New Bill In Congress Would Bypass the Fourth Amendment, Hand Your Data To Police (medium.com) 248
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Medium: Lawmakers behind a new anti-privacy bill are trying to sneak it through Congress by attaching it to the must-pass government spending bill. The CLOUD Act would hand police in the U.S., and other countries, extreme new powers to obtain and monitor data directly from tech companies instead of requiring a warrant and judicial review. Congressional leadership will decide whether the CLOUD Act gets attached to the omnibus government spending bill sometime this week, potentially as early as tomorrow... If passed, this bill would give law enforcement the power to go directly to tech companies, no matter where they or their servers are, to obtain our data. They wouldn't need a warrant or court oversight, and we'll be left with no protections to ensure law enforcement isn't violating our rights. A recent report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation explains how the CLOUD Act circumvents the Fourth Amendment. "This new backdoor for cross-border data mirrors another backdoor under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, an invasive NSA surveillance authority for foreign intelligence gathering," reports the EFF. "That law, recently reauthorized and expanded by Congress for another six years, gives U.S. intelligence agencies, including the NSA, FBI, and CIA, the ability to search, read, and share our private electronic messages without first obtaining a warrant. The new backdoor in the CLOUD Act operates much in the same way. U.S. police could obtain Americans' data, and use it against them, without complying with the Fourth Amendment."
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Blah blah blah ... my 1st and 4th amendment rights don't terminate your right to "life liberty and the pursuit of happiness". But 2nd amendment rights frequently have the opposite effect.
But, hey, if you want to live in a shithole country like Beirut in the 80s, you're welcome to it.
Go exercise y
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Says one AC to another AC.
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Slashdot... where the 4th matters, but the 2nd, we'll happily ignore or explain away.
The 2A does not (historically) mean what the NRA thinks it means:
* https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/12/16418524/us-gun-policy-nra
And if you're going to use the 2A to overthrow the government, you'll need to communicate and organize... which can be tracked if the 4A doesn't stick around.
Re: Slashdot... (Score:1)
Re: Slashdot... (Score:2)
Agree...
That said, the Second Amendment states it shall not be infringed...which means strict scrutiny. The Fourth protects from unreasonable privacy invasions, which is a rational basis. Best way to think about it is...if the people don't protest the TSA body cavity searches and replace their congressman it is reasonable.
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However, there are lots of things wrong with trying to circumvent the built-in process for changing the ones you think are bad. People never seem to realize that when you do that for the ones you think are bad, you also do it for the ones you think are good. They don't seem to be able to make the connection between their demanding the government ignore its own processes when it comes to the amendments they think are bad, and their fig
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While I agree in general, it doesn't look to me like the Second is under serious attack. The Fourth has been under constant attack for quite a few years now. The First has been seriously attacked, mostly the provision against establishing a religion.
Moreover, the Second has a politically powerful organization devoted to defending its interpretation of the Second, and ignoring other parts of the Bill of Rights. There's nothing wrong with that per se, but it means other people don't feel inclined to def
If you don't want scum... (Score:2)
If you don't want government or corepirate scum hoovering up your data and giving it to whomever their little black hearts desire, keep it locally, on your own servers or on your own computer(s). At least then they will need a warrant to break into your home and access it. (If not a warrant, there's likely to be physical evidence of a break-in).
Cloud = Someone Else's Computer.
bipartisan support (Score:5, Informative)
Re:bipartisan support (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed.
It's unfortunate that the USA PATRIOT act was passed but it's notable, that the bill had only one senator voting against it (who was later defeated). In other house, the bill was passed 347 to 66 [house.gov] -- nays included Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders (back when he was in the house).
Bipartisan opposition to tyrannical legislation also has a proud history.
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At the
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If you can bypass the 4th amendment, then you can bypass the "right to carry arms".
Ether you abide by a constitution or you live in a pending dictatorship.
Brought to you by... (Score:3)
Brought to you by Rep. Collins, Doug [R-GA-9] (Introduced 02/06/2018).
If there was someone I wouldn't feel bad about getting SWATTED, it would be this douchecanoe.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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"Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?". Go the fuck away troll, you are the problem.
Kill Bill (Score:5, Funny)
Bill In Congress Would Bypass the Fourth Amendment, Hand Your Data To Police
I say we just crowdfund a blonde katana wielding female assassin and have her kill this Bill character, he seems to be nothing but trouble.
Imagine a true deep state (Score:1)
Imagine it had all gone to plan, Trump got to power with a majority instead of a minority. He does his "do it anyway" power grab and they do it anyway. He builds up Muslims as the common enemy with Putin. Trump forms a 'cyber security' section of Homeland Security which works with Russia on US cyber security to protect against this 'Muslim terror threat'. Any barriers internally the US removed to protect its people also fall away as soon as the enforcement barrier to foreign nations is removed.
