Slashdot Mirror
What Congress' New Email-privacy Bill Means For Your Inbox
erier2003 writes: The Electronic Communications Privacy Act Amendments Act has a simple and vital purpose: making it harder for the government to get your email, instant messages, and Facebook chats. It amends a decades-old law to require government agencies to get a warrant to access the contents of any email or other electronic record—no matter how old those communications are. Sen. Mike Lee, one of the bill's cosponsors, told the Daily Dot why it matters. "The bill adds a warrant requirement for communications that were previously considered so old as to be irrelevant to their participants and unworthy of privacy protections. Right now, emails and other electronic messages older than 180 days are considered to have been “abandoned” by the people who sent and received them. Law-enforcement agencies don't need to get a warrant to force a company like Google or Facebook to turn over those communications." The act also requires the government to notify people whose records it has acquired, though they can delay that notice for 90 or 180 days if they feel sending it will put somebody at risk.
What it if actually starts the ball-rolling, so that maybe more legislation later can further actually accomplish something?
I think it's bullshit that anything over a certain age was considered 'abandoned' when other laws actually mandate the retention of old communications as legal records. At least this starts to make a difference.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
they'll just have all traffic routed offshore where it can be freely trawled through in a 'constitution free' zone, or else get the Brits to intercept it all as it goes via a British controlled territory...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
This sounds too good to be true (for personal rights), so either...
- it won't make it through to legislation
- it is being used simply to bargain with law enforcement agencies
- it will some how have a loop hole that means they can go about their business as they do today
What it if actually starts the ball-rolling, so that maybe more legislation later can further actually accomplish something?
Won't happen. Congress won't pass anything because terrorists.
They already capture and store data that should have a warrant, without one. This will just add another law that will be ignored. What is needed to start the ball rolling is people being prosecuted for breaking the existing laws.
IOW: This is bullshit.
It's just to make us feel good as they snoop confidently about.
Nothing we can do about that anyway, nor are you going to be able to prove otherwise. Secret programs will continue in secret.
That said, the instant they want to bring their illegally collected evidence into a courtroom, that is when these new laws should tell them to legally fuck off, and provide judges the ability to dismiss the case, as it should be.
This is certainly a step in the right direction. Thank you Senator Mike Lee, R-UT.
Dead in committee:
Latest Action: 02/04/2015 Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
I'm just going to start using Hilary Clinton's mail server. The US government doesn't seem to be able to get access to that. Or, by the time they do, the emails have already been deleted.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
NSA has copies...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
How is something we have no control over in the first place be considered abandoned? I delete my emails "Insert free email provider here" doesn't really delete them they just make it so i cant see it anymore. How can that be considered abandoned? I have US mail letters my first girlfriend sent me are they considered abandoned? no. I don't use my ISP email address Like everyone else because of spam and scams. So what are they doing with deleted,stored emails? That email is paid for it is not free email. IMO they should treat elect email just the same as they do a letter sent through the US mail and we shouldn't except anything less.
Jack of all trades,master of none
Gotta maintain the status quo. And if it does pass, that means they don't need to ask for it to get it.
Agreed. What good is enhancing a law that was never enforced, has already been completely ignored by the NSA and two Presidents since 9/11, and has no real penalty even if someone was interested in enforcing it?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
"The bill adds a warrant requirement for communications that were previously considered so old as to be irrelevant to their participants and unworthy of privacy protections. Right now, emails and other electronic messages older than 180 days are considered to have been “abandoned” by the people who sent and received them. Law-enforcement agencies don't need to get a warrant to force a company like Google or Facebook to turn over those communications."
Okay, so something a mere 180 days old is "irrelevant" to me and "abandoned" by me but, is of value to the government in my prosecution?!?
Things that make ya go CENSORED.
A problem can be attacked from more than one angle. Courts are already starting to take exceptions to the use of Stingray fake cell towers, and if what I've read is correct, it's costing the prosecution convictions. If undisclosed and unwarranted surveillance means that prosecution cannot happen then they'll have to rethink how they go about procedure.
Don't let-up the pressure but give it time to happen. This kind of thing takes years or decades to resolve, not weeks or months.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Law-enforcement agencies don't need to get a warrant to force a company like Google or Facebook to turn over those communications. Agencies just need to assert in writing that they need the communication to further an active investigation.
If that is the case, it is because Google and Facebook *choose* to turn over those communications. Back when the constitution was written, it was assumed that the accused would refuse to provide information without a warrant. But today, most of our information is held by 3rd-parties who have no reason to withhold our information. So the 4th amendment doesn't work any more.
The ultimate fault here is that when Google holds my email, it should be *my* email not theirs, so they should not have the legal power to give it out without my consent. That is how the post office worked. They are actually not allowed to intercept mail without a warrant: it isn't theirs to give out. We lost that protection. Same without your gas-and-electric bill, your credit card records, and your passwords (don't forget that one if you use a password manager!). Those things are not yours, so the constitutional protections don't apply.
Nevermind the gov't position that it is legal to capture and electronically process anything on the internet without a warrant. They ONLY need a rubber-stamp warrant when an employee actually views the data. Unless it's an emergency.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
It's all in the fine print, and the unconstitutional extra-legal actions of those supposed to defend us from outside threats, who spy on us against our own Constitution, state Constitutions, and federal and state laws which do not permit them to do so, but who will never go to jail for their actions in so doing.
Welcome to serfdom. ... pause ...
Actually, no, serfs had rights.
You don't.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The article poster used an awful lot of words when "jack shit" would have sufficed.
