Obama signs executive order allowing government to seize hackers assets
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One of the effects of this is that it denies the accused the ability to defend themselves by making them immediately destitute and thus unable to afford good legal advice... which results in them being more likely to take bad plea deals etc.
Worse, it is corrosive-- many police departments seize millions of dollars a year which they then use on toys for themselves.
Thus it provides a financial incentive for corruption, and denies due process. Part of the corruption this creates is that if one tried to undo this law, those who abuse it have millions to spend on propaganda claiming that it would "Deny understaffed police agencies from millions they desperately need".
Not to mention, executive orders bypass the legislative process and I am not aware of any authorization for them in the constitution.
This would not affect, for example, the people who engineered the Sony data breach or any of the various cyberattacks against retail or service companies that have been in the news in recent years.
Your worries about the constitutional basis for executive orders are misplaced, I think. Bear in mind that the President is in charge of the executive branch; this order promulgates a policy rule for executive agencies, ie, should the relevant event occur, DoJ is instructed to launch proceedings* to have the assets frozen. Think of it as a statement about how the administration will exercise its lawfully delegated powers going forward.
Edit: I said DoJ but the process starts with Treasury adding the person to the SDN list and proceeding from there by established means, though the doJ would get involved with that down the line, most likely. Sorry if that was confusing.
* by applying to a court for the authority, not on its own authority or on the authority of the order itself
Once your money is frozen and you have no money for the very high priced lawyers necessary to get it back, this is a distinction without a difference. The government's primary use of asset freezes is to paralyze a target's ability to defend themselves. Well financed defendants able to exercise their rights are a nuisance to bloodthirsty federal prosecutors, and executive orders like this one are designed to remove that nuisance. There is a reason that federal conviction rates are, for all intents and purposes, 100%.
Also, it won't affect people in terms of legal advice, plea deals etc. because it only applies to people who launch attacks on critical infrastructure from outside the country, and thus beyond the reach of US police.
Sorry if this doesn't clear things up for you, but how much simpler do you expect me to make it? It is a pretty straightforward sentence, even though it does contain a small grammar mistake (it should read '...and are thus beyond the reach...').
As an aside, this order is far more broad than you state here. It extends to people that have done business with them, in any capacity. That will in many cases extend to US citizens.
Here's an example of a person whose computer equipment was seized during a warrant-backed search.
He was never charged. He was never even arrested. 15 months later, the police still held the equipment.
http://www.justanswer.com/law/3u8hd-long-may-police-keep-pro...
Freeze / forfeiture blurs into one with those sort of timescales.
In the UK it is scary. The police can hold your property for as long as is deemed necessary. If they claim that giving it back could assist you in pursuing another 'crime', you will never see it again. And not a penny of redress.
http://www.ukpolicelawblog.com/2013/05/08/retaining-property...
Hope you have off-site backups.
First, "outside the the country" is a nebulous thing. For example, I suspect that a NSA and/or GCHQ trick is to simply route traffic[1] so it flows over an international fiber so it becomes "foreign" in origin. The bad BGP routes that redirected traffic through
More importantly, the executive order does not reference "critical infrastructure" (itself a vary vague term that includes "safety" and "security" (unqualified)). Instead, it references[2] "critical infrastructure sector".
(A) harming, or otherwise significantly compromising
the provision of services by, a computer or network
of computers that support one or more entities in a
critical infrastructure sector;
(d) the term "critical infrastructure sector" means any
of the designated critical infrastructure sectors
identified in Presidential Policy Directive 21
Commercial Facilities
Communications
Financial Services
Government Facilities
Information Technology
The vagueness of this is terrifying.
--
[1] http://research.dyn.com/2013/11/mitm-internet-hijacking/
[2] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/04/01/execu...
[3] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/02/12/presi...
He seems to also be invoking a US code that allows certain conditions of a declared national emergency to override a legislative two-year sunset? https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1601 I am guessing that's why he cites it, so his executive order won't sunset.
