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HR 46: Wiretapping, Forfeiture, Crypto Penalties
Thank you, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Ut.). You've taken the inoffensive "Public Safety Medal of Valor" bill and quietly tacked on an amendment that does oh-so-much more. Wiretapping to record email and phone conversations of people suspected of computer crime (who needs that
Fourth Amendment
anyway?). Forfeiture (before you are convicted or even charged) of "devices used in ... intellectual property theft." And extra penalties for using crypto, nice way to stigmatize an entire industry there.
Dave Kopel's analysis
is at Cryptome, along with the bill text, etc.
Of course IANAL, but if it's anything like the kinds of federal laws used to deal with crimes involving firearms (jaywalking = ticket; jaywalking with permit to carry and gun in hand = 30 years jail time), yup, you're screwed.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
He simply stated precedent.
Somehow you made a giant leap to misquote him as wanting more gov't involvement????
Get a grip!
- Toby
As a former resident, alumnus of the UofU, and "Pie" cook (a lowly life form around there)
I remember how we used to delimit the population...
Utahn- a resident who agrees to see that there is life beyond the "Zion Curtain", and can hold even the merest discussion without slamming people for religion.
Utard- Those that think that there is nothing more to life than their own "piece" of the state Be that it be Delta,Moab,Happy Valley,Cottonwood Canyon, Park City (even though that is Colorado:) ), or the exiled Utah city of Pocatello
BTW this hold true for anyone in anystate... Just Utah was one of the easiest examples of this. But I now see it very prevelant in Upstate NY as well As Other places I've lived
*waiting for the flames*
-- Life: Hate the Game... Love the cereal
Ummm... I may be mistaken, but I believe the translation of his comment is more appropriately:
"Makes you want to throw up, more than ever"
rather than
"Makes you want a Ralph Nader as President, more than ever".
Ralph is a slang term for upchuck, puke, throw up. The inappropriate capitalization may have thrown you.
We are the Music Makers, and We are the Dreamers of Dreams...
This sounds awfully unconstitutional to me, or at least worthy of a contest in court.
Anyone want to be the test case? Don't all raise your hands at once.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
This is the kind of $100,000,000 boondoggle that gives politicians the reputation they so richly deserve.
Take a bill about "A." Tack on things that have absolutely NOTHING to do with "A." (Which IMHO should be illegal.)
Bury a provision which will have every wage earning American paying $3 for the privilege of having somebody trample over their feet. And "voila," political contributors from the security equipemnt community will be amply rewarded for something that is unmonitored (and isn't going to happen since that costs money and the idea here is PROFIT!)
Why not start with a bill called the "Widows and Orphans" protection bill and tack on legalization for recreational pharmacopea, enforced under-age sex and very high-stakes gambling (televised Russian Roulette ["a la" Deer Hunter.]) Then lambaste anyone who dares vote against protection of widows and orphans.
The only thing that stops me from going out into the streets right now is that I'm secure in the knowledge that the collection mechanisms are already in place, the analysis equipment is already in place but the software lags way behind in capability and that I'm a Canadian and I can laugh at the Americans for screwing themselves with this utter stupidity.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I think it is safe to make the claim that we are not exactly a republic. We are most of the time, but strong enough public opinion turns this into a tyranny of the democracy. Just look at the quasi-concentration camps that were instituted to hold Japanese Americans during WWII. Are you going to tell me that wasn't intruding on the rights of the individual for the sake of the majority? This is a tyranny of the democracy where most people vote to keep other's rights from being trampled(most of the time). This is close, but not completely, a republic.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
sophisticated and intricate scheme
Gee, that's vague. I wonder if this bill contains any definitions for the words "sophisticated" and "intricate" so as to make that description meaningful.
Nah. That way, they can simply twist the words to mean anything they want!
--
Don't fool yourself, NONE of the candidates understand encryption. Nader perhaps came close, though.
Finkployd
But as it is, the legislative branch has too much power.
"Let's make EVERY law unconstitutional. At least some will get through" Yes, it's an exaggeration , but how far is that from the truth?
I mean, guns are (mostly) legal, but lots of states have laws that add penalties to offenses commited with a gun. I don't see why treating crypto the same way is a big deal.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
The problem is that, in reality unless you want to be a politician you won't run for any elective offices. The money isn't THAT great and for people like us, being out of the loop for 6 years would destroy our careers. If by some reason you were elected, would you want to try and cram 6 years of tech. changes into a few weeks after leaving offic ??
UPS Sucks
"People are dumb"
That is too general. I think that *you* get too much information from TV. The people that I interact with and have otherwise met in public are intelligent people. If this is not true for you, were in the heck do you live?
People shown on Cops, The worlds Scariest Police Chases, etc. are morons... I'll give you that one!
It is more of a personal belief than a proven fact... But there are poeple (like myself) in this world that believe that the mass of people are a result of thier time and place in society. Some will always run counter to the common belief often seen as wacko's, then later as visionaries.
To put it more specifically; People who are raised by the "glass-fronted box" will tend not to think for themselves. Just as people raised in the "dark ages" tended to let the church think for them.
But within a complete cycle of history a group of people are raised that break out of these confines and DO think for themsleves. This is called a revolution.
The point is, that once life dictated by a glass-fronted box becomes SO absurd and intolerable people are forced to think and enough of them break from the norm that the true sheep find a new flock to follow as well - and then you have a revolution.
From an historical perspective, we must not be living in too bad of a time... Only a small fraction of the populace actually believes there is a real (single) problem... The threashold has not been reached.
However, a different version was passed in the Senate, which would mean that it has to get sent back (House & Senate must pass identical versions of the bill) to the House
It seems to me that Congress could use some version control. CVS anyone?
While we're at it, we should require certain types of laws, ie ones that stomp on our constitution, to garner a 2/3 vote in both the house and senate instead of just a majority.
That implies that they should have the right to attempt to pass laws that stop on the constitution. I say that is treason punishable by death (or at least a good noogie)
Finkployd
Well, there is quite a difference between government acting as a law enforcement agency, and government providing services to its people. My privacy is not invaded when the government builds a subway so I can get to work easily. My privacy isn't invaded when laws protecting my safety at my workplace are enacted. Ralph Nader sees these as duties of a humane and responsable government. So do I. Ralph Nader is a large privacy advocate, and without doubt, would be against such things as expressed in this bill.
I have a hard time seeing how libritarians can think that any government interaction is bad, and it should all be reduced to zero. There are good reasons for the government to have social programs, especially for those things that the "free market" has shown it cannot consistently provide. Who do you think paid for rural electrification? Who was the first to do free rural delivery of mail? (Even though it WAS at the bidding of mail-order companies) The government does good things, and should be steered in that direction. Shrinking it as libritarians would like will only cause disaster.
Of course there are PACs that simply represent the interests of an industry, which have an agenda of their own - but they have no votes to offer, just money. Grassroots activism counts for a lot more than money.
-- Jeff Paulsen
don't take this the wrong way please but are you freaking insane. You've just proven something that I have serious issue with on a majority of slashdot users.
To quote: "Makes you wanna Ralph, more than ever!"
You list a paragraph about how much you don't trust government authorities and yet you say that this should make us want someone who wants the government to have MORE power, almost to the point of socialism. How can you reconsile this in any rational thought process?
This bothers me more and more is that people wanted Ralph Nader for his consumer support background (which I am ALL in favor) and yet never bothered to read the Socialist manifesto that was the Green Party platform.
We don't need a bigger government we need a constitutional government that doesn't step over it's bounds. The government should protect us from the things that we cannot do ourselves (fight big business, foreign powers) and set laws that are within thier power as defined by the constituion. Everything else should pass to the states. And yet you people still call for the Green party and Nader under a platform that would pass EVERYTHING to the government to decide.
It just blows my mind!
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
This is done in Canada too. And since Trudeau was our prime minister, we've tended to have just one person in charge of everything; namely, the prime minister. We don't have the same checks and balances in our system that Americans do.
However, because we have so few checks and balances, people tend to be more interested in what actually goes on, because it's up to the people to respond if their politicians do something they don't like.
Additionally, our bills are required to be read three times in the house of commons before they can be passed. From some of the comments I've been reading, I'm assuming that this doesn't happen in the US..?
"... they should pass something that says any rider tacked on must be related to the main bill."
I agree, and went so far as to put that question to our (MO's) outgoing senator Ashcroft before the election this fall. He claimed that, at least in the Senate, there were rules preventing such actions as you describe, yet we seem to witness them frequently.
I have no real way of determining the truth of his claim, but I suspect it was total BS. Or at least the rules may be so haphazardly enforced that they are meaningless.
It seems to be an easy way to poison a bill which can then be voted for by the congressperson without any real danger of it getting signed. Then they can say "I voted for Motherhood but that do-nothing president wouldn't sign it." What they never tell is that at the last minute Motherhood was shackled to an ex-Nazi.
I dunno about (1, Funny), I'd have given him (1, Insightful).
This is steganography. Who could oppose the Public Safety Medal of Honor bill? ("No pr0n here, officer, I just have 6 gigabytes of uncompressed .BMPs of clouds! I like clouds! So big fluffy and random!")
And unlike what they propose to do with our stego, their stego is legal.
RIAA did it with the "work for hire" provisions, now it's the FBI's turn to do it.
If you propose a law or amendment that is later deemed unconstitutional, it is an impeachable offense, and bars you from holding public office again.
Problem is who handles the impeachment. It's not as if impeaching President Clinton actually ment anything too.
Anyway simply being barred from public office is a mild punishment for high treason.
Too bad they killed Presidential Line Item Veto, although I seriously doubt that Clinton would've done a thing on this one...
Say goodbye to your rights, kids. It's gonna be a new Dark Ages for those of us here in the States....
sig not found
Icebox
Oh wait, there is. It's called The Constitution. pity no one in the legislature is aware of it, seemingly...
---
The problem with the Constituitional Convention is that the Framers did not foresee the rise of National Political Parties. Basically, Republicrats and Democans control the Federal and State Legislatures. Do you think that either party would allow a Call for a Constitutional Convention to pass a plurality/majority/super-majority of State Legislatures?
I'll go on a limb and say that the next Amendment won't pass for another 200 years.
Cheers,
Slak
This is my favorite part (edited by me)
Any person "whose conduct" "caused (or, in the case of an attempted offense, would, if completed, have caused)" "the modification or impairment, or potential modification or impairment, of the medical examination, diagnosis, treatment, or care of 1 or more individuals" is punishable.