Putin gets it
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You do realize Hannity is a spineless blowhard, right? No change in political philosophy, no change in the situation at large, yet fully supports the Trump administration having open talks with North Korea while he vehemently opposed the Obama administration doing so. The basis for his argument hasn't changed, only the party in power. His position on Russia and Putin doesn't matter because it's not based in principle or philosophy, it's based on whatever he's feeling at the moment. None of the above fits w
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From now on, anyone blaming another side in a politics debate, I'm just going to ignore them. They are pushing an agenda. Both the OP and the parent are throwing mud at each others parties. This is what it has come to.
The king is dead. Long live the king.
Indeed. There are many problems in the US, but I fear constructively solving any of them will be next to impossible under the current dual-party co-tyranny system of two, for all practical purposes exclusive, parties in control.
John Adams and George Washington had some relevant insights about precisely this type of dysfunction in governance under a two-party oligarchy.
"There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting
Protect from Prosecution (Score:3)
You can write all the imaginary laws you like in the US, it will not protect US corporations from prosecution for failing to adhere to search warrant requirements in other countries. It will be interesting to watch the outcome when the first US executives are given custodial sentences for breaking what a core laws, with regard to citizens rights and the proper application of justice, of they are locals, well, serving another country in a criminal act, is treason. Interesting time for executives of US corporations operating in other countries, would not take the job or the threat of imminent imprisonment and it will occur.
err (Score:2)
So stop providing your data in unencrypted format to parasitic software companies that store and aggregate it...
Fuck these people... (Score:2)
Clearly only terrorists care about privacy and silly things like civil rights.
I don't think that's going to work how you think. (Score:5, Informative)
If passed, this bill would give law enforcement the power to go directly to tech companies, no matter where they or their servers are, to obtain our data.
Pretty sure that violates some sort of principals of sovereignty, but yeah, you try doing that.
Don't complain when China comes knocking asking for access to your servers, too.
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There are new programmers at Slashdot (Score:4, Funny)
They handed our comments to another dimension.
Wonder if I'll ever see this one...
Making America Grate (Score:4, Insightful)
"There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning." Warren Buffett
"We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo
Oh, yeah. That's right
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Uh... "no matter where they or their servers are"? (Score:2)
Not likely...
I mean, wouldn't that still require cooperation from law enforcement in the country where the server resides?
Don't worry, you still have the 2nd (Score:1)
After all, it's the only amendment Americans actually seem to care about. Well part of it anyway, we'll just ignore the well regulated militia part.
Freedom Caucus (Score:3)
Who the hell would sponsor such a bill?
Friends, meet Representative Doug Collins (R-GA):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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His second-highest source of funding is TV/Movies/Music. Number 10 for him is Telecom Services. No mention of funding from law enforcement or anything of that nature, so you get an idea of who really wants the legislation.
Health Professionals $47,450
TV/Movies/Music $34,000
Insurance $31,800
Lawyers/Law Firms $29,200
Retail Sales $28,850
Retired $27,318
Leadership PACs $24,707
Food & Beverage $23,741
Real Estate $22,200
Telecom Services $21,500
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Don't expect him to lose votes over this.
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Since the Freedom Caucus doesn't publish a list or publicly identify its members, how do you know he's not?
And of course the Freedom Caucus keeps its membership secret, because they don't believe as a citizen you deserve to know who they are.
ammendments (Score:2)
They're the cvs of the legal system. This one isn't checked in yet. Thanks for posting the link to the bill. Weird that I see no comments and browser opens a post window first.
39 posts (Score:2)
In the headline it says 39 posts but I can't see any. Been messing around again, ms mush?
Could be a good thing (Score:2)
Such a bill could bring attention to securing you data in the cloud, and potentially encourage companies to encrypt data in the cloud in such a way that the could provider cannot access it. Would help not just against government spying, but also against cloud companies getting hacked.
OK, pass it. (Score:2)
What a load of crap summary (Score:5, Informative)
Wow that summary is a giant load of crap. Doesn't even indicate what the bill is about.
The Cloud act is about establishing a process which approved foreign governments may follow when requesting information about non-US persons (neither citizen nor resident) from US companies. For example, if there were a bombing in the UK, by a UK citizen, and the the UK police wanted to get the perpetrator's Apple Maps history, they could follow this process to request that data from Apple, a US company storing the data in the US.
To be eligible, the foreign government law must "afford robust substantive and procedural protections for privacy and civil liberties", as agreed to by both the Attorney General, and the Secretary of State, with Congress able to overrule approvals.
Requests must be based on "articulable and credible facts" and subject to "review or oversight by a court, judge, or magistrate or other independent authority".
