USA - EARN IT Act Will Weaken Online Privacy, Wins 22-0 Pre-Vote

[StDragon]

2 minutes ago, TimeOmnivore said:

It hasn't even fully gone through the senate yet. Then it still has to go through the house, which may amend it in some way, and, unless I'm mistaken, would mean it has to go back through the senate, and back and forth until both agree on the final draft of the bill. Only then will it go to the president to sign or veto. With elections coming up soon, there's also the chance that the bill could die if co-sponsors and supporters of the bill get voted out of office before it goes through the whole process.

True. But I'd argue that precisely because its an election year that none want to be associated with being against "the children". It's going to be a very nasty election year, and who wants mud thrown on them for being a pariah?

 

We have a bunch of cowards that elect cowards. It's all rotten to the core.

[DKL]

Everytime I look at my favorite news sources before going to bed, a story like this comes around at the perfect time in the week to remind me why I shouldn't look at news sources before bed. 

[jagdtigger]

I guess companies will either leave to us or split up and have a separate lineup for the US(which can be flashed to an non-US version accidentally)......

[Trik'Stari]

8 hours ago, ARikozuM said:

Not even a recall. Dissolve the Senate and use a direct democracy for all House-passed legislation or use an official social media or voting system to ensure that the Senators and Reps vote in-line with their constituents rather than rely on phoning them to "voice your concerns".

 

Fuck it. Hose them down with official polling and fine/punish the ever-loving shit out of them for not voting with their populace. 

The problem is the tyranny of the mob, which is a thing we are currently seeing with certain political groups and their extremist activist arms.

[wanderingfool2]

6 hours ago, mr moose said:

It looks like this bill is just setting up a committee to determine best practices and recommend them.  Then service providers are to undertake a review of their services using these best practices as a guide and certify they found nothing or report what they found.  the law does not actually ask for a back door to anything, in fact it doesn't even seem to be legally binding because for them to do anything they would have to prove the provider knowingly allowed an illegal activity to occur on their platform whilst reporting in a voluntary manner something they knew to be wrong.  For all intents and purposes it looks like they are trying to coerce service providers to add parental controls and age restrictions.   

There are good parts of the bill of course, but it actually could be used as a back door.

 

The committee determines the best practices and does recommend them...but in my previous quote it also amends the section 230, so some of those best practices could actually be enforceable.  The problem being, if this passes the comittee essentially could create a "best practice" of monitoring a network for activity (or to prevent such "heinous" acts from occurring have a best practice that no party should have end to end encryption to prevent monitoring).  Those types of "best practices" could be mandatory as they did modify 230 to include "implemented reasonable measures relating to the matters described in section 4(a)(3)"

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

There are good parts of the bill of course, but it actually could be used as a back door.

 

The committee determines the best practices and does recommend them...but in my previous quote it also amends the section 230, so some of those best practices could actually be enforceable.  The problem being, if this passes the comittee essentially could create a "best practice" of monitoring a network for activity (or to prevent such "heinous" acts from occurring have a best practice that no party should have end to end encryption to prevent monitoring).  Those types of "best practices" could be mandatory as they did modify 230 to include "implemented reasonable measures relating to the matters described in section 4(a)(3)"

Except the the bill itself at section 9 explicitly states none of this bill can be used to force a service provider to scan, search or screen any of it's users data.   I am confused as to how it can be used to force a backdoor (which is solely designed to give access to user data) while a the same time ruling out forcing a service provider to scan or read user data.  Unless I am missing something in order to be able to access user data you have to either be constantly screening it or search for it first.

[Bombastinator]

11 hours ago, ARikozuM said:

Not even a recall. Dissolve the Senate and use a direct democracy for all House-passed legislation or use an official social media or voting system to ensure that the Senators and Reps vote in-line with their constituents rather than rely on phoning them to "voice your concerns".

 

Fuck it. Hose them down with official polling and fine/punish the ever-loving shit out of them for not voting with their populace. 

Horrible idea.  Even Switzerland is too big for direct democracy and they’re the only country that uses it.  The communist party in China does it too (so sort of like it) and they have gigantic problems as well.  

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

Horrible idea.  Even Switzerland is too big for direct democracy and they’re the only country that uses it.  The communist party in China does it too (so sort of like it) and they have gigantic problems as well.  

I hope people are aware there are many forms of Government, Parliaments and Senates that are Democratic, a Republic can be Democracy and Democratic (which is the case for the US) or an Oligarchy, and even then not all Republics are run and structured the same. I actually find the whole "The US is not a democracy it's a republic" idiotic but what ever, productive discourse is a lost cause at that point.

 

If there are problems with representation you can make changes without completely changing forms of government, problem is getting those changes enacted because said 'broken system' needs to approve it.