IANAL, I just read the executive order.
I'm all for capitalism, but it has created a vicious positive-feedback loop here that if unchecked, means this will NEVER change.
1) Ex-LE create "training" subsidiary programs like Black Asphalt and Desert Snow succeed because, they teach the "police" how to operate "efficiently" and increase their financial "earnings." This is perpetuated by the rationalization of many police that they are "underfunded," "constrained" and thereby justified in the name of "protecting the public."
2) LE adopting these programs see an exponential rise in intake, and news spreads. These training programs become the new "ideal," and earn large sums in the process for the "training" they provide--an increased incentive to keep developing them.
3) Somewhere in this process the police 'mentality' shifts from "how do I uphold the law and protect the freedoms it affords" to, "how do I get mine, while not majorly stepping outside the bounds of the law."
In many ways it's ironically American, and yet, it's also very much an automatic symptom of this feedback loop where priorities are shifted in pursuit of personal gain and rationalizations are made that create a dangerous disconnect between a true "agent of the law" and a predatory individual with knowledge of said law who is inherently looking for ways to use that knowledge to take advantage of you.
Frankly, I think we're all self-interested in some way and make many rationalizations in the pursuit. The point of legislation is to allow that in a healthy context, while preventing those rationalizations from substantially harming the culture and society.
If we want to see any change here, I think designing intelligent disincentives is the only path that will produce a lasting effect. "Punishment" as deterrence isn't enough. Additional "civil liberty" stipulations aren't either, as we learned with the tax code--more complexity just makes more holes to be exploited.
How do we curtail the ability for these programs to remain economically viable? Remove the incentive, and only then, perhaps the psychology will change.
What does this have to do with capitalism? The word you're looking for is "stealing". That's the word we use when someone takes property from someone else without due process.
So let's stop calling it "asset forfeiture" and call it what it is. Theft.
Work your way back up the chain, though, and you'll see that worsening correlates heavily with the adoption of these privatized "training programs."
Capitalism is the best system we have, in my opinion--and it's predicated on "reasonable freedom in the pursuit of profit."
I personally don't think it's reasonable to for that profit to come from public/municipal funds directed to "training programs" with a demonstrable connection to a systemic increase in civil rights abuses.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/10/11/ca...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/highway-seizure...
The second link (the Iowa incident) has an ~11 minute video that is a must see, but only if you want to be truly disturbed by how police just dgaf.
Additionally, SCOTUS decided Heien v. North Carolina[0] last December in an 8-1 decision for North Carolina. From SCOTUS blog summary: Holding: A police officer’s reasonable mistake of law gives rise to reasonable suspicion that justifies a traffic stop under the Fourth Amendment.
[0] http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/heien-v-north-car...
* Asset forfeiture, at least in its current widespread form that now includes whole departments and is assumed to be a regular part of the budget.
* It used to be a scandal in all but the worst cities if an officer killed an unarmed suspect, that at least warranted an investigation or trial, instead of the current norm of rewarding murder with a paid vacation.
* Even in a country stereotypically known to love firearms, we used to limit regular police work to the same type of small arms that the average citizen might own. More powerful weapons were limited to special-purpose groups. Now, police = without adequate training - get to play soldier with APCs, camo (!), and a variety of modern weapons that are overpowered or unsuited for police work.
* A gang-mentality that has been growing for a long time. There used to be some truth to the idea of a police department having "a few bad apples" among many generally decent officers. Now we have a situation where former officers have spoken about how they had to resign (some voluntarily, some force out) because they didn't want to aid and abet the crimes of other officers.
[1] the problem was big enough that significant parts of the Constitution attempt to limit corruption and its effects
That profession has always attracted those who will abuse the rights of others and seek power for personal gain, however, that's an intrinsically human quality that applies in many contexts. What is clear is that its more damaging in some than others, and its momentum/inertia is relevant. Pass a certain threshold of such behavior and, as per game theory, the motivations of the entire network (or "culture") change.
