoly on smart guns that the patent/copyright provides would mean that where the mandate is in place the smart gun manufacturer would have total monopoly on new weapons sales for at least 20 years. Unless of course they chose to license the technology, but they may not as is their right. Still one easily see how IP law and knee jerk feel good legislation can combine to create market monopolies or even destroy potential markets.

Be careful what you wish for, obligatory xkcd.