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Give Congress Time to Debate New Government Hacking Rule

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Re: Give Congress Time to Debate New Government Hacking Rule

#21

Post by vkou »

hga wrote: post #18
vkou wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because some of their positions put them outside the current political orthodoxy doesn't mean they are not well within the orthodox power structure. The Tea Party was a fringe 'grassroots' movement a few years ago - also intended to clean up government. Once it got elected, it was back to the same old GOP, just with a refreshed mandate for 'no new taxes ever'.

The real Tea Party was enthusiastically suppressed by the full establishment, and the IRS's part of that continues to this very day , it's been slapped down in the courts in a ruling within the last few weeks. Establishment politicians claiming the mantle of the Tea Party used that to get elected in the notable 2010-14 elections, and you're shocked, shocked that professional politicians lied ? Quelle horreur! And did…

And yet, despite the rejection of establishment politics by the electorate, these establishment politicians keep getting re-elected.

This election, neo-liberalism was what was rejected - not the establishment.

> Heck, is Trump, according to you, by definition part of the "orthodox power structure"?

That power structure was created to serve the interests of people like him. How could he not be? He's a well-connected, politically-vocal billionaire, who is not at all squeamish about being surrounded by the perception of corruption and impropriety - and he hasn't even taken office yet. How on Earth could we expect anything better when he will?

People keep saying he is not a politician - but that is only true in the sense that he hasn't held public office. Neither has Newt Gingrich (For the past 16 years).

Re: Give Congress Time to Debate New Government Hacking Rule

#22

Post by hga »

dragonwriter wrote: post #20
vkou wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because some of their positions put them outside the current political orthodoxy doesn't mean they are not well within the orthodox power structure. The Tea Party was a fringe 'grassroots' movement a few years ago - also intended to clean up government. Once it got elected, it was back to the same old GOP, just with a refreshed mandate for 'no new taxes ever'.

> The Tea Party was a fringe 'grassroots' movement a few years ago - also intended to clean up government. The Tea Party was Koch-funded astroturf.

So that's why the IRS went after them, instead of the Koch brothers?

No, not even close. It was the first serious, spontaneous, "modern era?"; let's say, 21st Century grassroots reaction to the crimes of our ruling class, and was, as I noted, brutally suppressed (really, you think Koch brothers were paying all those people to rally, and to pick up their trash after they were finished???).

Now the reaction is Trump. If he fails, the ruling class will like what comes next even less, and things will start to edge to existential for them, "history history is the graveyard of aristocracies" and all that. One reason their freak-outs are intensifying.

And, yes, I'm now shifting a bit and focusing more on the wider ruling class than the political "establishment" per se, for that's really what we're fighting, much of what's wrong with today's America doesn't emit from the halls of the Congress, the decisions of the Supremes, etc. etc.

For example, suppose the press had treated this actual IRS suppression like they treated Nixon's asking the IRS to attack his enemies, which they of course refused to do.

(Note the wording of the articles of impeachment, that which he "endeavoured" to do, vs. actually did: http://watergate.info/impeachment/articles-of-impeachment (this is something I followed in real time back then...), or e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon's_Enemies_List#Purpose Nixon was not popular or powerful enough to carry this off.)

Re: Give Congress Time to Debate New Government Hacking Rule

#23

Post by dragonwriter »

hga wrote: post #11
tw04 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which cabinet nomination have you heard that gives you a belief that's going to happen? Outside of his "drain the swamp" rhetoric, what specific announcement/pre-announcement has he made to back your claims? So far I've seen all of his cabinet picks going to "establishment" folks, and his supreme court nomination is supposedly going to be based solely on abortion, with no thought whatsoever given to citizen united (y…

The exiling of Chris Christie from a position of responsibility in the transition team, and the termination of many (or all?) of his people on the transition team. That was very much a drain the swamp thing. So are the various bans on lobbyists/lobbying for some years after holding a position. Putting Sessions' top dog or thereabouts in operational charge of the transition team. See the next item for why this isn't a…

> The exiling of Chris Christie from a position of responsibility in the transition team, and the termination of many (or all?) of his people on the transition team. That was very much a drain the swamp thing.

No, it was very much a personal score settling thing. If it was a drain the swamp thing, the people left behind after the purge wouldn't have been just as covered in muck as those purged.

Re: Give Congress Time to Debate New Government Hacking Rule

#24

Post by tzs »

ramblenode wrote: post #10

The rule actually makes sense in a vacuum; tying warrants to geographical jurisdictions is a relic of a pre-internet age. The real problem is more fundamental: judge shopping. If the rule change goes ahead as planned, authorities will have an inexhaustible menu of magistrates spanning the whole country to whom they can appeal for a warrant. There needs to be 1) some randomization process for assigning warrant request…

> The rule actually makes sense in a vacuum; tying warrants to geographical jurisdictions is a relic of a pre-internet age. The real problem is more fundamental: judge shopping.

Note that this only removes the tie to geography in two circumstances:

1. The location of the targeted data has been "concealed through technological means", or

2. the crime being investigated is a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and the damaged computers are in five or more districts.

Re: Give Congress Time to Debate New Government Hacking Rule

#25

Post by tzs »

3pt14159 wrote: post #16
ramblenode wrote: post #10

The rule actually makes sense in a vacuum; tying warrants to geographical jurisdictions is a relic of a pre-internet age. The real problem is more fundamental: judge shopping. If the rule change goes ahead as planned, authorities will have an inexhaustible menu of magistrates spanning the whole country to whom they can appeal for a warrant. There needs to be 1) some randomization process for assigning warrant request…

Mostly true. The other issue with this is that with a traditional warrant you know that they are gaining access. You might not be happy with it, they may have even busted down the door on the way in, but whatever damage was done was done once. With this they break in (potentially damaging your systems), they take your data (potentially in ways that could leak it to other parties), store it (potentially insecurely), a…

Aren't those issues already present under the current rule, when a magistrate judge in the district in which the target computer resides issues a warrant to remotely break in to that computer?