We're hearing about it more, but I'm also gravely concerned about the rapid rise in annual cumulative seizures. We may never solve the intrinsic problem, but if we don't take action now things could quickly become untenable with no method of recourse.
"Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Friday barred local and state police from using federal law to seize cash, cars and other property without warrants or criminal charges.
Holder’s action represents the most sweeping check on police power to confiscate personal property since the seizures began three decades ago as part of the war on drugs."
source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/holder-ends-sei...
Also in some states like Missouri, all of the money seized goes back to educational programs, not the cops for their toys as you state:
"In 1993, in response to some widely-publicized police abuses, the Missouri State Legislature passed a sweeping reform of the state's civil asset forfeiture laws. The new state law, one of the most stringent in the nation, required that a property owner be convicted of a felony in court before property related to that crime can be forfeited. What's more, the law required all proceeds from the forfeitures to go to a state education fund--not back to law enforcement. The reforms provided strong protection to innocent property owners, making it much harder to forfeit property under Missouri law than under federal law, and eliminated the police profit motive for making seizures"
source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/special/...
While I agree there are innocent people getting swept up by overzealous cops, the point of the program was to deny the criminals (mainly those in organized crimes at the time) proceeds from ill gotten gains to then give that money to the cops so they have more resources to go after other organized crime figures and drug dealers.
It was way out of control, but it looks like state and federal officials on both sides of the aisle agree the laws need to be changed and are already in the process of doing so.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Friday barred local and state police
A friend of mine who I went to high school with was also a victim of this kind of theft. He is an oncologist and most of his patients were terminal. He naturally prescribed pain killers and reported to the DEA what he prescribed (as he's required to as part of the war on drugs.) One day they show up, seize everything of value in his house and practice and all of his bank accounts. Their claim? He was prescribing more pain killers than an average doctor. Not average oncologist, but average doctor. Apparently this makes him a "Drug dealer". Because he had no assets to defend himself, and his wife worked in the practice as a receptionist, they threatened him with arresting his wife and him, putting them in jail for many months until trial, taking the kids away and putting them in foster care, if he didn't admit guilt and do time (in which case his wife would stay out of jail and take care of the kids.)
They effectively stole his kids from him and held them ransom until he signed a deal that give them what they wanted--- just another notch on the belt for fighting the war on drugs.
And another doctor taken out of practice, his life ruined, and more patients pushed onto tother oncologists who, if they are smart, simply won't accept them because eventually they will get the same treatment.
These people are not just stealing money, they are destroying lives, and they couldn't give a flying fork the consequences-- they want convictions so that they can advance their own careers.
So don't give me any of this "criminals benefiting form their ill gotten gains" BS.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Good%20German
Your characterization of what Eric Holder did is way too broad. He just limited one program that facilitated such thefts, that doesn't change the law that allows them or stop them from happening.
He is the AG. If he was going to start defending what's right, would put out the word that they had to stop completely, and then start filing charges against those who continued the practice.
It doesn't matter what the money is used for, stealing money is stealing. It's a violation of the rights of the victim and that makes it a crime. In fact, under USC 18-242 its a felony if you do it while armed (violate of 4th amendment, and almost all cops are armed when they steal assets.)
Claiming it's for a good cause doesn't make it any less a violation of people's rights-- and the way states manage their money, often "Earmarks" are redirected... that's pretty easy.
> the point of the program was to deny the criminals ... proceeds from ill gotten gains
No, that's not the point of the program, that's the rationalization used to justify it.
Here's the deal, though, under our legal system these innocent victims which you label "criminals" have a fundamental constitutional right to their "ill gotten" gains.... as they have a right to hire defense attorneys to represent them.... and UNLESS they are convicted they are to be considered innocent.
