I agree 100% this is a perfect example of where we the people rely entirely on the judiciary to provide a remedy. That such an obviously illegal practice could continue for years unfortunately does not reflect well on any thoughts of swift justice.
It should be possible to get a temporary restraining order against the city in cases like this within days of the first contested case. It should be easy to demonstrate there is no imminent harm of telling the city, you have to stop doing this until we decide it's OK or not, and quite the opposite, cars are an essential and significant asset, and this policy placed a potentially massive burden on the citizens it effected.
In one of the examples, by the time the victim prevailed against the illegal seizure backed by zero evidence or investigation of any kind, they had already sold off his car, and offered nothing in return. A pretty large part of the population doesn't have a spare $2,000 in cash to get their own car back while the city makes them prove in front of a Kangaroo Court that they were driving their own family to the airport... Missing from the article -- is there any hope of any kind of restitution? Can the victims now pursue a civil case against the city?
This is why the US needs a Constitutional Court so badly to vet bills after they get signed by the president, like other countries have. Then you wouldn't get stuck with unconstitutional laws for many years or even decades, letting them abuse an entire generation of people.
Now the replies will go like "but the US has an adversarial justice system!". Yeah. Except for that whole three decades old secret FISA court that is in charge of spying. No adversary there.
Having either an adversarial system or constitutional court doesn't stop a government from using its power to do illegal, immoral, secretive, or plainly unconstitutional things.
Historically, and across pretty much every nation that has ever existed, governments have routinely chosen to disobey their own laws, do terrible things in secret, and so on.
I also fail to see how a constitutional court prevents FISA from existing if you have executive orders and national security doctrine (the two things that made FISA and the NSA spying possible). You'd need to throw out a lot of things to make a constitutional court work. As it is, national security doctrine would simply bypass a constitutional court check when it comes to creating FISA. You would have to try to elevate it above all possible counter considerations, and good luck with that.
You: The city is stealing my car without probable cause in an attempt to extort money from me.
City DA: No they're not.
What's your recourse here? Call the FBI or federal prosecutor and report an organized crime syndicate being run by corrupt law enforcement professionals? Because... isn't that what this is?
Is there any onus, or even incentive, for them to listen and investigate? Is the only way to redress the problems a civil lawsuit against the City citing Bivens and various appellate court principles like malicious prosecution? Because grand theft auto, extortion, racketeering, and fabrication of evidence / perjury are not civil offenses, and conservative readings of the concept of 'standing', as I understand it, make it rather difficult to challenge the authors of a failed / withdrawn prosecution in order to get at the legal principles which triggered it.
Concepts like this one, as well as things like civil asset forfeiture, are so clearly in direct violation of the Constitution that at some point, it's not legitimate to shelter enforcers under cover of "just following orders". We still have laws (Constitutional and common), and Peabody, Minnesota doesn't have the right to do things like put all the gay residents to death by legislative fiat & judicial compliance; If you found this occurring, you wouldn't need to file a lawsuit alleging that a constitutional overreach has been committed and demanding merely that the policy cease to be in effect. Instead, you would get some overriding authority, like the state police or the FBI, to run in with SWAT teams and arrest and prosecute every last person peripherally attached to the Peabody legislature or judiciary or law enforcement. For murder.
No amount of 'adopting selective prosecution based on what we can win, since the courts recognized a valid affirmative defence' or 'changing training programs to be more in line with civil rights' or 'firing/reprimanding the officers involved and settling a civil suit' makes killing the gay population of Peabody less of a crime, and no amount of lawsuit would be required to get that recognized.
Wish more people would simply call it what it is. If we can't even do that, certainly we'll never see an actual prosecution.
The name of a thing is important, and calling it exactly 'grand theft auto, extortion, racketeering, and fabrication of evidence / perjury' versus something like 'civil asset forfeiture' or in this case, not even that, it's a glorified falsified parking ticket!