Which means that if you modify or attempt to modify any code or equipment used in medical applications, you can be punished. Even if your modifications don't do anything!
What I wonder is whether they could use this to prosecute a programmer who inadvertantly creates a bug in some medical program. Would that person be criminally prosecuted for making that mistake, even if it did not kill anyone?
Ummm, Jon, aren't you supposed to be dead...? - Otter(3800)
*sleighbells* HO HO HO, Merry Xmas... What with these jokers? I think its about time we start the beatings. How many more rights do I need taken away? Let's wiretap jackos house there and broadcast it on the net :) I'm sure he would like that as much as I would.
Next they're gonna prohibit me from wiping my own butt.
ps. Don't forget the milk n cookies.
Some people (including the Supreme Court) say the US constitution makes it illegal to ban abortions. Many (most?) constitutional scholars wouldn't agree with that interpretation.
Another example would be the recent liberal Violence Against Women Act which attempted to make rape a federal crime based on the interstate commerce clause of the constitution. I'm sure most people don't see rape (even though it's a terrible crime) as an issue that interferes with interstate commerce. The Supreme Court did not think so either.
What was strange about the Court's ruling was that the Supreme Court interpreted this interstate commerce clause totally differently than it had done since the New Deal. So those congressmen that proposed the Act had no way of knowing that the Supreme Court would strike it down.
Would you really want to bar those congressmen from holding public office just because of this misstep?
But guess who will be president when this bill will probably come across the desk looking for a signature? You guessed it...someone who probably doesn't understand much about encryption anyways.
This sounds awfully unconstitutional to me, or at least worthy of a contest in court.
All this forfeiture stuff is fallout from the drug war. That's where seizure of property without due process was pioneered. Once they got by with it there, the precedent was set. The corruption of law enforecement is inevitable because there is little accountability. It does no good to say forfeiture in the name of fighting drug traffic is OK but forfeiture to stop suspected intellectual property theft is not OK. This is another of the many reasons why the drug war is evil. It is corrupting our government at all levels.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Kopel's National Review article on the same subject.
The Independence Institute -- Kopel's organization. Note that the link on this page has the following quote regarding the bill:
Note: the bill's sponsors have recently agreed to remove all objectionable items, except for the encryption provision
The real DunkPonch is user 215121. Everyone else is Bruce Perens.
But you neglect to mention the OTHER ruling!
Yes, 7-2 that the recount rules were insufficient. I agree!
But, 5-4 that the recount could CONTINUE. The SCOTUS should have sent it back to FLA to and have them define the precise recount methods (and, IMO, they should have NOT counted dimples/preggers/etc, just stick to hanging chads and clear votes-and Gore STILL would have won).
The SCOTUS showed their partisanship by not allowing Florida to come up with recount procedures and try to finish. They likley wouldn't have, and the legislature would have picked their own electors, and the resuts would have been the same.
BUT the SCOTUS should NOT have prevented Florida from doing the recountvia revised/agreed rules. In doing so, they played politics, not judges.
....finally to the spectacle of the "states rights" party applauding the Supremes' federal coup halting the recount because, in words that will haunt Scalia forever, a recount might cast "a cloud upon what [Bush] claims to be the legitimacy of his election." Think about that. In other words, if Gore ended up with more votes, a cloud would be cast on Bush's claims.
--Roger Ebert
Kinda like Moe, but just a little more Kool
Here's what I'm going to do:
Encrypt a copy of the Constitution, store on my hard drive. Just for the sheer, delicious irony when I turn over the encryption key for it.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
Honestly...
Candiates vie for office. The outcome is in doubt, so they go to court for recounts. The courts deny that. Loser concedes. Winner gets stuck with the job.
All *exactly* as it was supposed to happen. If you don't like it, rally for electoral reform... but *whatever* you do, don't call it an undemocratic coup.
The coup we just had was *very* democratic, just like the ones we've had six and eight years ago--oh, and that first one 224 years ago last summer.
It seems to me that Government is legislating for the lowest posible IQ. They are stating that if your stupid and don't know anything about computers, you have nothing to worry about. That makes many in police (read FBI), military and government feel that they can better control the country. They care not for innovation, nor technology. For them, tech pecked at a really good TV set. They see anybody with the understanding of computer as a threat and want to deal with them as such. However, the more laws they make, its the enforcement that is going to be the real bitch. Once they have the power, they will abuse it. Wow, I bumming myself out. I wonder how much longer we are going to go before we have a revolution of thought that changes things. Remember, never get between a corporation and a government. The are the goliaths(sp?) that should check each other (too bad we don't have someone to champion us). :P
Club me like a baby Seal.
Congress says they tack things on to cut down on the amount of meetings they have to have about bills...so what.
Part of the task of a legislative assembly in a democracy is to ensure that laws passed are necessary and subject to critical examination. In the case of somwhere with a written constitution part of the latter should be comparativly easy.
I.e if there is any question about the consitutional standing of a bill or rider then throw it out, which would in itself cut down the amount of time wasted.
Sounds not dissimilar to the problems with the US patent office. Passing things as a default when the default should be to reject.
I love how this Slashdot article begins with a reference to this being Senator Hatch's doing. He was one co-sponsoror of the bill, not even the primary sponsoror. Also note that Senator Robb is a Virginia Democrat, so don't pass this one off on the Republicans. Slashdot needs to stop putting in irresponsible comments like this.
The staffer that I talked to was a very nice fellow, and he did say that it's possible that it might have been slipped into one of the big omnibus appropriations bills, but HR 46 did not go through on its own.
--
Forward, retransmit, or republish anything I say here. Just don't misquote me.
You said:
The real estate situation around DC can't be that bad, so I figure you ought to do nicely on $2,000 a month.
Yes, it's that bad. I think it reasonable to allow for a one-bedroom apartment in a non-deluxe building in the District of Columbia. Such an apartment will go for about $1200 to $2400 a month.
This from someone who just moved to Montgomery County MD because I couldn't afford to stay in the District even though I wanted to.
This page accidentally left blank
Well, first of all, I disagree about the so-called 'partisanship' of the US Supreme Court Justices who threw out the Florida Supreme Court's plan for a recount. That ruling was 7-2, crossing these imagined 'party lines'. -That- is partisanship. The ruling, in a nutshell, said that a recount without rules (which is what the David Boise said he wanted) would lead to 'unequal treatment' of the votes.
Still don't get what I'm saying? Let's say you and I are sitting down at the recount table. We haven't been told -how- to count all these 'undervotes'. My 'personal judgement' is gonna be different from yours. Even if we're the two wisest, most honest people on earth, there's no telling that we're gonna both come to the same conclusions from this dented piece of paper.
As for the Justice chairs Bush has to fill... well, all he's said is that he wants Justices who'll stick to what's in the Constitution and what's on the lawbooks. Fine by me. You want to rewrite the law, you go to Congress, not Court. That's the way it's supposed to be. The Judicial is supposed to be non-activist branch of government.
---
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
Civil forfeiture is nothing new. It really came into it's own under the Reagan administration with the War on Drugs in the 80's. In the 90's under the Clinton administration the new ground was broken in the War on Guns.
Why is it that my fellow geeks only care about this type of thing when it's knocking at their own front door? This type of thing threatens all of our freedom. Whether or not you're a terrorist, mafioso, child pornographer, or any of the other assorted nasties that are thrown up to gain public acceptance this will not stop at just the "Bad Guys".
I don't use crypto very much. A little SSH for secure terminal sessions and SSL because I want to learn about it, I even have a PGP public key somewhere around here for emergencies, but I think that we should be able to use crypto with no fear of persecution for it. If I want to send my girlfriend a sweet sappy love letter, I don't think that it's unreasonable to not want an FBI, NSA or even ISP snoop reading over it to see if it's an acceptable communication.
For the "If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear." crowd, how long before it's YOU on the list of people engaged in unpopular activities? When will your model rocket hobby get you looked at because you *could* secretly be making missiles to carry Ricin or Anthrax? When will your reading habits come into question? Were you reading that book about Wicca because you're interested in pagan religions, or because you're planning a child sacrifice?(I know wiccans don't do that sort of thing, but the general public can be whipped up into a frenzy about anything. http://wm3.org)
When will your chemistry hobby make you a potential mad bomber? Will playing a *little too much* minesweeper make you a fanatic about ordnance disposal?
Sound far fetched? 100 years ago who would have believed that the Russians and Chinese would have killed upwards of 40 million of their own people?
20 years ago who would have believed that a sitting president would have been caught, impeached and tried for perjury? 10 years ago who would have believed that the most famous ex-football player ever would have been on trial for double murder?
Take a stand. Take it now. Or don't bitch when they come after you.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
But as it is, the legislative branch has too much power
That is how the original framers of the consititution wanted it. If you have to have a power distribution, you want the group that gets elected "directly" buy the people to have the power.
~Sean
Stupid me... I preview and preview, and still typo. D'oh.
-That- is partisanship -> That is -not- partisanship.
---
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
The better technology gets the more it frees us, yet at the same time allows governments to monitor people better!
Back in the mail days no government could ever read your mail (unless they knew who you were) cause it was logistically impossible to look through every letter looking for certain phrases. Today you can send the same message 10000% times faster yet you lose the security aforded by snail mail. Weird!
The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him. --Robert Benchley
What Congress is supposed to do is this: ... to
regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with
the Indian Tribes."
"Congress shall have power
Congress is only supposed to govern on the issues included in the above clause, so it doesn't matter whether rape is against the constitution if it isn't somehow related to foreign nations, interstate commerce or Indian Tribes. So of course Congress tried to make it look like rape interferes with interstate commerce.
Btw., all the states already have some laws against rape, so the 14th amendment didn't matter in this case at all. Congress just wanted it possible to sue the alleged raper in federal court.
The ruling, in a nutshell, said that a recount without rules (which is what the David Boise said he wanted) would lead to 'unequal treatment' of the votes.
Which is complete hogwash, of course. The votes are already treated unequally. They're cast and counted as each district decides to do. Some are hand-counted from the start. Some are impossible to recount due to the method of voting used. Why should recounts be any different? There were representatives from both parties present at each counting table. They only counted votes they could agree on, those where the intent was clear. Even the manufacturer of the vote-counting machines in a lot of the districts agreed that a recount was the best way to get a conclusive answer as to who the people elected. The margin of error of the machines was much greater than the lead that Bush had. We should have had a recount of all counties where a recount was possible. Excluding those that did hand counts from the start, those that used machines that don't allow for a recount, and possibly those that used optically read ballots with a very tiny margin of error, if that was agreeable to both sides. It should have been done this way from the start.