You calling them criminal is part of the post hoc ergo propter hoc rationalization to try and justify this.
The problem we have on our hands today is asset forfeiture combined with perverse incentives- only recently did the department that did the seizing, get a cut of the assets. Originally it all went straight to the Fed, so there was little incentive for local police departments to shake people down.
The USA has only existed for a couple hundred years, and the US constitution has as amendment 4 a specific prohibition on these kinds of thefts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_...
Instead, this allows "the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of State" to add a list of foreign hackers "located, in whole or in substantial part, outside the United States" to the "Specially Designated Nationals" list that Treasury maintains (at the Office of Foreign Asset Control). All US businesses, but especially financial institutions, who have an affirmative requirement to know their customers, have an obligation to not do business with entities listed on the SDN list.
I am not a lawyer, but I have in the past written software intended to detect transactions by people on the SDN list. It is of finite length, it is publicly available for review, and individuals and businesses can only be added to it if an explicit decision is made at the cabinet level (as per my recollection).
In general, I would think that HN would see this executive order as a good thing, because it will create a tool for the US to penalize criminal hackers that otherwise would be hiding in Russia, Iran or China. It is profoundly unlikely that these powers would be directed at any US persons, unless they were found to be dealing directly with the people enumerated on this public list.
Imagine an individual on the SDN list has a fraudulent merchant account, which they use to receive and remit payments while obfuscating origin. These can often be mixed in with legitimate business, especially when the purpose is to avoid suspicious use patterns.
Now, if you've in any way (knowingly or unknowingly) initiated a credit card transaction through such an account, that link is fully documented and "provable."
No DA would press charges on something so baseless, but let's say you were a security researcher of some perceived value in finding the real target... they can, will and have been known to use whatever tactics are available to coerce desired behavior, with no concern to the aftermath; all of the power, with none of the messy aftermath/burden of proof that could affect a 99% conviction rate (ie, a trial).
It's not so much the criminals they are currently seeking to apply this to, but those caught up in the dragnet of a system that doesn't fully understand technology, who are seen as a means to an end.
This is but another tool they can use to exploit these people in the pursuit of that goal.
Can this be used against the Chinese defence manufacturers, who are rumoured to have benefitted from the attacks on Lockheed-Martin ?
On the illegal side, lots of people try to use the US as a tax haven because it's surprisingly easy to obscure ownership through corporate structures. Also, money is important for both terrorism and espionage; a good deal of counter-espionage work consists of just investigating financial transaction metadata looking for unusual patterns. IIRC that was what led to the discovery of a Russian spy ring in NY a few years back.
I voted for this man. I debated friends and did my best to persuade them to do the same. I genuinely believed in his 'Change I can Believe In' shit. I trusted that he was an honest politician who believed what he said. Not as much as Paul (my primary vote went to him), but at election time I knew that he had no chance and I felt that Obama was at least better than Romney. I'm not so sure that's honestly even true.
I feel as if the interests of young people are systemically downplayed as presidents are generally 50+ years old. I genuinely believe Obama is a good guy. I actually think George W. is also a good guy at his core as well. I just think they're incapable of truly understanding what the internet is about because they're not digital natives like we are. So they push these laws, and they push mass surveillance, because they fear what they do not understand.
The unfortunate thing is that it looks like the internet of my childhood and adolescence will be dead by the time any digital native could have found herself in office. Gone are the days of the wild wild west. The average 12 year old online spends his time on a locked-down tablet watching youtube poops, watching YouTube channels with professional production, and interacts with his friends on Facebook. Its not necessary to learn about the computer to use the computer, and its not necessary to explore the internet to consume the internet.
Its just profoundly sad. I might be pessimistic here but as someone who had their own computer in their room since I was six, (thanks to my father who was an EE) I know that the wild internet shaped the core of who I am; I feel persecuted by the masses of people who aren't curious enough about the computer systems they rely on.