I mean, how did this actually play out in court? "So, Your Honor, you're not going to believe what happened. I was going to drop my niece at the airport and these thugs pulled me out of the car, showed me a badge, impounded my car, and now want me to sign a document and pay them a stack of cash to get it back." Prosecutor, "Actually, we employ 170 people to do this, and we've done it 21,000 times".
"“They’re stopping cars without legal justification all the time,” said Kaeckmeister, who in the past year has gone to two tribunal hearings to testify before a judge that his superiors forced him to seize a car when he didn’t have the evidence to do so."
His superiors pressured him to steal a car by threatening to fire him, and to fabricate evidence, perjure himself, and file false police reports in order to hold it for ransom without legal basis. It shouldn't make a difference whether he's in the traffic enforcement business or the puppy breeding business, the same actions are a clear crime regardless of his background; He wasn't even under duress by the definition of that word used in the courts, though perhaps whistleblower protections apply (if they still exist).
Dude's just confessed, before a judge, to a massive profit-seeking criminal conspiracy over and above what was authorized by local legislature. Arrest somebody.
The problem is it grants legitimacy for a parallel network of justice enforcement. When there are so many stories about constitution being violated with FISA, SWAT teams, police stations using military gear, TSA, systematic torture, drone strikes without fair trials, civil asset forfeiture and now systematic seizure of cars, who could we blame if, say, Anonymous decided to take it to the street and burn houses of every single TLD agent? Is US justice still acting on the name of the lowly, or is the constituion so blatantly violated that the people will fund and sponsor an "alternative network"?
> You: The city is stealing my car without probable cause in an attempt to extort money from me.
> City DA: No they're not.
> What's your recourse here?
File a civil lawsuit for the violation of Constitutional rights, to wit, the right against being deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process.
Report to the State and federal government for potential public civil and criminal action by those governments against the local government/officials involved.
Work to organize members of the public for political action against the responsible local government/officials.
Etc.
> Concepts like this one, as well as things like civil asset forfeiture, are so clearly in direct violation of the Constitution
Civil asset forfeiture in general is not in direct violation of the Constitution. There may be a valid argument that some of the ways it is currently employed are in violation of the Constitution, though even that is a weaker case than that some of the ways it is employed are just bad policy.
> We still have laws (Constitutional and common), and Peabody, Minnesota doesn't have the right to do things like put all the gay residents to death by legislative fiat & judicial compliance; If you found this occurring, you wouldn't need to file a lawsuit alleging that a constitutional overreach has been committed and demanding merely that the policy cease to be in effect. Instead, you would get some overriding authority, like the state police or the FBI, to run in with SWAT teams and arrest and prosecute every last person peripherally attached to the Peabody legislature or judiciary or law enforcement. For murder.
Or, not. Law enforcement agencies have the power to enforce the laws, but they generally have no obligation to enforce them, and quite often real and significant violations are fought with civil lawsuits by those affected rather than direct intervention and criminal prosecution by enforcement agencies. Even in cases where the general problem is one that enforcement agencies are interested in -- the civil rights movement provides numerous examples, where all kinds of serious violations by local and state officials were addressed, some by higher (particularly federal) law enforcement action, some by private civil lawsuits, some by political mobilizing and action, and many by combinations of those methods.
Can you explain how civil asset forfeiture is not unconstitutional? Your property is taken without due process. You can get it back, if you go to court. The due process happens after it is taken.
For some reason, Courts so far have agreed to buy the government's whole twisted logic that "things can be guilty of crimes", and under that twisted logic it seems to make sense to do that.
Why is the regular news reading more and more like my Onion RSS feed? I have a feeling things were always this absurd, if not more so, but the idiocy gets amplified now by the channels being so connected.
I think the most interesting, or scary, part of all of this is the justification for this warrantless search and seizure: to stop Uber from operating in the city. Usually the government has to invoke public safety to try to justify removing individual rights. Now they can just invoke the taxi lobby I guess.
It was legal because in the king's eyes, the colonists weren't really citizens, they were just subjects, and therefore subject to search and seizure on a whim. That was one of the reasons we had a revolution.
