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

[Trik'Stari]

6 hours ago, ARikozuM said:

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.

 

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. 

If we had rule by mob, the entire nation would be ruled by the people in LA, NYC, etc. You think they give a damn, let alone have any idea, what is good for the people of anywhere else? To my understanding, most of them have nothing but disdain for what they call "flyover country".

 

Direct democracy would end up back in the exact same problem we have now, which is a bunch of people trying to legislate themselves into economic prosperity, which doesn't really work very well.

[Bombastinator]

3 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

If we had rule by mob, the entire nation would be ruled by the people in LA, NYC, etc. You think they give a damn, let alone have any idea, what is good for the people of anywhere else? To my understanding, most of them have nothing but disdain for what they call "flyover country".

 

Direct democracy would end up back in the exact same problem we have now, which is a bunch of people trying to legislate themselves into economic prosperity, which doesn't really work very well.

Direct democracy has several known problems.  With the exception of Switzerland, every country that ever used it collapsed.   With Greece it was oration which is sort of what is happening in the US. atm.

[ARikozuM]

35 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

If we had rule by mob, the entire nation would be ruled by the people in LA, NYC, etc. You think they give a damn, let alone have any idea, what is good for the people of anywhere else? To my understanding, most of them have nothing but disdain for what they call "flyover country".

 

Direct democracy would end up back in the exact same problem we have now, which is a bunch of people trying to legislate themselves into economic prosperity, which doesn't really work very well.

The economic powerhouses of this country end up having less say than some of the poorest like KY and least populous like IA.

[mr moose]

11 hours ago, Thaldor said:

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.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

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?

 

 

11 hours ago, Thaldor said:

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.

 

  Hide contents

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?

 

NO, the Australian law was written even more strictly.   And this law says nothing about encryption or weakening it.   The only thing this bill changes by way of law is that it sets up a commission to decide best practices,  it cannot enforce them as a law and the AG still has all the power he had before.   

[LAwLz]

7 minutes ago, mr moose said:

NO, the Australian law was written even more strictly.   And this law says nothing about encryption or weakening it.   The only thing this bill changes by way of law is that it sets up a commission to decide best practices,  it cannot enforce them as a law and the AG still has all the power he had before.   

It's a good thing we have you mr moose, who can understand the implications of this bill because you not only posses the technical knowledge required, but also the legal knowledge required to understand the system of another country.

All the other (real) lawyers, attorneys and cryptography scholars I have linked to throughout this thread are clearly misunderstanding the situation and only you know what this bill entails!

Just like with the Australian bill. It's a shame that everyone else in the world but you understands the ramifications of these bills being passed. Because it possibly can't be the other way around, no way! These non-profit organizations, scholars, civil liberty groups and companies who has dozens of lawyers all reading over these laws are surely getting it wrong or are just being paid off.

 

(sarcasm)

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, LAwLz said:

It's a good thing we have you mr moose, who can understand the implications of this bill because you not only posses the technical knowledge required, but also the legal knowledge required to understand the system of another country.

All the other (real) lawyers, attorneys and cryptography scholars I have linked to throughout this thread are clearly misunderstanding the situation and only you know what this bill entails!

Just like with the Australian bill. It's a shame that everyone else in the world but you understands the ramifications of these bills being passed.

This smells like sarcasm.  I’m not very good at sarcasm.

[LAwLz]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

This smells like sarcasm.  I’m not very good at sarcasm.

Added a small disclaimer at the end.

[mr moose]

10 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

It's a good thing we have you mr moose, who can understand the implications of this bill because you not only posses the technical knowledge required, but also the legal knowledge required to understand the system of another country.

All the other (real) lawyers, attorneys and cryptography scholars I have linked to throughout this thread are clearly misunderstanding the situation and only you know what this bill entails!

Try discussing the topic rather than me.

 

Quote

Just like with the Australian bill. It's a shame that everyone else in the world but you understands the ramifications of these bills being passed. Because it possibly can't be the other way around, no way! These non-profit organizations, scholars, civil liberty groups and companies who has dozens of lawyers all reading over these laws are surely getting it wrong or are just being paid off.

 

(sarcasm)

Again, the topic not me,  but just to clarify a point,  it seems so far that what I said about the bill has born out to be true, unlike the rest of "the world" who listens intently to lobbyists from a corporate perspective or media whip up. 