We need a social network that improves on Facebook and Twitter, not just in terms of preventing censorship, but in UX and performance and what it provides to boring Average Joe. It also cannot have any disadvantage.
Forgive my lack of imagination here but I don't know if that's actually going to be possible. How can we create a distributed platform that Average Joe can use? Facebook requires only an email address, and all his friends are already on it.
It's not impossible, but it is difficult, and I just don't see it happening.
First line of defense because things will happen, and conflicts will occur, and lawsuits will be filed long before people may even understand that there's some underlying paradigm that needs to be addressed in the form of new laws.
Last line of defense because even after laws are created by legislative and laws are upheld by the executive branch, there will be critical issues that will need to be addressed when a case finally gets to trial that were perhaps never considered when laws were created or when people were put in jail (in this case assets seized) for their alleged wrongdoing.
Personally I think, when the dust settles, Obama will go down as one of the greatest presidents in US history.
But what was disappointing was the primarily Democratic Party 'peace movement' which rallied so hard against Bush's wars and then dissolved away as soon as Obama got elected. People will go along with the worst kinds of abuse if their political favorite is doing it.
Romney probably wouldn't have been better. Its hard to imagine he would have been worse though.
But with regards to McCain, you should go look up some of what he had to say before he was Candidate McCain. I think he's one of the better members in the GOP.
He hates citizens united.[1]
He understands why young people like Snowden.[2]
He understands that our torturing is unacceptable (given he was a POW, this makes sense).[3]
So yeah, I like him more than most of the back-asswards GOP.
[1]: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/12/john-mccain-citizen...
[2]: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/aug/11/mccain-young...
[3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR7qsQDWVPU&feature=share
They didn't campaign on those issues whereas Obama did, explicitly.
That said, I think Ron Paul is awesome - although IMO he's a bit too libertarian. Definitely not charming enough for contemporary sensibilities, however.
What drew me to Paul was the way he spoke. He was this frail looking old man that mumbled in debates, which the general public sees negatively, but to me it just made him so genuine.
The guy believes everything he ever said. He's honest. He doesn't change his opionions to pander to audiences. He doesn't try to go all Hollywood and make agreeable soundbytes. He lays all the gory details right in the open, and you can see his thought process as he goes along. This doesn't bode well for the political debate world where you're limited in time and have to give a bunch of elevator speeches.
Most politicans will tell you how they feel, and then say why they feel that way, where Ron Paul brings you through his thought process. What this means is that even where I disagree with him, I understand where he's coming from.
I hope that someone on HN is building a better US debate platform. I want to see a back-and-forth between the 2016 candidates that isn't limited to 140 characters or 60 second increments. I want to read paragraphs and paragraphs of their reasoning, and I want to see candidates criticize each other asynchronously.
If you have a wide reading, you'll quickly realize that you can easily predict the positions taken by articles, by simply looking at the outlet publishing it.
No one cares for the truth, or for the middle path.
See how the court chooses their words to paint a simple technical action such as changing a user agent to be this inherently malicious thing that only an expert hacker would ever do?
I believe that is shared by everyone in government. They just do not know what's going on, and they fear it.
Because of this, I think Obama lacks the wherewithal to understand how this legislation could possibly hurt technical people that are not malicious. There's a collective fear in government of anyone technical.
I think that if Obama had a working understanding of computers, he wouldn't be pushing for this. He'd understand how it could hurt the good guys.
Maybe I'm naive though.
I think I fall on the opposite end of spectrum from you, as I tend to think that 99% percent of the politicians holding office at high levels don't actually care about their constituents. I have yet to see any evidence that contradicts my current belief.
If Obama doesn't fully understand what he signed, that would be even more frightening than him not caring.
What was your rationale for doing it a second time, even when the warning signs were clearly present?
Could you or anyone else who voted Obama in for a second term answer this?
I'm a bit of an edge case, I just barely wasn't old enough to vote in 2008.