This rule is just dealing with who can issue a warrant, not with what can be done once a warrant is issued.

Re: Give Congress Time to Debate New Government Hacking Rule

#26

Post by tzs »

A much more useful take on this rule change than the EFF's comes from the Center for Democracy and Technology: https://cdt.org/insight/issue-brief-proposed-changes-to-rule...

Unlike most groups that have written against this rule change, CDT actually proposes modifications to address their concerns that would still let the rule address the problem that it is trying to solve, which is a very real problem.

Re: Give Congress Time to Debate New Government Hacking Rule

#27

Post by dispose13432 »

hga wrote: post #11
tw04 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which cabinet nomination have you heard that gives you a belief that's going to happen? Outside of his "drain the swamp" rhetoric, what specific announcement/pre-announcement has he made to back your claims? So far I've seen all of his cabinet picks going to "establishment" folks, and his supreme court nomination is supposedly going to be based solely on abortion, with no thought whatsoever given to citizen united (y…

The exiling of Chris Christie from a position of responsibility in the transition team, and the termination of many (or all?) of his people on the transition team. That was very much a drain the swamp thing. So are the various bans on lobbyists/lobbying for some years after holding a position. Putting Sessions' top dog or thereabouts in operational charge of the transition team. See the next item for why this isn't a…

It bothers me how people don't understand (or don't believe in) the principles of law.

Law means that there are objective rules to behavior, which don't take into account positive intent, goal, or player.

That's why we have to put up with hate speech, so that not "politically correct" regular speech will be legal.

Same thing here.

If you don't want there to be a "truth committee" which clears all news before publication, you better hope that corporations have freedom of speech. If corporations don't have freedom of speech, then neither does the EFF, ACLU, or your posts on Facebook.

Re: Give Congress Time to Debate New Government Hacking Rule

#28

Post by hga »

dispose13432 wrote: post #27
hga wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The exiling of Chris Christie from a position of responsibility in the transition team, and the termination of many (or all?) of his people on the transition team. That was very much a drain the swamp thing. So are the various bans on lobbyists/lobbying for some years after holding a position. Putting Sessions' top dog or thereabouts in operational charge of the transition team. See the next item for why this isn't a…

It bothers me how people don't understand (or don't believe in) the principles of law. Law means that there are objective rules to behavior, which don't take into account positive intent, goal, or player. That's why we have to put up with hate speech, so that not "politically correct" regular speech will be legal. Same thing here. If you don't want there to be a "truth committee" which clears all news before publicat…

Thanks for your boost to my point about freedom of speech, but mine was more narrow, i.e. almost all large groups of people acting in concert form corporations for all the usual reasons. Exceptions include institutions that far predate corporations, like the Roman Catholic Church, where each Archbishop personally owns the resources of his see for the duration of his holding the position, which was why the Church entered an amicus curiae in the prosecution of Sun Myung Moon, the precedent established would allow the government to throw every Archbichop in prison, and they have far too much experience with that and worse happening....

So these include the National Rifle Association, a 501(c)(4) non-profit corporation, which is one way America's gun owners combine for collective political action. And which as I recall also filed an amicus curiae in Citizens United, McCain-Feingold very specifically targeted them (McCain, and I assume Feingold, hated it, and if not then, then I would assume for the latter now, after his unexpected failure to return to the Senate).

Re: Give Congress Time to Debate New Government Hacking Rule

#29

Post by vkou »

hga wrote: post #22
dragonwriter wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Tea Party was a fringe 'grassroots' movement a few years ago - also intended to clean up government. The Tea Party was Koch-funded astroturf.

So that's why the IRS went after them, instead of the Koch brothers? No, not even close. It was the first serious, spontaneous, "modern era?"; let's say, 21st Century grassroots reaction to the crimes of our ruling class, and was, as I noted, brutally suppressed (really, you think Koch brothers were paying all those people to rally, and to pick up their trash after they were finished??? ). Now the reaction is Trump.…

> No, not even close. It was the first serious, spontaneous, "modern era?"; let's say, 21st Century grassroots reaction to the crimes of our ruling class, and was, as I noted, brutally suppressed (really, you think Koch brothers were paying all those people to rally, and to pick up their trash after they were finished???).

No, it was not. Occupy Wall Street was.

Unlike Occupy, the Tea Party was very easy to turn to serve the needs of the ruling class - just play up the 'no new taxes' and 'small government' bits, and downplay the 'find the people who broke the economy, and punish them' outrage.

The result was that outrage over 2008 turned into another spoke in the GOP tentpole.

Re: Give Congress Time to Debate New Government Hacking Rule

#30

Post by donw »

hga wrote: post #28
dispose13432 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It bothers me how people don't understand (or don't believe in) the principles of law. Law means that there are objective rules to behavior, which don't take into account positive intent, goal, or player. That's why we have to put up with hate speech, so that not "politically correct" regular speech will be legal. Same thing here. If you don't want there to be a "truth committee" which clears all news before publicat…

Thanks for your boost to my point about freedom of speech, but mine was more narrow, i.e. almost all large groups of people acting in concert form corporations for all the usual reasons. Exceptions include institutions that far predate corporations, like the Roman Catholic Church, where each Archbishop personally owns the resources of his see for the duration of his holding the position, which was why the Church ente…

I believe the ACLU works in a similar fashion.
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