New Encryption Bill Is Ridiculous

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I giggled a little bit when I read the opening paragraph of this bill. I could actually hear the Sylvester Stallone version of Judge Dredd in my head as I read that "no person or entity is above the law" part.

The basics of the bill are exactly what you'd expect. It says that any "device manufacturer, software manufacturer, electronic communication service, remote computing service, provider of wire or electronic or any person who provides a product or method to facilitate communication or the processing or storage of data" must respond to legal orders demanding access to said information. First off, this actually covers a hell of a lot more than was originally expected. By my reading, anyone providing PGP email is breaking the law -- because it's not just about device encryption, but encryption of communications in transit as well. I wonder how they expect to put that genie back in the bottle.
 
I don't think we're going to like this much if it becomes law.

Boy don't you wish we had some guys like Tim Cook in there helping keep this new law from getting too stupid.
 
Believe it or not: There are some things the Government has no need to know, and no right to insist that it knows.

But besides that, this is a ridiculous bill, one that hopefully no one else supports, and dinosaurs who try to pass such laws need to not be in office in the modern age.

If you are incapable of understanding technology, why should you be the one passing laws about it?

Please people: vote the dinosaurs out (from all parties). And I am not talking age, as some older people are perfectly capable of understanding such things (heck I almost am one of them). But those leaders demonstrably incapable of understanding the modern world need to gracefully retire.
 
Anonymous Reporter: "Senator Feinstein, a question please...?"

Senator Feinstein: "Certainly."

Anonymous Reporter: "Thank you. Senator Feinstein, has anyone ever told you that you're a fucking loon to your face? And a followup: are you naturally this fucking stupid or does it require some actual mental effort on your part?"

Senator Feinstein: "Well I never..."

Anonymous Reporter: "So that's a yes to both questions, thank you for your time, Senator Feinstein."
 
This isn't meant to pass, it's a discussion draft, so it's politicians version of trolling the American public into false outrage and survey where various parties stand on an issue.
 
Wasn't this one of the reasons America separated from Great Britain? Yes mainly from Taxation and the bad food. But it was based on freedom. Living on a constant surveillance state of any kind is not freedom.
 
amddragonpc said:
Feinstein is that anti-gun nut (who carries a gun by the way) and now she's going to do this? People in CA need to stop voting for her.
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She's old enough (82?) to where she should retire. Or die. Either way...
 
Ur_Mom said:
She's old enough (82?) to where she should retire. Or die. Either way...
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Tell that to McCain, who as much or more of a fruit-loop. And has publicly admitted he doesn't even know how to use Outlook or email.
 
I would be happy ^ oops waited to long, a couple posts up.

But yeah, McCain and Feinstein (buddy buddies, along with C-linton) need to wrap it up and go live on a ranch somewhere they cannot harm the rest of the public.
 
raz-0 said:
Hey everyone, welcome to the land of Feinstein. Gun owners have been dealing with her forever, now it's your turn.
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The bill's co-sponsor, Senator Richard Burr, is among the more liberal/moderate Republicans in the Senate, although at least he is consistently (for now) pro-2nd Amendment.
 
Fucking Feinstein, once again. Is McCain's name on this BS as well? How that man even appeases the Republicans is beyond me.

I bet the two of them are the real parents of Hitler.
 
In a way this is not a bad thing. It can actually be bought forward to the Supreme Court and fought. A series of executive orders and judicial writs is much harder to fight and bring to the light of day. And would require a Congress with courage to fight them. Perhaps this is the reason the White House is upset.
 
jpm100 said:
In a way this is not a bad thing. It can actually be bought forward to the Supreme Court and fought. A series of executive orders and judicial writs is much harder to fight and bring to the light of day. And would require a Congress with courage to fight them. Perhaps this is the reason the White House is upset.
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A left heavy SCOTUS won't help with this. Same for a right heavy. There needs to be a Constitution focus bench
 
Ur_Mom said:
She's old enough (82?) to where she should retire. Or die. Either way...
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The single greatest thing in the American political system is the two term limit. It may have been created for the purpose of cynical political manoeuvring at first, but it's the best idea in the history of democracy.

It should be applied to every politician in every country on earth. Not just the heads of state, EVERYONE. It's startling how incredibly disconnected from reality these old farts become after they've been sucking at the public tit for 20 or 30... or 70 years.
 
The original idea - hence the two-term limit for the President - was that someone from some part of America would run for office, be elected, serve a term or two for a few years, then return to their homes and continue their efforts in their chosen fields. Being a politician, at least based on what the Founding Fathers originally had in mind, was never a career opportunity: get in, do some good, get the fuck out so someone else can come in with a fresh look on things, do their best to improve on the previous occupant of whatever position or seat of power they were elected into, go home, someone else comes in, etc.

