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Comment by redleader55 | Hacker News Reader

I find it hilarious that the article starts with "are you mad at Meta for trying to appease the guy at the head of federal government" and ends with "we need strong federal privacy laws". It's the same federal government, you either trust it to legislate or you don't.

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The federal government is not a unitary organization. It's logically consistent to both not like the president and want congress to pass privacy laws.

The right federal privacy laws would protect people regardless of the flavor of the 4 years if they're actually enshrined in law and would take something other than an executive order to undo.

That's the way it's supposed to work, yes. But it requires you to get the courts to agree and the executive to enforce. Which isn't a given anymore.

It's not just about the US or the current or previous US govt: there are billions more tech users in EU, Canada, Asia, Central & South America, Africa. They also have differing levels of electronic privacy. EFF has members in those countries too.

The next major accountability moment for measuring the use of tech will be the 2/2025 German federal election, Canadian and Australian elections, also Chile, Norway, SG. When combined with 2024 (US, UK, France, India, SK, [0]) should at least give a pretty rich readout on the state of digital media and privacy, also YT/FB/IG/TT/Twitter/Bluesky/Rednote

[0]: Pew Research: "Global Elections in 2024: What We Learned in a Year of Political Disruption" https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/12/11/global-electio...

The current administration is an.. unprecedented one to say the least. Maybe I'm old.

I trust the Federal government, if it follows all the procedures with all the safeguards in place.

Trump is neither the government, nor is he "the laws", nor allowed to make laws.

https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/education/three-branches/what-...

That's the way it's supposed to work. But it requires both the courts to say so, and the executive to follow along.

Even when the executive doesn't follow along, the President never is "the government", and never "the law", in the context of what the comment to I replied called "hilarious". When I say there should be human rights, and that some tyrant sucks, that's not hilarious just because that tyrant has goons ignoring the law.

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