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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.'"

28 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. Home of the free and the land of the brave? by Tancred · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How does surrendering our freedom out of fear match up with our motto?

    1. Re:Home of the free and the land of the brave? by Brian+Feldman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Bravery and freedom changed meanings. Now they mean bravery to commit acts of violence and freedom to attempt to control the world. Who needs personal liberty when individuals are only interested in games and trivialities -- sports, music, TV, movies, politics, books, parties?

      --
      Brian Fundakowski Feldman
    2. Re:Home of the free and the land of the brave? by QRDeNameland · · Score: 3, Funny

      Bricka bracka firecracker CIS-boom-PA!

      Creeping fascism! Creeping fascism! RAH RAH RAH!

      --
      Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
    3. Re:Home of the free and the land of the brave? by Presto+Vivace · · Score: 3, Interesting

      We are like Argentina during the dirty war.

    4. Re:Home of the free and the land of the brave? by reboot246 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Don't worry. They've already found an $INTERNAL_ENEMY - patriot groups, militia groups, returning vets, in short almost anybody who disagrees with the government.

    5. Re:Home of the free and the land of the brave? by CanHasDIY · · Score: 3, Informative

      Technically, the motto is "In God We Trust". Don't worry, Obama forgot too :-)

      No, it's not; the actual national motto is

      E
      Pluribus
      Unum

      "Out of many, One."

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    6. Re:Home of the free and the land of the brave? by Thing+1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Exactly! Just like he threatened a veto on NDAA, and said he would close Gitmo.

      --
      I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
    7. Re:Home of the free and the land of the brave? by artor3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The NDAA passed by veto proof majority, and when he tried to close Gitmo the Republicans blocked all funding for the closure.

      The GOP strategy for years now had been to block any and all improvement, and then complain that Obama didn't improve things. If the voters are dumb enough to fall for it, then democracy is over. Either the democrats will adopt the same tactics and we'll have no government at all, or they won't and we'll have single party rule.

    8. Re:Home of the free and the land of the brave? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Just to clarify: that includes OWS, anti-war groups, med marijuana growers, etc.
      The right doesn't have a monopoly on "being persecuted".

    9. Re:Home of the free and the land of the brave? by wiedzmin · · Score: 3, Informative

      Because we won World War II

      It amuses me to no end that Americans think that they won World War II.

      --
      Bow before me, for I am root.
    10. Re:Home of the free and the land of the brave? by artor3 · · Score: 3, Informative

      No, they didn't. Not really, anyway. Because aside from a stretch of a few months, Republicans always had the filibuster, and that's all they needed.

    11. Re:Home of the free and the land of the brave? by Internetuser1248 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You realise that by bringing partisan politics into this discussion you are demonstrating the mechanism by which your national political climate is getting fucked over...

    12. Re:Home of the free and the land of the brave? by Tancred · · Score: 3, Informative

      So much wrong or misleading in a short comment.

      First, Democrats have had a majority in the Senate since 2007, so 2 Bush years and 3+ Obama years.
      Second, they had a majority in the House for 4 years, 2 under Bush and 2 under Obama.

      So that's 2 years they had majorities in the Senate and House while holding the Presidency. The President of course has a veto, so that's a key ingredient to getting anything through. The House is fairly strictly majority rule. The Senate, by current rules (since the 70's) allows the minority to block bills unless 3/5 of the full Senate (i.e. 60 Senators) vote for cloture. Use of that tactic has risen dramatically since the Democrats retook the majority in 2007. So when you claim that the Republicans didn't block anything, that's just outright false.

      See the Senate records on how often cloture votes were held to break a filibuster. See the big jump?

      2011-now : 48 (D)
      2009-2010 : 91 (D)
      2007-2008 : 112 (D)
      2005-2006 : 54 (R)
      2003-2004 : 49 (R)

      You can still be against the bills in question. Hell, you can be proud of the R's for blocking them. But don't deny it's happening.

      I've heard the "control of congress" tactic be used very misleadingly. If every Republican and barely enough Democrats vote down a bill, you can be technically correct to say that the majority Democrats could have passed the bill. But when you look closer and see 90+% of Democrats and 0% of Republicans voting for it, it's clear which party is more responsible for the bill not passing.

  2. Despair is starting to set in by TaoPhoenix · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:Despair is starting to set in by CanHasDIY · · Score: 3, Funny

      Not to mention you have to have a crime to charge him with, then impeach him, then convict him (which actually gets him out of office). And then we would have Biden...

      I felt the same way during the last administration when people started talking about impeaching Bush - I'm no fan, but I'll take Jar Jar Binks over Emperor Palpatine any day of the week.

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    2. Re:Despair is starting to set in by barry99705 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "In other news 40 million terrorists were bombed in downtown Washington DC today....."

  3. Re:Resisting Arrest by superdave80 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm not sure I see the issue here. An officer can arrest you if he has good cause to (you match the description of a suspect in the area, etc.). This is the original reason you are being arrested. It may later be determined that you didn't commit a crime, and then no charges are filed.

    If, however, you resist this arrest, you are then charged with resisting arrest. Simply because you think you didn't do anything wrong doesn't give you just cause to resist the arresting officer.