 

There is some very good information in this video about how people look for like minded people and information to adhere to,  it is what causes so much of the worlds problems.  If only when people stood back and looked at things critically you would consider that a good thing rather than retreat to echo chambers and pontificate their virtues as if it has any bearing on how the world turns.

 

 

 

 

[Trik'Stari]

54 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

The economic powerhouses of this country end up having less say than some of the poorest like KY and least populous like IA.

See below comment:

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

Direct democracy has several known problems.  With the exception of Switzerland, every country that ever used it collapsed.   With Greece it was oration which is sort of what is happening in the US. atm.

The tyranny of the mob is a well known issue. Mob mentality is quite good at getting humans to do stupid, dangerous, and cruel things.

[leadeater]

31 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

The economic powerhouses of this country end up having less say than some of the poorest like KY and least populous like IA.

Well in danger of being too political the whole point of States is self governance so it's probably more to do with issues around that than representation at the Federal level itself. What's good for one State isn't necessarily for another, not every issue needs to be addressed or solved at the Federal level which from an outsiders view seems to be the go to at the moment, which is a process/system designed on purpose to be as slow and painful as possible (not saying this is a bad thing).

 

In saying that something like the EARN IT Act is something I do see as being necessarily Federal not State, but as important as the topic area the Bill is target at (Child Exploitation, which is a thing) there are more pressing problems to be solved which will allow these other important Bills to be proposed and debated on in real productive ways.

 

Living in a country that historically has had high trust in the ruling Government/Political Party and the political process as a whole to me that is the most important thing to start addressing, nothing will ever work if the majority of the country has no faith and trust in the political systems and the elected representatives. Like the 50 year average Congressional approval rating is below 30%, 30%! It's been as low as 9%. As far as I see it nothing is more important than this because it's the foundation of the country and nothing can work without it.

[LAwLz]

28 minutes ago, mr moose said:

The only thing this bill changes by way of law is that it sets up a commission to decide best practices,  it cannot enforce them as a law and the AG still has all the power he had before.   

  Two things wrong with this statement.

1) This bill, in its current form, does state that a commission should be set up to propose "best practices". However, the bill also gives the AG veto power. Essentially, it allows the AG to tell the commission "you have to come up with new rules that companies should follow" and then if the commission comes up with something the AG doesn't like, the AG can just tell them to redo their work, again, and again, and again, until they come up with something the AG do like. Saying that it is up to a commission to decide best practices is technically true, but in practice false. It's like saying a country where only one person is running for president is a "democracy". Sure, the president was technically decided with a vote, but the election was rigged in a way where it was the only outcome and the people who voted couldn't do anything about it.

 

2) The "best practices" are not designed to be optional. A large portion of this bill enables the AG to fast-track the "best practices" into becoming obligatory laws.

Quote

Now, the bill contains a process for the recommended best practices, after approval by the Attorney General, to be put into a “covered bill” in Congress (which must contain all of the best practices, not only some of them) and fast-tracked to a vote in each house of Congress.

• Do not pass Go, do not collect $200, do not do all the usual things that would otherwise pose inconvenient democratic speed-bumps to the swift passage of a bad bill. A lot of the bill is devoted to spelling out exactly how the best practices will get to sidestep the usual Schoolhouse Rock stuff. The determination to get around normal congressional procedure is itself a huge red flag.

 

There is a very high likelihood that if this bill passes, the "best practices" which the AG puts forth will become laws. They will not be optional stuff like "hey, it would be nice if you did this". It will be "do these things or else we can literally put you in prison".

 

 

I think it's incredible how naive you are about this stuff. The amount of good faith you have in people who have outed themselves as pieces of shit is either commendable, or very sad.

Sorry for discussing you and not the bill earlier. But it's very hard to do that when you respond with basically "they are paid shills" whenever I post professionally done legal analysis of the bill. It honestly feels like talking to an anti-vaxxer who just calls all doctors paid shills for "big-pharma" or whatever.

Links to EFF? Nahh, they are paid shills.

Post links to Signal? Nahh, they are paid shills.

Post links to Standford? Nahh, they are paid shills.

 

Will you actually believer anyone who doesn't already agree with your opinion? I feel like you won't, and that you will pick a sentence or two out of the bill and then form your entire argument around that, despite there being a ton of things which might contradict it. That's what you did before with the Australian bill.

You: "Oh it says here it can't be used to create a system weakness so therefore it can't!"