That's what a democracy in action should be like, constantly evolving based on fresh ideas and perspectives as the world and the country changed and grew.

But of course, that's obviously not what happened and once some people got ahold of that kind of power they simply didn't and still don't want to give it up, ever.

America might have some democratic concepts, but in reality we've never been a democracy, it's a republic just like Rome was, with elected officials in tiny numbers representing huge swaths of the population with vastly greatly numbers. I can't for one say it's ever really worked, sadly, and things are just getting worse. I have a lot of people that tell me "Oh you're just negative, you need to be more positive..." and I just reply "Ok, I'm 100% absolutely fucking positive things are shit and getting worse."

I mean, Donald Trump is running for President and has a commanding lead in terms of delegates on the Republican side. Why every intelligent person with some level of decency and common sense doesn't stand up and just say "Donald, you're a fucking idiot that isn't worthy of being President and you really need to sit down and shut up before someone sits you down and shuts you up with a lasting effect."

It baffles me - seriously it does - that even though I know people in general and in mass quantities are just fucking stupid more often than not that Trump has made it this far but he's telling people exactly what they want to hear. Unfortunately if he actually gets into office - and I won't say elected because the American public doesn't and never really has elected the President but they don't seem to understand that fact - he'll soon realize that the President doesn't have the kind of power he currently imagines the position should.

He'll get slapped down like a red headed stepchild at every opportunity.

Term limits for Congressmen, creating citizen legislators and not career politicians, would be a fantastic thing. Unfortunately Congress will never pass any such action because it affects them directly and drains that power they crave more than their next breath it seems and the general American population suffers for it 24/7.
 
Tiberian said:
Term limits for Congressmen, creating citizen legislators and not career politicians, would be a fantastic thing. Unfortunately Congress will never pass any such action because it affects them directly and drains that power they crave more than their next breath it seems and the general American population suffers for it 24/7.
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I fully support term limits for Congress.

Actually, I prefer a suggestion made by a friend of mine's dad: change the law so that members of Congress are elected for life, but keep the current 4 and 6 year term lengths (and enforce them). :D
 
Tiberian said:
Term limits for Congressmen, creating citizen legislators and not career politicians, would be a fantastic thing. Unfortunately Congress will never pass any such action because it affects them directly and drains that power they crave more than their next breath it seems and the general American population suffers for it 24/7.
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I recall Bill Clinton during an interview in 1992 (possibly a Rock the Vote segment on MTV) telling a member of the audience that he opposed term limits because that would give unelected staff more experience and thus more power than the short-term Congressmen that they serve. The 1992 election was the first in which I was eligible to vote, and I consumed all manner of mass media at the time in an attempt to become informed about the candidates and the process. I may have changed my party and ideological allegiances since 1992 (I registered as a Democrat in 1992), but that issue remains one of the few on which I and Bill Clinton are in agreement.
 
jpm100 said:
In a way this is not a bad thing. It can actually be bought forward to the Supreme Court and fought. A series of executive orders and judicial writs is much harder to fight and bring to the light of day. And would require a Congress with courage to fight them. Perhaps this is the reason the White House is upset.
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Regardless of what other people are saying about this draft, what it seems to be saying explicitly is that you can't fight a court order to hand over information or help obtain it - what I guess you're calling a judicial writ.

Apple believed they had some legal reason to refuse the order to help unlock the San Bernardino shooter's phone. This proposed bill basically says it doesn't matter what those reason are, there are no legal reasons, you have to do it.
 
GaryJohnson said:
Regardless of what other people are saying about this draft, what it seems to be saying explicitly is that you can't fight a court order to hand over information or help obtain it - what I guess you're calling a judicial writ.

Apple believed they had some legal reason to refuse the order to help unlock the San Bernardino shooter's phone. This proposed bill basically says it doesn't matter what those reason are, there are no legal reasons, you have to do it.
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You can fight the bill itself. Whereas its not practical for dozens or hundreds of orders like the one used on Apple on top of numerous executive orders to be fought by a group trying to oppose such a measure. Apple had the resources to fight it and motivation. What if is had been at a time when Apple was financially strapped. Basically the government would have create a situation where fighting a back door at birth was not in any phone maker's interest when they can force you to do it after the fact anyway. Multiple little victories that can't always be stopped because they won't always be in the interest of the persons with the resources to fight it and persons with the will to fight it won't have the resources. Such things could be stopped by congress who won't do it.

