Monthly Archives: August 2017

Symposium: Will the Fourth Amendment protect 21st-century data? The court confronts the third-party doctrine – SCOTUSblog (blog)

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Posted Wed, August 2nd, 2017 12:21 pm by Jennifer Lynch

Jennifer Lynch is a senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed an amicus brief in support of Timothy Carpenters petition for certiorari in Carpenter v. United States.

This summer, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Carpenter v. United States, a case that offers the court another chance to address just how far the Fourth Amendments protections against warrantless searches and seizures extend to cover information generated by the modern technologies we rely on every day.

In Carpenter, the FBI accessed location data linked to Timothy Carpenters and his co-defendants cell phones in its attempt to place the suspects at the sites of several robberies. But the data the FBI asked for and received werent limited to the days and times of the known robberies they also included months of records that could reveal everywhere the defendants were every time they made or received a phone call. And the FBI got all of this information without a warrant.

The specific data at issue in the case are called cell-site-location information, or CSLI. These data, maintained by wireless carriers, are records of the cell towers our phones connect to every time they try to send and receive calls, texts, emails and any other information. The records generated hundreds and sometimes thousands of times per day include the precise GPS coordinates of each tower as well as the day and time the phone tried to connect to it. While this all may sound complicated, the important point is that, in cases like this one, the government argues that CSLI is really just a proxy for where the phone and, by extension, the phones owner is or has been.

Police ask for these records a lot in 2016, Verizon and AT&T alone received about 125,000 requests for CSLI and each request may involve months of information on multiple people. No federal statutes place any specific restrictions on how much data the police can ask for at any one time, and the standard required to obtain access whether there are specific and articulable facts showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe the data are relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation is much lower than probable cause. As a result, cases like this one, in which the government obtained 88 days and 127 days worth of location information for each defendant, appear to be the norm. (In another cert petition filed this past term, Graham v. United States, the police accessed 221 days of CSLI for each defendant.)

In Carpenter, the Supreme Court will address whether access to this information is a search under the Fourth Amendment and whether that search requires a warrant. The issues raised in this case are important because location information like CSLI shows where we are and where we have been. And where we travel can reveal very sensitive details about our lives. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted in her concurring opinion in United States v. Jones, location information can provide the government with a precise, comprehensive record of a persons public movements that reflects a wealth of detail about her familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations. Or, as the lower court in Jones put it, [a] person who knows all of anothers travels can deduce whether he is a weekly church goer, a heavy drinker, a regular at the gym, an unfaithful husband, an outpatient receiving medical treatment, an associate of particular individuals or political groupsand not just one such fact about a person, but all such facts.

Despite the sensitive nature of location data and the volume of information collected in Carpenter and other cases, five federal appellate courts, in deeply divided opinions, have held that historical CSLI isnt protected by the Fourth Amendment in large part because the information is collected and stored by third-party service providers. The courts have relied on a legal principle called the third-party doctrine, which was developed in two 1970s Supreme Court cases, Smith v. Maryland and United States v. Miller. This principle holds that information you voluntarily share with someone else whether that someone else is your bank (such as deposit and withdrawal information) or the phone company (the numbers you dial on your phone) isnt protected by the Fourth Amendment because you cant expect that third party to keep the information secret. By sharing that information with a third party, you have assumed the risk that it will be shared with others.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and many others have argued that its time for the Supreme Court to revisit this outdated doctrine. As Sotomayor noted in Jones, the third-party doctrine is ill suited to the digital age. This is because, as she also noted, we live in an era in which people reveal a great deal of information about themselves to third parties in the course of carrying out mundane tasks. We use cellphones to stay in touch with friends and family on the go, store data in the cloud to be able to access it anywhere later, rely on GPS mapping technologies to find our way about town, and wear activity trackers to try to improve our health. Its impossible to use any of these technologies without sharing data with third parties.

This dilemma highlights a key weakness in this line of the Supreme Courts Fourth Amendment jurisprudence: Assuming that it is unreasonable to expect privacy when we share something with others makes secrecy a prerequisite for privacy. But Justice Thurgood Marshall recognized in his dissent in Smith years ago that [p]rivacy is not a discrete commodity, possessed absolutely or not at all. That an individual discloses information to a third party for one purpose does not mean he believes he has relinquished all privacy interests in that information. Nor is it clear that such a belief would be good for society. To maintain secrecy as a prerequisite for Fourth Amendment safeguards would mean that information once protected in the non-digital world would lose that protection today.

Some third-party cases at the Supreme Court and federal appellate courts have recognized that sharing information with others doesnt always equal blanket disclosure to all. The court has held that patients have a reasonable expectation of privacy in diagnostic test results, even when the hospital maintains the records (Ferguson v. City of Charleston); passengers retain an expectation of privacy in luggage placed in an overhead bin despite the possibility of external inspection by others (Bond v. United States); and hotel guests are entitled to constitutional protections even though they provide implied or express permission for third parties to access their rooms (Stoner v. California). And at least one lower court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, in United States v. Warshak, has ruled that people have an expectation of privacy in email content, even if they use a third party service provider to transmit that email.

Thus, the main challenge for the Supreme Court in Carpenter will be to figure out how to reset the parameters of the third-party doctrine for the digital age or do away with it altogether.

One thing is clear: These thorny issues are not going away. How the Supreme Court decides this case will have important ramifications for the future especially for the internet of things, where sensors and devices in our homes, on our cars, and throughout our world will constantly collect, generate, and share data about us with little to no volition on our part. Choosing to participate in society in the 21st century will require use of these technologies; it shouldnt require us to relinquish our constitutional rights.

Posted in Carpenter v. U.S., Summer symposium on Carpenter v. United States, Featured, Merits Cases

Recommended Citation: Jennifer Lynch, Symposium: Will the Fourth Amendment protect 21st-century data? The court confronts the third-party doctrine, SCOTUSblog (Aug. 2, 2017, 12:21 PM), http://www.scotusblog.com/2017/08/symposium-will-fourth-amendment-protect-21st-century-data-court-confronts-third-party-doctrine/

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Symposium: Will the Fourth Amendment protect 21st-century data? The court confronts the third-party doctrine - SCOTUSblog (blog)

Traffic Stop and Request to Search Did Not Violate the Fourth Amendment – WisBar

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Traffic Stop and Request to Search Did Not Violate the Fourth Amendment
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Aug. 2, 2017 A sheriff's deputy ran a man's license plates in high crime area in Kenosha and learned the vehicle's registration was suspended for emissions violations. Recently, the state supreme court ruled the subsequent stop and search, which ...

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Traffic Stop and Request to Search Did Not Violate the Fourth Amendment - WisBar

The Second Amendment has won (again) in Washington. So why … – Fox News

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Washington, D.C. residents, you dont have to holster your Second Amendment rights anymore. Unfortunately, residents of many other states like California dont have the same ability that D.C. residents now do to protect themselves.

In a stirring victory for those who live in the nationals capital, a panel of the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals recently threw out a D.C. ordinance that denied concealed-carry permits to anyone who could not show a special need for self-defense, what is referred to as a good reason requirement. The problem is that other courts of appeal have upheld such restrictive laws and the U.S. Supreme Court has turned down appeals of those decisions, refusing to take up the issue of the Second Amendments application to carrying a weapon outside of the home.