 

Hell even just changing how voting works and is counted towards candidates can have huge impacts, small changes can do a lot towards addressing the complaints of those being represented.

 

That's the thing about representation, it can be a necessity. Not everyone has the knowledge or even the time to understand how legislation and law making actually works and to get in to the specifics of a proposed bill requires more than just a basic understanding of that as well as the subject matter to which it applies to. So we rely on making our opinions and ideals heard by those representing us then those people in that position of influence and decision making power with the knowledge and access to advisors and legal experts take in to consideration the people they are representing. That means decisions ultimately made may not always perfectly align with those that are being represented because of the complexity of reality and there are other considerations.

 

What I dislike about these types of topics is the only things that ever get discussed are the sound bites and half truths, or omissions to suit position. All it ever amounts to is jousting by way of news article titles.

[Thaldor]

3 hours ago, mr moose said:

Except the the bill itself at section 9 explicitly states none of this bill can be used to force a service provider to scan, search or screen any of it's users data.   I am confused as to how it can be used to force a backdoor (which is solely designed to give access to user data) while a the same time ruling out forcing a service provider to scan or read user data.  Unless I am missing something in order to be able to access user data you have to either be constantly screening it or search for it first.

Who said that the service provider wants to go through the user data? All they need to do is to provide a backdoor for a whatever letter combination government organization to get to the user data and they will do all the scanning, screening, searching and archiving they want.

 

Spoiler

Kind of same kind of section as in the Australian backdoor law. "This law cannot be used to force companies to weaken their data protection", yes but it's still in the hands of one person and their office to see if your company has done enough to help the officials or do they sue your ass over it. And suing always means hiring lawyers, which is expensive, dedicating time and effort to handle the court case, again expensive, and most likely your ass is going to be dragged through every possible court it can be dragged, which means taking a lot of time and being very expensive (even if the government was to loose and ruled to cover the expenses of the winning side, business lawyers usually want to make sure they get their money so they are not taking their money after the case has been closed but during the case either monthly or after smaller certain milestones or even before). So, as a small company (or even bigger which needs to answer their investors about why they needed to hire lawyers to handle a court case taking years) do you trust that that one office will be manned by people who are not politically motivated to make decisions and are actually intelligent for the rest of the times or do you weaken your data protection just to be sure that you don't need to hire those expensive lawyers?

 

[Bombastinator]

4 hours ago, leadeater said:

I hope people are aware there are many forms of Government, Parliaments and Senates that are Democratic, a Republic can be Democracy and Democratic (which is the case for the US) or an Oligarchy, and even then not all Republics are run and structured the same. I actually find the whole "The US is not a democracy it's a republic" idiotic but what ever, productive discourse is a lost cause at that point.

 

If there are problems with representation you can make changes without completely changing forms of government, problem is getting those changes enacted because said 'broken system' needs to approve it.

 

Hell even just changing how voting works and is counted towards candidates can have huge impacts, small changes can do a lot towards addressing the complaints of those being represented.

 

That's the thing about representation, it can be a necessity. Not everyone has the knowledge or even the time to understand how legislation and law making actually works and to get in to the specifics of a proposed bill requires more than just a basic understanding of that as well as the subject matter to which it applies to. So we rely on making our opinions and ideals heard by those representing us then those people in that position of influence and decision making power with the knowledge and access to advisors and legal experts take in to consideration the people they are representing. That means decisions ultimately made may not always perfectly align with those that are being represented because of the complexity of reality and there are other considerations.

 

What I dislike about these types of topics is the only things that ever get discussed are the sound bites and half truths, or omissions to suit position. All it ever amounts to is jousting by way of news article titles.

Direct democracy is a specific thing though where each citizen votes directly on each bill.  It’s very rare because it scales so poorly.  Ancient Greece, Switzerland and the Chinese communist party are the only nnations that do it.

[ARikozuM]

9 hours ago, Trik'Stari said:

The problem is the tyranny of the mob, which is a thing we are currently seeing with certain political groups and their extremist activist arms.

That's a dumb concept to apply. If it weren't for the "mob" we wouldn't have a 40-hour work week or workers' rights. If it weren't for a group dong something unethical we wouldn't need an anti-group. If the majority of the nation doesn't want this legislation, mob rule should be the ruling force. If the party wants to get votes they should fight to either move the Overton window and risk the loss or gain of support. You either have the numbers to prove majority support or you don't. 

 

In my case, I'm represented by Vern Buchanan (R). You think he cares what his democrat or independent constituents want? He should, but very likely doesn't and we can see that by his voting record. If there is a direct democracy or polling system that shows how the people vote and then keeps the rep accountable to it.

