Telcos Oppose Bill To Respect 4th Amendment 190
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Unknown Lamer
from the but-judge-due-process-is-too-hard dept.
from the but-judge-due-process-is-too-hard dept.
Fluffeh writes "CTIA (The mobile operators' industry association) is opposing a California law proposing that a court order be required prior to disclosing personal information. The law seems to be in opposition to the federal government's attempts to wash away the last requirements to get at any information about citizens, but CTIA claims (PDF) '... the wireless industry opposes SB 1434 as it could create greater confusion for wireless providers when responding to legitimate law enforcement requests.' The EFF and the ACLU have been arguing strongly for the bill which is to be voted on shortly."
A charming quote from CTIA: "For example, the definition of 'location information' is so sweeping that it could implicate information generally considered basic subscriber information under federal law. Since the implications of this definition are unclear, wireless providers will have difficulty figuring out how to respond to requests for such information. It could place providers in the position of requiring warrants for all law enforcement requests."
Call or e-mail your Congresscritter. (Score:3, Insightful)
And that is a bad thing because??? (Score:5, Insightful)
"It could place providers in the position of requiring warrants for all law enforcement requests."
Exactly how it should be. The entire point of requiring a warrant, is to provide checks and ballances to the system.
Re:Inflammatory Headline (Score:0, Insightful)
telcofag detected
Working as Intended (Score:5, Insightful)
It could place providers in the position of requiring warrants for all law enforcement requests.
Um, allow me to introduce you to an internet meme that covers this adequately: "It's working as intended." Warrants exist for a reason. This sort of situation - responding to requests from law enforcement - are exactly that situation. Working as intended. Deal with it.
It would also increase the risk (Score:5, Insightful)
Requiring telecoms to only provide assistance when presented with a court order puts that friendly relationship at risk. It also leaves telecoms vulnerable to lawsuits, should they continue to play by the old rules of the game.
When America sneezes, the Rest of the World... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And that is a bad thing because??? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Wouldn't that reduce the financial burden? (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, the real reason they oppose this bill, is interferes with a revenue stream of American tax dollars from the 'unlimited cash cow' of the government.
Re:And that is a bad thing because??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you really want the cops to have to wake up a judge at 3am when your teenage daughter has gone missing after complaining about a stalker?
I desire checks and balances, so yes.
Re:I have a dream (Score:5, Insightful)
Voters do want the 4th amendment respected. It's just that they are so zealous about outlawing abortion and gay marriage that they'd cut off their nose to spite their face.
You are assuming most voters even know what the 4th amendment says.
Re:Call or e-mail your Congresscritter. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't understand this bill, but if it's good we should get Wikipedia involved. Last time Google helped us because, like Dodd said, they weren't invited to the talks. Then he made the incredibly undemocratic statement than next time they want to make a law that affects the public they are going to take into consideration... more corporations, like Google, and that's exactly what they did. And of course it worked.
But chances are Wikipedia is still not corrupt, being the only non-profit with the traffic necessary to reach the audience levels required. Although I need to read more of this bill, that's basically our only hope.
Re:Call or e-mail your Congresscritter. (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember when Americans used to joke about communism and say "papers please" in funny voices...?
Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
I like Obama's solution for this. It is time to impose sanctions against the United States.
http://politics.slashdot.org/story/12/04/23/1453201/new-sanctions-to-target-syrian-and-iranian-tech-capacity [slashdot.org]
"This morning, President Obama is set to unveil a new executive order that will allow the U.S. to specifically target sanctions against individuals, companies or countries who use technology to enable human rights abuse. Especially as repressive regimes more effectively monitor their dissidents online (rather than simply blocking access) , the sanctions focus on companies that help them do that."
And in case the irony wasn't already obvious, he actually is sanctioning the Syrian telephone companies themselves:
Those include the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate, the Syriatel phone company and Ali Mamluk, the director of Syria’s general intelligence services.
I would love to hear him speak out on this issue! Of course, he already granted US telecom companies immunity, so this law would have no effect on them anyway.
Re:Call or e-mail your Congresscritter. (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been saying for a while now (post-9/11) that the members of the former KGB must be laughing their heads off when they have their yearly get togethers.
All those years, those hundreds of billions (trillions?) of dollars we spent trying to bring down the "evil empire", espousing how free we were, how we didn't have to worry about the government listening in on our phone conversations, reading our mail, not having to worry about the police being able to walk into our houses at any time just to see if we're doing anything wrong.
The same people who harped on this (yeah Gingrich, I'm looking at you) are now the same people pushing every day to quash the last remnants of the freedoms as written in the Constitution. They want a national ID, just like the former Soviet Union. They want to track who you talk to, just like the former Soviet Union. Track where you go and who you associate with? Same as the former Soviet Union.
The 9/11 attacks were a wet dream come true for both the intelligence communities and more specifically, the right side of the Republican party. The attacks gave them the excuse they needed to strip away rights all in the name of protecting the nation (sound familiar?).
Yet, when one brings up these obvious similarities, you're un-American. Do you want to be killed by terrorists? If you have nothing to hide, why can't you just follow the (new) rules?
We've now come full circle and have become that which we despised. Congrats Newt, Hatch, and the rest of the lot of fascists. You've gone over to the dark side and have drug this country down with you.
Re:Call or e-mail your Congresscritter. (Score:5, Insightful)
The 9/11 attacks were a wet dream come true for both the intelligence communities and more specifically, the right side of the Republican party.
I agree with what you're saying... but all sides of the political spectrum, not just the Right, are doing this. Others are just more subtle about it and blame the "extreme Right".