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US Senate Passes the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act 74-21 (dailydot.com)
blottsie writes with news that the U.S. Senate voted 74-21 in favor of CISA, a controversial cybersecurity bill. All five amendments submitted in an attempt to bolster privacy failed to pass. From The Guardian's coverage:
Try asking the bill’s sponsors how the bill will prevent cyberattacks or force companies and governments to improve their defenses. They can’t answer. They will use buzzwords like “info-sharing” yet will conveniently ignore the fact that companies and the government can already share information with each other as is. There were barely any actual cybersecurity experts who were for the bill. A large group of respected computer scientists and engineers were against it. So were cyberlaw professors. Civil liberties groups uniformly opposed (and were appalled by) the bill. So did consumer groups. So did the vast majority of giant tech companies. Yet it still sailed through the Senate, mostly because lawmakers - many of whom can barely operate their own email - know hardly anything about the technology that they’re crafting legislation about.
Blaming ignorance is more credit than they deserve. Willful ignorance is a choice of action, whereas ignorance is sometime forgivable. If they listened to any of the concerned parties they certainly didn't show it here.
Senators don't pass bills they know nothing about, they pass bills they see as having some sort of benefit. Benefits might be popularity, might be to appease donator, might be something darker. What benefit did they get from passing this and from whom? Who encouraged them to pass it?
They voted for government and against people.
Obligatory list of how each critter voted.
Another fine piece of legislation co-authored by Dianne Feinstein. What the hell is wrong with California that they have kept this cunt in office for over 20 years?
well, there was really no point in the government continuing to pretend it wasn't happening.
This legislation just codifies it.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Yet it still sailed through the Senate, mostly because lawmakers - many of whom can barely operate their own email - know hardly anything about the technology that theyâ(TM)re crafting legislation about.
Bullshit. They know damned well what they're doing: They're legalizing more and more surveillance and privacy violation of U.S. citizens, because they can. Them, them, fuck them.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
The sets of ignorant Congressmen, stupid Congressmen, and evil Congressmen are all large. The union of all three encompasses almost the entire membership.
It wouldn't be quite so bad if only any one of those sets were problematic and we could concentrate all efforts on obliterating it. As it is, our only roles are Sisyphus, Don Quixote, or the ostrich with its head in the sand.
It passed the House in April, and the President supports it. It's essentially a done deal.
The actual vote tally shows that both Democrats and Republicans voted for the bill (74 for, 21 against, 5 abstain).
If anyone believes that voting for R (or D) is worse than the other side, or how it's the "lessor of two evils", feel free to explain this.
There are a finite number of votes in any term. When our representatives vote against the interests of the people in all votes, there is no more damage that they can do. There can be no "lesser" evil - they're both at "maximum evil".
I took a look at the text of the recent Iowa poll, the one that puts Carson ahead of Trump that everyone is talking about. I couldn't see any obvious bias (a good thing), but this question stood out:
Which do you think is the bigger risk for the future of the country?
74 To elect a president who has not held office so does not know the processes and procedures of governing
101 To elect the same sort of person who has served as president for many decades who will likely continue to do things the way they have been done with the same effect
25 Not sure
The numbers are total Dem+Rep respondents in the poll.
This is interesting because it shows that Americans (in Iowa, at least) are waking up to the realization that electing career politicians is not in their best interests.
With respect to Democrat readers, your only viable candidate on that side (Hillary Clinton) is a weak contender, while the Republican side appears to have both Trump and Carson as strong candidates.
With respect to the Republican readers, neither of your strong candidates is a career politican. One doesn't need to sell his influence to moneyed interests.
This may be the beginning of the end for career politicians and national parties.
Honestly, I find it hard to believe ignorance has much to do with it at all. There are some big name companies on the record as completely supporting FISA, including Xerox. (Funny how Xerox also seems to have most of the contracts with local govt. for maintaining speed cameras.... Just maybe, they stand to profit any time government takes on some additional responsibility concerning technology? Hmm....)
On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other.
Somehow Stewart Brand's original statement got morphed into "information wants to be free."
Here is a list of the 21 senators who voted AGAINST this CISA surveillance bill.