This happened most recently at the very end of the Supreme Courts 2017 term in June when it refused to take up Peruta v. California, an appeal of a decision of the Ninth Circuit upholding Californias good reason requirement.

In a scathing dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas (joined by Neil Gorsuch) castigated the other justices for treating the Second Amendment as a disfavored right. He said it was long-past time for the Court to decide this issue and that he found it extremely improbable that the Framers understood the Second Amendment to protect little more than carrying a gun from the bedroom to the kitchen.

In the opinion over the District of Columbias concealed carry law written by Judge Thomas Griffith of the D.C. Circuit, Griffith pointed out that the U.S. Supreme Courts first in-depth examination of the Second Amendment occurred in 2008 in District of Columbia v. Heller, where the Court threw out D.C.s complete ban on handguns as unconstitutional.

That decision is younger than the first iPhone. The Supreme Court did not outline how the Second Amendment applies to the carrying of a weapon in public, but as Griffith says, Heller reveals the Second Amendment erects some absolute barriers than no gun law may breach.

After Heller, D.C. implemented a complete ban on concealed carry. That was struck down in 2014 in Palmer v. District of Columbia. D.C. responded by restricting concealed-carry permits only to those who could show a good reason to fear injury. That required showing a special need for self-protection distinguishable from the general community as supported by evidence of specific threats or previous attacks.

Living in a high-crime neighborhood wasnt a good enough reason for a concealed-carry permit under D.C.s regulation. In essence, you had to prove you had a good reason to exercise your constitutional right, a bizarre situation unique in American constitutional jurisprudence.

D.C. argued, absurdly enough, that its ordinance did not violate any constitutional right because the Second Amendment doesnt apply outside of the home.

Judge Griffith dismissed this claim, saying that the fact that the need for self-defense is most pressing in the home doesnt mean that self-defense at home is the only right at the [Second] Amendments core.

Obviously, the need for self-defense might arise beyond as well as within the home. Further, the Second Amendments text protects the right to bear as well as keep arms. Thus, it is natural that the core of the Second Amendment includes a law-abiding citizens right to carry common firearms for self-defense beyond the home.

Even under Heller, governments can apply regulations on the possession and carrying of firearms that are longstanding, such as bans on possession by felons or bans on carrying near sensitive sites such as government buildings. But preventing carrying in public is not a longstanding tradition or rule.

This opinion goes into detail discussing the long American and English history applicable to weapons and self-defense, going back as far as the Statute of Northampton of 1328 -- whose text, as the court says, will remind Anglophiles of studying Canterbury Tales in the original. But the state of the law in Chaucers England or for that matter Shakespeares or Cromwells is not decisive here.

What is decisive is that the Supreme Court established in Heller that by the time of the Founding, the preexisting right enshrined by the Amendment had ripened to include carrying more broadly than the District contends based on its reading of the 14th-century statute. According to Griffith, the individual right to carry common firearms beyond the home for self-defense even in densely populated areas, even for those lacking special self-defense needs falls within the core of the Second Amendments protections.

Unfortunately, other federal courts of appeals have upheld similar good reason laws for concealed carry permits. But as Judge Griffith points out, those courts dispensed with the historic digging that would have exposed that their toleration of regulations restricting the carrying of a weapon is faulty.

The constitutional analysis that should be applied to all government gun regulations is that they must allow gun access at least for each typical member of the American public. Because D.C.s restrictive good reason concealed-carry law bars most people from exercising their Second Amendment right at all, it is unconstitutional. At a minimum, the Second Amendment must protect carrying given the risks and needs typical of law-abiding citizens.

The court drew together all the pieces of its analysis in this way:

At the Second Amendments core lies the right of responsible citizens to carry firearms for personal self-defense beyond the home, subject to longstanding restrictions. These traditional limits include, for instance, licensing requirements, but not bans on carrying in urban areas like D.C. or bans on carrying absent a special need for self-defense. In fact, the Amendments core at a minimum shields the typically situated citizens ability to carry common arms generally. The Districts good-reason law is necessarily a total ban on exercises of that constitutional right for most D.C. residents. Thats enough to sink this law under Heller I.

One of the judges on the D.C. panel, Karen LeCraft Henderson, dissented, arguing that the core right in the Second Amendment is only to possess a firearm in ones home and she saw no problem with D.C.s good-reason requirement.

That dissent, along with the contrary decisions of other appeals courts, shows why the Supreme Court needs to follow Justice Thomass admonition and finally settle this issue. As Thomas scolds in his dissent in Peruta:

For those of us who work in marble halls, guarded constantly by a vigilant and dedicated police force, the guarantees of the Second Amendment might seem antiquated and superfluous. But the Framers made a clear choice: They reserved to all Americans the right to bear arms for self-defense. I do not think we should stand by idly while a State denies its citizens that right, particularly when their very lives may depend on it.

Hans A. von Spakovsky is a Senior Legal Fellow at The Heritage Foundation and former Justice Department official. He is coauthor of Whos Counting? How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk.

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The Second Amendment has won (again) in Washington. So why ... - Fox News

Collins proposes new measures for protecting Second Amendment rights – Wyoming County Free Press

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Congressman Chris Collins (NY-27) has proposed new measures for protecting Second Amendment rights by introducing legislation to limit states authority when it comes to regulating rifles and shotguns, commonly used by sportsmen and sportswomen.

The Second Amendment Guarantee Act (SAGA) would prevent states from implementing any regulations on these weapons that are more restrictive than what is required by federal law. Upon passage of this bill, most of the language included in New York States Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement (SAFE) Act of 2013 signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo would be void.

This legislation would protect the Second Amendment rights of New Yorkers that were unjustly taken away by Andrew Cuomo,Collins said.I am a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment and have fought against all efforts to condemn these rights. I stand with the law-abiding citizens of this state that have been outraged by the SAFE Act and voice my commitment to roll back these regulations.

Governor Cuomos SAFE Act violates federal regulation and the following provisions would be void under the proposed legislation:

-Cuomos SAFE Act expanded rifle and shotgun bans to include semi-automatic guns with detachable magazines that possess certain features.

-The Cuomo SAFE Act banned the capacity of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition.It further limited magazines to seven rounds at any time.

In the Collins bill, States or local governments would not be able to regulate, prohibit, or require registration and licensing (that are any more restrictive under Federal law) for the sale, manufacturing, importation, transfer, possession, or marketing of a rifle or shotgun. Additionally, rifle or shotgun includes any part of the weapon including any detachable magazine or ammunition feeding devise and any type of pistol grip or stock design.

Under this legislation, any current or future laws enacted by a state or political subdivision that exceeds federal law for rifles and shotguns would be void. Should a state violate this law, and a plaintiff goes to court, the court will award the prevailing plaintiff a reasonable attorneys fee in addition to any other damages.

Congressman Collins was joined today by local, county, and state elected officials and citizen supporters of the Second Amendment during events to unveil his bill in Erie and Monroe counties.

Hamburg Rod and Gun Club:

Assemblyman David DiPietro

Erie County Sheriff Tim Howard

Erie County Comptroller Stefan Mychajliw

Erie County Legislator Ted Morton

Representatives from SCOPE

Rochester Brooks Gun Club:

Senator Rich Funke

Senator Rob Ortt

Assemblyman Peter Lawrence

Monroe County Legislator Karla Boyce

Representatives from SCOPE

To read the text of H.R. 3576, the Second Amendment Guarantee Act, clickhere.

