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Lawmakers want to ban VPNs

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11–20 of 419 posts

Re: Lawmakers want to ban VPNs

#11
Isn't it Wisconsin law that lets the Governor change any numeric digits in a law while it's on his or her desk?

One of the most bizarre legal opinions I've ever heard of, but if they used any digits in the writing of the law those are up for grabs. Law makes a 30 day window or something? The governor can just change it to a million days with a stroke of the pen and then sign the edit into law with the same pen!

Re: Lawmakers want to ban VPNs

#12
post #2

Lawmakers in general have less than one percent knowledge on what they make laws on. I look forward to them all logging in remotely after the ban. The key change is needed with things such as meshtastic and lora. Taking things out of the hands of regulators is key

I think they know exactly what they are doing. This isn’t the nineties anymore. Which makes it even worse.

Re: Lawmakers want to ban VPNs

#13
20 years ago the boogeyman was "the terrorists!" And now the boogeyman is "not the children!!" Or "immigrants!!" Depending on your audience's political views, but the ultimate goal is more surveillance, more control and more power abuse by who’s in control.

Re: Lawmakers want to ban VPNs

#14

Why ban VPNs when you can freely force social networks like HN to tie nickname registration to an state issued digital ID certificate to guarantee freedom of speech and legal accountability? https://old.reddit.com/r/XGramatikInsights/comments/1ovd88s/...

Not just social media, expect ANY app to be able to “verify” you through the new apple digital ID (android wallet soon I assume), the “verification is simple and seamless!!”, and add few Alegria drawings explaining why providing your ID helps defeating the “bad evil guys!!” and you are good to go.

Re: Lawmakers want to ban VPNs

#15

Isn't it Wisconsin law that lets the Governor change any numeric digits in a law while it's on his or her desk? One of the most bizarre legal opinions I've ever heard of, but if they used any digits in the writing of the law those are up for grabs. Law makes a 30 day window or something? The governor can just change it to a million days with a stroke of the pen and then sign the edit into law with the same pen!

What if it’s a “thirty day” window? Safe?

Re: Lawmakers want to ban VPNs

#16

Isn't it Wisconsin law that lets the Governor change any numeric digits in a law while it's on his or her desk? One of the most bizarre legal opinions I've ever heard of, but if they used any digits in the writing of the law those are up for grabs. Law makes a 30 day window or something? The governor can just change it to a million days with a stroke of the pen and then sign the edit into law with the same pen!

What if it’s a “thirty day” window? Safe?

Yes, my understanding is that only digits are meaningless per the supreme court's ruling there

Re: Lawmakers want to ban VPNs

#17

Isn't it Wisconsin law that lets the Governor change any numeric digits in a law while it's on his or her desk? One of the most bizarre legal opinions I've ever heard of, but if they used any digits in the writing of the law those are up for grabs. Law makes a 30 day window or something? The governor can just change it to a million days with a stroke of the pen and then sign the edit into law with the same pen!

> Isn't it Wisconsin law that lets the Governor change any numeric digits in a law while it's on his or her desk?

Pretty close.

> (b) If the governor approves and signs the bill, the bill shall become law. Appropriation bills may be approved in whole or in part by the governor, and the part approved shall become law.

> (c) In approving an appropriation bill in part, the governor may not create a new word by rejecting individual letters in the words of the enrolled bill, and may not create a new sentence by combining parts of 2 or more sentences of the enrolled bill

https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/constitution/wi_unannotated

The big limitation here is that it is limited to appropriations. Further, the constitution goes out of its way to try and prevent creative vetoing.

Unfortunately, the court decided that numbers are not words.

As a result, the governor changed "for the 2023–24 school year and the 2024–25 school year" to "for 2023–2425"

https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/wisco...

Re: Lawmakers want to ban VPNs

#18

It's funny how democratic countries copy whatever laws authoritarian regimes passed, but with a 5-year lag.

This sort of thing turns up very regularly in US politics, from the Comstock Laws to the Communications Decency Act. The late 90s even had a requirement to use easily breakable encryption (48-bit RSA) which big tech companies generally obeyed. And a worse proposal (the "clipper chip") which was never deployed.

Authoritarianism is not limited by your birthplace, it can turn up anywhere. And when it does people are often really enthusiastic about it.

Re: Lawmakers want to ban VPNs

#20
>So when Wisconsin demands that websites "block VPN users from Wisconsin," they're asking for something that's technically impossible. Websites have no way to tell if a VPN connection is coming from Milwaukee, Michigan, or Mumbai. The technology just doesn't work that way.

https://youtu.be/Pr4v725LPOE?si=ih3gfTSpiHumtrFs&t=79

"That's not how apps work"

"Then make it work you think we are stupid but we are not, we know" VPNs have something to do with IPs which are necessarily geolocatable , and also users need to make an account to connect to a VPN, you can just ask them what country and State they are in.

Being willfully obtuse draws no sympathy, and will not exclude companies from compliance

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