White House Agonizes Over UN Cybercrime Treaty (politico.com) 43
The United Nations is set to vote on a treaty later this year intended to create norms for fighting cybercrime -- and the Biden administration is fretting over whether to sign on. Politico: The uncertainty over the treaty stems from fears that countries including Russia, Iran and China could use the text as a guise for U.N. approval of their widespread surveillance measures and suppression of the digital rights of their citizens. If the United States chooses not to vote in favor of the treaty, it could become easier for these adversarial nations -- named by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency as the biggest state sponsors of cybercrime -- to take the lead on cyber issues in the future. And if the U.S. walks away from the negotiating table now, it could upset other nations that spent several years trying to nail down the global treaty with competing interests in mind.
While the treaty is not set for a vote during the U.N. General Assembly this week, it's a key topic of debate on the sidelines, following meetings in New York City last week, and committee meetings set for next month once the world's leaders depart. The treaty was troubled from its inception. A cybercrime convention was originally proposed by Russia, and the U.N. voted in late 2019 to start the process to draft it -- overruling objections by the U.S. and other Western nations. Those countries were worried Russia would use the agreement as an alternative to the Budapest Convention -- an existing accord on cybercrime administered by the Council of Europe, which Russia, China and Iran have not joined.
While the treaty is not set for a vote during the U.N. General Assembly this week, it's a key topic of debate on the sidelines, following meetings in New York City last week, and committee meetings set for next month once the world's leaders depart. The treaty was troubled from its inception. A cybercrime convention was originally proposed by Russia, and the U.N. voted in late 2019 to start the process to draft it -- overruling objections by the U.S. and other Western nations. Those countries were worried Russia would use the agreement as an alternative to the Budapest Convention -- an existing accord on cybercrime administered by the Council of Europe, which Russia, China and Iran have not joined.
Treaty? (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't a treaty need 67 votes in the senate?
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Anyway premise of TFA makes little sense:
The uncertainty over the treaty stems from fears that countries including Russia, Iran and China could use the text as a guise for U.N. approval of their widespread surveillance measures and suppression of the digital rights of their citizens.
Biden administration has been doing just as bad than the mentioned countries, pressuring social media like facebook and others to censor, spreading lies and misinformation about and even trying to jail and in some cases even succeeding to do so with their political opponents.
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This one makes more sense:
U.N. Ad Hoc Committee Vice Chair Claudio Peguero Castillo, cyber ambassador for the Dominican Republic, argued that the country would need a court order to spy on civilians, saying that âoethere is no single provision in the conventionâ that would explicitly allow for surveillance by member states.
Oh noes! We won't be able to spy on our own citizens!
Conditions (Score:2)
US president will submit this treaty to ratification to the US Senate if
The UN provides a full budget for each and every program, every person working for the UN, every UN contract, every UN purchase, travel, expense, etc. and make all of those publicly available 3 months after the end of the calendar year.
The UN has been getting a free ride without oversight since its inception.
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This isn't cybercrime, first of all. Second pressuring is not censoring. The articles in question were pretty much lies, myths about covid, myths about elections. The trying to jail is not the presidential administration it's coming from states and cities over actual crimes that have evidence. Call it a witch hunt, but the administration being blamed for the hunt does not have the power or authority over most of these prosecutors, and absolutely none over judges.
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traditional democrats with common-sense are now seriously asking themselves who would be best for the country. They just don't brag about it too much.
Thanks for the laugh.
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Biden administration has been doing just as bad than the mentioned countries, pressuring social media like facebook and others to censor, spreading lies and misinformation about and even trying to jail and in some cases even succeeding to do so with their political opponents.
Wow. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. It seems that every media source ever has not reported it.
Re: Treaty? (Score:2, Insightful)
It also needs trustworthy partners. The UN is a pointless organization, Russia and China will sign just for the PR of the US not doing it and then completely ignore what it says anyway, as they have done with every single UN treaty and resolution since its establishment.
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Ask the Apache's how well we keep our promises and treaties. I'd rate it somewhere between "terribly" at one end of the continuum and "absolutely not at all" at the other. Of course, the UN is a terrible idea for the most part. Big multilateral actions tend to be hamfisted and create zero sum games which smaller countries lose. If I could set policy I'd say we need to think radically improve both foreign poli
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The UN would be a lot more useful if the Security Council were eliminated, but it was designed by the US, USSR and UK deliberately to be toothless.