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Collins proposes new measures for protecting Second Amendment rights - Wyoming County Free Press

MMA Legend Royce Gracie On The Second Amendment – The Daily Caller

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If youve heard of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, mixed-martial arts or the UFC, the reason is Royce Gracie. In the early 1990s, his dominance of the octagon brought his familys style of jiu-jitsu into the American mainstream, and the martial art has become immensely popular around the world ever since. In addition to his hand-to-hand combat skills, Gracie is also a fan of firearms and the Second Amendment. Shooting Illustrated Editor-in-Chief Ed Friedman sat down with Gracie to discuss his career, his love of freedom and his interest in guns.

SI: How did you get interested in firearms?

Royce Gracie: Growing up in Brazil, my dad had a few guns on our farm. Its part of martial arts. Sure, they say its empty hands, but so many styles use weapons, so its part of the martial arts culture. When I came to America and saw the freedom that we have, I was blown away. Back in the early days, we had a friend who would take us to the range, and wed shoot 100 rounds through a .45 ACP 1911. Our goal was to make the bullseye disappear, and I got the shooting bug. Shooting is an art. You need to know what youre doing, how to be safe, to recognize the skill needed to control that power. Its a lot like martial arts in that way.

SI: What makes someone who is so skilled in unarmed self-defense feel the need to own firearms?

Royce Gracie: What if theres more than one person? What if the adversary is armed? If its just one guy whos not armed, yeah, I can take care of him. But what if he pulls a gun? What if theres more than one attacker and they have knives? What happens if theres a terrorist attack? Ive got a mentality that Im going to try to stop an attack no matter what, but if hes got a gun, thats suicidal if Im not armed. Also, if a criminal is attacking other people, its not always feasible for even someone with my skills to stop that attack without a firearm.

Attackers arent going to make it a fair fight. They launch surprise assaults; they try to take you out to get to your family or your property. Its not the octagon. Theres no referee. And if he pulls a weapon, hes not just trying to fight mehes trying to kill me. At that point, youd be crazy to try to go hand to hand. I have a gun to defend myself if the situation escalates like that.

SI: Tell me a little about the situation in Brazil as it pertains to gun ownership and crime.

Royce Gracie: Brazil never had the degree of freedom we have in the U.S., but you used to be able to buy some guns. There were restrictions, but there were shops we could go to. Then, they essentially banned civilian ownership guns in what they said was an effort to fight crime. That resulted in the criminals arming themselves to the teeth. I mean, they had RPGs and machine guns. They get it from corrupt officials. Violence got out of control after that. It was like the law switched to protect the bad guys. So at the same time they disarmed the law-abiding citizens, they made life easier on the criminals. The murder rate went through the roof. Its so bad, the prisoners in jails get better food than the police!

SI: Why do people sign up for your classes? What is it about Brazilian jiu-jitsu that is so popular?

Royce Gracie: The main reason people go to any martial arts school is to gain confidence by learning skills. They may have had something happen to them or seen a situation that they didnt know how to react to. That stays with themthey dont go right away to learn about self-defense, but that thought stays filed away. Then one day a friend will say Hey, Im learning this martial art; lets go check it out. Then they go to class and start to get the hang of it. Its a lot of the same reasons why people buy a gun for the first time. People realize theyre vulnerable, but it often takes a while. Its not like they see a fight and say, I need to learn a martial art, but a while later that thought comes to the front and they sign up for a class. Its really all about the skills you need to be confident. Parents sign their kids up for the same reason; for the confidence that can come with the discipline that martial arts provide.

SI: What can people expect to learn in a Royce Gracie-taught class?

Royce Gracie: I teach them self-defense. I dont teach competition. Martial arts were made to defend yourself. A lot of schools teach you how to score points, but thats not real life. Competition can ruin a martial art. I teach how to defend yourself in a street-fight situation. Why do you buy a gun? Sure, there are a small number of people who want to be the best competitive shooter in the world, but for most of us, its for self-defense. And maybe that leads to competition, which is fine, but thats not why you signed up for a martial arts class or why you bought that first gun.

SI: What drew you to the NRA? How important is the Second Amendment to you?

Royce Gracie: TheNational Rifle Associationis the front line of keeping my right to keep and bear arms. Thats the way I look at it. I really respect the NRA, because I know from experience, from what happened to Brazil, how important the Second Amendment is. It is my right to defend myself, and the NRA makes sure that right will be there. Look what happened when they took those rights away in Brazil, in Venezuelait is vital to keep that right.

Want to take a class with Royce Gracie? VisitNRACarryGuardExpo.comtoday to sign up for the (limited-space) Brazilian jiu-jitsu class he will teach at the inaugural Carry Guard Expo in Milwaukee, WI, Aug. 25 to 27. Gracie will teach paying attendees several moves that could come in handy should you find yourself in a close-quarters criminal attack. He will also be signing autographs at the show. In addition, there will be seminars from world-class instructors like Steve Tarani, Travis Doc T and many others, so you wont want to miss the best event for those interested in self-defense.

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MMA Legend Royce Gracie On The Second Amendment - The Daily Caller

Council Talks First Amendment – 550 KTSA

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By Pilar Arias

First Amendment rights were a topic of discussion at the San Antonio City Council Governance Committee meeting Wednesday.

District 1 Councilman Roberto Trevino filed a council consideration request asking the permitting procedures for assembly and procession be reassessed and to provide options for potentially easing restrictions.

The central issue that weve had a problem with in the community is the amount of discretion in the police department and the cost involved, Free Speech Coalition member Amy Kastely told the committee. The consequence of this ordinance has been that numerous groups and individuals have been discouraged from having events, from speaking out, from having protests but also most painfully from having traditional cultural events.

Kastely referred to the ordinance as onerous and said its difficult for people to even get applications for permits.

District 3 Councilwoman Rebecca Viagran said shes looking forward to further discussions about potential improvements to the policy.

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Council Talks First Amendment - 550 KTSA

Peter Berger: Students and First Amendment rights – vtdigger.org

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Editors note: This commentary is by Peter Berger, an English teacher at Weathersfield School, who writes Poor Elijahs Almanack. The column appears in several publications, including the Times Argus, the Rutland Herald and the Stowe Reporter.

Over recent decades, public schools have been drafted to play Hemingway while the rest of us have taken turns impersonating Joyce.

This brings us in a roundabout way to the First Amendment.

The Founding Fathers were adamant that free speech and a free press are essential for the health and survival of a free republic. I agree with Benjamin Franklin that there is no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech. In a day where we see the press corralled, berated and threatened at campaign rallies, and where the president echoes Stalin and Mao to declare our free press the enemies of the people, Im especially leery about any abridgement of anyones free speech rights.

However, I tell my students that the First Amendment doesnt mean you can say whatever you want whenever you want to. The government limits citizens speech all the time without violating the Constitution in a judges courtroom, in my classroom during instruction and tests, and, borrowing from Justice Holmes, by barring us from knowingly and falsely shouting Fire in a crowded theater.