Even if we're the two wisest, most honest people on earth, there's no telling that we're gonna both come to the same conclusions from this dented piece of paper.
They managed to count many ballots by hand. Yes, they didn't agree on all of them, but quite often there was a clear intent discernable from looking at the ballot. Intent which even the opposing party would not deny. In the end, you end up with more votes counted and included than you get with machines.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Have you ever worked in retail? Especially at Christmas time? How about answering phones? It might be just that the idiots stand out in the noise, but there seemed to be a lot more idiots than intelligent people when I did these things.
When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. Count me in.
Moving at the speed of government.
Do away with elections. Conscript congress and the senate, for a single term only, by picking names out of the phone book. And a lot of this bull-{expletive deleted] disappears.
The power lusting don't have to raise hundreds of millions of dollars running for election because there are NO elections. Its a crap-shoot instead of a $100,000,000 a year game that comes out of YOUR pockets.
The greedy can't curry favors because, there's no way they can know who's going in and since they only last one term, there are no "relationships" that evolve with the usual tit-for-tat, quid-pro-quo, "you fill my coffers and I'll fill yours."
Imagine, the past month, and the year long run up to it, would never have occurred.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
it is important that people realize that there is a difference between a crime and the tools used in a crime. there are many rights granted by the constitution that are being taken away by legislation under the guise of protecting the people. fundamental rights like speech, right to bear arms, etc are being blamed for problems that already have applicable laws.
the readers should take note of this and see how it applies to them. sure you say:
"i dont need guns so make them illegal" or "i dont use computers in libraries, so the filter software doesn't bother me"....
what you dont understand is that if your rights are taken away slowly then you are less likely to notice. the next right to be taken may be speech-then it's too late to complain.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
Actually, 1a would probably have more Constitutional hot water because it would disenfranchise an elected offical. One itself would be a clearly procedural requirement that to a degree is in place. If you watch sufficient C-SPAN a common use of the unanimous consent discussed above is to waive second and third (and later) readings of bills and amendments.
Two is not only Constitutional but common. The Independent Council Law is dead because it had a built in time limit after which it had to be reauthorized. It was at least once in the past (in the early 90s) but when it came up last year it was not reauthorized.
The Voting Rights Act is another law that comes up for routine reauthorization (for those who wonder why, the VRA does not ensure votes but contains specific provisions aimed at practices in the South during the Jim Crow era and theoretically will end when all risk of those practices ends as well).
Herb
Herb
Again, feel free to sentence me to death if my questions annoy you. I'll come back in 5 minutes anyway. -Sythi
This sort of thing is not new; I am, frankly, surprised that there isn't more of an outcry for federal single subject rules. I guess the people who work the system for a living don't want it to change.
You've hit the point right there, I think. I've been wondering out loud for some time now whether or not I have the answer for that last problem -- the fact that half of our biggest institutional problems will never be solved because it negatively affects those in power.
If memory serves, a constitutional amendment requires 2/3 majority of both houses, but does not require presidential signature. Then, it requires 3/4 of the states to approve it. So, by design, getting an amendment passed and ratified is very difficult, especially if it affects congress in any way. (quick trivia quiz -- what's the last amendment to be added to the US constitution? One restricting congressional pay-raises to take effect the following term. How'd that get passed? It was part of the original bill of rights, but took over 200 years to get ratified. Most modern amendments include "drop dead" language if not ratified in some short number of years).
However, there is still hope (and here's where my memory may be failing). A majority of states may vote for a Constitutional Convention, in which amendments may be proposed, voted on, and (immediately, I think) ratified.
I have yet to hear anyone of any authority or voice advocate such a move, so I may be way off on this one. But it seems to me that this would be a fantastic avenue for issues with broad public support but little chance of congressional action, for example, Campaign Finance, Line-Item Veto, Same-Subject Legislation, or Term Limits. Unfortunately, it could also be a fast track for less constitutionally-appropriate, but popular, "hot button" issues like Internet Porn or Flag Burning.
Maybe this warrants a /. discussion in and of itself? Maybe (in a broader sense) /. needs a "Politics" section (or a sister "PolDot" site)? I'm really curious to hear others' thoughts on this one...
david.
I think Congress(wo)men could be volunteers and would still be corrupted and wealthy. I don't think any of them are getting rich on their salary, it's all the "favors" from lobbyists.
Kopel says, "H.R. 46 would expand federal forfeiture law to include various computer crimes, and allow the forfeiture of any personal property used "to commit or to facilitate the commission of such violation." So the federal government could seize every computer you own, before you have even been charged -- let alone convicted -- of a computer crime."
Yet, the amendment itself reads, "The court, in imposing sentence on any person convicted of a violation of this section, shall order, in addition to any other sentence imposed and irrespective of any provision of State law, that such person forfeit to the United States-..."
I have yet to see a sentence passed by the court before a conviction, much less before charges have been filed. Given such a blatant mistake, I'm less than willing to accept any claims he makes about what this bill says.
By the name of this bill (HR 46), this means that the bill ready for consideration within the House of Representatives. Given that the "Christmas break" is almost upon us, it is very possible that our congressional representatives may never see an e-mail before a vote takes place.
But that doesn't mean it will become law.
Any bill going though Congress needs to ultimately end up on the President's desk. You can contact him here.
You fail to realize that if I send sensitive information using your recommendation of weak crypto it can easily be captured and stored for several years, at virtually no cost. Once 'computing power increases' to the point where we would need to 'raise it' (key length) my old transmissions could be easily broken.
Many things, like the particular credit card number I had at the time, might not be at all useful but many other things, like the fact that I cheated on my taxes, might be.
Icebox
Search for medal of valor here.
It's the last link, as far as I can tell.
I don't see how section 308 is as bad as Dave Koppel feared? Am I misreading, or reading the wrong text?
It doesn't mention wiretapping, and where it does mention encryption:
(c) AMENDMENT OF SENTENCING GUIDELINES RELATING TO USE OF ENCRYPTION- Pursuant to its authority under section 994(p) of title 28, United States Code, the United States Sentencing Commission shall amend the Federal sentencing guidelines and, if appropriate, shall promulgate guidelines or policy statements or amend existing policy statements to ensure that the guidelines provide sufficiently stringent penalties to deter and punish persons who intentionally use encryption in connection with the commission or concealment of criminal acts sentenced under the guidelines.
It would seem that encryption used intentionally by criminals to hide the crime would have to face 'sufficiently stringent penalties'
Would this then only apply to those who have been accused *and* determined to be guilty of criminal acts 'sentanced under the guidelines'?
His fear of wiretapping comes from S2448RS, senate, not house...
Search for "wire, oral, and electronic communications", here.
It's section 8, under authority to...
However, there is no related section or subsection under HR46...
So the only problem I can tell is under HR46 section 304 clause (2)
(2) The criminal forfeiture of property under this subsection, any seizure and disposition thereof, and any administrative or judicial proceeding relating thereto, shall be governed by the provisions of section 413 of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 (21 U.S.C. 853), except subsection (d) of that section.'
Are there reasons to suspect this clause? It seems out of place, in a computer crime action...
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
"But, officer, I sent it using PGP. I only have her public key."
"I don't care if you sent it by pony express with the keys to the city, son. You're going to decrypt that right now."
Choose your own adventureTM!
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
Write your Senators and Representatives, people. Call them. Fax them. Remember, they work FOR YOU. Not the other way around.
No they don't. They work for themselves. Hence their repeated attacks against term limits. We only elect the people that we think will benefit us the most in the course of helping themselves.
Unanimous Consent does mean what the article implies it means. I've served as the parliamentarian for several local student organzations and have actually read Robert's Rules of Order.
Unanimous consent is typically used for minor matters in which do not need a recorded vote. For example to aprove the minutes of a meeting. The way it typically works is that if a call for unanimous consent is made and no one objects within a few seconds then the motion is considered to have passed.
All the Unanimous Consent statement is doing in this case is allowing the Senate to take the bill up from comitte and consider it. It puts no stipulations on the rest of the procedings for the bill, all it has to do is pass by a simple majority like any other.
"You can't fight in here! This is the war room" --Dr. Stra
It's not illegal if you can justify it and relate it to work. Just make sure all your lunches and dinners are "business lunches or dinners." Travel is paid for. Probably even the cost of an apartment in D.C. since it's job-related. Maybe stay in a hotel the whole time. Might get a good rate, and they have maid and laundry service.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Perhaps a more reasonable remedy would be to require representatives to reimburse taxpayers for any government money (wages, travel expenses, etc.) that is spent while writing and/or lobbying for a bill that is later deemed unconstitutional.
MSK
Well the world survied for millenia without obtrusive media telling everyone to act...and I highly doubt ugh the caveman, or even a colonial farmsteader, was on average smarter than the people of today (if anything at least better nutrition should count for something). Moreover, it is in no way clear that there would be less media in a libertarian society.
But you are right in that libertarianism is far to ideal. Human beings are complicated creatures created by the random process of evolution to survive well in a hunting gathering enviornment...it would be a conicedence of unimaginable proportions to find out that the ideal form of government for these creatures is simply defined as that government which maximizes individual rights.
The truth is that a libertarian society could never correctly deal with a great deal of public goods. For instance national defense. In only the most idealized view of human nature would everyone in the United States contribute fairly to the common defense. What would actually happen is that people would (perhaps believing in that self deulded way they were contributing their fair share) gradually give less and less to the common defense and many people would give nothing at all.
It is however impossible to support differential milatary protection for differnt houses. Imagine the government protecting Jim's house from the Soviets but because Bob is behind on his contributions letting the tanks take that house.
Similar arguments apply for police protection (it is primarily deterant based not response based) and welfare (I know I fell happier if ppl aren't dying in the streets but would be just as happy if someone else was paying for it).
In short libertarinism is a nice idea but the laws of physics and human nature are staked against it.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
"You list a paragraph about how much you don't trust government authorities and yet you say that this should make us want someone who wants the government to have MORE power, almost to the point of socialism
Sorry, but 1/ The government is not really an entity. I distrust individual politicos, particularly the Washington breed. I distrust the Ottawa crowd significantly less. I _really_ distrust the FBI - those I've encountered are right wing and rightious. The RCMP types have been a little to the right (typical of cops in most places), but generally I wouldn't worry about them breaking into my place to plant keyboard taps.; and 2/ The govenrment (US) already has and uses these powers on a regular basis. You're quite delusional if you fail to recognize this. Mantra spouting card carrying members of either party (D/R) scare me ... people have brains, D/R types use theirs only to forward their narrow agenda, and fail to consider the welfare of the greater number.
