US Senate to Vote on a Wiretap Bill That Critics Call 'Stasi-Like' | Hacker News Reader

US Senate to Vote on a Wiretap Bill That Critics Call 'Stasi-Like'

wired.com

81 pointschadsix22 comments

When the government "compels" a company, how does that work exactly? Does the company have to provide that information for free? Does that mean that the company has to charge its customers more in order to facilitate this? Does that mean prices will go up across all companies in order to facilitate the information gathering? Does that mean the government will need to hire more people in order to process all the data?

It seems that the safer our society becomes, the more fearful we become.

> It seems that the safer our society becomes, the more fearful we become.

Safer for who? As a German I can assure you, the Stasi did not make the life of common people safer. Surveillance is there to consolidate power, safety is a smokescreen. The NSA has yet to prevent any acts of terrorism thanks to mass surveillance. We have ample evidence that mass surveillance not only has massive issues but also that it doesn't deliver on the parroted benefits at all.

Want a grim reality check on "what they say vs reality", then go read this https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/publ.... Particularity interesting is this section: "The Committee makes the following findings and conclusions:"

You think they're doing this to keep you safe?

By way of comparison, the Stasi had around 50 000 filing cabinets; at 120 MB per that's 6 TB, or 3 SD cards for under a thousand bucks.

How’s that “democracy” and “bill of rights” working for you my fellow US citizens?

About as well as the 16th Ammendment.

> How’s that “democracy” and “bill of rights” working for you my fellow US citizens?

In this case, pretty well. The bill was debated openly. My own Congresswoman tried to push the warrant-requirement amendment through. Literally nobody called into her office about it. Her colleagues seem to have had similarly-empty call sheets.

Most Americans were, as of 2018, unconcerned about the government surveilling them [1]. There is a growing share who are concerned about how the government uses their personal data [2]. But it's not been an issue voters get off their asses about.

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/06/04/how-ameri...

[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2023/10/18/how-american...

That doesn't mean that voters don't care or that something like this is even legal.

> doesn't mean that voters don't care

No, but it means they care less about it than other issues which they are willing to mobilise in respect of. In that context, holding the status quo makes sense.

> or that something like this is even legal

Agree here, though that’s on the Courts and President more than the Congress.

President will sign the bill and courts will uphold its legality. I think it’s pretty obvious.

> President will sign the bill and courts will uphold its legality. I think it’s pretty obvious

Sure, but the original complaint was about democracy. I'm challenging that democratic principles weren't observed here.

I think it's a failure of the rule of law. But that's not the same thing, even if the rule of law in general is an important component of democracies as we understand them.

The bill is beside the point. Intelligence/law enforcement will do the stuff the bill authorizes -- and probably already are, and worse -- even if it dies in Congress, or the president's desk, or whatever. Legislation simply doesn't matter to people for whom there is no effective oversight by any branch of government, as is the case with these agencies. Time and time again people have painstakingly uncovered massive breaches of legality and constitutionality by the security state, and never has it mattered one bit. This stuff literally goes back to before the founding of the United States, probably before recorded history, and "democracy" has never slowed it down.

Maybe democracy is a good process for deciding on how much to spend on highways and social security (though this is doubtful as well), but it is for sure not something that has ever been a useful tool in restraining security services.

At no point were we the people consulted about whether or not we agree to this violation of our constitutional rights which we thought were inalienable.

> At no point were we the people consulted about whether or not we agree to this violation of our constitutional rights which we thought were inalienable

Of course you were. It was on the House floor. Did you call your representative? That's how it works in a republic. (If you did, I'd be curious for the rep. From what I heard, the call sheets were blank.)

My representative does not represent me. In fact I’ve never seen a representative from my state that did since I reached voting age like 30 years ago. Every time I write to them about the issues that matter to me I receive obviously canned responses that show that the most their staffers ever read is the first couple of sentences, if that. This whole Congress thing is bullshit to create an illusion of representation while the congresspeople actually cater to their lobbyists and the security state.

Tell the U.S. Senate: Stop Risaa, the FISA Mass Surveillance Expansion

https://act.eff.org/action/tell-the-u-s-senate-stop-risaa-th...

(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40064755)

It’s something I care about enough to make a phone call, even though it was exceedingly uncomfortable for me!

I'd like to at least see some positive results. Like at least stats on how many and what type of people are being caught or stopped using these powers.

Oh but they can’t do that. It’d give too much information to the bad guys! (We’re the bad guys)

http://archive.today/wEHWu

> the RISAA legislation expands the definition of "electronic communications service provider" (ECSR) to include data centers and commercial landlords—businesses, he says, that "merely have access to communications equipment in their physical space." According to Zwillinger, RISAA may also ensnare anyone "with access to such facilities and equipment, including delivery personnel, cleaning contractors, and utilities providers."

Incredibly disappointing & massive power grab. It's absurd to think of data center providers now having to go rip computers out of racks & hand them over, whether or not that helps actually any investigation or not (like when the feds find out everything is encrypted on the systems).

It's so disappointing seeing how far the ideas in the Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace got, and how absurdly insanely bitterly the governments of the world are intent on making sure people cannot communicate with each other. What an incredibly & horrible pendulum swing.

> It's so disappointing seeing how far the ideas in the Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace got

I'm amazed that declaration was ever written to begin with.

Computers are the embodiment of subversion. They are world changing technology, the most important technology humanity has ever produced. Just think about it. You program a little math into a computer and suddenly it has the power to defeat judges, governments, militaries, three letter agencies. Imagine how pissed off these people must get while they watch their power and control eroded away by cryptography software. You write a little file sharing program and suddenly the computer starts wiping out entire industries, entire classes of economic activitiy and their associated business models. Computers make a total mockery of copyrighy laws and the feeble attempts at enforcing it in courts. Computers put the artificial in artificial scarcity.

Personally I'm some kind of "computer maximalist", I say society should change completely to fit into the new computerized reality. Society is not willing to just take that lying down though, it pushes back when you try to change it. So it's kind of amazing that we still have free computers at all. I'm not sure they actually realize how powerfully subversive computers are, how much of a threat they are to established powers. They'd push for making it illegal for computers to execute code not signed by the government if they understood that.

Instead we're experiencing some kind of slow politico-technological arms race. They make laws, people make software that works around the laws, they are forced to make harsher laws to maintain the same level of control, people work around that, repeat ad infinitum until the end game which is either an uncontrollable population or a totalitarian state.

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