Hacker News Reader

Wat?

Seconded. That said, this is laughably doomed for failure. It's still shocking, but this is NY. Their police force is the most militarized in the country and most of the world. Over-stepping their authority and bounds is a daily activity.

Yeah, they often propose legislation that just seems like "How far can we really go?" test. Even if this did pass, it would be virtually impossible to enforce an anti-encryption policy at a large scale. It would only end up effecting the people who are already in custody, further compounding the existing problems with prosecution of the poor here.

That's a fantastic point.

NY is familiar with push-the-limit prohibitions.

In comparison: NY passed the "SAFE Act" which, among other things, banned sale of "assault weapons" and required current owners register. The compliance rate with the registration requirement is about 4% ... out of a half-million owners.

NY is willing to go far, and sweep up violators as they're found.

It's really going to come back to bite them - creating essentially unenforceable laws is a bad idea if you want to maintain the rule of law.

It would allow them to add a criminal charge of possessing an illegal cell phone to people who have encrypted cell phones, then possibly force them to decrypt it through intimidation.

No, it would not. The law only criminalizes the "sale or lease" of such a device, not possession.

Although it wouldn't explicitly allow that, it's a short leap to make. That would be even more difficult to enforce though, and would mostly only impact those who are frequently arrested (pretty much the same downsides as the current issue, but on a more exaggerated scale).

This is the same state that banned selling sodas over a certain size, IIRC.

No, that was NYC's municipal government, not the state.

The Soda Ban is NYC-only, in response to the city's childhood obesity epidemic. Albany is a long way from the NYC mayor's office, both geographically and politically ;)

So that's why NYC kids are so skinny now.

The ban got overturned for exceeding the authority of the health department.

Has an underground black market for large sodas been established?

Yeah, it's called "buy two smaller ones or take advantage of the free refills".

Which isn't an entirely unreasonable response to obesity.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com