Bernie Sanders Comes Out Against CISA

erier2003 writes: Sen. Bernie Sanders' opposition to the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act in its current form aligns him with privacy advocates and makes him the only presidential candidate to stake out that position, just as cybersecurity issues loom large over the 2016 election, from email server security to the foreign-policy implications of data breaches. The Senate is preparing to vote on CISA, a bill to address gaps in America's cyberdefenses by letting corporations share threat data with the government. But privacy advocates and security experts oppose the bill because customers' personal information could make it into the shared data.

Comments

"the only presidential candidate"

[ErikTheRed]

You mean besides John McAfee. Who is also certifiably insane, but at least manages to be interesting while being so.

impressed again.

[Anonymous Coward]

Another sensible and patriotic policy position by Bernie Sanders.

Re:impressed again.

[Anonymous Coward]

Weird times we live in when the only real American running for President is a socialist.

Re:impressed again.

[ArmoredDragon]

I think most people on slashdot support Bernie, so I'm probably going to get modded down, but I think he's just another one of those "hey, let's be more like Europe" politicians. And honestly, I think that would be a disaster. Income inequality isn't necessarily a bad thing so long as it's easy to get the bare essentials, which in the US it is.

The thing is, our "struggle to the top" culture is the reason why all of the world's best tech firms are here, and why all of the world's best new scientific (especially medical) breakthroughs come from here.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story...

Furthermore, we've already seen what happens when you suddenly thrust everybody into making the same amount of money, and if Bernie had things his way, we'd see a lot of this:

http://news.slashdot.org/story...

And when you apply that on a national scale, it turns into a brain drain. Right now we're the opposite; the best and the brightest tend to want to work in the US, and I'd hate to see that go away.

Furthermore, we've already seen what happens when people like Bernie get elected, namely that of Francoise Hollande, who did most of the stuff that Bernie advocates, and not only did France see a resulting massive drop in tax revenue, but a lot of wealthy people flat out left France, and the unemployment rate went way up.

Re:impressed again.

[NoKaOi]

Weird times we live in when the only real American running for President is a socialist.

You probably think that's weird because you don't know what a Democratic Socialist is. When Republicans or Hillary supporters talks about socialism, they're really talking about a different form of socialism - where everything is under control of the government - but then confuse you into thinking that's the type of socialist Bernie is. Democratic socialism is about making things fair (people making millions per year don't pay lower tax rate than their janitor) and economically secure (making sure you have access to medical care, enough to eat, housing, access to education etc without having to work 80 hours per week and not being able to save any money for retirement).

Coming out against CISA shows this. CISA is about more government control. If Bernie was the type of socialist that Republicans and Hillary want you to think he is, he would be strongly in favor of CISA. Hillary and Republicans, conversely, are in favor of CISA. Isn't that pretty much the epitome of irony?

Re:impressed again.

[KGIII]

I have accumulated what you would call wealth. Not only do I pay every nickel I am obligated to pay in taxes but I spend far more than I can write off, I can not decrease my tax burden any further, just in donations to worthy causes. I consider those donations my obligation. I consider those donations to be a part of the social contract. I did not get to where I am on my own. I give back because I can. I appreciate being able to do it with donations because then I select where my 'tax burden' really lies.

However, to go further down the rabbit hole, again - you seem to think those who have accumulated some wealth mind being taxed? I will happily increase my tax burden and not let it impact my spending or my investments provided the money goes to sound investments and is reasonably spent. People wonder why capital gains taxes are so low, the reason is to encourage those people who can to invest because their money helps the world go 'round. Thus they are penalized less when they put the money to work for the greater economic benefit.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this but, no... I don't mind or begrudge my taxes. I only get taxed on what I spend anyways. I don't even get taxed much on that and I am able to reduce my tax burden to really low percentages just by doing my aforementioned civic duty in the form of donating to worthy charitable causes. There are a lot of other ways I can, and do, reduce my tax burden. If you raise my tax burden to 90% then I'd really only be paying that 90% after a pretty damned huge amount of expenditures - expenses I don't normally actually incur.

I'd probably not reach that threshold on a regular basis - I simply don't actually take my money out of my portfolio and roll around in it like Scrooge McDuck. (I don't have *that* much anyhow.) So long as it stays invested then I don't pay really a nickel on it and that's not going to change. I'll continue spending as much as I spend now (maybe a little less if I actually cared about taxes but, really, no - that's not even going to be a concern if I want something) and actually pay somewhere around the same percentage that my neighbor's pay.

Here's the bottom of that rabbit hole... I don't mind. I do mind that they're currently spent unwisely. I'd actually be happier paying for programs like Sanders offers to try to implement. (You don't think Congress is going to let him have half the stuff he wants, do you? He'd be president, not king.) If I minded taxes then, you know, I'd just "bounce up on out of this bitch." (I think that's the appropriate colloquialism.) There are other countries who will make me a citizen just for investing a few dollars. I already have citizenship in Canada by grace of birth and ethnicity - I'm more than 1/4 Native American, Micmac if you're curious, and I'm sure they'd absolutely love to have me. I already own property there.

No, we need to be taxed higher than we are. This shouldn't trickle down to the middle class. It sure as hell shouldn't affect the impoverished. We need to be taxed more, maybe allowed to write off more by donating but that's another subject entirely, and the money needs to be spent wisely. Investing money in bombing brown people is not a good investment. Investing money on a war on chemicals is not a good thing. Investing money on warehousing people for victimless crimes is not a good thing. Investing money on wasteful bureaucracies is not a good thing. I could go on.