    You don't need to commit any actual crime.

    You consider resisting arrest not an 'actual crime'? Are you saying that officers don't have the authority to arrest people?

  4. Sign the Petition by CanHasDIY · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here

    Pass it on.

    --
    An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
  5. Re:Resisting Arrest by Moryath · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Are you saying that officers don't have the authority to arrest people?

    Officers have authority to arrest people ONLY IF:
    - the officer has seen you commit an offence;
    - someone charges you with having committed an offence and gives an undertaking to prosecute the charge;
    - the officer finds you disturbing the peace;
    - she/he reasonably suspects you have committed or are about to commit an offence or breach of the peace.

    The law also states that you must be told in simple language WHY YOU ARE BEING ARRESTED. Simply having the thug in blue announce "that's it, you're under arrest" is not valid.

    This is lost on most of the right-wing assholes who worship the thugs-in-blue, however.

  6. POTUS Opposes the Bill by milbournosphere · · Score: 3, Informative
    1. Re:POTUS Opposes the Bill by artor3 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You're being willfully ignorant.

      Thanks to the Obama administration:
      1) The stimulus and auto industry bailout saved the country from depression. Look at how austerity has turned out for Europe... It's been an unmitigated disaster for them, whereas our economy went from free fall to 10 straight quarters of continuous growth. Only a liar or a fool would claim it didn't work.
      2) Credit card companies can no longer change your due date at the last minute and use the late payment as an excuse to jack up your interest rates. They can also no longer jack up your interest payments because you were late paying an unrelated third party.
      3) Credit card companies have more reasonable limits placed on the amount they can charge retailers on each transaction, helping small businesses.
      4) The Small Business Association has been expanded, making it easier for startups to get funding.
      5) Full funding is being provided to centers to protect battered women and rape victims. The Republicans are currently trying to repeal that law (the Violence Against Women Act) because it also protects lesbian rape victims (the horror!).
      6) We're not paying for permanent military bases in Iraq. The war would be over regardless, but McCain planned to keep troops there.
      7) The infamous stop-loss programs are over. If you remember, under Bush, soldiers who had finished their tours of duty were being forced to stay in warzones anyway.
      8) Wars are now properly recorded in the budget so we can see how they affect the deficit, rather than being hidden. Of course, this leads to him being blamed for "increasing" the deficit.
      9) Torture and extreme rendition have been banned.
      10) Nuclear weapon stockpiles, both in the US and overseas, have been reduced substantially.
      11) Don't ask, don't tell was repealed.
      12) The Ledbetter law allows women to sue employers who engage in pay discrimination.
      13) We have Network Neutrality laws for the wired internet (though not for wireless).
      14) Millions more people have access to health care, many of them children or chronically ill, and it was done in a manner that reduces the deficit. Single-payer would have been better, but it was barely politically possible to get through the current version.

      Now, maybe if you only get your news from Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, you might think that Obama hasn't done anything positive. But that's your own failing. Any intellectually honest person who has been paying attention would admit that Obama has done a damn good job.

  7. Who didn't see this coming? by AntiBasic · · Score: 3, Funny

    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!

  8. With ages of abuse comes wisdom by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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
  9. Re:Always assume evil intent by bkmoore · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ....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....

    You mean as private insurers currently do?

  10. Re:Resisting Arrest by RenderSeven · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is lost on most of the right-wing assholes who worship the thugs-in-blue, however.

    I dont know any right-wing assholes that worship the thugs in blue, and Im a right wing asshole. Seriously, why does this always end up being a left/right issue? Maybe left-wing assholes think its OK to abuse right-wing assholes and vice versa, but I'd hazard to say "this is lost on people whose party affiliation is more important than their objectivity' which seems to be just about everyone these days. I was 100% with you until that last sentence sand-bagged any credibility you built up to that point.

  11. Re:Resisting Arrest by Khyber · · Score: 3, Informative

    "Simply because you think you didn't do anything wrong doesn't give you just cause to resist the arresting officer."

    Yes, it does. That is what a court is for.

    “When a person, being without fault, is in a place where he has a right to be, is violently assaulted, he may, without retreating, repel by force, and if, in the reasonable exercise of his right of self defense, his assailant is killed, he is justified.” Runyan v. State, 57 Ind. 80; Miller v. State, 74 Ind. 1.

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  12. Re:Resisting Arrest by Khyber · · Score: 4, Informative

    Oops, slashdot ate part of my comment.

    To add to that: “These principles apply as well to an officer attempting to make an arrest, who abuses his authority and transcends the bounds thereof by the use of unnecessary force and violence, as they do to a private individual who unlawfully uses such force and violence.” Jones v. State, 26 Tex. App. I; Beaverts v. State, 4 Tex. App. 1 75; Skidmore v. State, 43 Tex. 93, 903.

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  13. Re:Resisting Arrest by JohnFen · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Dude, you have some serious misapprehensions about the right wing. Supporting law enforcement doesn't mean supporting lawbreaking by police or other government agents.

    In theory, but in practice it does seem to mean exactly that. I wouldn't say that it's unique to conservatives, but to authoritarians. Authoritarians are more likely to be conservatives than liberals, though.