In 2012 I would have much preferred to vote for the Green Party. I would have preferred to vote for Ron Paul. I might have even preferred to vote for McCain if he was running.
But my idealism couldn't overcome the fact that I live in a swing state and Mitt Romney would have probably been even more devastating to the issues I care about.
I'm not happy about having my hand forced, but that's just a problem with the US two party system and that's a topic for another day.
Paul Timmins gave a speech at NotACon in 2008 (or maybe 2009) about his experiences with getting arrested for the Lowe's breach in 2005. In the agents vigor to seize equipment for a search warrant, they tried taking his cable TV boxes, amongst everything else with a cord.
It's my fear that if anything ever happens and they come beating down my door for any reason -- right or wrong -- and see my desk with three computers and four monitors on it, that they'll find a way to think that I'm "hacking" and then I'll be screwed -- no way to work equals no money for a criminal defense (and no money to make bail and leave jail) in most cases.
The seizure laws need to be reduced, not expanded...
This executive order details particular behaviors computer attacks on critical national infrastructure from outside the US - that would get someone put on the OFAC list maintained by the treasury.
C'mon man, I just checked the Wikipedia link and it says the exact same thing in the very first sentence. I get the impression that you linked it without actually having read it, instead relying on the impression you formed from watching the TV show. Don't try to figure out the law (or much of anything else) from a TV show. As a screenwriter myself I assure you that anything designed to go on a screen is dumbed down to the point of being wildly inaccurate. We write to engage your emotions, not your intellect.
The challenge we all face is that we're too cowardly, generally, to stand up to tyrannical acts like this.
The Patriot Act; mass spying on all U.S. citizens by the NSA and others; our military and taxes being wasted overseas in armed conflicts most of us would never agree to.
Many complain. And do nothing. So, the words in the Constitution are selectively ignored. "We the People" are afraid to insist that document be adhered to.
Stealing citizens' possessions, as this president just empowered, despite "presumed innocent", is just another failure on our leadership's part to enforce the Constitution. The only way to stop this kind of stuff is to insist these overreaches are set aside.
Many of us have bookmarked the websites of the Washington D.C. offices of our 2 senators (there are 2 senators per state) and Congressmen. When something like this goes down we can quickly get the phone number/email addresses from the bookmarked pages of our Reps and call them, email them.
Do that as a habit, it's easy, and you've let it be known that the government isn't allowed these arbitrary violations of our rights.
Senator Feinstein: http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/washington-...
Senator Boxer: http://www.boxer.senate.gov/contact/offices/
You're kidding, right? The only thing that will happen if you send them an email or call, is that you'll get on their list and then they'll SPAM the shit out of you when it comes time for re-election.
Consider yourself lucky if there's an unsubscribe link.
> The challenge we all face is that we're too cowardly, generally, to stand up to tyrannical acts like this.
This has nothing to do with cowardice. The options for voicing our displeasure are quite limited and the few options there are happen to be ineffectual.
Sending them email, calling, protesting, etc. isn't going to do squat.
The only way to get them to behave is to make it look like a scandal. They don't like scandals. Scandals put their careers at risk.
E-Mail the New York Times instead. If the story starts playing in a negative light on every media outlet and doesn't die down after a few days, they'll start to get nervous and sweat a little.
I pay my taxes. I am a law abiding citizen. If I want to store the majority of my assets outside of this country (in a fiat currency), preferably in a location that doesn't automatically cave to US economic pressure and/or with limited diplomatic channels, what are my options?
Hypothetically, what would give you semi-reasonable freedom to transfer and spend that money, while still keeping it insulated from a government that wantonly steals from its citizens without discretion?
-----
I always used to think in the "worst case" scenario the EFF would be the safe-haven of reason, able to exert equal and opposite pressure to any intimidation tactics, but I think that balance has forever shifted.