 

Suppression of the vote and packing+cracking are very real concerns that need to be addressed along with felony disenfranchisement and poll taxes.

 

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

Direct democracy is a specific thing though where each citizen votes directly on each bill.  It’s very rare because it scales so poorly.  Ancient Greece, Switzerland and the Chinese communist party are the only nnations that do it.

Just like people argue that this is a democracy or a republic or a trail of dominos, this would be my ideal form of direct democracy. Keep the representation, but hold the politician to account. 

[stewtrain]

On 7/4/2020 at 9:30 AM, huilun02 said:

Is this the same country that said Huawei, of all Chinese companies, is a national security risk?

spying is only okay when america spies on america.  the US doesn't need the competition from china.

[StDragon]

8 hours ago, leadeater said:

I actually find the whole "The US is not a democracy it's a republic" idiotic but what ever, productive discourse is a lost cause at that point.

 

If the US was a pure democracy, for example you would end up with a few coastal cities defining governance at the federal level for all other mainland states. That's why it's "United States" is that, independent states that are united under one republic. Practically speaking, you can't hold a nation together that large unless it's via totalitarianism (just as with China and the former Soviet Union). Even India is a democratic republic. No doubt about it, should China have any form of democracy in the modern sense, it could only pragmatically do so as a republic without fracturing the mainland into several independent nations. So putting into that perspective, to change the US into a pure democracy would lead to the fracturing of the mainland as separate sovereign nations. And, well...history has proven that didn't work out so well too. Hence, a compromise is found to "have your cake and eat it too" with regard to being both a large nation and having it as a form of democracy.

 

Note: And now you have some perspective as to why the US electoral college exists.

[Bombastinator]

55 minutes ago, StDragon said:

 

If the US was a pure democracy, for example you would end up with a few coastal cities defining governance at the federal level for all other mainland states. That's why it's "United States" is that, independent states that are united under one republic. Practically speaking, you can't hold a nation together that large unless it's via totalitarianism (just as with China and the former Soviet Union). Even India is a democratic republic. No doubt about it, should China have any form of democracy in the modern sense, it could only pragmatically do so as a republic without fracturing the mainland into several independent nations. So putting into that perspective, to change the US into a pure democracy would lead to the fracturing of the mainland as separate sovereign nations. And, well...history has proven that didn't work out so well too. Hence, a compromise is found to "have your cake and eat it too" with regard to being both a large nation and having it as a form of democracy.

 

Note: And now you have some perspective as to why the US electoral college exists.

Way to avoid the “there are almost no pure democracies and never have been” thing.  A representative democracy is still a democracy cos the phrase “the us is not a democracy” is crap. 

[Sauron]

On 7/4/2020 at 6:09 PM, Bombastinator said:

I would.  Apple is the one of biggest businesses in the world and america hast lost most of its businesses.  There isn’t much left except farming and that one has famous problems with commoditization.  Also there’s the the issue of climate. 

Again... I see no reason for me to care at all. The US has done nothing to deserve anything better than this.

[Bombastinator]

8 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Again... I see no reason for me to care at all. The US has done nothing to deserve anything better than this.

Yeah yeah.  Everyone is rooting for the US to destroy itself thinking they will gain from it.  
Reveling in the misery of americans.

No one will gain.  If the US does the world is likely to go with it. Look at how much damage the destruction of the Ottoman empire dealt to the Middle East.  They’ve still got problems.  The US has a much greater reach.

This is a problem that has been known about for 30 years.  Carter proposed a gradual US deflation.  Instead we got Regan who chose to play pretend, and a series of republican leaders each more disconnected from reality than the last to keep it going.

[StDragon]

41 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Way to avoid the “there are almost no pure democracies and never have been” thing.  A representative democracy is still a democracy cos the phrase “the us is not a democracy” is crap. 

I never said such a thing nor eluded to.

 

If you have a question, learn to ask it. Don't assume motive.

[leadeater]

6 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Direct democracy is a specific thing though where each citizen votes directly on each bill.  It’s very rare because it scales so poorly.  Ancient Greece, Switzerland and the Chinese communist party are the only nnations that do it.

Well I'd take China off that list as they really aren't but that doesn't matter. Wasn't really the point, people are wanting a change because they are clearly dissatisfied with their representation i.e. they feel like they are not actually being represented. Direct Democracy is not the only option and moving away from being a Republic doesn't have to be the solution either.

 

It's the typical "It's the way it is and it can't be changed" issue, yes it can be changed as anything can be.

[ARikozuM]

1 hour ago, StDragon said:

Note: And now you have some perspective as to why the US electoral college exists.

To cheat the people out of the popular vote. 

