New Cyber Security Bills Open Door To Gov't, Corporate Abuse

Gunkerty Jeb writes with a selection from Threatpost about upcoming legislation to watch out for: "EFF looked at two bills making their way through Congress: The Cybersecurity Act of 2012 (S. 2105), sponsored by Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) of Connecticut and the Secure IT Act (S. 2151), sponsored by Senator John McCain (R-AZ). The digital rights group claims that the quality of both bills ranges from 'downright terrible' to 'appropriately intentioned.' Each, however, is conceptually similar and flawed, EFF said."

Comments

Is Congress mad at Slashdot/The Web?

[LostCluster]

Something's wrong here... we're getting far to many new copyright powers laws being proposed in Congress, and this sort of nonsense is supposed to be dead in committee and not brought to the floors. Is Hollywood sending too much money to Congress and we're not sending enough?

Re:Is Congress mad at Slashdot/The Web?

[Immostlyharmless]

No, the reason there are so many sponsors of this sort of crap, is that its ripe for (ab)use by our elected officials to silence critical voices. In other words, they are drooling over this because it will help them stay in their cushy jobs that we pay for with absolutely no checks and balances or voices to tell us what they are up to.

Re:Is Congress mad at Slashdot/The Web?

[WrongSizeGlass]

I'm going to petition Congress to roll all of these types of bills into one all-encompassing bill: the Secure Homeland Information Technology & Transactions? Yes! Act

Re:Is Congress mad at Slashdot/The Web?

[cpu6502]

ObamaRomney's Top Donators:. They are just paying back the media companies to say "thank you". Oh and "Here's your copyright law to protect your old-fashioned cable or media business."

A bunch of banks plus:
University of California $1,648,685
Harvard University $878,164
Microsoft Corp $852,167
Google Inc $814,540
---> Time Warner $624,618
Sidley Austin LLP $600,298
Stanford University $595,716
---> National Amusements Inc $563,798
WilmerHale LLP $550,668
Columbia University $547,852
--> Skadden, Arps et al $543,539
UBS AG $532,674
IBM Corp $532,372
---> General Electric $529,855
US Government $513,308
Morgan Stanley $512,232
Latham & Watkins $503,295

If this list was longer we'd probably see donations from Verizon, Comcast, Sony, MGM, RIAA, and MPAA.

Re:Is Congress mad at Slashdot/The Web?

[7-Vodka]

It's not about copyright. It's about the police state that they are creating.

1. Protesting is now a fellony
2. Martial law is both sort of here and can be declared without any emergency
3. habias corpus is history
4. due process is history, apparently just having any kind of process is now due process
5. The US government claims the right to assassinate any of it's citizens, anywhere on the planet at any time of their chosing
6. The executive branch claims they no longer need congress' approval on any war related matters, they would rather just take orders from the UN
7. Every branch of government is now spying on you without any sort of oversight and in every possible way they can think up
8. The "TSA" now has roving checkpoints on roads and transportation hubs within the US
9. The so called "Free speech zones" cover only a tiny percentage of American citizens.
10. we're in a war against a tactic, designed to never end
11. elections are openly stolen and not covered by mainstream media
12. Mainstream media is completely controlled now by crony capitalists and especially intelligence services, that takeover started in the 60's.
13. Many hard working citizens routinely pay a combined tax rate (Fed, state, sales, etc) of over 60%. This is catallaxy choking, slavery level taxation. In the history of slavery, educated slaves have often paid 50% tax rates to their masters.
14. The constitution is being taken to a dark room and violently sodomized
15. The faction of power that killed JFK has been in power every since, making every effort to become supreme leaders
16. presidents since JFK and nixon have been a mixture of puppets and high level darknet power-hungry secret society ranking members.
17. The people have lost control of their money. 50% of EVERY transaction that takes place is now the FIAT decree of unaccountable masters

With all of this going on, you thought that you would be allowed to keep you free press, right to assembly, free speech and communications on the internet?
That's pretty fucking naive. Slaves don't get to have these freedoms. Only societies that treasure and fight for freedom have them. In these societies everyone is an individual and individual freedoms, regardless of race, religion, wealth or social status are all equal.

Re:Is Congress mad at Slashdot/The Web?

[moj0joj0]

Is Hollywood sending too much money to Congress and we're not sending enough?

No, the problem is that money is how voting gets done these days. Those that have more money get more voting power.