Baldwin (D-WI)
Booker (D-NJ)
Brown (D-OH)
Cardin (D-MD)
Coons (D-DE)
Crapo (R-ID)
Daines (R-MT)
Franken (D-MN)
Heller (R-NV)
Leahy (D-VT)
Lee (R-UT)
Markey (D-MA)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Merkley (D-OR)
Risch (R-ID)
Sanders (I-VT)
Sullivan (R-AK)
Tester (D-MT)
Udall (D-NM)
Warren (D-MA)
Wyden (D-OR)
Also, Marco Rubio (R-FL), Rand Paul (R-KY), and Ted Cruz (R-Canada) did not vote at all, because they are huge pussies. Remember that the next time you believe any of those turds are in favor of your liberty.
You are welcome on my lawn.
"...Yet it still sailed through the Senate, mostly because lawmakers - many of whom can barely operate their own email - know hardly anything about the technology that they’re crafting legislation about."
In what decade do you think we will find it relevant or important to elect lawmakers who are as competent with technology as they are bullshitting about hope and change?
In other words, I'm struggling as to who really to blame here, since we voters have been using that "lawmakers are old and ignorant" excuse for too damn long now.
Perhaps when we stop electing stupid people...
The people have completely lost control over their government. Vote Bernie Sanders!
Disagree, I think it's completely relevant and on topic. The people writing these bills have absolutely no idea how the technology works, but are quite comfortable throwing away our privacy rights based on that. They are technophobic imbeciles who are driven by fear, and that's a scary thing because they have a lot of power. This is the perfect example because apparently NOBODY except the lawmakers wants this legislation, yet they don't care and vote based on their fear. It's very important that people realize the current set of lawmakers are almost entirely out of touch with modern technology, and that can have a massive stifling effect on our economy which a large portion of is based on this tech. We need young, new blood in these seats.
With respect to Democrat readers, your only viable candidate on that side (Hillary Clinton) is a weak contender, while the Republican side appears to have both Trump and Carson as strong candidates.
Don't count out the Bern yet. He's already tracking better than Obama was 8 years ago (compared to Hillary)
And while Hillary is definitely a career politico, she's never actually won an election for anything in her life.
I stay away from the "the other side will do *this* when elected" rhetoric, and try to confine myself to analysis of present situation and past performance. Please bear that in mind when replying - I'm not being a partisan echo chamber.
Money is a pretty good indicator of who will win an election in this country. With a 95% success rate, it's a pretty-good rule of thumb to use.
Bernie doesn't have his own money, so he has to rely on donations. Donations come from moneyed interests in return for political favors, and Bernie won't sell himself that way, so he won't get a lot of money.
He also says things which are easy to (unfairly) attack, such as sticking with the term "Democratic Socialism". Socialism is closely aligned in the public's mind with Communism, the USSR and cold war, and to a lesser extend the Fascism of WWII Italy.
While you and I can sort through the actual meanings, the public will only see what the pundits say. They will see Bernie as wanting to implement a completely non-democratic political system (Socialism!), and without the money to make his voice known it's unlikely that he'll get very far.
Yes, I agree with his position and rationale, but as the saying goes: it's not enough to be right, you have to be effective.
Another nail in the coffin of privacy, but a great boost to aid the move in the EU to ban the transfer of data to US companies outright. Since privacy legislation is much more stringent in the EU, that should help a sizeable portion of the Earth's inhabitants. And as a bonus it will reduce the unassailable positions now occupied by Google, Amazon etc. and stimulate EU companies to create alternatives. As each ones home market is too small to dominate the rest, that should give us a bit more choice.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
She might win the nomination... there's certainly a good chance. But she's hardly a shoe-in.
Everyone just kinda assumed she win the nom 8 years ago, and that didn't really pan out for her, did it? And she hadn't even committed any felonies then.
If you're good at remembering things, let your mind wander back to the summer of 2008.
Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were both strong candidates with roughly equal support.
Hillary and Barack had a meeting, and soon after Hillary withdrew from the campaign. The Wikipedia article states that she won the popular vote but lost the nomination, but I seem to remember that her campaign lost a lot of steam after that meeting, and before the nomination.