The nexus of free speech and classrooms is important to me as a teacher not only because of my ardor for the First Amendment, but also because it illustrates societys failure to grasp classroom reality which brings us back to Joyce and Hemingway.

Courts have clarified students free speech rights in several signal decisions. In a Vietnam-era student protest case, the Supreme Court ruled that students and teachers dont shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate, and that schools can suppress student political speech only if that speech would materially and substantially interfere with the schools mission and operation.

One concurring opinion stipulated that students free speech rights are not the same as or co-extensive with those of adults. A dissenting justice expressed what he considered the courts consensus that school officials should be granted the widest authority in maintaining discipline and good order unless their limitations on students speech are motivated by their own political opinions. Going further in his dissent, another justice warned that the courts decision effectively compels the teachers, parents, and elected school officials to surrender control of the American public school system to public school students.

Two decades later the court clarified its position in a case involving a student who used sexually suggestive language and lewd innuendo in a campaign speech at a school assembly. This time the courts majority held that while the First Amendment protects some offensive forms of speech for adults, the same latitude of expression is not permitted to children in a public school. Officials concern for the sensibilities of other students constitutes a legitimate reason to limit student speech.

These precedent-setting rulings bear on a more recent case that affords a look at decisions that officials including judges make and how they dont reflect but do affect real students and teachers like me. The case this time featured breast cancer awareness bracelets bearing the inscription I (heart) boobies. Administrators banned the bracelets as vulgar and inappropriate for middle school. When two female students defied the ban and were suspended, they sued the district for violating their First Amendment right to free speech.

The schools attorney argued that the I love boobies message pushes the limits of propriety in public schools, undercuts efforts to maintain reasonable decorum, and disrupts the schools proper focus on education. He asserted that administrators should be able to prohibit the use of lewd language to convey political or social messages when the same message can be conveyed in a more decorous manner without lewd language.

The ACLU lawyer representing the students countered that I love boobies did not reasonably pose a substantial material disruption to learning and middle school student behavior.

A series of federal courts eventually concluded that the boobies bracelets were not plainly lewd and were protected as a commentary on a social issue, specifically breast cancer. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case on appeal, which left standing the lower courts decision and overturned the districts ban.

Its worth noting that at the same time this federal court in Pennsylvania was outlawing the ban, a federal court in Indiana was ruling that a school in its jurisdiction could impose a ban on the same boobies bracelets.

Lets set aside the vagaries of our federal court structure, and the image of 13 robed federal jurists discussing boobies for a full hour. Lets also agree that fighting breast cancer is worthwhile.

The principal of the school, herself a breast cancer survivor, banned the bracelets as imposing a substantial risk of disruption and distraction. In contrast, while conceding that there are always immature boys, one of the student plaintiffs opined, But I dont think its that disruptive.

Who should get to decide how much disruption is too much a seventh-grader or the school principal?

Before you answer, consider the T-shirt promoting testicular cancer awareness, also in current circulation, that bears the message, I love balls. How about the bisexual female high school student who came to school wearing a shirt declaring I Enjoy Vagina? Do we allow this as protected speech regarding her sexual preference? Do we allow a male student to wear the same shirt? How about the male football team?

The courts have ruled that administrators decisions must turn on whether they can reasonably forecast that the speech in question will disrupt education, violate other students rights, or obstruct appropriate discipline. No one can better judge what could likely disrupt a particular school than the principal and teachers who work there, the people entrusted with educating our children in the first place.

If you cant trust me to decide about bracelets and T-shirts, how can you possibly trust me to disseminate ideas?

As for our distinguished jurists, anybody who cant predict that many adolescents will have a disruptive, harassing field day with slogans that include reproductive organs and allied body parts shouldnt be in the position of deciding whats reasonable.

Once again your public schools have been rendered impotent.

Smirking vulgarity has triumphed in the name of free speech.

The courts and the general public will cluck their tongues at the further decline of public education.

Deal with it, Hemingway, theyll demand as they duck for cover.

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Peter Berger: Students and First Amendment rights - vtdigger.org

HiQ v. LinkedIn: Does First Amendment limit application of computer … – Reuters

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(Reuters) - In 1986, when Congress enacted the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Internet was still in its larval stage. Some U.S. government agencies communicated via the Defense Departments Arpanet, the Internets precursor. Universities and research centers were just starting to network with the government and each other. Commercial Internet service providers didnt exist. Tim Berners-Lee hadnt yet published his revolutionary proposal to link computers around the worldto share information. Mark Zuckerberg was 2 years old.

The CFAA, in other words, was not written to answer the question posed in litigation between the data analytics company hiQ and the social media site LinkedIn: Does a social media site control access to information its users post publicly? As Ive previously explained, hiQs business is to sell employers data analysis bases on their employees public LinkedIn profiles. LinkedIn believes hiQs data harvesting violates its rules. In May, LinkedIn sent hiQ a cease-and-desist letter advising the data company that LinkedIn had blocked its access to members profiles. If hiQ attempted to circumvent the block, LinkedIn said, it could face prosecution under the 1986 computer fraud law, which criminalizes unauthorized access to a computer.

Last month, hiQ sued LinkedIn, seeking an injunction to allow hiQ to continue scraping public data from LinkedIn. LinkedIn is allowing hiQ access while the litigation moves forward, but hiQs CEO, Mark Weidick, has said (including to me in an interview Tuesday) that his business probably wont survive if it loses its case against LinkedIn.

But hiQs fate is hardly the only consequence of the case. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of San Francisco, who presided last week over a hearingon hiQs motion for a preliminary injunction, will have to decide whether the CFAA is in tension with the First Amendment. Can private Internet companies use the CFAA to control access to public information? Or does the doctrine of constitutional avoidance preclude interpreting the 1986 law in a way that implicates the First Amendment?

Its no accident that both hiQ and LinkedIn brought in top-notch constitutional lawyers to argue at last weeks hearing. Former U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli of Munger Tolles & Olson represented LinkedIn, which contends hiQ has no First Amendment right of access to LinkedIns computer servers. Under the 9th Circuits interpretation of the CFAA, LinkedIn argued, hiQ is akin to a trespasser who has been warned to go away.

Verrilli drew an analogy between LinkedIns publicly available profiles and books in a public library. You go and get books and other information and material from the public library, but the fact that the information's available to the public in that sense doesn't mean that you can break into the library with a crowbar at two in the morning because you're seized with a desire to read 'Moby Dick', Verrilli said. It doesn't mean that you can take a book out, when you're supposed to return it in two weeks, and keep it for a year, because you want that information. It doesn't mean if your library privileges have been revoked for abusing the rules, that you can show a fake ID at the door to get back in. The information's public, but it's subject to conditions.

Verrillis library comparison was sufficiently compelling that hiQs constitutional heavyweight, Harvard professor Laurence Tribe, took care to counter it. Library books, he said, used to have borrowing cards in the back of books showing how often books were checked out. A borrower could presumably could have looked at those cards to figure out which books were most popular a rudimentary form of the data analytics hiQ performs. LinkedIn, in Tribes analogy, is trying to use the threat of government prosecution under the CFAA to bar hiQ from looking at an electronic equivalent of those old-school library book cards.

For the government to make it a crime for me to make use of that information because they want to be the exclusive distributors of information about what's popular to read would, of course, be unconstitutional, Tribe said. That's the setting in which I want to put this case.