There was also a brief period between 1789-1791 where it wasn't explicitly clear that it was illegal, but that was resolved by amending the constitution.
>If I copy & paste the link to a new tab, then it worked for me.
It worked because you opened it the second time. First time you open it, it places a cookie on your machine so it doesn't show you a redirection second time you open a link on Forbes.
So the solution is to just open it in tabs twice... and close the first tab.
They are probably trying to dissuade ad blocking. It might work better for them if they told you what was happening (instead of just sending you to a blank page).
Or, it just breaks in a way they didn't intend or know about. I've had both Ghostery and HTTPS Everywhere subtly break things, in cases where the author probably wouldn't bother to target those users. I guess we're kind of asking for it, running a client that doesn't comply with standards...
Has anyone ever died because of an unlicensed limo? Is it really a threat to public safety? If consenting adults agree to a transaction, I am not sure how that's the government's business. However, if an unlicensed vehicle was portraying itself as a licensed vehicle, then you have a fraud issue, not a public safety one.
Some years back NYC [1] (under Mayor Giuliani) instituted a policy whereby drivers suspected of driving while intoxicated would have their vehicles seized by the police. Unlike unlicensed limos, DWI is a real public safety problem.
The problem with what NYC did, however, was that a driver could be found not guilty of DWI and still have his car seized. There were many complaints regarding due process, uneven applications, etc., and eventually the city abandoned this policy.
I mention this not because I sympathize with drunk drivers (I don't), but because it's not the first time the city has done something like this.
Who knows. It does seem like an easy way to get away with such a crime. In the past it may have been a legit safety concern.
Now with uber it seems safe. Police can track the location of the car, driver and passenger.
Probably has something to do with collecting tax money too. Licensed means it is easier to track taxes. Uber doesn't need the traditional licenses for reporting taxes
This is a much older fight in NYC than Uber. They're probably involved in a good number of the cars in question in recent years, but a back-and-forth over to what extent to tolerate vs. crack down on unlicensed taxi services has been going on for decades. The general category is often called by the somewhat racist term "gypsy cabs".
Interesting. From my quick reading I can see why some would disagree with the usage.
Although, I also find it interesting that, apparently, in English law it refers to a nomadic person regardless of race or origin. Which is a use of "gypsy" that I was familiar with.
Uber wasn't explicitly mentioned, but it just sounds like the TLC is overly trigger happy in seizing cars, presumably because of the uptake in services like Lyft and Uber who in the TLC's eyes are skirting around the law.
By "skirting around" do you mean "blatantly flouting"? Because that's the truth of it..
Uber, Lyft, et al are just central dispatch for gypsy cabs. I don't see any reason they shouldn't get massive fines or seized vehicles in all locales they operate.
> Uber, Lyft, et al are just central dispatch for gypsy cabs.
True fact: Every single Uber and Lyft vehicle which I've ridden in, in New York City, has a Taxi and Limo Commission plate on it in the T123456C format. The so-called "gypsy cab"+ market consists of the vehicles without those plates.
First, the drivers aren't even Romani. Second, the NY Times has used the phrase, quite often. Granted, with a quick Google I couldn't find a more recent NYT reference than 2008, so maybe they changed their mind.
Pulitzer Prize winning columnist William Safire, perhaps best known as a long-time syndicated political columnist for the New York Times and the author of "On Language" in the New York Times Magazine, a column on popular etymology, new or unusual usages, and other language-related topics[1], explains in the NY Times:
Just because some people take offense
at a word, however, does not automatically
banish the word from the English language.
...
it is hypersensitive to take it as a slur
This makes your argument worse, not better. The term "gypsy cab" derives from a racist stereotype of the Romani[1]. How can a term with a racist etymology not be racist?
Imagine any group of people appropriating traditionally-derogatory ethnic slurs for another group to describe themselves. How is that okay?
As for the Pullitzer Prize winner, that article is from 1986, more than a bit out-dated. Bizarrely, the author even defends the verb "to gyp" as not being racist because it's only one syllable. Imagine the sheer outrage if the verb "to nig" came into popular usage and referred to a negative stereotypical activity.