[Bombastinator]

11 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Well I'd take China off that list as they really aren't but that doesn't matter. Wasn't really the point, people are wanting a change because they are clearly dissatisfied with their representation i.e. they feel like they are not actually being represented. Direct Democracy is not the only option and moving away from being a Republic doesn't have to be the solution either.

 

It's the typical "It's the way it is and it can't be changed" issue, yes it can be changed as anything can be.

They are and they aren’t.  The issue with China is they have representatives but they aren’t elected they’re appointed for life.  This is why I said the communist party not China.  There’s an argument that China has citizens but they’re all party members and less than 1% of the total population.

So it’s not a representative democracy or any sort of democracy when looked at as a whole, but does incorporate democratic features.  The issue China has is the communist party is huge and China proper is bigger yet.  Swisss style (pure) democracy has problems scaling.

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, StDragon said:

 

If the US was a pure democracy, for example you would end up with a few coastal cities defining governance at the federal level for all other mainland states. That's why it's "United States" is that, independent states that are united under one republic. Practically speaking, you can't hold a nation together that large unless it's via totalitarianism (just as with China and the former Soviet Union). Even India is a democratic republic. No doubt about it, should China have any form of democracy in the modern sense, it could only pragmatically do so as a republic without fracturing the mainland into several independent nations. So putting into that perspective, to change the US into a pure democracy would lead to the fracturing of the mainland as separate sovereign nations. And, well...history has proven that didn't work out so well too. Hence, a compromise is found to "have your cake and eat it too" with regard to being both a large nation and having it as a form of democracy.

 

Note: And now you have some perspective as to why the US electoral college exists.

I think you missed the point, there are a hundred different flavors of Democracy and each one of those can have slightly different ratios of ingredients. The US is a Democracy, you wouldn't have a vote if that were not the case. Football is a Sport, there are many different sports, Football is not "the sport" or the only Sport and there are also different rule codes of Football.

 

I live in a Constitutional Monarchy, we are still a Democracy and we have a vote. Our electoral system is Mixed Member Proportional, when we vote we vote for the party we support and our local representative. There are 120 seats in our Parliament and 71 of those are directly elected by local electorate votes and the remainder are filled from the proportional vote towards the parties and the people that fill those seats are known as List MPs.

 

As for the US you could change your voting/electoral system to Plurality which Maine already has. With just that change it became untenable to run a campaign that focused on discrediting and attacking the other candidates because you are no longer dealing with First Past The Post Winner Take All anymore and you can make a continence/morals vote without "wasting it". Functionally it's different to our MMP but it still results in better representation and doesn't prop up the the entrenched two party dynamic where ideas do to die in the quest for appease everyone or rather nobody how it really turns out.

 

TL;DR The US is a Democracy, a Representative Democracy. Your form of Government is a Republic.

[leadeater]

17 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

They are and they aren’t.  The issue with China is they have representatives but they aren’t elected they’re appointed for life.  This is why I said the communist party not China.  There’s an argument that China has citizens but they’re all party members and less than 1% of the total population.

So it’s not a representative democracy or any sort of democracy when looked at as a whole, but does incorporate democratic features.  The issue China has is the communist party is huge and China proper is bigger yet.  Swisss style (pure) democracy has problems scaling.

See above post, like my first post literally was saying Direct Democracy doesn't have to the what people want or desire and I was pointing out there are other options. Not sure why you are replying again talking as if I was presenting a point towards a Direct Democracy.

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

See above post, like my first post literally was saying Direct Democracy doesn't have to the what people want or desire and I was pointing out there are other options. Not sure why you are replying again talking as if I was presenting a point towards a Direct Democracy.

A permutation of the way stuff gets displayed.  Your comment didn’t pop for me till just now.  I didn’t see it on my page.  Take it as an agreement with your statement.

[StDragon]

57 minutes ago, leadeater said:

As for the US you could change your voting/electoral system to Plurality which Maine already has. With just that change it became untenable to run a campaign that focused on discrediting and attacking the other candidates because you are no longer dealing with First Past The Post Winner Take All anymore and you can make a continence/morals vote without "wasting it".

FYI, for those not aware, he's speaking of Ranked-choice voting (RCV). AKA, Instant-Runoff voting (IRV)

[Bombastinator]

9 minutes ago, StDragon said:

FYI, for those not aware, he's speaking of Ranked-choice voting (RCV). AKA, Instant-Runoff voting (IRV)

The Maine thing is still a bit new.  I think people are waiting to see how it goes. Ranked choice voting has come up several times in my area.  The problem in the US is a lot of states latched onto bad desperation moves pulled during the Great Depression such as sheriff funding and have held onto them like grim death even though they’re stupendously expensive and cause immense misery because they make one person an absolutely absurdly large amount of money.