The people that I interact with and have otherwise met in public are intelligent people.
/everybody/ is guilty of this. Me, you, the pope.
-maz
People are not intelligent, people are dumb. A person is intelligent. Once you added more persons into the mix things happen. And yes
<happiness>beer</happiness>
Another example would be the recent liberal Violence Against Women Act which attempted to make rape a federal crime based on the interstate commerce clause of the constitution.
A "Violence Against " law violates the 14th ammendment anyway. Not withstanding that the US has fought a war of independance and a civil war where state sponsered discrimination was part of the reason for the war.
Indeed the VAWA is a prime example of redundant legislation pushed by a special interest group in direct contravention of a written constitution. (Probably worstening an existing problem of sexist rape laws too.)
Do away with elections. Conscript congress and the senate, for a single term only, by picking names out of the phone book. And a lot of this bull-{expletive deleted] disappears.
I mentioned this when posting on another topic, but it seems appropriate again....
I remember hearing of a short story, I think it was by Clarke. It was about a future in which elections -had- been done with, and representatives were chosen by a big computer which would choose based purely on qualification.
Anyone actually -wanting- to be in political office would be immediately disqualified. And, once selected, the only way to get out of a position would be to do a good job of it.
So, you'd have a lot of really, really qualified folks doing great jobs as President or Congressman or whatever... just so they could get out of office and on with their lives.
Wouldn't it be nice....
---
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
You will also find that the related bill is S.39, and that the Senate has not yet taken up the amended bill.
The short summary is, don't bother calling you Representative, call your Senator instead. Don't bother calling the White House, since Bush isn't there yet (and the odds of his voting against this is approximately nil.)
Thalia
"Would this then only apply to those who have been accused *and* determined to be guilty of criminal acts 'sentanced under the guidelines'?"
Does it matter? I see no provisions determining what encryption even is (what if I store all my files UUEncoded for the hell of it, and the agents are too stupid to figure that out? Is that "encryption"? More amusingly, I encrypt my files with CSS... does that count?). As well, determining whether or not the encryption is used to hide a crime can be near impossible.
For example: You are convicted of breaking in to Yahoo!. You did it, you're guilty, there's no contest.
You have an encrypted file on your hard drive: it happens to contain a steamy loveletter to your girlfriend, depicting sex acts that are illegal in most southern states...
You refuse to decrypt it.
You aren't *charged* with using encryption to hide your illegal acts (this is a sentencing guideline, not a law). You are simply declared to have done so by the judge-- and are therefore given 10 extra years in jail.
You have no problem with this?
That's ripe. A bill banning crypto will enhance internet security...
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
As usual RAH has all the best ideas.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
It wouldn't even have a "chilling effect" on discussion: you can talk about all the wrong-headed bills and provisions you want, but God help you if you are so stupid as to vote for one.
Especially one where the title alone makes it obvious that the attempt is to contravne the constitution (which definitly includes all so called "hate crime" issues or other ways of creating discriminatory legislation.)
Unfortunately, you're wrong. Subliminable is not a word and subliminal is.
Now, sublimable is a word, but that is an adjective meaning to be able to pass directly from the solid to the vapor state.
> Everything needs limits, even freedom.
I agree, and I propose we start with yours.
And saying that encryption is a sign of criminal activity is like arresting people who buy ski masks. Preposterous.
Try "envelopes" instead of ski masks. The fastest way to illustrate to people why *I* prefer encryption is to use the postcard/envelope analogy.
"Obviously you have something to hide, since you keep sending your paper mail in envelopes ('enhanced privacy' envelopes, no less!), than using postcards for everything. What criminal activities are you engaging in?"
I think now's a good time to set up my own anon remailer, and start regularly sending encrypted traffic through it and the rest of the remailer network. Synchronously. Of varying sizes. So there's no way to prove that a particular message happens to be real and not just cover traffic.
Or it could be too late.
--
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." --H.L. Mencken
...and they gett away with by using envelopes. There should be higher penalties for criminals who use envelopes.
Envelopes? Not a problem with Envelope X-ray Spray.
--
Yes, it's true. This man has no dick.
From Section 4, Article 5:
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.
You supporting that, freedom boy?
Yeah, those damn pedophiles are sending their filth to each other through the postal service too, and they gett away with by using envelopes. There should be higher penalties for criminals who use envelopes.
The whole McCarthy/communism thing is kind of an interesting issue.
Joe McCarthy was pretty much run outta town after several years.
The investigation of underground Communists in the government continued.
Since the fall of Communism in Russia and the opening of the secret files from that era, it's been pretty conclusively shown that the people accused were Communists, they were engaged in Treason and Seditious acts....
It was a good thing that the Rosenbergs were executed. It was a good thing that Alger Hiss was taken down.
A lot of the people who squeal in dismay about McCarthyism don't have a clue what they're ranting about.
Hay thar.
I am deeply and really sorry (I voted for Harry Browne and whoever was running against Hatch) but I am still just really sorry. He is evil but then again so is everybody we send to Congress. Really I'm just sorry.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
They couldn't have known? Then they shouldn't have been in office anyway.
"Hmmm. Let's take a crime that usually takes place solely within a state and make it fall under 'interstate commerce'"
So either they were too stupid to guess that it might be overrulled, or they were deliberately trying to override the Constitution. Either, IMHO is reason enough to toss them out.
I would, but I live in DC, and I don't have a fucking rep. Or a senator. Yet, I am still taxed, with no voting representation. Tea, anyone?
Constitutional Conventions are called so rarely precisely because of their ability to make changes without further steps (such as ratification), as well as the inability to limit the scope of the Convention's changes once convened. A Constitutional Convention could eliminate the entire Constitution and make William Clinton dictator for life, and it would all be perfectly legal.
Democracy is dead. All kneel to the Commander In Thief.
Section 304 (Score:-4, Offtopic) Bill invalidated.
Yes if you read Thomas closely HR 46 passed the house on 4/13/99, but SR 39 the senate version died out. HR 46 sits in the senate Judicary committee until 12/15/00 when gets discharged, amended, and passed all in one day. Hopefully this thing will either show back up in the house next session and get crushed, or spend a couple more years in committee. My real question is what were Senators Steven and Hatch thinking when they did this? They had to have know the House wouldn't get to it until next term.
Congress thought the widespread problem of violence against women did affect the economy. So based on the interstate commerce clause Congress should have the power to regulate violence against women.
Ever since the New Deal, Congress has interpreted the interstate commerce clause just as broadly (that is; if something remotely affects interstate commerce we can control it). The current Congress just did the same thing as had been done many times since the New Deal.
- A.P.
--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Actually to be honest I voted Harry Browne (Libertarian) this year so I thought I'd clarify that that a bit as I forgot to in the original post.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
Is Mr. Hatch representing Utah residents? I mean honestly, there are a lot of conservative people who are afraid of the internet in Utah. But I think the important thing that we need to emphasize is that even the PEOPLE can have opinions which undermine our basic rights. That's why I love living in a republic. En mass, people are dumb, and make dumb decisions,... but with a republic, we get a lot more common sense thrown into the mix. Here is what I'm doing. I'm writing my congressman, and telling him what I think about Mr. Hatch's agenda. And that I would appreciate being represented on this issue.
Why in gods name (other than the obvious efficency issue) do we allow unrelated riders to be attached to bills like this.
Im an American (obviously). Many of you aren't. How is it done in your country.
That is the way erosion of rights starts. In California, recent legislation authorizes a police officer to assume probable cause if you, upon seeing an officer, turn and run. Turning and running from a cop was never a crime before, but now it allows a cop to search you bodily.
Likewise, encryption is a hair's breadth away from being the thing that designates you a criminal.
Between this and Carnivore, encryption may soon be determined to be an evasion of the long arm of the law.
This might mean that if you encrypt your email, the FBI can get authorization to tap your phone.
Now how could the FBI determine that you encrypted an email message? Wouldn't that be illegal? Soon it will become legal, trust me...
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
Recently Mr. Hatch ran for re-election. It was clear to me how important it was to inform voters of the choice they were about to make. For those of you that don't know, Hatch was one of the primary sponsers of the CTEA, DMCA, and a bill to extend the life of the drug patent Claritin (as he used their corporate jet to fly around while running for president). He was planning on sneaking it through like this legislation till his ass got caught.
So, I went to the local Linux Users Group and stood up at the meeting (only a dozen people show up) and asked for help in organizing against Hatch. As I was talking it was apparent by the way they were looking at their shoes that there was complete disinterest in doing anything, and that they were going to vote for Hatch anyway.
The fact of the matter is that people vote for Hatch because "they are supposed to". One state representative went so far as to say that you "can't be a mormon and vote for a democrat at the same time," (exact words). Whether you are a mormon or not, Hatch is seen as "church endorsed" and the mormon church carries enough influence to affect any election they want to. There are many "heriditary republicans" that will vote republican on election day no matter what, without giving it a second thought. Also, there is a large segment that will vote for Hatch as he is pro-NRA, and everybody loves their guns here. Take all this together and you can see why he got re-elected by a landslide.
Utahns are being raped left and right by bad political representation on the local level as well. Our taxes and utilites are going up, as the legislature did away with the public commision that oversees utility rates (the bill was written by the local gas utility)
The only question is how hard do Utahns want to scream before they've had enough???
If you live in Salt Lake County, and want to organize, email me kphil@hotmail.com
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
which his exactly what a politician's promises do, pass directly from a solid to a vapor state... ;)
eudas
Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
Rather than passing line-item veto, they should pass something that says any rider tacked on must be related to the main bill.
Congress says they tack things on to cut down on the amount of meetings they have to have about bills...so what.
They are getting paid a LOT of money and were elected cause they lied to say the wanted to make America a better place. Fine...get off your ass and out of meetings with special interest groups and do something.
Make the salary of a congressman equal to the average salary of the American worker, and then we'll get the right kind of people in there.
Governments are failing to catchup, so they will
make up laws that would harm technology
advancement. They are perhaps doing so as in
response to feeling inferrior and impotent in the
face of controling ever more technological society
They make up laws that may or may not help
majority of technically advanced society. They are
scared for the time fly by and all over sudden
government would be in same situation they were
in 20s facing gangster movement.