Why am I even arguing this? The fact that the term "gypsy cab" uses the name of an ethnic group to refer to a stereotypically negative trait of that group should completely and utterly speak for itself.
Because you don't agree with Safire, who stated quite clearly:
Egyptians, from whose name the word gypsy
erroneously originated, are usually unaware
of the etymology and are not offended.
(Gypsy cab, which uses both syllables,
stresses the ''wandering'' meaning of gypsy,
which is descriptive and not derogatory.)
Edit: You seem to be saying
“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in
rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what
I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
Never mind the opinions of people who made a living writing about the meaning of words.
Based on your racist and derogatory statements, I have to wonder if you're involved in the taxi industry.
The fact is, taxi lobbies are just protection rackets. I don't like Uber at all due to the way they treat their customers and drivers, but ridesharing is the future and the taxi mob is desperate to stop them from growing. If that means paying off the local law enforcement and city officials to illegally and unconstitutionally seize law abiding citizens' vehicles (including regular folks dropping off or picking up family and friends, which boggles the mind), they will do it.
The problem is that even if you can't own a person wholesale anymore in this country, you can own the right to be the sole provider of one type of service to that person, and charge them exorbitant rates. To the taxi lobby, the citizens of New York are not free men, but their property as customers. Uber and the like are therefore dirty thieves, abolitionist usurpers.
The taxi lobby will also say that it's all for your own safety, even as unlicensed taxi drivers in licensed cabs proliferate. (fun story: I've had colleagues whose luggage was held hostage while driven to an ATM because the driver didn't want card payment because he wasn't driving the cab legally. good luck pursuing recourse for that.)
Your colleagues should/could have played the game. Just sit there, in the cab. Either he takes the payment that they offer or they get to leave. As long as they're sitting in the cab, it's not making any money.
Force him to decide to either take their payment or write off the loss from the ride because he can't get any other fares while they're occupying the seat. What's he going to do? Call the police and tell on himself?
Wait, I don't understand. Because this person used a term that you describe as a racist and derogatory term, you are claiming the entire taxi industry is racist? As I asked elsewhere, how is this term racist and derogatory?
> As I asked elsewhere, how is this term racist and derogatory?
Gypsy is a racially problematic term.
Using that term to refer to unlicensed cabs links travellers (who may or may not be Roma) to crime and dangerousness.
If you care about this kind of stuff it's probably a good idea to move to phrases like "unlicensed cabs". You get some benefit it's more useful for an international audience.
"Gypsy" may also refer to Irish Travellers (Pavees), and possibly even to other insular nomadic cultures, not just Roma. I wouldn't be surprised if a travelling carnival worker had ever been called a gypsy.
The term itself is derived from Egyptian, which just goes to show how little people care about actual facts when labeling outsider groups.
And if you really want to be politically neutral as well as culturally neutral, "unofficial", "non-medallioned", "hackney", or "jitney" would be better than "unlicensed" or "illegal".
As I responded in the other post where I asked the question, under English law that is the definition of which is the version I was familiar with. Referring to nomadic person regardless of race or origin. I've never understood it to reference a particular race. Hence my confusion on why it would be a racist term. Derogatory I could understand, but not racist.
"Gypsy cab" is a slang term for an unlicensed taxi, and no longer has anything to do with the Romani people. It's not a term I personally use (outside a descriptive context like this), but it doesn't seem intended as an insult.
One of the (I guess intended) effects of using an aniquated slang word is to illustrate that this is not a new problem, but that this very same problem exists for so long that it got its own well known insulting term a long time ago.
Uber and Lyft are licensed livery cabs in NYC. Livery cabs are not allowed to accept street hails, but are allowed to be ordered for pick up in other ways (such as through a phone call). The only way that they would be illegal is if you believe that ordering through a phone app is more similar to street hailing than it is to ordering through a phone call, but I think that is a huge stretch.
