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CISPA Bill Obliterates Privacy Laws With Blank Check of Privacy Invasion
MojoKid writes "At present, the government's ability to share data on its citizens is fairly restricted, insomuch as the various agencies must demonstrate cause and need. This has created a somewhat byzantine network of guidelines and laws that must be followed — a morass of red tape that CISPA is intended to cut through. One of the bill's key passages is a provision that gives private companies the right to share cybersecurity data with each other and with the government 'notwithstanding any other provision of law.' The problem with this sort of blank check clause is that, even if the people who write the law have only good intentions, it provides substantial legal cover to others who might not. Further, the core problem with most of the proposed amendments to the bill thus far isn't that they don't provide necessary protections, it's that they seek to bind the length of time the government can keep the data it gathers, or the sorts of people it can't collect data on, rather than protecting citizens as a whole. One proposed amendment, for example, would make it illegal to monitor protesters — but not other groups. It's not hard to see how those seeking to abuse the law could find a workaround — a 'protester' is just a quick arrest away from being considered a 'possible criminal risk.'"
How does surrendering our freedom out of fear match up with our motto?
The pace is accelerating.
We need some kind of Tracking-Data-Armageddon security breach to make the common citizens wake up and realize that we're all just going to stare at each other in a dystopian fishbowl forever while everything just becomes more unfair.
(Satire)
That's all I can type now because I used up my monthly ascii character quota on two tweets of data for $99.95.
(/Satire)
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I see this phrase every time this sort of bill comes up where they claim that one group or another won't abuse the law. After some thought, I decided I agreed with their assessment. All this means is that the law is originally intended to be used in that way, if it's the intent of the law, it isn't abuse to use it that way.
It actually happens from time to time (at least in Massachusetts, USA) that a person is charged with one and only one crime, to wit: resisting arrest. I actually know a person to whom this actually happened and he was found guilty. So at least in Massachusetts, they can simply arrest you for resisting arrest. You don't need to commit any actual crime.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
To not arrest people and throw them in jail for merely speaking (Sedition Acts) or suspected terrorists (round-up of asian-Americans). We said it would never happen again, and yet we are going down that same path (indefinite detainment for mere suspicion).
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
'notwithstanding any other provision of law.'
If that's an actual quote from the bill, what the fuck? I mean, aren't laws repealed and modified by further legislation and "provisions of law"? "And this law says you can't ever change this law" sounds like something a two year old would propose ... am I incorrect in assuming that with that sort of clause this bill basically ensures that once it is passed it can never be revoked by another bill or law?
My work here is dung.
that keep sponsoring these bills?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
The government doesn't need to have any sort of criminal case in order to ' go after ' someone. Take for example the story of Jesselyn Radack, a Justice Department employee involved in the John Walker Lindh case. They decided she was an 'enemy' because she said he needed a Miranda warning - when they couldn't build a legal case against her, they found her employer, got her fired, got her blackballed, got her professional accreditation pulled, put her on a TSA list, and then contacted reporters with defamatory stories about her. They basically ended her 'ordinary' career (now, she works for non-profit human rights organizations). No trial was necessary, no judgement was rendered, no court ever saw the case. The government just did this to her, because it didn't like her.
Now, imagine what they could do if they had all of her bank records, all of her internet history, all of her website interactions, all of her ebay and amazon purchases, etc etc. And when I say 'bank records', i mean any place she uses a credit card or debit card or ATM card, including the time any transaction was put through, how much it was, who the merchant was, and so forth and so on.
We already live in a country where the executive branch ignores the law. What do 'legal protections' matter when prosecutors can just ignore them and harass you regardless?
Here
Pass it on.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
> even if the people who write the law have only good intentions, it provides substantial legal cover to others who might not
It's important to remember; It's difficult to grant broad new powers to government or corporations and confine these powers only to the people who agree with your personal philosophy.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
* companies are authorized to share "cyber threat information" with other private companies or the government "notwithstanding any other provision of law." That appears to mean that if a company decides that your private emails, your browsing history, your health care records, or any other information would be helpful in dealing with a "cyber threat," the company can ignore laws that would otherwise limit its disclosure.
CISPA is another way of getting *ANYTHING* labeled a "cyber threat" so an entire can of whoopass can be opened legally. I can conceive how this would be abused by , let's say, limiting what gets blogged when a demonstration is taking place, or being raided.