These steps are made in effort to keep up with
technological revolution wether it works or not.
Problem is, that broken laws can be used in courts
to unfairly win or perhaps victimise otherwise
innocent citizens.
Govenments install these broken laws at an
increasing pace making it almost impossible to be
crime free while doing anything with computers.
Some of us do legal things some of us don't.
Its like probation, did not really stop the flow
of the booze, but gave control into wrong hands.
I like the one about "only those who attend the reading can vote". Not because it's a dumb statement but because most times I've watched cspan when they're covering the congress, there isn't anybody there...even when they appear to be voting.
SEC. 306. ADDITIONAL DEFENSE TO CIVIL ACTIONS RELATING TO PRESERVING RECORDS IN RESPONSE TO GOVERNMENT REQUESTS. WTF? there is NO MENTION of wiretaps in section 308! well that looks nothing like whats actually in the law:
(h)(1) The court, in imposing sentence on any person convicted of a violation of this section, shall order, in addition to any other sentence imposed and irrespective of any provision of State law, that such person forfeit to the United States--
Looks like it says "CONVICTED" to me...
All in all, the law doesnt look anywhere near as bad as its made out to be... Granted, i dont like the law because if its statements about encryption, but its NOTHING like this column is representing it as
pdf full text
actually read it instead of saying "oh! law about computers, it must REALLY BAD".
I'm from Utah. I'm from Utah Valley -- one of the most conservative places in Utah.
I see the dichotomy that you're talking about -- many people have strong constitutionalist sentiments and a beleif in protecting individual rights. And yet civil liberty issues often go ignored. I think it's largely because the press ignores the issue and people don't get informed. To many Utahns, civil liberties are still simply about guns and freedom to worship (which are included, yes, but not the end of the list).
It's not totally so: for example, in the last election, a proposition curtailing powers of forfeiture and seizure passed with something like 67% approval. I think this shows that when the issues are brought before them, Utahns would tend to favor personal liberties. They just need to be better informed.
Tweet, tweet.
Perhaps we need a similar constitutional amendment for Federal legislation?
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Uhhh...
I mean citizens.
--
--
You sure got a purty mouth...
Provide special additional punishments for people who use encryptionProvide special additional punishments for people who use encryption
So what this is saying, if I ssh from my Sun box at work to my Linux box at home, then I fire up my Napster/Gnutella Client and download some music I don't own, I'm (for a lack of a better way of putting it) fucked?
Doh!
Among these offenses are making false statements on student-loan applications or passport applications. 18 U.S.C. sec. 2516(1).
Great. So I can get my house wire-tapped, computer(s) seized, and e-mail (and all other 'electronic' communication) read because someone suspects that I made a false statement on a student loan application? This does not bode well...
What can we do to get this thing killed?
--Just Another Pimp A$$ Perl Hacker
El riesgo vive siempre!
I was at the Smithsonian awhile back, and they had on display the actual executive order that FDR signed to put Japanese-Americans into deterrment camps. I read it, and no where did it say "Go out and put all Japanese-Americans into camps". What it did say, was that military authorities could designate secured areas, and they could then decided who had access to these secured areas. That as all they needed to do what they wanted.
As far as criminal forfeiture goes, under drug laws you can be accused of possession, or distribution, and have all of your property confiscated. This happens before you go to trial. If you are found innocent, or even if they drop charges and never go to trial, they still keep your stuff. You have to sue to get it back, and good luck on ever seeing it again. This is one of the things that those of us against the War on Drugs (WOD) are fighting.
Budcub
Smokedot
er that should say "which is", not "which his".
stupid typo...
eudas
Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
Actually, one of the biggest problems regarding a constitutional convention is that there is no limiting language.
The last time the USA held a constitutional convention, they were told to modify the current constitution (or "Articles of Confederation") and instead replaced the entire structure of government. All suggestions that a "limited" convention could be held that would discuss a single subject matter, or that the scope of such a convention could be contained has been suggested as faulty. All that would keep any new government that came from such a convention is if the existing government wouldn't acknowledge the legitimacy of the new one.
Essentially, it would be a mess, and cause some real confusion (as if the mess in Florida wasn't enough).
This bill doesn't hurt big business, so the lobbying groups aren't going to oppose it, the subject isn't even on the trade unions radar, and the ACLU is considered a bunch of nuts in most peoples' eyes, since they do weird liberal things such as support the bill of rights.
:) As for them taking away our computers, the US government has the wonderful ability to never be wrong, at least when it comes down to telling who a "hacker" is. (No, not cracker, that's a food. Haven't you watched the movies, hackers are evil.) Therefore, even without putting the PR spin that "this bill helps us eliminate the child porn trade and organized crime", this bill will pass easily.
This leaves the will of the American people. Unfortunately the American public doesn't give a damn. Unreasonable search and seizures are a pain, but only if the police show up during the football game, luckily, we can't even tell if they are wiretapping, therefore, its okay, since it doesn't bother us. As for encryption, 99% of the email users out there don't even know it exists, for them, email magically leaves one computer and arrives at a different computer, without occupying any of the points inbetween. Under this theory, email is one of the safest ways to communicate with another human being, since its common knowledge that you can't intercept messages as they travel through the ether.
Us humans are short-sighted bastards. If it doesn't affect us immediately in a way we can see, we usually don't care.
Wow ... You missed it completely.
Your latter point, whether the scary issues are defined as porn, flag burning, abortion rights, cross-species marriage, or whatever, is precisely why most people (including me) wouldn't support a constitutional convention.
I do, however, support single subject rules. The House and Senate at the start of each session adopt rules for each body. Usually, they carry over rules from the prior sessions with a few minor modifications. One of the rules they should add is a single-subject provision. That's worth writing to your representative or senator about.
MacOS, Windows, BeOS, GNOME, KDE: they're all just Xerox copies
actually he was right - the "makes you want to Ralph" was a double 'entondre' (big sp!) in favour of Ralph's Candidacy.
BTW: Hello Vancouver from Windsor, Ontario.
These laws afford similar protections to normal phone tapping and mail reading etc laws.
I do feel that there should be no extra penalty for making your email or internet dealings secure. That is just silly. Do normal criminals get sent away for extra years just because they tried to get away with it?
#include <ianal.h>
But I can read English. The Fifth Amendment says (emphasis mine):
There are entire books written on the "takings" part, but it's pretty damned clear to me that seizure of personal property without so much as charges being filed isn't exactly "due process".[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
Doesn't it strike anyone as odd that new laws can be hidden within seemingly innocent blobs of legalese? Or how about the fact that it happens so often? Ever wonder why they hide it, and who they're hiding it from?
Why is the US government set up to let this happen?
You know, this is how the IRS was instantiated. It was tacked on to a bill, that no one expected to pass. Ph34r. Really.
The first time this is used will also be the first time it is challenged, and even if congress(!progress) approves, and the president approves, you can be certian the supreme court will not approve. Yes, I'm aware that Bush will likely pick up to 3 new justices, but even conservative justices cannot look at this bill without seeing the glaring constitutional problems engendered by it.
;-)
Secondly, can we make it so only people who read the articles can post? Maybe have 2 or 3 changing multiple choice questions they have to answer correctly about it before they are allowed to post.
-Adam
"After playing with Netscape 6 for a while, I've come to the conclusions it doesn't even support IPv4..."
- noted on an IPV6 mailing list.
And let me tell YOU how it was. A phone survey came to my home handset one day claiming it was a random survey of voters. I, of course, later found it strange that the only ones who ever got this survey were those of us who were state delegates. (We are a clse knot group here.) What I found even more strange is that the called ME and asked explicitly for ME at a phone number that is not in my name. I haven't had a phone in my own name for over 9 years now. But the asked explicitly for ME. The only people who know I am at this number are my close friends, (both of them), my church leaders, and my kids - OH YEAH, and the republican party of Utah since they needed it because I was a state delegate. So when I asked the surveyors how they got my number, they had no real answer and I refused to answer the questions. So they called me back and tried again. It was obvioiusly sponsored by the teachers lobby, who have usurped control of the republican party here in Utah (and thus political control of the state thereby). But at the convention, we were informed that the nomination for "all federal seats" could be declaired won by acclaimation if the convention vote for one candidate was greater than only 60%! It used to be over 75%. But this time it was only 60%. And wouldn't you know it - Hatch got 61% of the vote. Think of it - Hatch would not have to fight a costly runoff campaign within the party for the primary elections. I just suspect they knew (by virtue of this so-called random survey) what the outcome would be since that was one of the questions they asked explicitly.
If you can't teach by example, then you'll have to teach by precept . . . Just don't expect it to work as well.
Why would the gvt. spend tens of thousands of dollars suing me for a car that is only worth a couple grand?
They're using your own money (taxes) to do it. Besides I don't think it costs them tens of thousands to do it. Its probably just a matter of paperwork, filling out the right forms and having a judge sign it. The money goes into local law enforcement coffers usually.
Yes, write your rep! And your senator, and the companies that own^D^D^D sponsor them...
Excellent, non-partisan orgs to assist in your civic participation:-
www.smartvoter.org (LWV-CA)
www.opensecrets.org (Center for Responsive Politics)
www.voter.com (private org)
Don't just whore for karma with your political acumen... convince the power brokers!
__________________________________________________ ___
rooooar
Every noble work is at first impossible! No matter what they do, we sill stand true, and in the end triumph. The Dark Ages will rock!
Anyone can be good -- only one can be the best!
Canada doesn't have quite as high an average standard of living
= World&story=/news/2000/06/29/UN_report000629
Actually Canada has the highest standard of living on the planet. See http://cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view.cgi?category
The US finished 3rd behind Norway according to the UN.
Actually I *DID* misread it as I've since gone back and looked at again. Many apologies to the original poster. the capitalization got me a bit railed up as I immediatly thought "Nader". I had just gotten out of a discussion with someone about this and my blood was already running hot.
I still stand by my original post about the hypocracy of voting for Nader when you say that you don't trust the government as far as you can throw them. I've been re-reading the federalist papers more and more lately and I've been miffed overall at the state of things. ESPECIALLY when I read articles like this.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
This practice of tacking line-items onto the ends of bills is abhorrant. If this bill gets passed (even if it doesn't!), I'm going to be sure to encrypt every email I send.
Simple. They get to go back to their voters and say, "See? I voted to enhance your security and put the bad guys away. It's not MY fault it didn't make it into law." Happens all the time.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
We need everyone to lobby congress and the senate for a constitutional ammendment requiring bill titles to accurately describe all of their contents. The use of a 'Medal of Valor' bill to snuff out more personal freedoms is the most ludicrous thing I have seen come out of DC in quite a while.
