CISA latest: Law urging tech giants to share your info with the Feds shows no sign of stopping On Thursday morning the proposed Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) moved a step closer to reality when the US Senate voted 83 to 14 to end debate on a package of amendments. The CISA legislation invites internet giants and other companies to quietly give people's private and personal information to the federal …
In Nazi Germany and communist Russia, people were encouraged to shop their neighbours to the government. I see the US government sees some merit in this idea.
Jesus, I'm glad I don't live there, and they think this kind of thing will endear them to the EU for safe harbour. Don't hold your breath.
This is very dangerous for a reason not yet discussed - the U.S. Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade ruled that abortion is legal because the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution INFERS a right to privacy. it's important that the ruling states that the 14th INFERS a right to privacy, it does not directly mention it.
If CISA is allowed to pass, it chips away at the privacy inference in the 14th and threatens overturning not only Roe v. Wade but Miranda and a host of others.
To make the world more upside down, Democrat Obama says he'll sign this privacy-stripping bill, while in Congress a Republican is against it while an ultra-left Democrat from California supports it.
The world has gone insane.
> ultra-left Democrat from California supports it.
She's just playing a role, like most of the rest of the Political class in the US. If her role called for a red-necked, gun loving, homophobe, then she'd play that role instead.
Also, compared to everywhere else in the world, she's far-right.
No empire of course (although pretending otherwise is yet another symptom)... but still an uncanny summary of the situation: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/04/empires-collapse.html>http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/04/empires-collapse.html
Interesting link, thanks for sharing. Pretty good summary of the mechanisms and internal dynamics that spell (potential) doom for any large organisation. Couldn't however figure out what the bit at the very end about Obamacare was supposed to add to it. (But being an European wuss I'm quite comfortable being part of a healthcare system that may be far from perfect, but will provide what I need without bankrupting me. Not an evil thing at all!) The resulting flamewar in the comments was mildly amusing though.
The left have always been authoritarian, constantly and consistently demanding laws and regulations that restrict what would ordinarily be non criminal activities. Most of the pre-crime/non-crime laws such as speeding have been continually backed by the left. The right tend to want less regulation, but more severe punishment.
@skelband .. You've succinctly summarised why the EU objects to the sharing of personal data with the States. Privacy laws are a lot stricter because of the invasion of privacy by an oppressive government is still fresh in people's minds. I can understand why Microsoft et al don't like this law. It widens the chasm of privacy between the USA and the EU, making it increasingly difficult for these companies to do business here.
>This is not going to end well. :(
If the tech companies are really against it they can end this nonsense in 24 hours like they did with SOPA (only thing that gets Millennials attention politically is taking away their ability to share the dump they just took online). The companies are probably waiting to see how things go.
>This is not going to end well.
For whom? For those of us on the sidelines, it's going to be vastly entertaining. For those of us in the EU it's at least going to end better than it is now. And it's really up to US business to decide how they want it to end for them - they've already moved/kept most of their cash offshore to avoid US tax law, so it's not like they don't have experience in jurisdiction-hopping.
So if a US company has a clear and specific privacy statement that they won't misuse my data, and publicly swear blind that they do not and will not misuse my data, and do everything they can to emphasise that they are trustworthy and do not misuse data - that will all be utterly worthless and meaningless.
A US company which genuinely has nothing to do with this will have no way whatever to give convincing evidence of that.
Gee, I wonder why the tech companies are worried about this?
A US company which genuinely has nothing to do with this will have no way whatever to give convincing evidence of that.
That is all US cloud services killed stone dead.
Shame, really, AWS is not a bad service and at a good price. But not at the price of never being able to enforce a contract with them.
"So if a US company has a clear and specific privacy statement that they won't misuse my data, and publicly swear blind that they do not and will not misuse my data, and do everything they can to emphasise that they are trustworthy and do not misuse data - that will all be utterly worthless and meaningless."
Yup. They appear to be attempting to recycle the stinking corpse of the "safe harbor" scam into domestic law. It seems the US's sausage factory has been taken over by the Soylent Corporation.
I was thinking that then it occurred to me that it does seem, over the last three years or so, that MS, Amazon, Google have increased corporate activity over here, compared to increasing business, so to speak.
Makes you wonder if they're not perhaps preparing to move HQ (extreme, unlikely) or decentralise/segregate US operations as they have plenty of clever & connected staff/associates who could have seen this coming. MS's Irish data case could be seen as a toe in the water to see how they may need to legally structure EU ops to not be beholden to any presumed US law. And that's before you factor in the whole recent Safe Harbour stuff.
Just thinking out loud, not an expert, IANNC (I Am Not Noam Chomsky)
I may be getting lost....but.
Through post 9/11 legislation and pograms like PRISM the USA-government started mass-surveillance and storage of information directly tapping into cloud-stuff stored inside the US.
Big Companies responded by puttng server outside of the USA and promising customers data would be stored there. Though much customer info may still be transferred to the USA.
The USA requests access to a mailbox in Ireland on the grounds that the company owning the storage is a US company and the USA does not care whether it is stored outside of the USA.
The EU declares "Safe Harbour" insufficient guarantee for data-owners because the USA-Government thinks it can apply mass-surveillance o EU citizens.
The USA does not do mass-surveillance on the data stored in the EU, but mkes an individual request.
CISA gets amended so requests by the US-gov should not be reported.
Is the USA hoping for mass-surveillance on the data held abroad? Not necessarily.
Why do EU citizens think that mass-surveillance is already applied by the US-gov on data stored in the EU?
Why do EU citizens think that mass-surveillance is already applied by the US-gov on data stored in the EU?
Why would we not?
World over we have examples of governments sucking as much data as they can, on grounds of 'piracy', 'terrorism', and 'will nobody think of the children', and yet while all claim great strides are made in safety, extreme plots brought to the ground, and the like, somehow no-one (except an occasional token appearance) appears in court, and the piracy, terrorism, and child abuse goes on.
There is absolutely no evidence available to the average citizen that these processes work, or indeed what it is that they are supposed to achieve.
Once again: dear government, mind your own bloody business. When you have at least sufficient other evidence to believe I have committed an offence, then you may try and convince a judge that access to any data I may have left scattered around the place is to be made available to you. Requiring companies to store my data and metadata on the offchance that one day you may want to see it is neither efficient nor productive.
So I don't care whether you're my government, or you're an overseas government which is publicly demonstrating an appetite for grabbing all you can: no.
"Why do EU citizens think that mass-surveillance is already applied by the US-gov on data stored in the EU?"
I do not want to appear rude, but have you been hibernating for the past two years? (On second thought, make that 20 years. I've just remembered the Echelon system.)
This is exactly the issue that the Daily Mail reading idiots seem to be ignoring in their "UK out of EU" rants. If we are forced out of the EU by the reactive uninformed masses, then this (or similar) will be one of the very first draconian policies that will be implemented in the UK.
Given that the proposed law does not pass any "duty of care" on to the feds who copy this data, or require them to demand such care from companies to whom they pass on the data for "processing", does this mean that all of the personal data hoarded by the different corporate fiefdoms will end up available to all ? If so, it would destroy the commercial value of such data, which might have some interesting knock-on effects.
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