But a single Bill can become a single focus to fight by privacy groups. After a victory there, there will be precedent that will make it easier to eventually overturn any judicial or executive order.

At least for now. The next two or three justices including Scalia's replacement will be authoritarians and will hold up such a Bill.
 
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As someone who still gets to talk to the Polish Home Army Underground during the II world war I have to say they surely jest.

Big deal, for every encryption/hashing algorythm is a botnet of CPUs breaking them down to a readable level in a matter of "just" time.

They are banning spoken language now, my friends who migrated to the UK get scolded for talking in Polish even during breaks.

They have to see everything, hear everything and understand everything. It's that last word that makes all those silly control attempts futile.

Behold:
wr 33 anx1 10000000 0-1 1dex1 biped wr 33 anx1 9999999

this is encryption. it utilizes some knowledge that is at the same time popular, raises no suspicions, cannot be broken by anyone but myself and the intended recipient who shares the required knowledge.

edit: easy mode: it's a brief comm between two tank crews in defensive action
 
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... meanwhile when the government responds to a legal FOIA request the documents that are given if "secret" look like the cover of some spy novel with black lines over 95% of the information.
 
sfsuphysics said:
... meanwhile when the government responds to a legal FOIA request the documents that are given if "secret" look like the cover of some spy novel with black lines over 95% of the information.
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By all means surrender everyhing they want. They can't break it if they can't prove encryption was used. My phone is broken. I had a stroke. I was drunk. It was 'carry your phone in your crack' day, etc.
 
And before someone laughs, no, dead drops are no go, tor is no go, pgp is no go, AES, blowfish(edit) are all no go. Everything is no go when computer,keyboard activity can be monitored remotely by analysing the electrical noise bouncing back into your powerline.
 
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My command was situation-recipient specific. We were just talking about tanks. T33 (sturdy, numerous, dangerous) anx (annex) 1 (T34) 10000000 - "very much", 0-1 means a decrementation but also '2'. dex is reversed to anx (unannex) 1 from 2 9999999 (opposing force related injury one lost leg. Wr- wartime/war/growl(threat)
It's super easy to device such silly fake languages and prove they are not secretive. Ever seen codebreakers running around photographing graffiti on bahtroom wall stalls?
The woman with the umbrella in Dallas makes me rofl
 
UnrealCpu said:
guess americans are becoming like the Chinese
communists
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No, this is fascist, not communist. A communist wouldn't give a f** about people encrypting their shit. Unless their government is in decline - then it launches its anti-citizen mode. We see this in the USA, Europe, China.
 
Lets not forget that several years ago many political and corporate interests supported encryption - it was something used to protect THEIR assets and used as a weapon of both public relations "Lets ensure that reporters and activists in those despotic foreign nations can't be caught by their governments!" and control "this makes it easier for us to communicate with our assets in foreign nations when we decide its time for some regime change friendly to 'US interests' " However, when it became evident that encryption could be used by the populace to reveal the elite's wrongdoing (ie Snowden releases, Panama Papers, Whistleblowers abound, Wikileaks and far more), they again turned on the fear-based justification why they deserve encryption, but its too dangerous for the populace as a whole because it can be used to do bad thing (read as: they want to the be the only ones who's bad deeds remain shadowed).

So out comes the typical justifications for making sure (their) security eclipses (our) liberty - child pornography and terrorism. Right after the Paris attacks I will never forget how these interests started blaming encryption, even before we knew anything about the attack. When it was revealed that the terrorists in Paris used low tech and plaintext communication, that didn't stop them. Likewise the farce of a case against the San Bernadino shooter's iPhone. They already had a fuckton of evidence gathered the "normal" way, including both of the attackers' personal iPhones, data backups from Apple, and telecom data. There was no important info on the work owned iPhone in question, but the FBI figured they could set a precedent in this "perfect" case of a dead terrorist's work phone. They didn't expect Apple to fight back with such support I'm guessing and their attempt to set a legal precedent failed, so now here we are with a bill that, if it passes, will ensure that the government doesn't ever become "embarrassed" again, as there must be backdoors and everyone is compelled to let the government access them whenever they wish.

This is the time to get involved - write/call your Senators and insist that they vote Nay, be they on committee or when it reaches the floor. There are even form letters from various Internet friendly groups (ie EFF and Fight for the Future) that you can sign and will be emailed or otherwise delivered. Insist that they not only vote against this particular bill but ANY bill that compromises strong encryption standards. The real problem is that if it gets voted down a couple of times, than we must be aware that the text of this sort of bill will be appended to some sort of "vital" omnibus bill. This is what happened with CISA and is proof that we need legislation for "single issue" bills that don't allow any riders added.
 