While we're at it, we should require certain types of laws, ie ones that stomp on our constitution, to garner a 2/3 vote in both the house and senate instead of just a majority.
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
"And you wondered why so many people are joining the libertarian party"
I was looking at the Canadian libertarian party before our election, and after careful consideration, I've decided that libertarianism will never work.
Libertarianism is WAY to idealistic to be practical. I don't mean to sound elitist, but a lot of slashdotters are clearly intellectually above-the-norm (obvious idiots aside). The general population are sheep. They depend on the glass-fronted box that faces their couch to tell them what to buy, what's popular, and how to think. In a libertarian society, people would go absolutely insane because there would be less obtrusive media telling them how to go about life.
It's unfortunate, but it's true. People are dumb.
(and yes, I KNOW this is offtopic, that's what it's No Score +1 Bonused)
And what of congress, esp. with a 50/50 split in the Senate?
I am assuming of course this is dealt with next session not this one.
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
You're probably a troll, but come on...if federal investigators have reasonable cause to believe any particular person is violating the law, they have all kinds of resources to plant bugs, trackers, wire-tap, put under surveillance etc - most of these techniques will work whether the target is using encryption or not.
What they WANT is to the ability to do this to anyone, anytime, while using a bare minimum of physical resources. I don't believe making it this easy to violate civil liberties is in the best interests of our society.
Yes, I like your envelope example. It supports my argument nicely. Envelopes, and even safes in your house can be siezed and searched, under court order, of course. Strong encrypted data is not searchable at all.
Why do people need crypto this strong? 3DES is sufficient to protect your credit card numbers from the average theif, and the fair credit act protects you if its stolen anyway. Why do you need more than that if you're already protected?
Yes, I'm saying requiring weaker crypto at the expense of a little fraud and crime against some people like YOU is better that letting anyone use strong crypto at the expense of some kids being victimized.
Set a fixed key length limit on crypto. Raise it as needed as computing power increases.
Well yes I have a problem with that. That's why I asked in the first place.
So if they can convict you of something without accessing the encrypted files, they can also baselessly use those same encrypted files against you, under the umbrella that you refuse to decrypt them, and that encrypted files used in a crime are themselves criminal...
Is this like making a punishment worse for illegally owning a gun, even if the gun had nothing to do with the crime or the punishment?
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
2 issues for this:
Firstly, IceBox is right as in that the media will not present this as the whole patchwork as it is. Secondly, "other purposes" still doesn't help anything either. It's just as vague, but does mention the computer act at least.
Someone should start a Political Action Committee around these issues. While there are many good civil liberties groups (e.g. EFF, etc.), the Slashdot community has its own unique interests.
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
Let me add one thing. Legislators tend to put a lot more stock in written mail than email. (I think this has been said before on /.) By all means, write your representative. But I would encourage you to use snail mail if possible.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Just a thought, but the President-Elect (Bush) is for personal privacy etc. which would also imply that he would take care before signing this bill imposing penalty's on encryption users. And no I havn't read the bill so I hereby declare myself open for flamebait on anything I stated incorrectly. -john
**AA: a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes
"devices used in ... intellectual
property theft."
(Assuming passage of the bill...hoping not)
All they have to do now is change the rules of fair use and they can have a field day seizing MP3 players and MD recorders.
"We were half way to Rivendell when the drugs began to take hold."
-- Hunter S. Tolkien
did you notice they use that same democracy doesnt work joke twice?! (the bill to deport immigrants from springfield episode)
"I keep looking in the want-ads under 'revolutionary' but there don't seem to be any listings.. "
Just my $.02
Take the time, write something meaningful and express how much you dislike this bill.
Thanks in advance
I forgot about these supercriminals with their high-tech encryption and whatnot. I also forgot that the law also provides for stiff penalties for burglars who have the audacity to wear gloves and ski masks whilst committing heists. No, wait...
If this bill passes, we're that much closer to the clustrfrick that Britain's in over encryption. Encryption doesn't remove physical evidence, just obfuscates it.
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
The price of freedom is eternal vigalence, and people these days have remarkably short attention spans.
And people are biased, and people are greedy, and people run the government. It always amazes me how some folks think that the govenment is somehow this "unbiased" organization that is out to protect our interests. Unfortunatly, its made up of those same dumb, biased, greedy folks that they claim they need protection from, except now those dumb, biased, greedy people have the ability to change laws to screw with us.
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
- Ed the Sock
Sen. Hatch Has 'Traffic' Cameo http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20001220/en/hatch_ rated_r_2.html
Broadcasting LIVE from a Bonus Room Over the Gara
Let me play devils advocate for a minute though. Kopel mentions wearing gloves, which I agree is a reasonable analogy, but isn't evading arrest via destruction of evidence similar and punished seperate from the crime being concealed in many instances?
Oh, and neener neener neener, we posted it on Poliglut first.
--
Hey, the Supreme Court already ruled on this
;)
stuff, right...? In Case #12, 1928 (Olmstead vs. United States).
Unfortunately, they ruled 5-4 in favor of
Olmstead's conviction, but I personally believe
that it is time for this to stop. This "Line
Item..." gives the Federal Government _way_ too
much power to punish people without them even
knowing what it's for. If this bill is passed,
then I really think that someone needs to
challenge the legality and Constitutionality of
it in the Supreme Court...
BTW, I can see it now:
"31337 H4X0RZ vs. United States"
Case #blah-blah-blah-blah...
Wouldn't that be great lol
>Grassroots activism counts for a lot more than money.
On what planet, exactly? Or, okay, in what country? There are probably still democracies in which this is the case, but I can't agree that ours is one of them. As an activist in areas ranging from drug policy to free speech to electronic freedom to consumer protection, I would submit that the power of money is paramount in the year 2000. Political realities demand it. If other politicians are exchanging influence for cash, yours probably will be too -- or else she won't be able to pay for the ads, and she probably won't get elected. There are brave exceptions, of course, but they're few and far between. Even when a political battle goes my way, it's usually because an organization like the ACLU or the EFF -- with the help of my financial contributions -- has been able to *pay* to fight the expensive legal or legislative fights that are, sadly, vital to overturning unconstitutional legislation.
And yes, I am a member of the Libertarian Party, and I regularly vote that way (though I also vote for Democrats and sometimes even Republicans, based on the candidates and my perception of the closeness of the race). As such, while I'll try to be succinct, I'd like to counter just a couple of the accusations which have been made against Libertarians in this thread.
First of all, not all Libertarians wish to abolish the income tax, eliminate foreign aid, and axe all government programs that aren't directly involved in protecting liberties. That's the perception of some, but it's far from reality. I happen to agree with those who have argued that pure libertarianism would never work. But, so what? I would argue that neither pure conservatism nor pure liberalism would work either; there are strengths and weaknesses to both, and the reason that there are so many passionate people on both sides probably has something to do with the fact that the "best" course lies somewhere in between. I am a Libertarian because I have seen, time and time again, that neither the Democratic nor the Republican parties are any longer truly committed to protecting civil liberties. The economic axis of the political map gets most of the attention, while with respect to the personal-freedom axis, both major parties are content to blame the other for our undeniable shift toward authoritarianism. And most of us buy it, though even a cursory perusal of the Congressional Record and voting logs makes it clear that attacking civil liberties has become a truly bipartisan sport. Following the money trails may help me understand why this is, but it doesn't make me want to be a part of it any more than I have to.
I would also take issue with the suggestion that Libertarians wish to take power out of the hands of the government and put it into the hands of the corporations. Far from it. Indeed, another of the primary reasons I became a Libertarian was to fight the undeniable influence of the latter on the former. Look at the Napster battle. Look at the DVD/DeCSS battle. Heck, look at the Drug War, and follow the money trails back from the most vociferous warriors in Congress to the alcohol, tobacco, and pharmaceutical industries, all of whom have major vested interests in keeping illicit substances illicit (even for medicinal purposes). All of this stuff tends to annoy Libertarians -- who, not coincidentally, tend to be among the strongest advocates of the kind of campaign finance reform to which *most* Republicrat politicians pay lip service and little else, since they just don't see it as being in their best interests.
Finally, there's the last major accusation which is regularly made against Libertarian/Green/Reform/Natural Law etc. voters, which is that we're "throwing our votes away." However you happen to come down on the Nader issue, I'd say that a glance at the Florida totals would demonstrate that this isn't the case. Enough Florida progressives simply couldn't vote for Gore with a clean conscience that he lost the election. It's that simple. Don't feel like playing that kind of roulette and taking a chance that you'll be helping the candidate you consider the greater of two evils? Hey, fine! Just *register* Libertarian; it'll still have an impact. Or give to the ACLU, the EFF, or other groups that fight for liberties. All I ask is that you don't judge my party until you're sure you know what we're about.
Ethan
These sort of laws have been on the book for years.
:)
They are just as unconstitutional when they apply to drug dealers as when they apply to hackers.
Too bad Browne didn't get elected
...the correct spelling is subliminable. Duh...
That it may be, but under the Law you were protected from being stopped in just such a situation. Now you are not. My point is not that it doesn't look bad. My point is that is shouldn't be, and wasn't until last year, illegal to see a cop, stop, and walk the other way. Same thing with sobriety checkpoints (unconstitutional); you can legally make a U-Turn when you see one. Used to be a cop wasn't allowed to chase you, now I suppose he can.
Did you know that you are not required to give a cop your ID if stopped on the street? Pisses 'em off to no end, but you have the right to refuse to prove you are who you say you are if the officer asks you for your name. Anyway...
You can't bust people for a guilty conscience; but now you can frisk them. And soon you will be able to wiretap them because they are encrypting their email.
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
This is the equivalent of putting locks on a crack house and calling it illegal, i.e. if you do something illegal and you don't leave the door open for the police when they come, you get even more time on your sentence. Ideally, encryption should be as common as locks on your front door, but short sighted nonense like this will forever doom computer security they desire so much
It's all well and good that the fifth amendment says that, and everyone pays quite a bit of lip service to it, but for years now there have been similar provisions in the law for drug offenses. Every year many americans have their land, cars, homes, etc.. seized because they are suspected of a serious drug-related offense. More than 50% of these people are NEVER charged with a crime, but also never receive their property back. There is one case where the FBI, DEA (pick your ABC agency here) shot and killed a man during an illegal search of his land. There was absolutely no evidence of any drug offenses found, and they later admitted that they really just went out to seize his land, knowing he had probably not done anything wrong.