[*] - http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/04/cispa-advances-in-house-as-eff-decries-bills-revisions.ars
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Looks like the president is threatening to veto. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-threatens-to-veto-cispa-cybersecurity-bill-citing-privacy-concerns/2012/04/25/gIQAkS3khT_story.html
Let's say Obamacare is upheld. The president could then define what treatments must be covered, what may not be covered, what might not be paid for by gov and so forth. So what prevents President Chimpy McHitlerburton from abortions from being covered? Privacy? Not if Obamacare is upheld, because that law puts the government directly or indirectly into the transaction.
Or what about the various attempts to bring religion into the government? Many of those attempts would make it legal to be explicitly religious in acts of government. So what prevents President Lefty Marx-Castro from making the religious parts of public ceremonies Wiccan?
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
They told me if I voted for John McCain, we'd see even more invasions of privacy than under George W. Bush, and they were right!
Because no matter how "nice" the current administration and management will be, there will be someone in the future looking for a loophole to abuse.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Unfortunately I speak from experience. I have been in the right, and stuck up for my rights many times. ... and no, I'm not stupid, but you can bet your ass I am stubborn as hell and outraged that the cops constantly piss on the graves of so many men who valiantly fought for the freedoms they spit on daily.
It hasn't worked out well even once. What you are proposing doesn't work in the real world. On TV the cops are very careful about following the rules. In reality they believe that the rules are there to use when it is convenient, and ignore when it is not. In the situation you just described the absolute best * that you can hope for is going to court several times over the course of several months followed by a jury trial with a not guilty, at which point a lawyer will tell you with a straight face that - in the eyes of the law - even though you are presumed innocent until and unless convicted, the fact that you were found not guilty does not mean that the court has found you innocent. The charge will appear on your record when an employer runs a background check (in most if not all states.) The person doing the hiring will assume that you were guilty and they just didn't prove it, or at the very least that you must have done something wrong to be arrested.
* There is an extremely slight chance the case will be dropped, but that almost never happens even when the police report contradicts other provable facts. In one case I had, the DA actually told the cop that what he wrote made it clear I was not guilty, at which point the cop was allowed to file an amended report with the additional lies needed to tie it all up (The car was stuck in a snowbank in the driveway (True) was changed to the car was stuck halfway in the driveway and half way in the street [The lie they needed (TM).]
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
This bill was introduced by Rep. Michael “Mike” Rogers [R-MI8] with the 112 cosponsors. Isn't it great when both parties work together? Brought us the Patriot Act, and now this. If one is yours, feel free to contact them.
is a word.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
[apologies, pholks.. I hit Submit instead of Preview by accident, and am just figuring out that I can't edit a comment. Here's the handy-dandy, and proofread, HTML...}
... also, CNet puts together a good "Politics and Law" rss feed:
http://news.cnet.com/8300-13578_3-38.xml
college&community&public stations a-plenty-- make sure yours is among them:
https://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/26/cispa_critics_warn_cybersecurity_bill_will
And here are the go-to sites for leadership/updates on the issue:
http://www.eff.org/
http://www.epic.org/ (though, just checking.. not sure why EPIC is lagging on this issue thus far.)
And though I don't like ragging on sd'ers, it's a bit troubling that the site which is heralded as bringing the news is "hothardware".. I guess a peeve of mine is overspecialization. Ever the humble polyglot, I make it a point to check aggregators of alternative news daily:
http://www.alternet.org/
http://www.commondreams.org/
and as re Your Rights specifically, a good podcast is http://www.lawanddisorder.org/
AMANDLA!
eschew crap, proprietary jive such as Adobe Flash and "Warcraft"! Eschew war, for that matter.
is purely subjective.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Yeah, if you could stop associating libertarians with RP libertarians and 'Tea Baggers' that would be cool, okay? You seem to have a severely twisted idea of what libertarians are and are not, and it hasn't been helped by whatever party you're affiliated with.
Thanks...
I am John Hurt.
CISPA will make data that is presumably already collected legal, so it can be used against citizens in court.
Sounds like a confession to me. Lock him up, boys!
Is that you, Chief Wiggum?
Who did what now?
Ron Paul has other fleas, like being a big corporatist himself
Only if you contort the meaning of 'corporatist' to something that most people don't mean.
Or more simply put, you're either wrong or deliberately misrepresenting his positions. Of course we all know that secretly corporations know that libertarians would be good for them, but they never support libertarian candidates as a clever way to hide that fact. Right?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
And CISPA just passed today. Here's how the voting went:
Republicans: 206 ayes, 28 nays, 7 no votes (85%)
Democrats: 42 ayes, 140 nays, 8 no votes (22%)
Bipartisan? Yes. Equal blame? No.