I no longer feel safe or represented within this country, and while I still value my citizenship (a debate for another time), I think we all must recognize that personal insurances and safeguards are now requisite when dealing with the federal government. I'd rather be prepared.
[1]: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/SDN-List/P...
Catch-22 I guess. Not sure how to get the AAA-rating and liquidity it provides without being entirely within the sphere of US economic dominance; perfectly safe, right until they decide a little political/economic pressure is warranted.
Bitcoin.
I love bitcoin. I'm a proponent, and a casual developer of related services. But there's no way I'd use it to store sizable assets, which should be obvious--volatility (particularly related to large sell orders) and the current state of exchanges, to say two?
I'm also as optimistic as anyone, but the reality is simply that it's more likely bitcoin will devalue before established governments and the IMF, despite their MANY glaring problems.
It's just not feasible as a primary means of asset storage or point-of-sale currency yet.
Another options is to buy illiquid assets. Invest in private company stocks, for example. The government cannot really freeze or seize illiquid equity.
That said - I am not a lawyer, and I could be completely wrong.
Aside from innocent individuals falling victim to unjust asset forfeiture, it seems to me that organizations like GitHub, Amazon, or Dropbox are exposed if they end up providing services to the accused.
"These sanctions are meant to protect our national security, personal privacy and civil liberties. As such, sanctions will in no way target the unwitting victims of cyberattacks, like people whose computers are hijacked by botnets. Nor does this executive order target the legitimate cybersecurity research community or professionals who help companies improve their cybersecurity. And unlike some other countries, we will never try to silence free expression online or curb Internet freedom." (emphasis added)
How will they know? Doesn't just the existence of an executive order like this curb internet freedom, even if they aren't explicitly trying to do so?
[0] https://medium.com/@PresidentObama/a-new-tool-against-cyber-...
Plus "cyber attacks" is such a broad brush. One that has been used against people who access unsecured URLs which aren't meant to be known (essentially security through obscurity).
It may also make security research abroad against US-based organisations impossible. Most of the bug bounty programs are now extremely high risk.
It points out that anytime a law enforcement agency is allowed to seize funds that flow to it's own budget, corruption inevitably follows.
So this isn't a new thing, it's just a little growth of an exceedingly poisonous tree.
Too broad, too vague and gives way too much discretion to parts of the USG that are already known for abuse of power ...
As a programmer, I fear ignorant law enforcers will actually undermine the hacking community, which elementary has nothing to do with crime.
There is a bunch of material on this topic (both on illegals in the US and US territories) but as a start:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insular_Cases http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downes_v._Bidwell
Essentially even if you're in a US territory the US constitution only barely applies, and it doesn't apply at all to everyone not in either a US state or its territories.
We're also regularly seeing breaches of major companies for the purposes of economic espionage, and disruption of service as a political or economic tactic. We regularly hear about breaches of government systems, including sensitive systems.
Given that very sophisticated companies and government agencies are regularly suffering from breaches, I think we have to conclude that we are really struggling to build systems that provide adequate protection for our personal data.
All of the comments in this thread have addressed the risks of government overreach, but none of them have looked at the costs of these breaches. At what point do we conclude that our technological tools are inadequate, and we also need additional legal tools to deter potential hackers who are overseas and out of reach of the US legal system?
Focusing on this side of the coin may allow us to realize systems that actually do protect our data from being compromised as opposed to spending our resources tracking down individuals and attempting to apply legal tools which the most successful criminals will soon adapt to evade anyway.
My inclination would be to pursue better security, but also to go after the really sophisticated cybercriminals that are currently outside the reach of our legal system.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9309612
“Now the USA can simply confiscate all crypto without any need for time consuming paperwork. This I believe puts USA in the lead (by a big margin) over China and Russia as far as dictatorial level usurpation of financial rights,”
He vetoes the insignificant Keystone, but allows Arctic drilling (competing with Russia now, are we ?).
Now this ?
(Okay the Iran deal is promising).