The worst thing about asset forfeiture is that the assets are auctioned off, and the funds go to the law enforcement agency that seized them. So, of course, any time a state or federal legislative body attempts to change the stupid asset forfeiture laws, the DEA, FBI, and often local police departments adamantly oppose it. One midwest state recently passed a bill changing the final destination of funds from asset forfeitures. As soon as the law passed, law enforcement agencies began filing lawsuits contesting the law - on what grounds, I don't know :)
So, the moral of the story is : The government already gives fuck-all about our rights, they walk a thin line and, for the most part, govern themselves. Anyone who is on the ACLU's mailing list gets bulletins at least weekly with all sorts of horrible bills that are going through congress, state legislatures, etc..
Unfortunately, this doesn't often make much difference. It's nice to know where and how my rights are being violated, but something I've noticed since joining the ACLU is that, more often than not, bills are modified but not fixed. They say "OK, we changed it" and everyone who complained says "Wow, I'm surprised they changed it at all", but when you get down to it, your rights still end up being violated.. Does this mean the ACLU is useless or that we should stop complaining about our rights being violated? Of course not, but for all the bitching and whining the stupid bills (DMCA, UCITA, throw your own in here) generally end up being passed.
Back to the drug analogy, when marijuana was first made illegal with the marijuana tax act of 1930-something-or-other, it was actually said that you must be licensed to use it, but no license, in the 60-someodd years of the law, has ever been issued. The American Medical Association adamantly opposed the bill, but during the debate (which lasted less than 5 minutes, starting with something like "what is this bill about?" "Oh, I don't know, something called marijuana, I beleive it is some sort of narcotic") the proponents of the bill lied. When the AMA came back and said "hey, they lied, we think this law is horrible and that making this drug illegal will do more harm than good", our legislators said "well, too late, we already passed it - next issue!" and the law stands, unmodified, to this day.
I sincerely hope (but don't beleive) that we won't see things like this happen again, but by the time the Internet is better understood by the average person, it will be too late. The head of the American Internetworking Association (let's pretend there is one, it's the future ;p) could go to congress and say "this bill (DMCA/UCITA/this new one) is stupid, it violates the rights of our citizens for no good reason" they will likely get the same response "well, too late, we already passed it - next issue!"
WTF can we do? I don't know but I wish I did - I guess the easy answer would be "Whatever the fuck we can". I noticed a post above from a Utahian (sp?) who commented on the lack of interest (in a linux users' group, of all places) in opposing stupid laws and the politicians that pass them - it's this kind of attitude that allows our rights to be taken away. I've been just as guilty of this as anyone else, but I try - let's all try..
On the brighter side of things, there are happier things that happen - like the judge who recently ruled that port scans are legal.. Some people have a clue, most people don't - but I suppose everyone feels that way..
Personally I hope groups like EFF, ACLU, or others take actions to remove the added amendments in that bill. George W. Bush is moronic enough to sign the dotted line and push for this. Shady politics aren't new news and its funny no one has mentioned how odd it is that a bill which is supposed to supply law enforcement officers with medals had totally different clauses embedded in them.
I mentioned this article yesterday and its a shame it wasn't posted, I also referenced it on a post below and it wasn't acknowleged. *shrugs*
For those don't know this bill is pretty much falling through unless someone steps in and notices the 'fuzzy math` behind it.
Just think, this bill pops up when the President is on the way out and an idiot on the way in. Its the perfect situation for those in power to pull off a move that would give them the authority to take away priviledged liberties such as encryption. So for those in the computer security industry maybe its time to start pgp'ing everything and storing them elsewhere. Heaven knows if the bill passes your looking at an extra stretch of time trying to keep your information private.
Circumventing Carnivore
Thanks for the memories
> > Everything needs limits, even freedom.
> I agree, and I propose we start with yours.
Guys, while I have stopped reading Slashdot regularly a while ago and certainly don't give a hoot about Karma (after reaching 50 it looses its charms), flagging this post as Flaimbait is a joke. Did you actually read what the guy wrote: "Everything needs limits, even freedom." What kind of idiotic statement is that? So let's take the analogy further: everything needs limits, even breathing. Heck, it WAS everything after all, wasn't it?
Yeah, the provision makes sense. I mean, we hand out stiffer penalties to burgalars that wear gloves, and rapists that wear condoms, so why not do the same to computer hackers?
Back to the non-sequitur. Just because some ideologues in Congress decide to call something a matter of interstate commerce, doesn't make it one. Let's take some items from the laundry list of things from the dissent as examples:
"Three out of four American women will be victims of violent crimes sometime during their life."
No evidence is presented that this has anything to do with people, goods or data crossing state lines. Nor does it mention what the lifetime violent-crime victimization rate is for men, which would render the Constitutionality of the law doubtful under the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (which issue was not before the Court).
The basic problem anything of the form "X% of people will experience Y in their lifetime" is that people who don't understand statistics completly misunderstand it. It can make something uncommon (or historical) appear common (and current). In the example even if you eliminated all violent crime against American women now any such figure wouldn't change for years if not decades. (Note also that the law in question only addresses a specific subset of violent crime in the first place. There is a "bait and switch" at work here too, at some point "violent crime against women" switches to "violent crime against women perpetrated by a (male) partner.)
"Between 2,000 and 4,000 women die every year from [domestic] abuse."
Across state lines? Are interstate partner-swapping rings engaging in murder instead of sex?
Note that these figures have no context, what is this as a percentage of women who die in the US anually?
"[E]stimates suggest that we spend $5 to $10 billion a year on health care, criminal justice, and other social costs of domestic violence."
Scary number, lousy logic.
Again lack of context, is this a big or a small amount?
"According to one study, close to half a million girls now in high school will be raped before they graduate."
Taking a girl across a state line for immoral purposes was a crime long ago. Where's the interstate-commerce angle in date rape?
You also need to consider exactly what definition of "rape" is used, some of the more liberal ones would also give numbers of 500,000-1,000,000 boys. If they were applied in a gender neutral manner, indeed the basic problem with interpreting "rape" figures is that the definitions and collection methods tend to be blatantly sexist in the first place.
"Less than 1 percent of all [rape] victims have collected damages." Folk wisdom says "you can't get blood from a stone." What does the fact that most rapists have no money (the term is "judgement-proof") have to do with interstate commerce?
How common are such damages in criminal cases anyway?
More to the point: if sponsorship of an un-Constitutional bill was an impeachable offense, the Supreme Court could also have rid us of the sloppy thinkers who gave us such junk and called it law. Done often enough this could improve the general caliber of legislators as well as making those remaining more careful about what and how they legislate
Maybe also make them a little more skeptical of being lead by the nose by advocacy groups (which at best tend to have a distorted view of reality.)
Yes, this is a bit of a stretch.
But nonetheless, Congress has been using the same kind of logic for a long time, enacting laws on matters that in some way interfere with interstate commerce, without any complaints from the Supreme Court.
It's just a little bit strange when the Supreme Court, all of a sudden, just changes it's mind.
I'm not saying that this bill is a good thing, but I've seen many geek arguements (DeCSS, filtering, etc.) degenerate into ridiculous speculation and exaggeration, to the point that it becomess hard for the general public or the opposition to take the arguements seriously. If you're going to fight it, then fight it, not your own straw men. Why fight this line item's potential for over-use, when the whole thing is wrong?
IANAL, but yes. Under that, if they find a marijuana seed in your car, for example, the government files a civil suit against the _car_. This bypasses all the protections of the criminal justice system (for example, if you can't afford a lawyer -- and fighting this _will_ cost more than the car is worth -- you don't get even an incompetent court-appointed lawyer), and it means that they only have to prove a "preponderance of evidence" (51%) rather than beyond reasonable doubt. Nor do they have to have any evidence that the owner was involved in the drug trade -- ships have been confiscated because traces of drugs were found in one sailor's private locker.
What's interesting (and very scary) is to compare these legal shenanigans with the financial basis of the Spanish Inquisition. In other countries, if someone was accused, and if the Inquisition could "persuade" him or her to confess, the king would confiscate the heretic's property. So the French or Italian inquisitions were limited to the tiny budget they were granted by the authorities. In Spain, Isabella & Ferdinand allowed the Inquisition to confiscate the property and divide the profits with the informer. So, if you saw a wealthy person choke on a piece of pork -- notify the Inquisition, they might confess to being a secret jew or muslim and you get a piece of their wealth. And the Spanish Inquisition became self-financing, and then some.
Congressman: Wait a minute, I want to tack on a rider to that bill: $30 million of taxpayer money to support the perverted arts.
Speaker: All in favor of the amended Springfield-slash-pervert bill?
[everyone boos]
Speaker: Bill defeated. [bangs gavel]
Kent: I've said it before and I'll say it again: democracy simply doesn't work.
Capt. Ron
crazy dynamite monkey
I've posted this same text elsewhere in this thread, so feel free to [Redundant] it at some point
SEC 103 C
(d) The Board may hold such hearings, sit and act at such times and places, administer such oaths, take such testimony, and receive such evidence as the Board considers advisable to carry out its duties.
This seems to me as nothing less than a version of the Inquisition.
It seems the US lawmakers see congress as nothing but a big game of Nomic.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
p. 11931
SEC 103 C
(d) The Board may hold such hearings, sit and act at such times and places, administer such oaths, take such testimony, and receive such evidence as the Board considers advisable to carry out its duties.
This seems to me as nothing less than a version of the Inquisition.
It seems the US lawmakers see congress as nothing but a big game of Nomic.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
The proposed bill does do one interesting thing. There is a 6 month mandatory minimum sentence for most federal computer crimes (including something as simple as defacing a web site if the victim can claim over $5,000 in damages, including time (and soon to include lost revenue)).
This would remove that. It bases this on the claim that some federal prosecutors are reluctant to bring charges because they don't have any room to bargain to get a plea. This is the second time I've seen a bill aimed at reducing that minimum. That's funny because they specifically passed that minimum in either 96 or 98.
I just called my congressman's office (Joe Barton, fwiw), and according to them, there is some good news.