According to hiQ, which is also represented by Farella Braun & Martel, LinkedIns trespassing comparisons dont apply because hiQ never ventured beyond public LinkedIn profiles. The data company didnt use someone elses password to access LinkedIn, for example, or hack LinkedIn servers. HiQ argued that social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are modern-day public forums, as the U.S. Supreme Court just held in June, in Packingham v. North Carolina. The CFAA, hiQ contends, cannot be read to give LinkedIn the power to use government authority to suppress the public flow of information.

Giving any powerful entity, public or private, the ability to choke off, at its discretion, speech is a dangerous path down which we should not go, Tribe said at the hearing.

Judge Chen, who previously presided over one of the 9th Circuits landmark CFAA cases, U.S. v. Nosal, was admirably engaged with both sides lawyers during oral argument, thanking them at the end of the hearing for their superb presentations. He promised a quick decision, since, as he said, I've got a feeling it's not going to end here.

Ive got a feeling hes right about that.

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HiQ v. LinkedIn: Does First Amendment limit application of computer ... - Reuters

Bitcoin cash is already the third most valuable cryptocurrency – Quartz

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Bitcoin cash, the offshoot of cryptocurrency bitcoin that was created yesterday, is now worth $7.6 billion, according to data provider Coin Marketcap. That pegs the value of all the bitcoin cash in circulation at 17% of bitcoins total market value of $44.4 billion. This makes bitcoin cash the third most valuable cryptocurrency, behind bitcoin and ethereum. It trades under the BCH symbol on most exchanges, while bitcoin retains BTC.

Bitcoin cashs vault up the valuation charts can be explained by its provenance as a fork of bitcointhink of it like the splitting of an amoeba in two. The market value of all the coins in circulationusually referred to as the market cap in cryptocurrency jargonis calculated by multiplying a coins price by the total supply of coins in circulation. When bitcoin cash splintered off from bitcoin, it also inherited the supply of coins in circulation. In other words, there is roughly the same amount of bitcoin cash in circulation as bitcoin, and both cryptocurrencies each currently have 16.5 million units in circulation.

There are slightly more bitcoins in circulation than bitcoin casha difference of 474 coinsbecause when bitcoin cash forked, there was a period of several hours when no new bitcoin cash blocks were mined. In the meantime, bitcoin miners continued to find blocks, introducing new coins to the circulating supply.

A chain split is a slow and confusing event, even with a deadline. Bitcoin cash had a much publicized deadline of Aug 1, 12:20 UTC (or 8:20am US Eastern time) for the split to occur. Yet it wasnt until hours later that the split actually took place.

The reason for this confusing state of affairs is as much about semantics as technicalities. Firstly, the bitcoin cash software uses a particular calculation for time called median time past thats based not on clock time but on the number of blocks mined after the 12:20 deadline. Since there is an element of chance that determines when exactly a block is mined, experts could only estimate when the bitcoin cash software would kick in. In practice, this meant that the bitcoin cash software would only activate about an hour after 12:20 UTC, which was the case.

Once bitcoin cash was activated, the bitcoin cash blockchain stopped growing for several hours, while the bitcoin blockchain continued to add new blocks as normal. This activation happened at 12:37 UTC when both blockchains had just mined block number 478,558this would be the last common block shared between bitcoin and bitcoin cash. All future blocks would send the coins on their independent trajectories.

There was confusion as the bitcoin cash blockchain stalled at block 478,558. What would normally happen is that a new block would have been mined478,559in about 10 minutes. But as hours went by, it became clear that not enough miners were committing processing power to the new blockchain to discover a new block. This was because the new chain also inherited the difficulty threshold for finding a new block from the bitcoin blockchain, meaning a massive amount of processing power would be required.

At this stage, although the chains have split, the new chain didnt yet have any new blocks, so was technically simply a stalled version of the bitcoin blockchain. Most observers in the bitcoin world thought it would take hours, or even days, for miners to devote enough processing power to the bitcoin cash blockchain to discover a block.

But around six hours later, ViaBTC, a Chinese mining pool based in Shenzhen that has vocally supported bitcoin cash, added block number 478,559 to the bitcoin cash blockchain. This block was 1.9 megabytes in sizenearly double the maximum size allowed on the bitcoin blockchain. Compare this to the same block on the bitcoin blockchain, which coincidentally was also mined by ViaBTC, but was only 272 kilobytes in size. Subsequent blocks, however, have been well below 1 MB, reflecting the small number of transactions on the new blockchain.

Two metaphors from the traditional equity markets have been used to describe the creation of bitcoin cash: a stock split or a dividend. But there are good reasons to think that bitcoins split is not like a stock split at all, as this CoinDesk piece suggests. For starters, a stock split doesnt change the assets value; it simply adjusts the quantity and therefore price of the stock on the market. An increase in the number of stocks leads to a commensurate drop in price, without changing the fundamentals of the company in question.

Bitcoins fork doesnt split existing units of bitcoinin fact, the bitcoin price has remained more or less the same throughout (which could be seen as a bullish vote of confidence in the cryptocurrencys continued supremacy). Neither have any new units of bitcoin been created by the fork.

Instead, what happened is more like cloning. Thats because anyone who held bitcoin before the split would now also hold the equivalent amount of bitcoin cash. This makes the bitcoin fork more like a dividend: investors who held on to bitcoin and werent scared off by the fork were now credited with an equal amount of bitcoin cash.

A major cryptocurrency forking, and the market supporting both resulting coins, isnt as weird as it sounds. This already happened with ethereum in July 2016, when a philosophical disagreement among ethereum holders led to a hard fork, creating ethereum and ethereum classic.

Ethereum classic has gained influential backers, such as venture capitalist Barry Silbert. Ethereum classic is traded on a handful of major exchanges. It has a market value of $1.3 billion, or 6% of ethereums $21 billion. As ethereum went on a dizzying rally this year, so did ethereum classic, rising by 16-fold from the start of the year to a peak of nearly $22 per unit in June.

But ethereum classics rally was muted compared to ethereums 40-fold increase over the same period. Nevertheless, its price trades well below that of ethereum, with each unit of ethereum classic trading for just over 0.05 ether.

While the ethereum and bitcoin splits share some similarities such as a contentious dispute over the fundamentals of each protocol, bitcoins split is more significant. Whereas ethereum classic has maintained all the features of ethereum when it splitincluding preserving the transactions that allowed funds to be stolen from the Decentralized Autonomous Organization last summer, which was the root of the disagreementbitcoin cash has significant differences in its underlying programming.

Chief among them is an eight-fold increase in the block size limit, allowing bitcoin cash miners to handle eight-megabyte blocks compared to bitcoins one megabyte. Being able to handle more transactions helps bitcoin cash act more like a payment channel, which is what its proponents are advocating.

One way to get bitcoin cash is to buy it. Its now trading on several major exchanges (heres a list), with the bulk of trading volume taking place on Kraken and Bittrex, according to Crypto Compare.

The other way to get bitcoin cash is to claim it from any bitcoin holdings you owned before the fork. In theory, its simple: All private keysbasically the password to unlocking bitcoin holdingsare identical on both the bitcoin and bitcoin cash blockchains. This means you use the same private key to access funds on both chains. But in practice, this can be tricky.