Rather than allowing voices to actually be heard, bank accounts now speak loudest. Until that is changed, democracy in the United States is dead. People advocating funds for lobbyists to stand in opposition to this (and any other proposed laws) are just as guilty as companies funding Congressmen/women.

There isn't any way to "fix" this problem. This has gone far beyond the point of no return, a serious and significant reset must happen before anything can be accomplished. I am in fear for our future and I can see no way to avoid it.

We as United States citizens now blithely accept violations that in the past have destroyed political careers, started the revolution and the civil war in our country. Remember the 4 boxes? How many are left that haven't been completely compromised?

Re:Is Congress mad at Slashdot/The Web?

[artor3]

Obama has raised around $750M over the course of his political career, primarily from small (less than $4000) donations. Only about 0.3% of that came from those companies you highlighted, which, I might add, aren't all media companies. Skadden et al is a law firm that specializes in mergers and acquisitions... they may do some copyright law for all I know, but it's hardly a major business for them. GE sold NBC to Comcast a while back, so they aren't a media company anymore.

Furthermore, I don't think you understand what those numbers (which I assume you got from Open Secrets) mean. If you were to pick up the phone right now and call the DNC and give them a donation for $300, a few things would happen. First, they would take your name, number, and address, so that they could ask for more donations in the future. Second, they would take your job title and employer, so it could be reported on their financial disclosure forms. So let's say that you end up giving $600 a year for four years, and that you work for Widgets, Inc. That would mean that sites like Open Secrets would now show "Widgets, Inc" as having donated an additional $2400 to the DNC. If a hundred of your coworkers (out of the thousands that the company employs) do the same, it will look like Widgets, Inc has paid $240,000 to the DNC, and people would get on Slashdot demanding to know what widget-favoring laws are being passed in response.

But even setting that aside, even if we assume that all these donations are coordinated by the business in exchange for favors, do you really think that providing 0.3% of the presidents's money is enough to buy him off? Sorry to be so blunt, but that's stupid.

These laws are happening because politicians don't have a good understanding of the issues. Or maybe they're happening because the politicians legitimately disagree with you. But they are NOT being bought, and you do a disservice to our democracy when you throw that accusation around so loosely.

McCain and Lieberman?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, at least the lobbyists bought the sharpest tools in the tool chest.

Re:McCain and Lieberman?

[schrodingersGato]

You know that you've come of age as an executive when you've given up trading stocks and begun to buy and sell politicians

An old prophecy comes true

[girlintraining]

There was an old indian prophecy, told after the arrival of the white man in America, shortly after the trail of tears. It was this: "One day, what they have done to us, they will do to each other." This country has a long history of stealing land held by indigenous people, slaughtering them, and relocating the survivors. The next land grab has arrived, except this time, it isn't a fight for physical property, but digital. And just as the fences went up, the land was repurposed, and the environment poisoned in its realworld counterpart, so too must the digital follow.

Everything must be owned. It is the mantra of capitalism. The first peoples of the internet; the hackers, the academics, the non-profits, are now being rounded up, jailed, or forcibly deported from their homes and off their property to make way for The Man. All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again. Your days of "free" code and believing nobody can own [the internet] are coming to an end. They have guns, they have the support of the government, and this time they won't bother with that non-sense about signing treaties. And future generations will never know a world where ideas couldn't be owned, where knowledge was free, and where anonymity from corporations and governments provided fertile ground for social change.

Re:An old prophecy comes true

[TheGratefulNet]

the key to our future, as always, is the youth.

the old guys (my age) are too stuck in their ways and they'll never give up their idea of 'ownership' of internet things.

what I do worry about is the total lack of CARING on the part of the young people, today.

they happily sign away their privacy in failbook, give away their emails when any stranger asks and will parade in cow costumes in a mall just to get a 'free' lunch. they do not care! they only see the 'gimme!' side of things. quite blind, actually.

the culture is at fault. we lead our kids to 'buy buy buy!' and if the retailer offers a tiny discount in exchange for their privacy, they don't care! they saved a whole dollar!

the blame is on both sides. corp greed AND the consumer who does not see what is being done to them.

I have zero hope of things improving. but please prove me wrong! I beg you to prove me wrong.

Re:An old prophecy comes true

[cpu6502]

>>>what I do worry about is the total lack of CARING on the part of the young people, today.

That's what I used to think until I started visiting the Ron Paul page and talking to them (almost all 39 and younger). They are not going to let go of "their" internet. They consider it their property and their voice, and the way to fight back against the Corporate-owned NBC, FOX, CNN channels.