It's not that easy. First, which sites are "sites like this" varies from user to user. Second, in the majority of cases it's possible to read the article, just annoying. Third, HN optimizes for good articles, and good articles do appear on sites like this.
It's not a great situation but I don't think the alternative would be better for HN.
Yes. The first time you click, it returns a blank page (with an adblocker). The second time you click, the article's contents can be seen. Has happened to me on all the Forbes articles posted here.
And NoScript. I have NoScript + uBlock Origin. Why/How would the adblocker matter in this case?
EDIT: After looking at the source, the entire article is stored in a JSON document embedded in the script. I don't see an http-equiv meta and the document returns a 200. I guess I'm not creative enough to RE how this redirect happens w/o javascript or an http header.
This is a stupid grammar nitpick I only offer in the hopes that you find it useful for your writing. No dismissal of your arguments or denigration of your character is intended.
I think you want the word "affected" in your second paragraph. Effects are the result of causation, whereas affect refers to the causation. The citizens were affected by the effects of this policy.
Contrary to the opinions of others, I appreciated your post. While a nitpick, you provided the both the correction and a good way to remember which word is used in which situation. As someone who has to stop to consider which one to use sometimes, I appreciate the extra effort.
You may be interested to know --- well, I find it interesting --- that there are lesser known meanings of 'affect' and 'effect' which are the other way round. You can effect a change, where 'effect' a verb. And people can have an affect, where 'affect' is a noun largely synonymous to 'mood'.
I believe it's even possible to affect affects by effecting an affect effect, in effect. English is weird.
You may be able to distinguish between mood-noun "affect" and influence-verb "affect" by pronunciation. I place the emphasis for the former on the first syllable, just as in "affectation" whereas the emphasis is on the second syllable in the latter. So they are homonyms, but not exactly homophones.
I never liked the verb sense of effect. It always seemed to me to be too much like a managementspeak verbizating torturement of the ordinary noun sense of effect. Obviously, the verb sense means "to produce an effect", but are you really gonna diss the perfectly cromulent already-existing word that has meant that for longer--"affect"? ~
In condimentarius scriptor apostrophe delenda est.
Yea, but it just getting old? I'm glad someone finally said something. Think of it this way, you loose your residence, and job. In turn, I tell you, "Well, nature is beautiful?".
And yes, we can all find grammatical mistakes. Now, producing something worth reading is another story?
> Now, producing something worth reading is another story?
I've become less of a grammar nazi over the years (falling in love with a dyslexic woman will just... force you to do that lol), but I see it as kind of like colorblindness... If everyone is telling you your colors don't match, and you don't see it, it doesn't mean it doesn't bother them (or that you shouldn't care). Or if you're deaf and make random noises that you don't hear, but they bother others... perhaps you should figure out how to stop. That sort of thing. It's a discord thing.
Yeah it is just getting old. A pedant picks up on a single spelling mistake in three paragraphs of perfectly fine text, and it's a matter worthy of commentary. No matter how politely it's phrased, or how elegantly the correction presented, that's just plain ignorant.
The fact that it got upvoted too just illustrates the commentariat are more interested in style over substance.
I agree, which is why I virtually never make comments about minor errors in execution and why I felt compelled to add a disclaimer to this one. I just find that this particular error is very subtle and trips a lot of people up so thought it might be helpful to highlight in case it was not a simple typo. I never expected it to garner this much diversive conversation.
It should be possible to get a temporary restraining order against the city in cases like this within days of the first contested case. It should be easy to demonstrate there is no imminent harm of telling the city, you have to stop doing this until we decide it's OK or not, and quite the opposite, cars are an essential and significant asset, and this policy placed a potentially massive burden on the citizens it effected.
In one of the examples, by the time the victim prevailed against the illegal seizure backed by zero evidence or investigation of any kind, they had already sold off his car, and offered nothing in return. A pretty large part of the population doesn't have a spare $2,000 in cash to get their own car back while the city makes them prove in front of a Kangaroo Court that they were driving their own family to the airport... Missing from the article -- is there any hope of any kind of restitution? Can the victims now pursue a civil case against the city?