"What Congress' New Email-privacy Bill Means For Your Inbox"
If the Do-not-call Registry, or the 4th Amendment are any indication, not much.
Why? So you can pass ad hominem judgement based on the team he plays for? Coming from outside the US I've always found the American penchant for naming politicians with a little letter beside their name a bit odd. Particularly when from an outside perspective both main parties are virtually identical in policy terms. I think I'd prefer to judge congress people on their own merit rather than painting them with a broad team brush all the time.
By the time this bill is law, it will be changed so much that it defends the privacy of your inbox every bit as well as CAN-SPAM defends it from unsolicited commercial email.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
So they can request notifications be delayed..... nice. So is it a felony for them to improperly request delay? I feel it should be. They are supposed to understand the law they enfoce, they should be held to the strictest standards against it.
One of the worst things we do is allow law enforcement to go around bending and breaking laws, while holding everyone else's balls to the fire.
If they are trying to put others in jeapordy, they should face the same. Every single time, and it should be severe.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
It is a pacifier. There is no milk.
I agree.
First I note that Rand Paul is not on board as a co-sponsor. On any alleged civil-liberties-promoting Senate bill that's a big red flag saying "Look for the 'gotchas'".
Even a cursory look at the summary shows that it explicitly does not block "administrative" subpoenas and authorizes delaying or blocking the very notifications it's purported to require. "Get a warrant!" is a big so-what when they have a rubber-stamp court that gives them whatever warrants they want.
So I'm not even bothering to read any deeper. It smells (to high heaven) like a sound-good bill intended to substitute for any REAL reform and take the pressure off the legislators.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The last bill that was past was claiming to reign in spying, but it for the first time legalized spying on American citizens. People were claiming it reigned in spying powers, but it actually gave out tons of legalized spying powers. I love the USA, but the people writing the laws like to treat us like mushrooms.
God spoke to me
They could say that if the government did something wrong, the resposible people would be hanged in public by default without a trial, but that means nothing.
If your kid steals a cookie and all you do is say he should not do it, the kid will steal more cookies. This is not because the kid is bad, this is because the parent does nothing.
And then people say "but the constitution says ..." So? It might be nice as a starting point for a discussion, but in reality it means nothing.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
So, if the government needs a warrant to read your emails, what about Google?
So... more secret laws, secret trials, secret jails?
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" -- HST
Is a mor-man the male analogue to a mer-maid? English, mother fucker, do you speak it?
2. If you live in the person's district, and you like the kind of things they propose, you should remember to vote for them in the next election. (Alternatively, if you dislike the kind of scandals they get in, you should remember not to vote for them.)
3. Yes, most elected Republicans agree on most things. Most elected Democrats agree on most things. The fact that Lee's bill is coming to the floor means that it has support from the elected officials in his party. The next Republican to run in a Senate election a given American voter base an opportunity to vote for would probably vote for this bill if they had the chance, whether that candidate is an incumbent or not. (I'm not sure if the bill has Democrat support, but if it does, the next Democrat would vote for it if they had the chance and if it doesn't they'd vote against it.)
4. By calling the comment "Name that Party," I'm criticizing outlets (of which there are plenty) that tend to hide or help party affiliations in a way that helps the Democrats. Say you have a story about a mid level or low level politician getting caught doing something bad. If the politician is a Democrat, they'll probably hide the party affiliation and if the politician is a Republican, they'll emphasize it. This leads to the impression that Republicans are invariably corrupt. Say the politician did something good or popular, like Lee did in this case (at least to the Slashdot* audience.) If the politician is a Democrat, they'll emphasize the label and if the politician is a Republican, they'll hide it, which leads to the impression that only Democrats have good and popular ideas.
But anyway, all this is standard practice in the United States. If you're not an American, why do you care how American publications cover American politics. Since you can't vote for or against Lee and his law isn't going to come to pass in your country, why would you bother reading this thread in the first place?
*Slashdot plays this game, but unlike most outlets it's not so much that they're trying to create an impression as much as that the editing is always incompetent anyway.
I love the world we live in. You can say the exact same thing I did, and we get modded in opposite directions. Is it because people hate me? I wouldn't know
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
If things 180 day old were no use, we'd have no slashdot at all ;-)
Passing laws does nothing to curtail the actions of those with no intent to follow the law.
http://undecidedgames.blogspot.com
I didn't quite say what you said, what i said is you can legislate (especially against government agencies), but if you are not going to enforce it, what is the point of even more legislature that you are not going to enforce. What I understood you said is you can't legislate at all.
Then again I don't know why you where modded down, it wasn't rude or said just to get a negative reaction. And don't assume people hate you, I definitely don't, I don't even know you. Modding is a little bit random. When things like that happen to me I just blame it on chance, sure people may hate me but thinking that way only leads me to be upset, I have no real evidence either way, so it is best for my sanity to live in blissful ignorance rather than unhappy ignorance.
What I understood you said is you can't legislate at all.
I'm sorry if my figurative speech that it's 'impossible' to legislate led to any confusion. Yes, you can write all the laws you want on this, and they will be circumvented quite easily with corrupt judges who rubber stamp warrants, as they are now. None if this will stop them from dragging you through the system should the desire arise. They can lock you up for years and then drop the charges before it comes up before the judge in public court. Until a person's stolen time can be recuperated, the law will serve no purpose outside the lawyering business. What really is impossible is knowing what information is being stored and who is collecting it. No law can protect you from that. Trust is long gone, it is naive to assume anything but the worst.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”