I’m not historically a big fan of Glenn Greenwald, but I think he’s spot on when he says the media is manipulating the American people to an unprecedented degree right now. I have no idea if the intelligence community part is right, he certainly knows much more on that topic than I do, but it should be obvious to anyone who’s ever written and sourced a story that this constant “people familiar with the matter” stuff, especially when quoting sources within the intelligence apparatus, is utter bullshit. You’re either making shit up to make the story conclude what you want it to conclude or you’re being fed information that you can’t verify. And as a journalist that means you’re at best shit at your craft and at worst morally bankrupt.

It is a union of journalists who have decided that their only goal is to defend Joe Biden and election him president of the United States working with the FBI, CIA, NSA not to manipulate our adversaries or foreign governments, but to manipulate the American people for their own ends. It’s been going on for four straight years now and there’s no sign of it stopping anytime soon.

Oh yeah, and Schiff is indeed an utter douchebag.

So, I love Elite Dangerous. I’ve have around 896 flight hours on my main account, excluding idle time. But sometimes, that game is also plain stupid. I was really happy that they brought GalNet news and community goals back, but when I wanted to take part in the most recent one, all I was met with was terrible disappointment.

It turns out I can’t get to the Witch Head Nebula region where the community goal is located, because I haven’t unlocked the right technology. And to add insult to injury, it seems you can unlock that tech when you score really well at this event. An event I can’t get to because I don’t have the tech unlocked.

CMDR SpaceGhost put it well on the Frontier forums:

Who thought this through at Frontier? Who came up with the idea to give away a FSDB for a prize? When you need a FSDB to get to the Witch Head Nebula? Noobs better hitch a ride with a FC. Oh wait if you dont have the FSDB you prolly an’t equipped to fight thargoids. How about giving something Anti Thargoid weapon/defense away? something that really has to do with the CG. Good going. Way to ruin another CG

Now I’m stuck in the black very close to the Witch Head with some specialised anti-Thargoid weapons I don’t need. Thanks, FDev!

Today at 17:00 CEST, I will be recording episode 43 of my podcast The Private Citizen with coverage of the Cyberbunker trial in Trier. Live stream via Twitch:

→ twitch.tv/FoxtrotAlfaBravo

Off to the Witch Head to kick some Thargoid ass!

After finishing last night’s Private Citizen, I should really have sat down to write my newsletter, but my brain was simply too far gone. So I decided to play some Elite Dangerous instead. Well, I finally got it running and – despite the server crashes – trucked some cargo around. Here’s a recording of my late night Elite session:

I love this opinion by the US District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. The court explains the glaring problems with measures taken across the world in response to the SARS-CoV-2 virus much more eloquently and succinctly than I ever could. And believe me, I’ve tried, many times, to explain exactly the points the judge raises here.

Good intentions toward a laudable end are not alone enough to uphold governmental action against a constitutional challenge. Indeed, the greatest threats to our system of constitutional liberties may arise when the ends are laudable, and the intent is good – especially in a time of emergency. In an emergency, even a vigilant public may let down its guard over its constitutional liberties only to find that liberties, once relinquished, are hard to recoup and that restrictions – while expedient in the face of an emergency situation – may persist long after immediate danger has passed.

What were initially billed as temporary measures necessary to “flatten the curve” and protect hospital capacity have become open-ended and ongoing restrictions aimed at a very different end – stopping the spread of an infectious disease and preventing new cases from arising – which requires ongoing and open-ended efforts. Further, while the harshest measures have been “suspended”, Defendants admit that they remain in-place and can be reinstated sua sponte as and when Defendants see fit. In other words, while not currently being enforced, Pennsylvania citizens remain subject to the re-imposition of the most severe provisions at any time. Further, testimony and evidence presented by Defendants does not establish any specified exit gate or end date to the emergency situations. Rather, the record shows that Defendants view the presence of disease mitigations upon the citizens of Pennsylvania as a “new normal” and they have no actual plan to return to a state where all restrictions are lifted.

The plain language of the statute makes clear that the lockdown effectuated by the stay-at-home orders is not a quarantine. A quarantine requires, as a threshold matter, that the person subject to the “limitation of freedom of movement” be “exposed to a communicable disease.” Moreover, critically, the duration of a quarantine is statutorily limited to “a period of time equal to the longest usual incubation period of the disease.” The lockdown plainly exceeded that period.

Not only are lockdowns like the one imposed by the Defendants' stay-at-home orders unknown in response to any previous pandemic or epidemic, they are not as much mentioned in recent guidance by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”). The fact is that the lockdowns imposed across the United States in early 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic are unprecedented in the history of our Commonwealth and our Country. They have never been used in response to any other disease in our history. They were not recommendations made by the CDC. They were unheard of by the people of this nation until just this year. It appears as though the imposition of lockdowns in Wuhan and other areas of China – a nation unconstrained by concern for civil liberties and constitutional norms – started a domino effect where one country, and state, after another imposed draconian and hitherto untried measures on their citizens. Broad population-wide lockdowns are such a dramatic inversion of the concept of liberty in a free society as to be nearly presumptively unconstitutional unless the government can truly demonstrate that they burden no more liberty than is reasonably necessary to achieve an important government end. The draconian nature of the lockdown may render this a high bar, indeed.

The liberties protected by the Constitution are not fair-weather freedoms – in place when times are good but able to be cast aside in times of trouble. There is no question that this Country has faced, and will face, emergencies of every sort. But the solution to a national crisis can never be permitted to supersede the commitment to individual liberty that stands as the foundation of the American experiment. The Constitution cannot accept the concept of “a new normal” where the basic liberties of the people can be subordinated to open-ended emergency mitigation measures. Rather, the Constitution sets certain limits that may not be crossed, even in an emergency.

I wish we had a justice system in Germany that valued civil liberties and freedoms as high as this court and had the foresight and eloquence of this judge.

c.f.: Pa. Gov.’s COVID-19 Closure, Crowd Limit Rules Struck Down, Law 360

Well, we had a little change of plans at short notice… Halefa and Jonathan couldn’t make it for our planned Elite Dangerous stream last night, so I was on my own and decided to stream The Outer Worlds instead. After finishing Peril on Gorgon recently, I wanted to start a new playthrough anyway and I started a new character. Meet Fox Montana:

Damn, I love this game so much.

I will be streaming some Elite Dangerous with Halefa and Jonathan tonight at 19:00 CEST. I haven’t played Elite in quite a while and I’m really looking forward to it. Could be a bit of a struggle, but probably a fun one!

If you’re interested, come along tonight and heckle us in chat:

→ twitch.tv/FoxtrotAlfaBravo

Today at 18:00 CEST, I will be live streaming episode 41 of my privacy podcast The Private Citizen. I will be discussing recent developments with COVID-19 apps in the UK and elsewhere and how the situation of “the new normal” continues to impact our privacy. I’ll be streaming via my Twitch channel:

→ twitch.tv/FoxtrotAlfaBravo

I’d be happy if you come along and give me some live feedback on the show. You’ll also be able to see how I record podcasts live. This time, I’ll have the sound fixed and will be showing you what’s going on on my screen as well.

“Best Thug Name in a Video Game Ever”