Wait until more average people start combining crypto with digital currencies.
The States power is melting away and instead of prolonging the inevitable they are unintentionally pushing people towards it.
 
I've got to point out the funniest part of this... those line people are freaking out about are directly from the constitution of the United States of America... looking at it so far it is saying if there is legal court order meaning a judge or jury authorized that someone did break the law, that all persons can be asked to help provide timely data or assistance to obtain the data that the court is saying that it has a legal right to see...

That and this really does look like pro privacy bill...

Those two normally freak me out but while you can not be compelled in any way or form to provide proof against your self, there is no protection against another company turning over data they have on you... but it is still hear say... just look at the employees writing on people walls and tricking people into thinking it is real, while those people are idiots for assuming that people don't deface website all the time, and that it can't happen to social media, there may be things that can lead detectives into finding things that do mean something. Like people being murdered... people driving drunk, things like fraud those are harder since most grifters seem to target victoms in packs. so that all the victims think each other did while the grifter offers to help everyone and walks away with the loot. Though my guess is that they will continue to find new way to live off the wealth of the people who think the innocent fear for nothing... I'm guessing we would not have laws if the innocent were safe. So when some one objects to the rule of law, my first thought is someone has their hand in a cookie jaw some where and is bribing someone to look the other way. Eventually congress is going to have to go through every law in existence in the usa, if they are doing their jobs... they are supposed to vote their own raises so the can not be bribed and we the people are supposed to elect people who understand when they have enough that they can focus on looking at the laws and see if they help or hurt out country. laws that help society grow toward a golden age are supposed to be protected and the ones that only benefit the ill, corrupt or immoral are supposed to be stricken from the books. Not sure who that effects laws that help the sick and the dying because unless they decide the ill is people who are evil... it is going to be interesting for them to look at the laws. Though my guess is even with all the senators and congress people it will take decades to clean up the mess of the current legal system. not that it is wrong just bogged down with laws that are not enforced except when people feel like it, laws that serve no point for crimes people do not commit anymore... though if we fix the countries legal system stealing pies from windows might actually be an issue again some day.
  1. no person or entity is above the law;
  2. economic growth, prosperity, security, stability, and liberty require adherence to the rule of law;
give me a few hours to find the right sections and and give you all the numbers... they are also famous quotes by the founding fathers... this country was founded on rule of law, as the final arbitrator, for man is fallibly. I forget which one said it.


This Act may be cited as the "Compliance with Court
5 Orders Act of 2016".
6 SEC. 2. SENSE OF CONGRESS.
7 It is the sense of Congress that-
8 (1) no person or entity is above the law;
(2) economic growth prosperity security, stability,
and liberty require adherence to the rule of law;
(3) the Constitution and laws of the United States
provide for the safety, security, and civil liberties
of all l:United States persons and the protections
and obligations of these laws apply to all persons
within United States jurisdiction;
(4) all providers of communications services and
products (including software) should protect the
privacy of United States persons through
implementation of appropriate data security
and still respect the rule of law and comply
with all legal requirements and court orders;
(5) to uphold both the rule of law and protect the
interests and security of the United States,
all persons receiving an authorized judicial
order for information or data must provide,
in a timely manner. responsive, intelligible
information or data, or appropriate technical
assistance to obtain such information or
data; and
(6) covered entities must provide responsive,
intelligible information or data, or appropriate
technical assistance to a government pursuant
order.

 
jpm100 said:
In a way this is not a bad thing. It can actually be bought forward to the Supreme Court and fought. A series of executive orders and judicial writs is much harder to fight and bring to the light of day. And would require a Congress with courage to fight them. Perhaps this is the reason the White House is upset.
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You know, this was the exact same thinking that led to the passing of the DMCA and look what happened there. People need to stop thinking that the Supreme Court is some sort of automatic repealer of shit laws. It's not. Laws need to be fought even before they manage to hit the floor of Congress and continue on throughout the whole process. If they pass then they need to be fought at the Presidential level by making sure the President knows the law is shit and should be vetoed. Simply put, after that the Supreme Court is the absolute last step in the process with absolutely no input from the populace taken into consideration. Even then there's simply no way to tell how things will play out since the Supreme Court is more interested in their own personal preferences and making sure they agree with previous courts instead of doing their job by looking at the Constitution and determining if the federal government actually has the power to enact the law according to the Constitution which should be a simple enough job.
 
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