Me: "Here are a wide variety of ways it can get around that and that specific sentence is very open for interpretation, which will be done by people with very little technical knowledge"

You: "Lalalala I can't hear you. I says it can't be used to create system weaknesses so therefore it can't! Lalalala"

[GDRRiley]

1 hour ago, Trik'Stari said:

If we had rule by mob, the entire nation would be ruled by the people in LA, NYC, etc. You think they give a damn, let alone have any idea, what is good for the people of anywhere else? To my understanding, most of them have nothing but disdain for what they call "flyover country".

I'm going to disagree. I live in the SF bay and I've got a vested interest in making the rest of the country better. I sell you fruits and veggies but I want cars and machine along with stuff that doesn't grow well here. Maybe some of that comes down to my family being all over the country and me having my toes economically in farming

 

It doesn't help my countrymen if everything is made in china. I'd rather put import taxes on countries with low labor wages to help this country. I want the entire country to have new and repaired infrastructure and communications , it puts millions to work and done right it becomes a cycle that helps us all. I'd love to bring back the marshal plan but it needs the right taxes at home to make it work.

[mr moose]

16 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

  Two things wrong with this statement.

1) This bill, in its current form, does state that a commission should be set up to propose "best practices". However, the bill also gives the AG veto power. Essentially, it allows the AG to tell the commission "you have to come up with new rules that companies should follow" and then if the commission comes up with something the AG doesn't like, the AG can just tell them to redo their work, again, and again, and again, until they come up with something the AG do like. Saying that it is up to a commission to decide best practices is technically true, but in practice false. It's like saying a country where only one person is running for president is a "democracy". Sure, the president was technically decided with a vote, but the election was rigged in a way where it was the only outcome and the people who voted couldn't do anything about it.

He always had that power.  That's how the US system seems to work.

Quote

2) The "best practices" are not designed to be optional. A large portion of this bill enables the AG to fast-track the "best practices" into becoming obligatory laws.

It specifically says they are optional.  The AG can not make something compulsory under law without the government making it a law.  This bill only allows the AG to dismiss the commissions recommendations or put them into place immediately. 

Quote

There is a very high likelihood that if this bill passes, the "best practices" which the AG puts forth will become laws. They will not be optional stuff like "hey, it would be nice if you did this". It will be "do these things or else we can literally put you in prison".

 

 

I think it's incredible how naive you are about this stuff. The amount of good faith you have in people who have outed themselves as pieces of shit is either commendable, or very sad.

How can they become "not optional"  when this bill does not make anything mandatory,  in order to make something mandatory (even under US law) there has to be a specific bill passed by parliament to that effect.  Otherwise they have all sorts of constitutional issues.

 

 

EDIT: and another point you have overlooked, is that any US politician can write a law and put it before the parliament to vote on.  This bill does not give any politician a new power they never had before. It simply requires the AG to put the commissions before the government before they can be accepted.  

[LAwLz]

11 minutes ago, mr moose said:

He always had that power.  That's how the US system seems to work.

It specifically says they are optional.  The AG can not make something compulsory under law without the government making it a law.  This bill only allows the AG to dismiss the commissions recommendations or put them into place immediately. 

How can they become "not optional"  when this bill does not make anything mandatory,  in order to make something mandatory (even under US law) there has to be a specific bill passed by parliament to that effect.  Otherwise they have all sorts of constitutional issues.

Again, I strongly recommend you actually read the links I have posted earlier and not just dismiss them as being "paid shills" or whatever reason you used to dismiss them.

This bill includes a way for the AG to fast track the best practices into becoming laws. It includes ways for the AG to bypass the regular democratic process typically used to pass laws in the US.

 

This bill gives the AG the power to put the best practices into a "covered bill", which can be fast-tracked to a vote in each house of congress. If it passes there, it becomes a law.

This bill's primary purpose is to make the AG able to bypass some of the regular democratic processes when trying to make best practices become laws. If you don't believe me, just read the bill for yourself. Look for "covered bill" and "fast track". Both of them are huge portions of the bill and their only purpose is to convert "best practices" into actual laws with as little of the democratic process as possible involved, hence why the major focus on fast tracking.

[StDragon]

IMHO, the real elephant in the room is this: Once mandatory back-doors becomes a thing (only a matter of time given the current legislative trajectory), how will that effect the tech industry as a whole? Do any of you think China, Russia, India, Iran, EU, and others won't mandate similar? They will. And, a framework will be developed to frame all future technological development around this paradigm of command-and-control access.