I don't get to make the rules so I'll happily listen to the social consensus. But, really, we have so much money (as a whole) that there's no excuse for us having the issues we have. It's simply unacceptable.

Hmm... I'm particularly ranty tonight. Sorry - no offense meant. I'm going to post it anyhow. Meh... Maybe someone will read it. I'm not hugely wealthy by some folks standards - not even really that rich. I'm certainly in the 1% and probably closer to the .2% if I recall the statistics posted at one point. I spend more on a bunch of silly cars and computers than I

Re:impressed again.

[dave420]

You sound like a well-educated 8-year-old arguing why his country is the bestest in the world - lots of hyperbole, lots of massive (incorrect) generalizations, and dripping with conjecture. You're not making a very compulsive argument, but you are showing everyone just how ill-informed you are about the country you live in, and how quickly you will form an opinion with the scantest of evidence or opinion.

Rand Paul has been pushing privacy amendments

[raymorris]

Looking at how candidates are responding to this Rand Paul has been pushing several amendments addressing the privacy concerns of CISA.

Well obviously Clinton backs CISA

[SuperKendall]

Since Clinton opted to share everything up to top secret emails with the Russians, Chinese, or simply anyone skilled and a little curious she obviously doesn't see why it would matter to anyone if they were sharing data with a government.

Irrelevant

[DoofusOfDeath]

I can detect almost zero correlation between presidential candidates' campaign promises, and how they'll act once in office. The only difference between elected presidents seems to be the way in which they'll screw over law-abiding, non-1%-wealthy citizens.

Re:Irrelevant

[Anonymous Coward]

Great thing that Bernie Sanders has had a consistent voting record his entire political career then as well as his net worth is about $390,000.
His presidential campaign is being funded by the people not special interests and Wall Street hates that.

Re:Irrelevant

[fnj]

I can detect almost zero correlation between presidential candidates' campaign promises, and how they'll act once in office. The only difference between elected presidents seems to be the way in which they'll screw over law-abiding, non-1%-wealthy citizens.

OK, cynicism does resonate with some part of me. But when is the last time the US elected a president who was not an obvious establishment sellout from long before election time? The last one I could possibly see as a possibility was JFK in 1960 - and he was debatable. One can have disagreement with various of Mr. Sanders' stands, but seeing him as a sellout is not credible.

Just because the electorate has chosen an endless series of sellouts, who were transparently obvious as sellouts at election time, is not a rational argument that all candidates would sell out if elected.

Re:Irrelevant

[Gavagai80]

We're talking about a senator who has a vote on it. It's not a campaign promise, it's a senatorial decision.

Re:Irrelevant

[ravenscar]

I'd agree with JFK being debatable. I'd say Jimmy Carter wasn't a sellout. Few would call his presidency successful, but few would call him a sellout.

Re:Irrelevant

[bobbied]

I can detect almost zero correlation between presidential candidates' campaign promises, and how they'll act once in office.

That's actually VERY true. Candidates from BOTH parties will SAY anything to be elected and what they say has largely been "focus grouped" to death. They study the exact phrases being used on the stump, weasel word their way though the mine field of diverse opinions, letting you believe what you *want* to hear without actually having said it.

HOWEVER.... There are two fairly reliable indicators of what candidates will do when they take office. First is their associations. Who where they associated with during their lives, what kind of people do they hang out with and feel most comfortable with, who are their long standing friends? Second, what have they done in the past? What did they vote for, what did they not, what types of things have they done with their lives in the past?

But your primary way to tell your candidate isn't really "on board" with what's being said is when they use weasel wording on an issue. The candidate will use similar words and phrases ALL THE TIME when they are trying to thread the needle on some hot topic. If you hear this, if you hear these pat sayings and phrases which are highly parsed and usually meaningless when you pay attention to what's actually said, be warned, they are trying to snow you...

the white rural majority may like sanders

[better_resurrection]

to the surprise of the media & the establishment, I suspect that if sanders gets the Dem nomination, he will find many followers in the rural and suburban white majority that is usually not democrat. Sanders does not like the open borders policies that some democrats advocate; he said open borders is how the plutocrats drive down wages... Sanders is not all that friendly towards gun control. Sanders is an old time leftist...maybe what we need....I hope it is sanders vs trump in the general election

Re:All Well and Good...

[mrchaotica]

Flat tax. Progressive taxation is what Europe has and so many EU residents are really struggling.

Oh noes! Not progressive taxation! Never mind that back in the prosperous '50s "good ol' days" taxes here were even more progressive than they are now...

Re:Just what we need..

[Dutchmaan]

I'm just curious as to which candidate best fits your ideological stance...

You do realize that in order for "no more bailouts" to be effective in not dragging our economy down if they are required, large companies (banks) need to be broken up into smaller more competitive (i.e. less powerful) entities. Banks like power, and don't want to be broken up into smaller more competitive chunks.

..and don't even get me started on reigning in the NSA. That's probably a bigger feat than breaking up the banks!

How do you propose these be accomplished?

Rand Paul also opposes CISA

[jasenj1]

https://randpaul.com/f/stop-ci...

"Therefore: I agree that the Bill of Rights, including the Fourth Amendment, is non-negotiable and I urge you to Stand With Rand and oppose CISA."

Re:Just what we need..

[PRMan]

The bailouts should have COME WITH Antitrust legislation and a breakup. Especially since the reason we bailed them out is that they are "Too big to fail".

Re:Sorry, Bernie...

[PopeRatzo]

Obama got a significant number of votes because of his skin color.

So did Mitt Romney and John McCain.