CISPA Bill Obliterates Privacy Laws With Blank Check of Privacy Invasion 192
MojoKid writes "At present, the government's ability to share data on its citizens is fairly restricted, insomuch as the various agencies must demonstrate cause and need. This has created a somewhat byzantine network of guidelines and laws that must be followed — a morass of red tape that CISPA is intended to cut through. One of the bill's key passages is a provision that gives private companies the right to share cybersecurity data with each other and with the government 'notwithstanding any other provision of law.' The problem with this sort of blank check clause is that, even if the people who write the law have only good intentions, it provides substantial legal cover to others who might not. Further, the core problem with most of the proposed amendments to the bill thus far isn't that they don't provide necessary protections, it's that they seek to bind the length of time the government can keep the data it gathers, or the sorts of people it can't collect data on, rather than protecting citizens as a whole. One proposed amendment, for example, would make it illegal to monitor protesters — but not other groups. It's not hard to see how those seeking to abuse the law could find a workaround — a 'protester' is just a quick arrest away from being considered a 'possible criminal risk.'"
Re:Resisting Arrest (Score:5, Interesting)
Are you saying that officers don't have the authority to arrest people?
Officers have authority to arrest people ONLY IF:
- the officer has seen you commit an offence;
- someone charges you with having committed an offence and gives an undertaking to prosecute the charge;
- the officer finds you disturbing the peace;
- she/he reasonably suspects you have committed or are about to commit an offence or breach of the peace.
The law also states that you must be told in simple language WHY YOU ARE BEING ARRESTED. Simply having the thug in blue announce "that's it, you're under arrest" is not valid.
This is lost on most of the right-wing assholes who worship the thugs-in-blue, however.
Re:Home of the free and the land of the brave? (Score:4, Interesting)
With ages of abuse comes wisdom (Score:5, Interesting)
It hasn't worked out well even once. What you are proposing doesn't work in the real world. On TV the cops are very careful about following the rules. In reality they believe that the rules are there to use when it is convenient, and ignore when it is not. In the situation you just described the absolute best * that you can hope for is going to court several times over the course of several months followed by a jury trial with a not guilty, at which point a lawyer will tell you with a straight face that - in the eyes of the law - even though you are presumed innocent until and unless convicted, the fact that you were found not guilty does not mean that the court has found you innocent. The charge will appear on your record when an employer runs a background check (in most if not all states.) The person doing the hiring will assume that you were guilty and they just didn't prove it, or at the very least that you must have done something wrong to be arrested.
* There is an extremely slight chance the case will be dropped, but that almost never happens even when the police report contradicts other provable facts. In one case I had, the DA actually told the cop that what he wrote made it clear I was not guilty, at which point the cop was allowed to file an amended report with the additional lies needed to tie it all up (The car was stuck in a snowbank in the driveway (True) was changed to the car was stuck halfway in the driveway and half way in the street [The lie they needed (TM).]
Re:Resisting Arrest (Score:5, Interesting)
Dude, you have some serious misapprehensions about the right wing. Supporting law enforcement doesn't mean supporting lawbreaking by police or other government agents.
In theory, but in practice it does seem to mean exactly that. I wouldn't say that it's unique to conservatives, but to authoritarians. Authoritarians are more likely to be conservatives than liberals, though.
Re:POTUS Opposes the Bill (Score:5, Interesting)
You're being willfully ignorant.
Thanks to the Obama administration:
1) The stimulus and auto industry bailout saved the country from depression. Look at how austerity has turned out for Europe... It's been an unmitigated disaster for them, whereas our economy went from free fall to 10 straight quarters of continuous growth. Only a liar or a fool would claim it didn't work.
2) Credit card companies can no longer change your due date at the last minute and use the late payment as an excuse to jack up your interest rates. They can also no longer jack up your interest payments because you were late paying an unrelated third party.
3) Credit card companies have more reasonable limits placed on the amount they can charge retailers on each transaction, helping small businesses.
4) The Small Business Association has been expanded, making it easier for startups to get funding.
5) Full funding is being provided to centers to protect battered women and rape victims. The Republicans are currently trying to repeal that law (the Violence Against Women Act) because it also protects lesbian rape victims (the horror!).
6) We're not paying for permanent military bases in Iraq. The war would be over regardless, but McCain planned to keep troops there.
7) The infamous stop-loss programs are over. If you remember, under Bush, soldiers who had finished their tours of duty were being forced to stay in warzones anyway.
8) Wars are now properly recorded in the budget so we can see how they affect the deficit, rather than being hidden. Of course, this leads to him being blamed for "increasing" the deficit.
9) Torture and extreme rendition have been banned.
10) Nuclear weapon stockpiles, both in the US and overseas, have been reduced substantially.
11) Don't ask, don't tell was repealed.
12) The Ledbetter law allows women to sue employers who engage in pay discrimination.
13) We have Network Neutrality laws for the wired internet (though not for wireless).
14) Millions more people have access to health care, many of them children or chronically ill, and it was done in a manner that reduces the deficit. Single-payer would have been better, but it was barely politically possible to get through the current version.
Now, maybe if you only get your news from Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, you might think that Obama hasn't done anything positive. But that's your own failing. Any intellectually honest person who has been paying attention would admit that Obama has done a damn good job.