CISPA Passes US House, Despite Privacy Shortcomings and Promised Veto 231
An anonymous reader writes with a story at the Daily Dot: "Despite the protests of Internet privacy advocates, the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) passed the House of Representatives Thursday. The vote was 288-127. ... CISPA saw a handful of minor amendments soon before passage. A representative for the EFF told the Daily Dot that while they were still analyzing the specifics, none of the actual changes to the bill addressed their core criticisms. ... But also as was the case the year before, on Tuesday the Obama administration issued a promise to veto the bill if it reaches the president’s desk without significant changes."
Techdirt has a short report on the vote, too — and probably more cutting commentary soon to follow.
Handing over our Rights (Score:5, Interesting)
Amazing to see a Bill that does an end run around the Constitution by allowing a contract (a software ToS Agreement") have the full force of law with FEDERAL CRIMINAL PENALTY.
It doesn't matter if this passes or not. The message is clear enough: The rights and liberties of US citizens are forfeit and we shall be placed under the dominion of the Corporations.
Other bills will come later when this doesn't pass, and more after that until the Corporations get what they are paying for -- full control and domain over the citizens of the US and the ability to place any arbitrary rule of law upon them that they see fit and to have the US Gov't be little more than the zealous enforcer of those arbitrary laws.
I think we need this. Maybe then this country will become so incensed as to violently take down a government so corrupt and out of control that no other means exist to change it and start again -- learning from our mistakes. Or maybe the people will become even more apathetic than they are now and just lay down and submit.
Either way -- major changes are coming for the people of the US, and none of them good.
On the other hand (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Could create a Gun Owners regsitry (Score:5, Interesting)
No, it died because it was believed that it MIGHT BE USED to create a gun owner database.
Interestingly, where they could have put a clause in saying "It shall be unlawful to use NCIS transactions to assemble a database of gun owners", they instead put in the rather more weaselly "this law shall not be construed as allowing a database of gun owners".
Note that there is a semantic difference between "I forbid you to do this" and "I do not give you permission to do this".
Note also that the original NCIS law didn't allow such a database to be constructed, but BATF had to be recalibrated on the issue several times, since they kept right on trying to do it by various means.
Also, did you actually READ that thing?? Lending my .30-06 to my best friend for a hunting trip would be a felony, but giving it to one of my wife's cousins (whom I've never met) would be perfectly fine?! And this makes sense to whom, exactly?
Re:90% (Score:4, Interesting)
Assuming that like 94.6% of the statistics out there the 90% number isn't fudged in some way, I agree that this seems off. Although, I should point out, we were very consciously made a representative democracy and not a direct one by the founders. One of the expected outcomes is that the representatives could ignore the immediate feelings of the population, becoming accountable for their actions only as a whole at election time.
My guess is that 90% favor those checks, but not close to that many actually strongly support them. In other words, a bunch of people think it is okay to do it, but don't really care. For my part, I have no real issue with background checks per se, but I also don't see how they would have stopped any of these issues. While they *might* have dinged Lanza on mental illness, and I doubt that because he wasn't previously violent, many people who use legal firearms to kill people would easily have passed a background check of any reasonable intensity. Anyone who would not have passed the check likely knows how to get a gun from their criminal connections, or would have just stolen one.
So ultimately, while I think that background checks are probably fine, and I would probably be counted in the 90%, they really don't concern me all that much. More to the point, they still ignore the mental health issues that cause these problems to begin with. In that way, I was sad to see that the issue was predictably turned into a gun control issue and this went down predictable lines. I think a lot of energy was basically wasted in turning this into a campaign to finally break the back of the NRA, which makes it even worse now that even that appears to have failed.
Re:Handing over our Rights (Score:5, Interesting)
It won't change. There is no space for a change in the trend when the most of the places for coordinate them (or that could disclose that it is happening) are under tight surveillance, and the remaining free/secure spaces are becoming outlawed. And most people are not aware or not care that they traded freedom for relative safety (at least until is their turn [wikipedia.org]), they think they have a democracy in US, but it's just Lesterland [ted.com]
What worries me is how all of this spills over all the rest of the world. If you think US care little about the right of their citizens, you should see how just not care at all [pitchinteractive.com] about others.
Re:Handing over our Rights (Score:5, Interesting)
Gradual erosion? Hell, thermonuclear incineration is more like it. It took 200 years to make a social form that was the envy of the planet. It took 30 years to turn it into a corporate toilet. In the last ten, its looking like an SR-70 in a full powered dive. I'm just waiting to see Chuck Yeagers smiling face commenting "Nice Auger Job Rooky."
Re:90% (Score:4, Interesting)
That's a bit simplistic. If the system stays the same, the next guy in will vote the same way. We have to get corporate money out of DC AND campaigns. When politicians are no longer beholded to them to get reelected, they won't be subservient anymore.
Re:Veto ??? (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps the best way is these days, to follow the constitution. 1 representative per 30,000 people.
It's doable these days - you don't have to fit all 10,000 reps in one building - we have telecommuting, after all.
This has enormous implications.
First, pay will have to be cut dramatically - I believe the original founding fathers expected politicians to sacrifice themselves for political life. We can easily do this by making their pay equal to the median of the people they represent (not the average).
Second, corporate influence has just gone down significantly. When you have a company spending $1B on campaign contributions, that's rougly $2M per representive right now. With 10,000 of them, that's $100K apiece, or just over $3 per person they're representing. Companies wanting to buy laws suddenly have to pay a whole lot o more money. And the amount can actually be raised by individuals in the community.
Third, more local representation - because they're going to represent a smaller slice of the population, so it's a lot easier to actually see what people in the community want. And with lowered pay, they get to see the same problems everyone else in the community has.
Fourth, less whipping possible - you try keeping the entire party in line - if we assume half and half, you try keeping 5,000 people in line - it's a lot harder.
Re:Handing over our Rights (Score:5, Interesting)
US used to be LOT better in terms of civil rights. Gradual erosion is a pain to watch.
I'm in my 70s. When my generation dies (soon), there will be no one left who really know the wonderful freedoms we experienced in this country when I was young. The problem with our dying freedoms are two fold, as I see it. Too damned many people on this earth. We have become a virus and will eventually destroy ourselves by sheer numbers. Second is that we have allowed companies to grow way, way, too large. We used to have anti trust laws which prevented one company from taking over. Now we have huge banks that are allowed to buy up all their competition except the last one. They then become too large to fail and the government protects them. When I was young banks thanked you for letting them use your money. Now they try to find ways to screw you out of it. I still have a Morgan silver dollar a bank gave me when I opened a savings account with a dollar. Net cost to me $0.00. We have shitty cell phone providers and banks who rape us because there is no competition. Capitalism works when there is competition. The disregard for anti trust has led us into these times where the corporations have become so powerful that they can, and do, buy and own our government. You and I are useful to the politicians only as a means to get into office. After that we are no longer important to them and they immediately start selling their souls to the corporations who will give them suitcases of money. Look at all the politicians who have been in government for a decade or more, all of them are wealthy. Every politician should serve two terms. One in office and one in prison. Crooks 95% of them. We are able to influence them with mass protests only because they want to retain that golden seat in government and they are afraid that if they defy too many of us they will be returned to the status of ordinary citizen... like us.