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The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever

cyberlaw.stanford.edu

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Re: The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever

#51

Post by bradleyjg »

E2EEd wrote: post #36
mrandish wrote: post #10

While this bill is strongly opposed by the Internet Society, ACLU, CDT, and EFF, the critiques I've read don't get much into the real "why" behind this legislation continuing to be pushed so forcefully. The pretext is, of course, "protect the children" and more generally law-and-order with a bonus side-helping of "stop those awful social media giants." While these justifications are (hopefully) obvious misdirection t…

E2EE is offered to all users, whether or not they are law-abiding. More precise is to say that E2EE is offered to users who are primarily law-abiding. Your points are well-heard, even by those in the IC. What isn't occurring, is a good-faith discussion on solving the issues faced by law enforcement and the IC related to the growing entropy of E2EE wielded at scale by folks, a large subset of whom are engaging in crim…

Law enforcement and IC are starting with the assumption that they are entitled to the best access they’ve ever had. Yes, things are going dark that they had access to 20 years ago, but 20 years before that they didn’t have access because most of the conversations were happening face to face. At that point they needed to rely on traditional boots on the ground police/intelligence work instead of electronic backdoors. Why is it impossible for them to go back to doing things that way?

Re: The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever

#52

Post by matheusmoreira »

SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #3

These assholes just keep trying and trying until they get their way. At least it's good to see there's some actual pushback in the United States. Here in Australia, this sort of legislation has bipartisan support, it gets rubberstamped and passed on a Friday evening before a public holiday with the media staying silent. Keep fighting against these bills, or else you'll get a government that happily runs roughshod ove…

Yeah. Maybe there should be a law that makes it illegal to attempt to ban encryption.

Re: The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever

#54

Post by pixl97 »

treis wrote: post #50
kragen wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These people seem incapable of understanding the existential threat to free society and democracy posed by limiting everyone's ability to communicate private thoughts. The existential threat this bill poses to free society and democracy is exactly why they're supporting it. It's not some accidental side effect. They're opposed to the existence of free society and democracy because it limits government power, which…

We had a free society and democracy before the internet.

There were many attempts by the same people to monitor phone and mail communications.

Re: The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever

#55

Post by matheusmoreira »

E2EEd wrote: post #36
mrandish wrote: post #10

While this bill is strongly opposed by the Internet Society, ACLU, CDT, and EFF, the critiques I've read don't get much into the real "why" behind this legislation continuing to be pushed so forcefully. The pretext is, of course, "protect the children" and more generally law-and-order with a bonus side-helping of "stop those awful social media giants." While these justifications are (hopefully) obvious misdirection t…

E2EE is offered to all users, whether or not they are law-abiding. More precise is to say that E2EE is offered to users who are primarily law-abiding. Your points are well-heard, even by those in the IC. What isn't occurring, is a good-faith discussion on solving the issues faced by law enforcement and the IC related to the growing entropy of E2EE wielded at scale by folks, a large subset of whom are engaging in crim…

Law enforcement issues don't override all other concerns. If life is difficult for them, good. That's the point. It should be difficult in order to prevent abuse of power. Encryption is a perfectly reasonable reaction to governments that give themselves the right to surveil the entire planet. Nobody really cares that it makes their life harder. That's exactly what it's supposed to do. It should be incredibly hard if not impossible for the NSA employee to spy on his spouse.

If they want to investigate stuff, they should have to get warrants and literally send out operatives to physically compromise the targeted equipment. This puts a limit on the scale of government operations. This is how it's supposed to be.

Re: The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever

#56

Post by kragen »

treis wrote: post #50
kragen wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These people seem incapable of understanding the existential threat to free society and democracy posed by limiting everyone's ability to communicate private thoughts. The existential threat this bill poses to free society and democracy is exactly why they're supporting it. It's not some accidental side effect. They're opposed to the existence of free society and democracy because it limits government power, which…

We had a free society and democracy before the internet.

Yes, intermediating so much of our society through the internet has made it extremely vulnerable. The internet offers would-be totalitarians a temptation of pervasive surveillance that goes far beyond what the Stasi could ever have dreamed of. Free society and democracy are not likely to survive another decade, although they will probably be born again later in a new form.

Re: The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever

#58

Post by whatshisface »

treis wrote: post #50
kragen wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These people seem incapable of understanding the existential threat to free society and democracy posed by limiting everyone's ability to communicate private thoughts. The existential threat this bill poses to free society and democracy is exactly why they're supporting it. It's not some accidental side effect. They're opposed to the existence of free society and democracy because it limits government power, which…

We had a free society and democracy before the internet.

Not really, no, not with the media deciding what everybody heard. We had as much of a free society as convenience combined with the interests of every individual running TV news allowed.

It was a complex system and I wouldn't want to describe it all here, but the fact that you and I can talk to each other in front of anyone who wants to listen in, is far ahead of anything that existed then.

Re: The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever

#59

Post by goodpoint »

TameAntelope wrote: post #40
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While this bill is strongly opposed by the Internet Society, ACLU, CDT, and EFF, It's worth noting that the companies destroying democracy that this bill regulates (Google, Facebook, etc.) are major donors to all of these organizations.

None of those companies are destroying democracy, that's needless hyperbole...

Never heard of Cambridge Analytica?

Re: The EARN IT act is back, and it’s more dangerous than ever

#60

Post by splitstud »

mrandish wrote: post #10

While this bill is strongly opposed by the Internet Society, ACLU, CDT, and EFF, the critiques I've read don't get much into the real "why" behind this legislation continuing to be pushed so forcefully. The pretext is, of course, "protect the children" and more generally law-and-order with a bonus side-helping of "stop those awful social media giants." While these justifications are (hopefully) obvious misdirection t…

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