The subtext that I read into that meeting was that the Dems felt that she was splitting the vote, and in return for her withdrawing gracefully and throwing support for Barack she would be the presumptive next nominee.
Then President Obama appointed her Secretary of State, which was also probably a result of that meeting. She got a high-prestige and highly visible position, and gets to practice being president for 8 years. (A good plan, really, and I don't begrudge that sort of deal making - it's how politics is done in this country.)
And now we're in the new cycle, and she's calling in that promise.
The problem is, she was a lackluster Secretary of State. If you assume that the E-mail and the Benghazi thing is unimportant, there's nothing that really stands out in her career.
She's a lukewarm candidate.
It's not ignorance, it's corruption. But it looks like nobody wants to see that elephant in the room. This will not effect the elections...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
For those who don't need a third party to read something for them this is a link to the actual bill. The bill itself is a lot less reading than all of the articles on it.
I just gisted the bill, it looks like one of these fait accomplis that follow this disturbing pattern we see of aligning the laws of Echelon (5 eyes, sigint or whatever other names it is know by) countries within the bounds of their beleaguered constitutions. Almost a year ago to the day laws with the same intent were passed in Australia under the NSL 2014.
If I may share my interpretation the bill, the main purpose appears to be to align the legal structures for government agencies to share information. Its up for interpretation and the more eyes reading this the better. I'll need a good read to really get it.
Of specific interest was that the law is beating a pretty fast drum for the Federal agencies to comply with a 60-180 day time frame for them to develop policy. I'm going to guess that they want to allocate budget spending to implement the policy withing the next 12 months. Of particular concern in the US version the bill allows for Federal agencies to spy on state, local and individuals (sec 2.8).
If the pattern is followed we can expect the UK and Canada to be next as these legal frameworks have already been passed in Australia and NZ - both political parties supported it there as well.
Why the governments of our countries are so intent on harassing their population is anyone's guess. What would be really great is if these bills were posted to /. *before* they passed. At least then the outrage could be channeled into constructive action.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
No, just Politician. Corruption knows no borders.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
The fingerprints of the NSA etc are all over this bill. The only question is whether we will ever discover how many of them were blackmailed into giving it their support. The scale of the vote however does suggest that there was a lot of pressure being exerted.
The phrase 'deep state' was invented to refer to the intelligence community in Turkey that used to have enormous influence in the running of that country. However it is a term which present experience shows it may be more applicable to the US than is nice to think about.
They had to. Concentrating this last little bit of wealth is going to be the hardest part so far and they need to be ready when it starts cutting into the bread-and-circuses fund. Expect much more of this in the near future.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
they dont vote based upon fear, not the one you think of, they vote based upon fear of their bottom line decreasing lol in other words they vote based upon who pays them the most....
Should be
They'll be a trade deal sooner or later to allow businesses to sue countries over privacy protection (and any other pesky laws that protect citizens). Can't have sovereign nations passing laws that are bad for business, especially businesses that pay lip service to pretending to be American.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Did you ever wonder why Star Wars depicts a future where so many where helmets all the time? Now you know.
More lawyers performing brain surgery.
You say that like it can't be both. It most definitely is both.
Facebook was FOR the CISA bill (Google it)
So please, stop using Facebook or you're complicit in everything Zuckerberg does.
Don't forget his famous quote...
"They trust me â" dumb fucks," -Zuckerberg
http://gawker.com/5636765/face...
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Actually it doesn't appear to have passed the house yet. I know the house has passed some related bills but hasn't passed this one yet. So while not on the way to the presidents desk at the moment it likely will be shortly. I fully expect my hawkish, freedom hating, former nuclear football carrying in the Regan administration, representative to support this. Then again he called me about USA FREEDOM act which he cosponsored as he didn't like how I was representing the bill and him weeks after it passed. When I stated why I was opposed to it using the exact language in the bill he stated that the law didn't say that. At that point I asked him if he was really that illiterate or just retarded and told him I had read him the exact language in the bill. Interestingly shortly there after he announce that he wasn't going to be running again so maybe I was the reason, or at least I would like to think so.
Time to offend someone