The bill passed the House on the 15th, so don't bother calling. However, a different version was passed in the Senate, which would mean that it has to get sent back (House & Senate must pass identical versions of the bill) to the House, which has already recessed. So, in order for it to get passed it would have to get reintroduced next year. We'll have to look into this next year. But there's no need to call. (It passed on the 15th)
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
Well I decided to take the step and write my congressmen remarking on the use of 'riders' and the unconsitutional provisions from this bill. Now I'm afraid that I qualify for wire and datataps since I ardently oppose them. Have we had an article about encrypting phone conversations yet??
ne0
Since some of the posters here are harping about the name of the bill, I thought I would paste this from the bill text on the cryptome page referenced by the article:
The bill (H.R. 46), as amended, was read the third time and passed. The title was amended so as to read: To provide a national medal for public safety officers who act with extraordinary valor above and beyond the call of duty, to enhance computer crime enforcement and Internet security, and for other purposes.
Please read the content before commenting
Moreover, the legislation would be greatly helped by simply criminalizing use of Linux and other Open Source software. The spectre of "wiretapping" is likely to raise the hackles of citizens who may not even care about the use of encryption, so long as the linux users/criminals who set loose computer virii are stopped. The only persons who have a "need" for encryption are criminals/linux users, so they can hide their sordid acts. Others would not have to worry about encrypting sensitive information, if it were not for the linux users/criminals constantly scanning ports and sniffing packets and generally invading the privacy of decent, law abiding citizens.
In short, I think a law making Linux use, and possibly all Open Source software a criminal act would really nip the problem in the bud. Not only would it force linux users/criminals to pay for their software, like other law abiding citizens, but it would lead to eliminating the vast majority of cybercrime as we know it, by putting criminals/linux users behind bars where they belong.
I will contact my congressman, and I suggest you do as well, to reintroduce HR 65, including legislation to criminalize use of open source software.
Thank you.
Cunt.
Love,
Slashfucker
Gee, looks like somebody doesn't want
>What they WANT is to the ability to do this to anyone, anytime, while using a bare minimum of >physical resources. I don't believe making it this easy to violate civil liberties is in the best interests of our > society. The point of this, of course, is accountability. With wire taps and surveillance, it is harder to set it up without going through the channels. And physical things like taps can be inventoried, and it can be tracked to who ordered those parts. Sniffers, of course, are untraceable. When they are discovered, there is no one to sue for invasion of privacy, since there is no simple way to track who placed it.
Do not confuse duty with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different.Duty is a debt you owe to yourself.
True, very true. And I find that is something that the government, the big businesses, and the other 'controlling' factions all seem to promote. The idea is to keep people too stupid to question the "authority" figures. Well, I say, it's been far too long since someone has questioned them. At least since someone has questioned them in a way they can't ignore.
Unfortunately it seems the only way to get their attention is with multi-million dollar "contributions" or with violence. I don't have the money, and I'm not that violent of a guy (something you probably wouldn't believe if you ever saw me play guitar). Besides, the violence route is only good for a moment or two. Once you are locked up people forget all about you. Short attention spans ideed.
------------
Granted, this stake seems dead-on aimed at its heart...
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
The government just required healthcare organizations to basically encrypt all communications to protect patient privacy. Well, not exactly all, but it's easier to encrypt everything than it is to sort out what needs to be encrypted to avoid going to jail. In the event that a healtcare worker commits a crime using a computer, he's very likely to have his crime compounded by the encryption issue.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Unfortunately, the general public does not run the government. PACs and special interest groups control out legislature by first aligning thousands of votes behind one candidate, and then threatening to remove that endorsement (and in turn the votes of the people supporting the organization) if the then-elected legislator doesnt do things the way the organization sees fit. I work for such an organization (The PAC is one of its many arms) and I have seen first hand how an endorsement by a PAC can make or break an election. I dont agree with this, and thats why I vote libertarian this year. We are being stripped of our rights by very powerful organizations that have their own agenda for us all. This may be the power at work in this new law also.
Makes you wanna Ralph, more than ever!
It seems the "protect the people from themselves" mantra of big government and big business has finally started to complete its cycle of viciousnous.
I realize that sounds harsh, but I also realize that it is true. People have been programmed to believe that it is very, very important for the government (and the big businesses that are actually in charge of the government) to protect them from themselves and their neighbors. Personally that makes me sick. But there are so many people that actually believe in this sort of thinking that it is really difficult to get anyone to listen to you if you believe that freedom is more important than protection.
I realize that there is a fine line that must be balanced upon between freedom and protection in any well-run society, but lately it seems that the balance has swung completely over to the side of protection. No common sense is applied. No one cares about freedom. In fact, I've even seen arguments along the lines of, "What about my freedom to be sure that my child will never have to see a pornographic picture?" That isn't freedom you are asking for. You are asking for society to be in charge of raising your child.
I'm sorry if people see this as a fameish rant, but it is high time that people get interested in themselves again. You cannot expect to live a sheltered existence and still have freedom. You can have one or the other. And while the adults of this world were raised during the "enlightened child-rearing" age, when kids were taught that mommy and daddy would filter and sanitize all things for them, we must, at some point, convince those very adults that it is very important to make sure that you learn how to "filter" things for yourself.
As an example, I came from such a family. My parents believed (still believe, even at 27 years old with my own wife and family) that they could filter and sanitize the world as it came to me. I quickly learned that the world is not as safe a place as they wanted me to believe. And I managed, by fighting against the controlling instincts of my parents, to develop the ability to ignore things that were "bad" for me. I've never been drunk, I've never had the urge to smoke, I've never tried drugs, and the worst habit I have is playing guitar loudly. I managed to survive all the peer pressure, advertising campaigns and all the other garbage that goes on as a kid and not succumb to the "evils of the world". I developed my own mind, and learned to make my own decisions. But today that is considered bad. It is far more important to be told how to decide things by parents, teachers and eventually (once you outgrow those) the government and business where you work. It is a sad reality, and one that I hope reverses at some point.
This "tack a 'little' rule on a bill and hope it passes" garbage is something that isn't necissary. It was developed as a way to pass unsavory things by attaching them to more wanted things and has survived unchanged for a long time. Why we allow it is beyond me. I know the excuses that are given (it costs us less money and all that garbage), but shouldn't things be wieghed on their own merits? Why should we have to decided something purely on the basis of whether it is "attached" to something more important? This is what our government and the businesses that run our government want us to believe. Doesn't it seem ridiculous?
Imagine going to an interview and being told, "We can hire you, but only if you are willing to leave your wife, move out of your house, and live in a cardboard box". While this is an extreme example, you would have to decide between taking that job and losing everything else, or losing that job opportunity and keeping everything else. These are the sorts of ridiculous decisions that get made day in and day out by our congress. It just doesn't make sense. Line item veto you say? Line items shouldn't exists at all. It should be one item is one item, period. Otherwise it's just an excuse to pass more legislation that opresses the "idiot masses". The sad thing is, there are enough people that want to be oppressed now, in the name of protection, that we probably won't see it change. God, what a mess. I pray that someone finds a way to do something.
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Maintaining 2 households is probably pretty expensive, but all job-related travel is paid for by the government. That also includes all their staffers travelling with them.
Oh yeah, this is just fucking great. Some dickhead merkin with too much time on his slimy twitching little paws vaguely downmoderates me. Asshole.
In the hopes that people will ignore it and pass it by without reading it (which i'm sure makes everyone else a little upset too)
someone should introduce a bill called
"the Cristian Family-Values, Orphan Feeding, Sweet Little fuzzy Puppy-Dog Hugging, Baseball The American Flag, Mom and Apple Pie is Good Bill"
it of course would make it Illegal to stack bills with these sick little 'contract riders' . . . essentially a bill making it a law that the title of a bill accurately describe the contents of a bill
anyone that voted against it would definately be voted out of office in the next election imagine the mudslinging campaign . . .
"Senator Blake last year in Office voted
against Family values, against Orphans,
against Puppy-Dogs, against Baseball, Against
AMERICA, AGAINST MOM and AGAINST APPLE
PIE!!! . . . do you really want pure evil
incarnate representing you or your children?
(paid for by the friends of the office of the people who want to elect the other guy)"
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For more information critical of civil forfeiture see www.fear.org. Asset forfeiture is widely used in the United States.
Ed
Ok first as I understand it their is a difference between philosophical libertarinism (aka Ayn Rand type where no abridgement of personal property is ever allowed). I was responding to, and I thought the original poster was discussing this philosophical libertarinism.
In such a system of course no taxes can be allowed...they take the individuals money by threat of force. This of course necessitates a capatilistic approach to everything (all transactions must be volountary which eliminates the idea of governmental money) and incures the problems I mentioned before.
Secondly one could advocate a sort of consequentialist libertarnism where abrogating the rights of the individual is valid so long as the government serves to minimize the total rights abrogated (we may tax because this is a small violation versus the effect a military invasion) however in such a system taxes for the general welfare but not increasing individual rights would be abandoned...i.e. road work as above.
If I interpret the position you describe above it is a sort of general feeling that less governmental intervention would be benificial but with no conviction that it is nececsserily better (certain circumstances do need government involvement) personally, while it is a workable and perhaps benificial system, I do not consier that libertarinism because it doesn't appear to have any differnt philosophical goals than the democrats or replublicans (in fact it sounds like alot of republican platforms) it is just a differnt interprataion on how to actually accomplish these goals
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Section 310, the bit about encyption, needs some thinking about. If you encypt data as a matter of habit, then you are probably going to be suspect under this section. There have been numerous recent cases of hackers brought before courts for, umm...let's say, suspect reasons (see 2600.org). If goverments are going to attempt to prosecute on as little eveidence as some of these exapmles, 310 will be a massive boost to their ammunition. What this could possibly amount to is any data you encrypt being used against you as evidence. Or to put it another way, "you'd better decrypt that data for us sonny, or we're going to roast your butt in court." (why else would you want to encryt stuff but to do illigal things, hey?) Don't be so simple to think it won't happen.
lemonade was a popular drink and it still is
... when they have to retract all of those "Public Safety Medals of Honor" when the act is struck down as unconstitutional...
"Titanic was 3hr and 17min long. They could have lost 3hr and 17min from that."
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
If you want to stop this bill, you have to write to your members of congress.
House members can be looked up here.
Senate members can be found here.
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If God Dropped Acid, Would he see People???
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Senate Rule 16 stipulated(it was eliminated after the Republican takeover of the Senate in 1994) that all riders must pertain to the bill in question. It's purely a Senate procedural measure, and something that would be easy to reinstate. Tell your Senators you would like this rule reinstated.
If this is the governments way of saying they dont trust us anymore. Are they afraid that we may be getting a clue and finding out that they have been screwing us for years.
Where am I going and why am I in this handbasket?