Re:An old prophecy comes true

[digitig]

the old guys (my age) are too stuck in their ways and they'll never give up their idea of 'ownership' of internet things.

Sorry, but those old guys are the very ones who came up with the idea that "internet things" couldn't be owned. And they have given up that idea. Not all of the old guys, of course, just the ones in power, and that's not coincidence. And guess what? I'd lay good money that a whole pile of the idealistic "information has to be free" youth will give give up those ideals too, and that the ones who end up in power will be the ones who gave up those ideals, and that won't be coincidence either.

Re:An old prophecy comes true

[Opportunist]

Our youth is already lost to Facebook, being filed and dissected for their consumerist value, lost in a world where you are what you consume, and you are if you consume, where you do not exist if you do not, or if you cannot. The value of a person is his purchasing power and his willingness to consume.

I weep for humanity.

Re:An old prophecy comes true

[Opportunist]

The hardware of the internet was always owned by someone, of course. What changed is the culture. It used to be a culture of production, now it's a culture of consumption.

The internet of the good ol' days consisted of many people who offered ideas, opinions, guides, information, they exchanged them and built on each other, with impunity and gladly. Sure, a lot was trash and even more very specific and only interesting for a minority. But there was room for those thinkers and dreamers. It changed. Today, we have a culture where people don't create, they only want to consume. They want to take, but giving has become anathema to the Internet where you don't give. You sell. And what you don't sell, you patent. And THEN sell it.

A culture of freedom is traded for a culture of commercialism. If you don't consider this a problem, then I guess you're part of the problem.

the gov is not evil, that othe guy is!

[TheGratefulNet]

quoting:

Of particular concern: a section in both the Lieberman bill and the McCain bills that authorizes monitoring by private firms of any traffic that transits their networks. Ostensibly intended to facilitate private-public information sharing, the passage would grant complete private sector immunity for data monitoring and sharing practices. Private entities would be unbound from the Wiretap Act and other legal limits and immunized against a swath of questionable monitoring practices, EFF claims.

emph mine.

THIS is what's going on. and end-run around US laws. since the US has been repeatedly caught with its hands in the cookie jar, it now tries to get some other kid to take the cookies and shift the blame to them.

sleazy and, yes, fully expected in today's 'government ethics'. ;(

the government learned it can employ corporations to do its black work.

nice, huh?

Re:the gov is not evil, that othe guy is!

[cpu6502]

Also the government doesn't need a warrant to access the information & data the ISP has obtained. They conveniently skirt-around the 4th amendment by letting the corporation do the spying.

New Bills Open Doors to Abuse?

[intellitech]

New Cyber Security Bills Open Door To Gov't, Corporate Abuse

Sorry, but that door you speak of has been broken down, smashed, and burned for a long time.

Nobody in power gives a shit anymore, or they're completely ignorant (and, quite possibly, mentally handicapped).

John McCain AGAIN??

[Dega704]

More IT bills introduced by an old fart that has flat-out admitted his computer illiteracy. Heaven help us.

Re:John McCain AGAIN??

[vadim_t]

No, stop staring at the sky, and get off your ass and do something about it.

At least make a donation to the EFF.

Re:John McCain AGAIN??

[Anthony Mouse]

Good intent, execution could use work. Try it this way next time:

At least make a donation to the EFF. (And consider checking the box to make a monthly donation.)

Re:Explain which Provisions

[TaoPhoenix]

Try these excerpts from the article:

"In an e-mail conversation with Threatpost, Auerbach of EFF characterized the bills as âoealarming.â Of particular concern: a section in both the Lieberman bill and the McCain bills that authorizes monitoring by private firms of any traffic that transits their networks. Ostensibly intended to facilitate private-public information sharing, the passage would grant complete private sector immunity for data monitoring and sharing practices. Private entities would be unbound from the Wiretap Act and other legal limits and immunized against a swath of questionable monitoring practices, EFF claims.

Furthermore, Auerbach and Tien worry that the bills' definition of a "cyber security threat" is too broad, and could cover everything from stealing passwords from a secure government server to scanning a network for software vulnerabilities. Similarly, the bills calls for more ISP traffic analysis and monitoring could bring about more civil liberties violations. For example, ISPs could simply block Tor, cryptographic protocols, or traffic on certain ports under the guise of defensive countermeasures, the EFF speculated."

So given our new over-reaching governments, it's not hard to see how those kinds of measures then later get warped out of control even more than they already are.