 

Just as California started the wave of improving automotive emissions (that state would be ranked #5 in GDP if it was its own nation) that rolled out to the rest of the world, all it would take is a "spark" in a powerful state to start the aforementioned cascading effect to all other major nations on the planet.

 

I fear this Orwellian spawn will soon be given an unholy birth.

[mr moose]

 

3 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Again, I strongly recommend you actually read the links I have posted earlier and not just dismiss them as being "paid shills" or whatever reason you used to dismiss them.

This bill includes a way for the AG to fast track the best practices into becoming laws. It includes ways for the AG to bypass the regular democratic process typically used to pass laws in the US.

 

This bill gives the AG the power to put the best practices into a "covered bill", which can be fast-tracked to a vote in each house of congress. If it passes there, it becomes a law.

See, highlighted bit.  It seems you are too keen to ignore the fact it has to go back to parliament to be voted on before anything can even be considered to be a law, let alone mandatory. 

 

If your entire parliament, upper and lower house, both vote in a bill that strips freedoms and is highly likely to be against their constitutions and they didn't bother reading it,  then the country has significant;y bigger problems than this.    You would in fact simply be fighting the symptoms and not the problem.

[ARikozuM]

1 hour ago, Trik'Stari said:

See below comment:

The tyranny of the mob is a well known issue. Mob mentality is quite good at getting humans to do stupid, dangerous, and cruel things.

Again, why does Iowa get a bigger say in the Electoral college than CA, FL, or NY? Why does KY? They shouldn't. They should fix themselves and their economies so their population increases to match and compete in GDP. As it stands these states have lower power than those states. Not only that, but they pay more taxes to the country than other states (FL being an exception). if its the federal election, it should be based on popular vote, not some goons in a suit that hold party over country. Same for this bill since it affects everyone. 

[CarlBar]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

Well in danger of being too political the whole point of States is self governance so it's probably more to do with issues around that than representation at the Federal level itself. What's good for one State isn't necessarily for another, not every issue needs to be addressed or solved at the Federal level which from an outsiders view seems to be the go to at the moment, which is a process/system designed on purpose to be as slow and painful as possible (not saying this is a bad thing).

 

In saying that something like the EARN IT Act is something I do see as being necessarily Federal not State, but as important as the topic area the Bill is target at (Child Exploitation, which is a thing) there are more pressing problems to be solved which will allow these other important Bills to be proposed and debated on in real productive ways.

 

Living in a country that historically has had high trust in the ruling Government/Political Party and the political process as a whole to me that is the most important thing to start addressing, nothing will ever work if the majority of the country has no faith and trust in the political systems and the elected representatives. Like the 50 year average Congressional approval rating is below 30%, 30%! It's been as low as 9%. As far as I see it nothing is more important than this because it's the foundation of the country and nothing can work without it.

 

Speaking as a outsider looking in the way the US is structured has always seemed extremly dumb, (even if i feel i've got a lot of handles on why that is). It comes across primarily as being designed to allow and even encourage tension and fighting amongst the individual states. WHich i'm pretty sure it is. The US Government did ultimately come out of two wars, the first against an overload they didn't want to allow to happen internally after independence and a civil war  where the fighting amongst states moved from a political to a military level. The entire system is designed to hold the greater nation state together whilst limiting the federal government power to ensure neither instance recurs. Unfortunately it's also produced a very divided political landscape and a lack of a singular national identity thats allways pulling at the seams.

[mr moose]

3 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

 

Unfortunately it's also produced a very divided political landscape and a lack of a singular national identity thats allways pulling at the seams.

What also doesn't help is today's instant access to information,  most of it is poor information as people can't differentiate between good and bad information at the beset of times.  Then combine this with absolute thinking, a problem where people think there is only 1 solution and that solution will only work if it is 100% effective with no adverse side effects.  Something that is entirely impossible.   So we have poor information, an inability to accept grey areas and compromises for the greater good and then we add a healthy dose of fear because politicians keep doing shonky stuff and what we have left is polarization and no room for healthy debate.

 

 

[CarlBar]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

 

See, highlighted bit.  It seems you are too keen to ignore the fact it has to go back to parliament to be voted on before anything can even be considered to be a law, let alone mandatory. 