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The UN would be a lot more useful if the Security Council were eliminated, but it was designed by the US, USSR and UK deliberately to be toothless.
I doubt it. My response to the consistent failures I mentioned and the telegraphed bad intentions from the UN would be to absolutely pull the plug. If you want to help folks internationally, there are better ways to do it. Support the ITRC, WaterAid, MercyCorps and folks who have a better track record of actually helping (not raping or betraying) the targets of that support.
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I've worked in non-profits, they're frequently (though not always) the least efficient way to accomplish a goal. A large proportion of them spend more on publicity, administrators and fundraising than they do actually providing aid, frequently multiple times more (the Christian groups are the worst), and they're prone to being manipulated by fraudsters and/or being used to launder money. Most problematic is that they have no authority to cross borders, if for instance Israel wants to deliberately starve t
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UN isn't pointless. However it lacks a lot of power and is intentionally crippled in many ways. But there is a distinct point to the UN and a real need for that type of organization. Ie, just because you chose a really bad marriage counselor that's not working out does not mean the concept of marriage counselors is pointless.
The major flaw in UN is that they let several major countries have veto powers and too much influence; even if pragmatically the UN wouldn't exist without those countries' approval.
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Congress needs to approve a treaty before it's ratified, otherwise the treaty lacks the force of law even if the administration abides by its terms.
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Prep to be sold into UN slavery. (Score:2)
Sweet Jesus
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Kofi Annan still haunting your nightmares?
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Worse. A cackling Hyena who destroy IQ point when opening her mouth.
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But at least I'm not tied to some foreign tyrant I never elected
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Take your meds. You are doing the "insane ramble" thing again.
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Did you forget the /s at the end? If not, then you're too late.
https://consortiumnews.com/202... [consortiumnews.com]
Earlier this month, the Department of Justice secured indictments of Americans and Russians for advancing “Russian propaganda” in America. The feds claim that articulating views of the war in Ukraine from a Russian perspective and holding out those views to be fact are somehow criminal.
Re: Oh like censoring speech online.... (Score:2)
Those people are being paid to spread those ideas, which is illegal not to disclose. You left out the good part. I wonder why...
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No, they're paid by Tenet Media, a US company. Writers are NOT any more responsible for investigating where their distributor gets revenue from than the burger flipper at McDonalds is responsible for knowing whether the franchise he works at is a money laundry or not (many of them are). Even then money from RT (every bit as legitimate a news source as NPR) was only a minority of their revenue, most of which seems to come from YouTube views. Then you have Scott Ritter, who has had his passport confiscated
Meh (Score:2)
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The chains of international law are entirely imaginary, but when one side treats themselves as bound no more is needed. They can have the US tie themselves in chains.
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That's by design and why the entire concept of the Security Council exists, because if you can't actually get the nuclear powers to agree to agree to something if is effectively just words on paper.
However if the SC is unanimous on this it can have some teeth since everything is actually saying they will do a thing and it can work in those rare cases where everyone actually agrees: Montreal Protocol [wikipedia.org]
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All countries are equal, but some countries are more equal than others.
Grotesque projection (Score:4, Insightful)
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More like Russia will start arresting our citizens for the cybercrime of criticizing the war. Granted, probably only our citizens who live over there (there are some), or those who are visiting, etc. Of course, if you make it illegal to visit Russia, like it is for North Korea or Iran, some will bitch that it's politically motivated to prevent past Fox News hosts from giving Putin back rubs, or for opening up a new hotel, or to live in a place with real "freedoms".
Hesitation is not a good look (Score:2)
The way to prevent cybercrime is to legislate for far better software and hardware standards, and meaningful practices by corporations, but no government is going to risk alienating their own police and security services.
All countries prefer being able to shout at other countries for not doing the right thing/enough, because it's cheaper, easier, and politically less risky to sacrifice the occasional company or a few million bank records than it is to secure a nation and reduce the underlying causes of dome
Come on, UN is a joke (Score:2)
Centralized government is a disaster (Score:3)
The entire concept behind a centralized world government is a disaster. The majority of the UN is made up of corrupt or failed states. That's nothing we should aspire to.