Any information revealed about US persons may not be shared with the US government.
That's the general gist of the bill. You can read it for further details. You'll likely find some good and some bad in it.
Here's one opinion piece about it:
https://www.lawfareblog.com/wh... [lawfareblog.com]
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Disappointed. (Score:3)
I was going to rage against (R) voters, but I see that this bill has (D) co-sponsors.
EFF (Score:5, Informative)
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nope, waste of money. the invasions of our privacy and bypassing warrants started under Bush and accelerated by Obama happened anyway.
EFF has somewhat slowed the march of electronic tyranny.
Given that most Americans won't get off their asses until their doors are being literally kicked in, though, one wonders if it's actually better to slow the descent or to just get the damn thing overwith, after hitting bottom.
Front Page Sats 57 Comments, But... (Score:2)
Click on TFA to see comments and none are visible.
TLAs putting our tax dollars to use?
Strat
sooo how long until (Score:2)
the head of fbi turns out as a multi billionaire via "investing his money wisely"?
that is one reason why this surveillance without oversight stuff is getting way out of hand. it gives direct access to investment information. it is very easy to privately argue even that such information should be used by americans to further their investments in china and elsewhere and that "oh the russians are doing it already".
of course who it gets to benefit is just chosen by.. well, the local putin equivalent. it's not g
First they want to get rid of the 2nd amendment (Score:1)
Now the 4th goes out the window. I better clean out the spare room in order to properly quarter the soldier that will be assigned to my home.
Why even have a constitution? (Score:1)
Strange how the constitution is considered extremely important when it comes to allowing people to have guns, yet it is thrown out the window when it comes to communications privacy. Why does the US even have a constitution if they can shove it aside so easily?
Finding loopholes in the constitution... think about that for a moment.
Wow, that was fast (Score:2)
Read the legal text. (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe I'm completely wrong here but I actually read the legal text and it appears that this is a response to the Microsoft debacle where Microsoft is refusing to fork over data because it's stored outside the US. From what I can tell, it would be used for a reciprocal agreements to disclose overseas data, meaning if the EU law enforcement wanted access to XYZ stored in the US that the company would have to comply and vice-versa.
I really do apologize for not being instantly outraged but in true /. fashion I didn't bother to RTFA. ;)
Another server failure? (Score:2)
Because I see the indicator says there are 69 reactions yet none show up.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure this new break of privacy would invalidate the new agreements on data security with the EU.
Good (Score:2)
I keep a small cache of enticing files in several places, including Dropbox. Things with names that the curious will want to know more about, or run to their superiors with. The content itself is banal, but it does make for some quiet entertainment, to think of which idiots think they have a winner by snooping on my sh*t.
Now you know why (Score:1)
Now you know how you will be treated once you relinquish control of your firearms.
Once they took them from us in Australia, laws like this came soon after. I get it that gun control is a major issue, however I don't think the kids calling for that understand the complexity of mental health issues that drive people to kill, nor do they understand the complexities of the force of the people equalizing the force of the state supported by the US constitution.
Seeing laws like this makes me support gun contro
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Guns in society didn't stop any of this from becoming enforced law.
Perhaps you were not reading the legisations that were passed after that happened. Both major parties aggregated the parliamentary voting system to knobbe the power of independent parties, new censors ship laws, scrapping of telephone intercept warrants laws, introduction of restrictions on the right to free association, removing legal liability for soldiers shooting Australian citizens.
I suggest you don't know what you're talking about.
There are still many guns in Australia
Whilst I agree that it has reduced harm, it has still been used as
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You're soooo cute.
One day you're going to look at all the mass shooting that happen in America and realise that the mental health issues that drive people to do that are created by the psychologist working to turn you into a compliant little consumer.
If you knew anything about the way Australia is used as a test market for the US then you would understand why you should pay attention.
But you just go on with your smug superiority.
Other countries? (Score:2)
How would a law passed in the US force European companies to break European data protection law?
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why oh whyyyy (Score:2)
Other countries? (Score:2)
How can they even have power over servers in other countries? Will they be making world wide agreements with other govs?
Or is this only about US companies with servers in other countries, even in those cases don't the rights of the data on these servers fall under the country where stored?
This will not pass (Score:1)
This will not pass (Score:3)
Sponsors (Score:5, Informative)
Ultimate end result of putting your stuff on cloud (Score:1)
Who didn't see this kind of stuff as the ultimate problem of putting everything on the cloud, out of users' physical reach. Way beyond availability, data loss, or security, having all that data "out there" is the irresistible prize of gov't surveillance and investigation. Don't need to send the FBI into your house with a keystroke logger, just tap into the cloud provider directly.