The most reliable, though fiddly, method is to run a bitcoin cash full node. This is software that downloads the entire bitcoin cash blockchain , which is around 126 gigabytes, and also checks the validity of live transactions on the bitcoin cash network. Import the private keys from your existing bitcoin wallet to the wallet linked to the bitcoin cash full-node. You should then be able to access the new bitcoin cash funds. Check out the detailed instructions, and several other methods, including hardware wallets and paper wallets, in this Bitcoin Magazine piece.

Some exchanges also automatically credit pre-fork bitcoin holders with bitcoin cash. These include Kraken, Bittrex, and Bitfinex. This seems simple, but there can be several drawbacks. You must rely on the exchange to credit the new coins, which can be a slow process, and you may be unable to withdraw the new funds immediately, as Kraken users are currently experiencing.

Some exchanges also apply a discount to the amount of bitcoin cash thats credited, like Bitfinex, which offers 0.85 bitcoin cash for every bitcoin. The discount was applied because the exchange claimed customers were manipulating its peer-to-peer margin financing system to inflate the amount of bitcoin cash they would receive.

Bitcoin cash is now, for all intents and purposes, an asset independent of bitcoin. It must develop its own ecosystem of developers, exchanges, and startups in order to flourish.

Bitcoin cashs price will be an important indicator of its future potential. If it is indeed what bitcoin ought to bea payment system with a large transaction capacity, as its advocates arguethe market should value it above bitcoin at some point in the future.

Another important indicator will be the amount of hash rate or processing power that miners commit to bitcoin cash. There isnt a data source for the hashrate on the bitcoin cash network yet, but we know that miners are crunching 6.4 million terahashes per second on the bitcoin network. That consumes an estimated 15 terawatt hours of electricity a year, putting the bitcoin networks consumption between Turkmenistan and North Korea, if it were ranked with countries.

If miners abandon bitcoin cash because mining it turns out not to be profitable, then bitcoin cash could wither away. As one expert observer of the fork, Andrew Chow, who developed the widely watched BTC Fork Monitor, told me, if that happened, the new chain would simply be dead.

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Bitcoin cash is already the third most valuable cryptocurrency - Quartz

Options Exchange CBOE to Launch Cryptocurrency Derivatives in … – CoinDesk

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The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) has partnered with Gemini, the bitcoin exchange backed by investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, as part of a bid to launch cryptocurrency derivatives trading.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the agreement will find the CBOE leveraging Gemini's data for the launch of dedicated product listings in 2017. Opened to traders in 2015, Gemini is a New York-based exchange offering bitcoin and ether markets, as well as daily auctions of the cryptocurrencies.

The CBOE is still waiting for regulatory approval on the move, the report said, which would provide institutional investors with an avenue to hedge against volatility in the fast-growing cryptocurrency markets. Already, the total value of all cryptocurrencies from just over $10 billion at the start of the year, to a high of $115 billion in June.

Further, the announcement comes at a time when institutional investors are increasingly taking note of this price appreciation, and are seeking to determine opportunities for the technology that fit into their existing business models.

Most notably, it follows a decision by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission to grant a license to LedgerX last week that would allow it to clear and custody cryptocurrency derivatives for assets like bitcoin and ether.

Markets trading image via Shutterstock

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is an independent media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. Have breaking news or a story tip to send to our journalists? Contact us at [emailprotected].

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South Korean Lawmaker Seeks to Tighten Cryptocurrency Rules – CoinDesk

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A South Korean lawmaker has proposed amending the country's Electronic Financial Transaction Act to more closely regulatecryptocurrencies.

According to several South Korean media outlets, including theFinancial NewsandSeoul Economic Daily, the proposal was put forth this week by Park Yong-Jin, a representative from theDemocratic Party who has been at the center of recent regulatory deliberations.

The amendments would seek todefine digital currency businesses and classify different partiesas digital currency traders, brokers, issuers and managers.

Itfurther mandates businesses hold deposits or provide insurance to hedge against potential cybercrime incidents, and aims toapply a 500 million South Korean won ($450,000) capital reserve threshold for any business that operates cryptocurrency trading service prior to seeking an approval from the authority.

Provisions for preventingmarket manipulation and money laundering usingdigital currencies are also included in the changes.

Parkis seeking a moreregulated environment amid recent surging prices of major cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum. Theproposalfollowsa recent panel hosted by the politicianat a public hearing to argue for regulations coveringdigital currency.

As for a next step, the bill is expected to be presented to the regular session of the National Assembly in September, at which point, it needs the approval of the country's Financial Services Commission.

As reported by CoinDesk, the financial regulator convened its first initiative last November to launcha regulatory policy on cryptocurrency. However, as of today, its policy plans still remain unclear.

Seoul, South Korea image via Shutterstock

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is an independent media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. Have breaking news or a story tip to send to our journalists? Contact us at [emailprotected].

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South Korean Lawmaker Seeks to Tighten Cryptocurrency Rules - CoinDesk

Success Stories of eToro Crypto CopyFund Investors, Safe Cryptocurrency Investment – newsBTC

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Previously, NewsBTC reported on the release of the eToro Crypto CopyFund, an online hedge fund-like platform with which users can utilize to invest in a variety of cryptocurrencies and maintain a diverse portfolio of crypto assets.

According to various reports and the portfolios of popular eToro Crypto CopyFund users, investors have already started to demonstrate high returns through the eToro Crypto CopyFund, with some users recording substantially high returns from cryptocurrency investments enough to maintain a consistent stream of revenue.

One of the most popular success stories involving the eToro Crypto CopyFund has been the story of Liam Davies from Sheffield, a student at the University of Edinburgh. Prior to his exposure to the relatively new asset class in cryptocurrencies and the eToro Crypto CopyFund 12 months ago, Davies had worked at part time jobs just to finance his education and cover the tuition fee at the University of Edinburgh.

However, with pressure mounting from the university and the amount of work required by the institution increasing as days pass by, Sheffield actively investigated into various methods to generate consistent revenue streams. Ultimately, Sheffield ended up in the cryptocurrency market, which is arguably still at its early stage, and was introduced to the eToro Crypto CopyFund.

Today, Sheffield is able to focus full time on his education and spend less than 2 hours on a daily basis to manage his investments. The CopyFund, which essentially is a social trading platform, enables beginner cryptocurrency investors including Sheffield to copy the investment methods of successful cryptocurrency investors such as Alex Plesk, who has recorded over 100 percent in return over the past 12 months.

I was a complete novice. I knew very little about financial markets, and made some mistakes early on that lost me money. If youre short of time, or just starting out and have very little knowledge, features like Copy Trader allow you to fast-track the learning curve and get investing, Sheffield explained.

More importantly, Sheffield emphasized that the Crypto CopyFund and its social trading platform has allowed him to focus on his studies and generate a stable revenue, without having to work at part time jobs as he used to before.

On average I spend an hour or two a day working on my portfolio. I try to design my trading strategy to fit around my other commitments. My studies are very important so I find it best to make longer term trades which I can check when it suits me. Trading has allowed me to pay for a lot of things. Normally, I would have needed a part-time job instead, so it actually frees up a lot of my time, allowing me to focus on my studies, added Sheffield.

