Slashdot Mirror
US Internet Firms Ask Trump To Support Encryption, Ease Regulations (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: U.S. internet companies including Facebook Inc and Amazon Inc have sent President-elect Donald Trump a detailed list of their policy priorities, which includes promoting strong encryption, immigration reform and maintaining liability protections from content that users share on their platforms. The letter sent on Monday by the Internet Association, a trade group whose 40 members also include Alphabet's Google, Uber and Twitter, represents an early effort to repair the relationship between the technology sector and Trump, who was almost universally disliked and at times denounced in Silicon Valley during the presidential campaign. Some of the policy goals stated in the letter may align with Trump's priorities, including easing regulation on the sharing economy, lowering taxes on profits made from intellectual property and applying pressure on Europe to not erect too many barriers that restrict U.S. internet companies from growing in that market. Other goals are likely to clash with Trump, who offered numerous broadsides against the tech sector during his campaign. They include supporting strong encryption in products against efforts by law enforcement agencies to mandate access to data for criminal investigations, upholding recent reforms to U.S. government surveillance programs that ended the bulk collection of call data by the National Security Agency, and maintaining net neutrality rules that require internet service providers to treat web traffic equally. The association seeks immigration reform to support more high-skilled workers staying in the United States. While urging support for trade agreements, the letter does not mention the Trans Pacific Partnership, which Trump has repeatedly assailed with claims it was poorly negotiated and would take jobs away from U.S. workers. The technology sector supported the deal, but members of Congress have conceded since the election it is not going to be enacted.
Dear Mr Trump,
You may remember us. We're the people who were suggesting that California leave the USA because you won. We also took some blame for fake news that we claim let you win. Oh, and all of us donated heavily to your main political rival, allowing her to outspend you by a pretty large margin in the Presidential campaign.
Now that you remember who we are, we'd like to ask you a small favour. Please will you do something that helps maintain the balance of power in our favour, rather than that of the instruments of the surveillance state that will be under your control?
Thanks,
A bunch of people that hate you
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Some quotes from his Twitter:
"I have officially cast my vote for @HillaryClinton... Let's make history tonight! #ImWithHer #electionday"
"Clinton wiped the floor with Trump tonight. Say hello to your next president, America! #debatenight"
"Trump is a saggy sack of shit. If any one of you is even remotely considering voting for him this November, please unfollow me."
And so on. And now he clearly uses his position on Slashdot to push articles against Trump twice every day or even more often. Can't whipslash do anything about it? Guy's starting to get boring with his propaganda.
He also railed against Goldman Sachs, and now has an ex Goldman Sachs banker-turned-media magnate as his chief strategist, and a Goldman Sachs-banker-turned-filmmaker is the leading contender for his treasury secretary.
He ran on "draining the swamp", and now his transition team is dominated by the swamp itself, a bunch of scandal-wrapped establishment and wannabe-establishment figures. Of course even that seems to oscillate as they bounce each other around. One day Chris Christie is leading the transition, the next day he's not even part of it. Now Pence is running it, while also fighting a legal battle in Indiana to (facepalm) prevent the public from seeing his emails.
He ran on an immediate full repeal of Obamacare, now he says he's going to evaluate it and try to keep some of its most important provisions, like the ban on discrimination for preexisting conditions, and keeping children on their parents' policies. Which I can't even begin to imagine the outcome of, because if he does that, then he has to make something functionally equivalent to the mandate - otherwise, healthy people who don't get insurance through their employer go without insurance until they get something serious, wherein they can just sign right up despite the "preexisting condition", and hence almost everyone on a non-corporate insurance policy is being treated for something expensive, and thus the rates become astronomical.
He ran on building a wall, huge, thick, unbroken, and explicitly never just a fence... now it's going to be a mix of walls, fences, and possibly not even that in places. At least that's the stated policy plan as of today, who knows what it will be tomorrow.
I have no clue what sort of policies this guy is actually going to pursue, and neither does anyone else here. He's changed so much over the years, and often day to day. Like most people except for the hardest-core partisans on each side, I'm hoping for the best and fearing the worst. I'm not even sure he really knows what to do next in many cases. The fact that nobody in his campaign even knew that you have to replace the White House staff when you take office blows my mind. Were they paying that little attention when Obama, or any other president for that matter, took office?
Again: I hope for the best but fear the worst.
It's times like this I wish I had a friend named 'The Professor'.
He also railed against Goldman Sachs, and now has an ex Goldman Sachs banker-turned-media magnate as his chief strategist, and a Goldman Sachs-banker-turned-filmmaker is the leading contender for his treasury secretary.
"Media magnate" - not to mention that he has a reputation for being a racist and white-supremacist etc etc. Sad to think that I, only a few days ago, spoke in favour of giving Trump a chance to show us what he really is like; I guess that is what he is now doing, and it doesn't look pretty. Keep it up like this, and even the most pessimistic expectations will be more than fulfilled.
Who's going to read it to him?
You are welcome on my lawn.
I suppose it's a typical leftist mindset that people should be able to break contracts and essentially steal money from the other party by not fulfilling their obligations while pocketing the money. Apparently Trump doesn't agree with that. Good on him.
What the hell does being a left minded person have to do with fulfilling a contact? Especially when Trump was quite happy with the work until it came time to pay up???
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
But the fox has a degree in hen studies!
It's times like this I wish I had a friend named 'The Professor'.
The exaggeration has reached the point I genuinely don't know what side you are on. But this is politics - where it is impossible to produce satire that cannot be mistaken for the real thing.