I've been sure for a very long time they have already been doing this. The Snowdon docs notwithstanding, I believe even one of th
What, no comments? (Score:2)
Goodbye 4th Amendment (Score:3)
It might be nice... (Score:1)
... if we could get the 2nd Amendment people to start defending the 4th Amendment a little more.
--#
The saddest part about this... (Score:2)
The average American will applaud them for this Constitutional weakening.
Is slashdot having a problem? (Score:2)
What's the remedy here? (Score:2)
Isn't this just an expansion of 'Five Eyes' (Score:1)
5 eyes expansion (Score:1)
5 Eyes expansion (Score:1)
5 Eyes expansion (Score:1)
overpost (Score:1)
This shouldn't surprise anyone (Score:3)
What did you think the "3rd party doctrine" was going to mean? It means that the 4th amendment is a dead letter the moment you put your data into the hands of a third party. This kind of absolute shit reasoning is why I laugh in the face of the rose-cheek, earnest face fucks who pull a pedantic poindexter by going "but da SCOTUS said X so that is clearly what it means:"
So in other words, even if you signed a legally binding contract with the third party, the intellectual giants of the court know you REALLY did not have an expectation of privacy. Even if Verizon promised in writing to go so far as to hire Blackwater and assassinate hackers who go after your data, you simply don't have an expectation of privacy because the court said so.
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Well that is fine and all, but what if the company itself doesn't want to give up the data? Should they be forced to give up the data with no warrant?
If I give a letter to Joe to hang on to for a few months, can the cops simply demand the letter from Joe with threat of imprisonment since I voluntarily handed it to him? What if Joe wants to honor my privacy?
Warrants are approved ex parte so there is only the judge and government involved. Once the warrant is approved, it is assumed to be good and the only remedy is exclusion of evidence which of course is useless if you are not charged with a crime. So nobody can contest the warrant when approved and issued and since the company or Joe would not be the one charged, they have no standing to challenge it later either.
None of this matters though since thanks to the United States Supreme Court in Smith versus Ma [wikipedia.org]
Encrypt, Encrypt, Encrypt (Score:2)
and yet (Score:1)
I will turn off the net and (Score:1)
Wanted: Bill criminalizing unconstitutional bills (Score:2)
It's a tragedy that when this bill gets shot down as unconstitutional, the critters that wrote it won't get punished.
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Not circumvention (Score:2)
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The only case of Implied Consent I can think of is that, if I drive on public roads, I've given consent to alcohol testing. Driving on public roads is a potentially very dangerous activity, and imposing conditions on it is reasonable. One condition is that I hold a valid driver's license, and another that I may be tested for blood alcohol.
First Amendment (Score:2)
Local church runs e-mail service for it's parishioners. I'd like to see how this will go down.
That explains the backdoor demands (Score:2)
at least we know why the FBI is whining about encryption so much.
All that Cloud data is a juicy target for them. . . . as long as they can decrypt it.
Useless to them if they cannot.
If you're doing the Cloud thing, make sure your data is encrypted before your Cloud provider receives it. At least, this way, they have to ask YOU for access to that data vs handing your provider a National Security Letter that lets them peruse your data at will.
here is the simple test for the privacy of your da (Score:2)
If child pornographers are not using your data server, your data is not private
All Seeing Eye (Score:2)
keep it local (Score:2)
I run all my services on Linux locally on my own hardware. It isn't that I don't care, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that I started a few years ago to have it all internal to my own location on my own hardware. They can ask all the want but without a warrant they get nothing. Email, web server, sip phone/asterisk, chat, nextcloud, etc., everything that I can house here that's what happens.
All my computers run Linux except my router which runs pfsense. I value my privacy even as others keep tryin
Re: Must be DEMOCRATS doing this... (Score:5, Insightful)
The bill is authored by a Georgia Republican, dipshit.
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It would be if people voted for them
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That's right next door, isn't it?
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No, it's ight next doo.
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"Lawmakers behind a new anti-privacy bill are trying to sneak it through Congress by attaching it to the must-pass government spending bill."
Can't you guys approve bills one by one? Your current system is *designed* to be abused by assholes.
You are correct. The primary purpose of any bill being passed is to serve pork to donors, either through spending or regulatory capture. I suspect any useful work our government actually does must in fact be snuck through attached to must-pass pork bills.
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The 4th amendment was clearly intended to establish a right to privacy of your personal possessions. Just because a lot of those possessions are digital and stored outside of your home, does not mean that right does not exist.
Elections matter. We need to elect people, regardless of party, that defend important rights like this, but you should look at their entire record, not what they say.
Thank the United States Supreme Court for that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Congress then extended 4th amendment protection to third party data through statute but anything Congress can grant Congress can take away. The government's preference is that everybody trust their false assurances that third party data is protected so that end to end encryption and other methods are not used to protect privacy while seizing and searching it all.