 

If your entire parliament, upper and lower house, both vote in a bill that strips freedoms and is highly likely to be against their constitutions and they didn't bother reading it,  then the country has significant;y bigger problems than this.    You would in fact simply be fighting the symptoms and not the problem.

 

Your assuming that everything that gets passed through by this will be read an evaluated on before being voted on. Rubber Stamping is a thing even in non-corrupt democracies. I can't say weather or not it applies ehre, but i trust an american to know better than you ro me in the absence of evidence to the contrary.

[Trik'Stari]

36 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

Again, why does Iowa get a bigger say in the Electoral college than CA, FL, or NY? Why does KY? They shouldn't. They should fix themselves and their economies so their population increases to match and compete in GDP. As it stands these states have lower power than those states. Not only that, but they pay more taxes to the country than other states (FL being an exception). if its the federal election, it should be based on popular vote, not some goons in a suit that hold party over country. Same for this bill since it affects everyone. 

Because without that balancing force, they would end up getting nothing and NY, CA, FL, etc, would be in charge of everything because of their sheer overwhelming numbers. As for competing in GDP, that's simply not always possible due to location and demographics.

 

Our election system, at the federal level, IS based on popularity, just not total popularity. It's "The majority of people in the majority of places" not simply "the majority of people".

 

And again, it's because without that balance, the people in those areas with lower population (that ironically make our civilization possible because cities are NOT self sufficient by any means) would never have their voices heard.

 

I certainly don't want people from CA, NY, FL, etc. deciding national policy on anything that will effect my life. Especially when you take current events into account that I will not go into.

[mr moose]

3 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

 

Your assuming that everything that gets passed through by this will be read an evaluated on before being voted on. Rubber Stamping is a thing even in non-corrupt democracies. I can't say weather or not it applies ehre, but i trust an american to know better than you ro me in the absence of evidence to the contrary.

It's not an assumption, it's a statement, if any government passes a bill into law without reading it then you have much bigger problems than the one being posed.

[CarlBar]

Just now, Trik'Stari said:

And again, it's because without that balance, the people in those areas with lower population (that ironically make our civilization possible because cities are NOT self sufficient by any means) would never have their voices heard.

 

Whilst i don't exactly agree with it, (i don't fully agree with you either), i think his point is: if their a minority of the population why should they get a high level of representation. The fact that they're a minority means they're inherently less important than the majority and should have proportionally less power in response.

 

I don't wholly agree with you that they should get equal representation, but i also agree it's not acceptable to let them dictate too heavily to the majority eithier. it's a balancing act.

 

 

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

It's not an assumption, it's a statement, if any government passes a bill into law without reading it then you have much bigger problems than the one being posed.

 

And yet it happens. You, (or me for that matter), can decry practises we think shouldn't exist, but when evaluating the impact of a new law or whatever we have to do it in the context of the system as it actually functions in the real world, not as we think it should function.

[mr moose]

20 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

 

And yet it happens. You, (or me for that matter), can decry practises we think shouldn't exist, but when evaluating the impact of a new law or whatever we have to do it in the context of the system as it actually functions in the real world, not as we think it should function.

 

So people are going to relentlessly fight the symptoms (many of which are beyond there ability to change) because the current system (which is also beyond their ability to change) is broken. 

 

All I see know is more absolutism in an effort to justify or denounce issues that are the result of absolutism.  

[Trik'Stari]

20 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

 

Whilst i don't exactly agree with it, (i don't fully agree with you either), i think his point is: if their a minority of the population why should they get a high level of representation. The fact that they're a minority means they're inherently less important than the majority and should have proportionally less power in response.

 

I don't wholly agree with you that they should get equal representation, but i also agree it's not acceptable to let them dictate too heavily to the majority eithier. it's a balancing act.

 

 

 

And yet it happens. You, (or me for that matter), can decry practises we think shouldn't exist, but when evaluating the impact of a new law or whatever we have to do it in the context of the system as it actually functions in the real world, not as we think it should function.

A single, simple truth:

 

Just because you're in the majority, doesn't make you right. It doesn't even make you more important.

 

I'm not going to pay money into a government that isn't going to hear my voice because they think I'm less important, because there are more people living in CA. At that point I'm just going to advocate for secession.

 

As it stands, evidence would seem to show that the more populated areas of the nation should have less say in the federal system, because they can't even manage their local governments properly.