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Success Stories of eToro Crypto CopyFund Investors, Safe Cryptocurrency Investment - newsBTC

Swedish Police to Seek EU Funds for Cryptocurrency Research … – CoinDesk

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National police forces in Europe are seeking new cash forresearch onhow to tacklecybercrimes involving cryptocurrencies.

According to an evaluation report released late last month, the Swedish Police Authority and its counterparts in Austria and Germany arepreparing to bid for fundingfrom a program called Horizon 2020, aEuropean Union research initiative.

Specifically, the funds would be sourced from Secure Societies, a sub-section of that program focused on cybercrime initiatives. Through Horizon 2020, which was launchedin 2014, the EU has made a total of80 billion ($94.6 billion) available to cover a wide range of research areas.

Settingout the law enforcement agencies' plans, the report states:

"At present, the Swedish Police are participating in a consortium with the [Federal Police Force]in Austria and its counterpart in Germany to prepare a bid for Secure Societies on virtual currencies and the Darknet."

While the report didn't reveal the amountsto be solicited bythe three police agencies, it highlights the Internal Security Fund (ISF) a European Commission funding pool with a total of3.8 billionallocated for member countries' police forces overthe seven years until2020.

The basic allocation for Sweden under this fund currently is 21 million, according to the ISF.

Swedish police car image viaRoland Magnusson/Shutterstock

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is an independent media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. Have breaking news or a story tip to send to our journalists? Contact us at [emailprotected].

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Swedish Police to Seek EU Funds for Cryptocurrency Research ... - CoinDesk

Blockchain fork will create new digital currency called …

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Aurlien Menant, founder and CEO of Gatecoin, a regulated bitcoin and ethereum token exchange based in Hong Kong, says parts of the community are referring to the new token as Bcash. He says the new coin will pose no threat to the future of bitcoin.

"Investors holding both bitcoin and Bcash may benefit from the speculative price gains in both cryptocurrencies following the hard fork, but adoption of Bcash as a network will be limited in the short term."

Fran Strajnar, co-founder & CEO of data and research company Brave New Coin, says most cryto currency funds and investors are looking forward to receiving their free tokens.

"Most will likely hold as it's free, just to see what happens or for hedging," he told CNBC via email on Monday.

"However a majority of everyday users, traders and investors are vocal about market dumping their free tokens as soon as they can."

Strajnar predicts the price for Bitcoin Cash could be hit heavily once it is open to trading.

"If there's any legs at all to Bitcoin Cash or if the miners backing it deploy large scale and sustained attacks on bitcoin, then Bitcoin Cash may survive its initial violent birth."

Whatever happens, bitcoin will not disappoint in terms of creating drama, says Matthew Roszak, co-founder & chairman of blockchain enterprise software company Bloq.

"This entire process will be a key test for bitcoin in its evolution beyond a store of value and show its potential to grow into something much greater," he told CNBC via email.

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‘Bitcoin cash’ potential limited, but a catalyst could be looming for it to take off – CNBC

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Menant said Gatecoin would start supporting trade with "bitcoin cash". This is in contrast to Coinbase, the world's largest bitcoin exchange, which decided not to support the new cryptocurrency.

In a Tweet on Tuesday, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, said we "don't want to rush anything out," highlighting the uncertainty over "bitcoin cash's" future.

But the continuing debate over the underlying bitcoin technology continues. The fight was over how much to increase the block size of the blockchain.

To understand this, it's important to outline how transactions work. Transactions by users are gathered into "blocks" which is turned into a complex math solution. So-called miners, using high-powered computers work these solutions out to determine if the transaction is possible. Once other miners also check the puzzle is correct, the transactions are approved and the miners are rewarded in bitcoin.

Increasing the block size would boost transaction speeds. Some people wanted a solution that would dramatically increase the block size from its current 1 megabyte level. But the majority of the community have decided to increase the block size to 2 megabytes.

A full recap of what has happened can be found here. This 2MB increase is likely to come into effect in November, providing miners stick to their word and make the necessary software updates.

If this doesn't happen, then "bitcoin cash" could get a boost.

"If most miners decide that for economic reasons they prefer to mine larger blocks and commit more hashing power to Bcash, then it's likely more development work and user adoption would follow, and those conducting business with bitcoin may decide to adopt Bcash instead," Menant said.

"Yet for this to happen Bcash would need to prove that its technology can match the security features and reliability of bitcoin's software," he added, striking a note of caution.

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'Bitcoin cash' potential limited, but a catalyst could be looming for it to take off - CNBC

CBOE plans to launch bitcoin futures, announces agreement with Winklevoss brothers’ digital currency exchange – CNBC

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The Wall Street Journal first reported news of the agreement Tuesday.

"We very much look forward to responding to the growing interest in cryptocurrencies through the creation of bitcoin futures traded on a regulated derivatives exchange," CBOE Holdings Chairman and CEO Ed Tilly said in a release.

CBOE Holdings' other subsidiaries include the Bats exchanges.

In late April, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said it would review its rejection of the Winklevoss brothers' application to list a bitcoin exchange-traded fund on the Bats BZX exchange.

The SEC declined to comment.

"By working with the team at CBOE, we are helping to make bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies increasingly accessible to both retail and institutional investors," Gemini CEO Tyler Winklevoss said in the release.

On July 24, the CFTC announced it approved digital currency-trading platform LedgerX for clearing derivatives, which would mark the first federally supervised options venue for bitcoin.

LedgerX said at the time it plans to launch bitcoin options in early fall for institutional investors, although those firms could, in turn, offer retail investor products.

Bitcoin has more than doubled in value this year, while rival digital currency Ethereum has gained more than 2,000 percent. The value of all digital currencies has jumped from around $20 billion at the beginning of this year to more than $100 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.

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CBOE plans to launch bitcoin futures, announces agreement with Winklevoss brothers' digital currency exchange - CNBC

Czech National Bank: Don’t Be Afraid of Bitcoin – Bitcoin News (press release)

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The Czech National Bank has published a statement addressing bitcoin and cryptocurrency on its website. The document addresses the popularity of bitcoin in Prague and the Czech Republic, discusses whether cryptocurrency poses a threat to the traditional banking system, and argues that fiat currencies comprise better currencies than bitcoin due to price stability.

Also Read:Largest Czech Online Retailer Alza Accepts Bitcoin, Installs 2 Bitcoin ATMs in Showroom

The Czech National Banks statement regarding cryptocurrency is titled Dont be afraid of bitcoin, and seeks to address popular assertions regarding the potential threats that bitcoin and cryptocurrency may pose to existing monetary systems.

The document starts by stating that Prague is home to a strong community of cryptocurrency supporters and users. The statement then immediately turns to questions regarding whether institutions such as the Czech National Bank should be afraid of bitcoin. And of their power to marginalise traditional money.

The Czech National Bank states that there is no reason for banks to fear bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Virtual currency adoption is described as negligible in its size and scope, arguing that electronic transactions using bitcoin worldwide amount to only 16% of the electronic transactions conducted in the Czech koruna, a currency used by just 10.5m people.

The article argues that bitcoin does not comprise a suitable mainstream money commodity due to its constantly changing price. A good currency is argued to possess a stable purchasing power, with the Czech National Bank describing Bitcoin as inherently volatile owing to its fixed supply.

Bitcoin is described as the antithesis of [the Czech] elastic money system, which is based on the principle that to keep the purchasing power of money relatively constant the amount of money has to change flexibly over time. Price stability is argued to be the most beneficial feature of money in its present form, with the bank concluding that there is no reason to fear that our existing monetary system will be replaced by a fixed-money alternative.

Do you think that bitcoin could comprise an effective mainstream currency? Or do you think that the recent history of price volatility is too great a hurdle for significant mainstream adoption to occur? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

Images courtesy of Shutterstock

AtNews.Bitcoin.comall comments containing links are automatically held up for moderation in the Disqus system. That means an editor has to take a look at the comment to approve it.This is due to the many, repetitive, spam and scam links people post under our articles.We do not censor any comment content based on politics or personal opinions.So, please be patient. Your comment will be published.

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Czech National Bank: Don't Be Afraid of Bitcoin - Bitcoin News (press release)

Comets football training kicks off | Prep Sports | yourgv.com – YourGV.com

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A lot of work has been accomplished over the spring and summer months by players and coaches alike preparing for the start of the upcoming high school football season.

First-year Comets Head Coach Grayson Throckmorton and his staff have worked with players with weightlifting, conditioning and have installed the base offensive and defensive play packages the Comets will use this season.

Today, the real work and the stretch drive toward the start of the new season begins.

Throckmorton starts what he is calling football camp today, with players being in-house from 3:30 p.m. until 8:30 p.m. for what will essentially be a pair of practices. Camp will be held with those same hours Monday through Friday each week through the teams first pre-season test, the annual VHSL Benefit Game against Buckingham County High School on Aug. 18 here at Tuck Dillard Memorial Stadium.

While there will be plenty of work ahead, Throckmorton says he is glad to reach this point.

Relieved is not quite the right word, Throckmorton said, but I am at the point now where I am at my normal. Before, this, it has been work putting in very brand new things. Now, it is where I was in my other programs from year to year because I have gotten the new things installed and I have gotten the working area straight. Were at a point now where its starting to be a normal process.

Comets players will be exposed to a variety of things during todays opening day of camp and the days of camp that will follow.

There will be a whole gamut of things that we will do, Throckmorton pointed out. There will be a little bit of weight room, there is going to be some board work, some character lessons, field work on the field, conditioning, learning and reviewing the Xs and Os, the whole nine yards.

Comets players will be in helmets when workouts start today. On Monday, players will don helmets and shoulder pads. Next Wednesday or Thursday, players will go to full pads.

Throckmorton says he feels good about the players heading into todays opening day of camp.

I feel really good with our core kids, the 38 to 45 kids that have been here three days a week all summer long, he pointed out.

On the flip side, I know were going to get a handful of guys that havent been here all summer, and we are going to have to adjust and get them caught up to speed in a short amount of time. The good thing is the guys that have been here will be able to kind of coach them and help them along because they have already learned some of the things and can relay those things as were putting them in for them.

The first-year Comets head coach says he feels good about what the knowledge the players have picked up with regard to the offensive and defensive play packages that will be used.

Overall, I feel very good about where we are, particularly with the offense, Throckmorton remarked.

We have all of the base packages in, and we will be able to go in with the defense kind of on an even keel. Then, its growing and polishing from there, conditioning, getting into shape and fine-tuning things with the drills and things were going to do to try to make the overall program better.

Throckmorton noted that there will be continued focus on conditioning.

Im still going to wean in some of the conditioning, he explained.

Im not nave enough to think they (the players) are coming in here in tip-top shape. They are coming in with a base. We are going to be doing some things, and things will intensify greatly.

I will give them two days to get acclimated a little bit, and then I will add my five corners finishing drill the third day, he added.

Its pretty common for a lot of programs to do some type of finishing drill like that.

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61 Comets Make ASC Winter, Spring Academic All-Conference Teams – University of Texas at Dallas (press release)

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Aug. 3, 2017

Sixty-one UT Dallas student-athletes were recognized by the American Southwest Conference when it released its Academic All-ASC teams for winter and spring.

The Cometsbaseball team led the pack with 19 selections. For the other sports, the softball team had 13, women's basketball had eight; men's basketball and men's tennis both had six, women's tennis had five, men's golf had three and women's golf had one.

To be eligible for the award, a student-athlete must be classified academically as a sophomore, junior, senior or graduate student during the competition season, and have been in attendance and completed at least one academic year (two consecutive semesters). In addition, he or she must have a 3.0 cumulative grade-point average and must be a letter winner in the season to be honored.

Also, the conference honored UT Dallas softball player Stefanie Polderman as one of its 10 Distingushed Scholar Athletes for winter/spring sports.

Below is a complete list of UT Dallas Academic All-ASC selections for the 2017 spring semester.

Media Contact: Bruce Unrue, UT Dallas, (972) 883-6308, [emailprotected] or the Office of Media Relations, UT Dallas, (972) 883-2155, [emailprotected]

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61 Comets Make ASC Winter, Spring Academic All-Conference Teams - University of Texas at Dallas (press release)

Workington Comets racer Ty Proctor confident of reaching play-offs – News & Star

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Ty Proctor is sure that Workington Comets will make the SGB Championship play-offs despite facing a huge fixture backlog.

Comets have struggled for consistency this season due to regular rain-offs but the Australian racer is confident that the team will eventually reach the top four.

Proctor said: "I still think we can push for the play-offs and if we keep picking up points and a couple of wins away we will be in the mix; it's realistic.

"The amount of meetings we have had, we're in the teens while other teams are in the mid-20s.

"If we can find consistency there's no reason we can't make the play-offs.

"It's just whether all seven of us keep clicking like we have been.

"We're going to have pick up some big wins away from home.

"My form's increasing and you get what you get from Cookie.

"The jump for Matt Williamson has been hard but he's been working really hard at it and I think he's doing his job.

"If we all just do our jobs we will be up there.

"For sure we want to keep winning at home, that's important.

"Scunthorpe on Saturday, no meeting is easy but hopefully we can get a good start and bang in some points."

The 30-year-old originally signed to ride for Comets last season but dropped out before the start of the campaign.

He was handed a second bite at the cherry by the club and has repaid that faith by rediscovering the form which made him one of the league's leading riders before a lengthy enforced break due to injuries and visa issues.

Double-figure scores in four of his last five meetings show Proctor is settling back into his groove and he admitted it has come as a relief to be back on track after so long watching from a distance.

"The two years that I had out were obviously hard but I told the club when I signed that it was going to take me a bit of time to find my feet again," he said.

"We're really talking about four years where I hadn't really ridden because I was injured before that.

"Things are slowly starting to work out.

"I'm really happy, I'm enjoying my time at Workington."

Comets came agonisingly close to a fifth Premier League Fours title last season when they were edged out by Plymouth in the final heat.

And although Proctor acknowledged it will be tough in this year's competition on Sunday, he will be targeting another good finish with Craig Cook, Thomas Jorgensen and Mason Campton at Peterborough.

"Obviously I don't know much about last year but I think the Fours is going to be hard," he said.

"There are some really good teams in it but we'll go and have a crack."

Continued here:

Workington Comets racer Ty Proctor confident of reaching play-offs - News & Star