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FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs

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Re: FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs

#221

Post by burner000333 »

markstos wrote: post #93
brushfoot wrote: post #61

No more anonymous driving, thanks to Flock. Soon, no more anonymous calls, thanks to the FCC. Your bank already knows everything about you; why not your operating system, too? Soon your ISP will only let you online if your OS sends them the "right" information: your government ID. We should also abolish cash while we're at it. The government needs to know every purchase you've ever made, no exceptions. Of course, the…

Flock is being rejected in a number of cities, thanks to citizens.

How data-driven policing is sold, spoke to someone who set it up once, good odds FLock is doing it, or in the spirit of the below, Flock doesn't have to do it:

- There are networked webcams everywhere: DoT cameras, 18 wheeler fleet cameras, traffic cams, etc.

- Local PD doesn't want to make a deal with Flock

- For average jane and joe citizenry: great, no Flock in town!

- For ongoing negotiations with Flock and the PD: ok, sure, kick us out of town. But we'll just pull the 18wheeler feeds with the vendor we have an agreement with, as they roll through town. Or the DoT feeds via the State contract we have or the...

- As such, negotiations could land as does local PD at least want the control of the feeds already going through their town with each Sysco big rig delivery?

Very, very tricky terrain to solve.

Re: FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs

#222

Post by AnthonyMouse »

mcmcmc wrote: post #170
Ajedi32 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [Laws] are decided by (hopefully apolitical, public-good-oriented) specialists in the field of interest This doesn't sound to me at all like how a democratic country is supposed to function. It feels like you're describing China rather than the US. > Trump can do it at will. Which is also not how our constitution is supposed to work. The executive branch (which includes both the president and his appointees) is not…

Administrative law is the (suboptimal) answer to congressional gridlock, which is the real problem. If Congress is incapable of making new laws, we still need them somehow. Regardless the overturning of Chevron deference makes administrative rules like this more susceptible to challenge. Assuming the telcos have the backbone to do so of course.

> If Congress is incapable of making new laws, we still need them somehow.

Do we though? When there is a lack of consensus on what federal law should be, those are exactly the times the federal apparatus should be silent and leave it to the states.

Re: FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs

#223

Post by cucumber3732842 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #215
jerf wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This doesn't sound to me at all like how a democratic country is supposed to function." There is a family of interesting theories, or perhaps if you prefer, simply a way of looking at history in which you don't consider the "United States" as a single governance structure that has existed back to 1776, but as a series of related, but distinct entities with distinct "social contracts" (a term laden with some philosop…

> how much worse off would it be if we still "representatives per person" numbers from 1776 and had a Congress of many thousands? Isn't that actually a major cause of the trouble? You expect Congress to deal with more and more complexities but limit the number of people (i.e. experts) who are members of it, causing them all to be generalists and moreover to have to spend more of their time campaigning rather than deb…

>What advantage is there in giving the unelected bureaucrats the authority to change the rules without approval, except to Congress in dodging accountability for what happens?

Why must congress do more? Most of this stuff would be state issues if not for the absurdity that is current commerce clause interpretation.

Re: FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs

#224

Post by [deleted] »

skinfaxi wrote: post #207
matheusmoreira wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing about governments is they are just as tyrannical as the corporations. "Any network we cannot surveil and dominate is banned" is absolutely within the realm of possibility.

Then the government would be banning the gathering of people. At that point we're pretty fucked.

[deleted]

Re: FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs

#225

Post by kgwxd »

rirze wrote: post #76
kgwxd wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> many messaging apps require a phone number But not all, so what's the actual point?

If a messaging app ever gets the attention of government regulators, it must succumb to this verification. I don't know any way to avoid this.

How would they enforce that on a decentralized communication platform?

Re: FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs

#226

Post by cyberax »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #209
laughing_man wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a level of detail that isn't practical to include in law. It's pretty normal for Congress to sketch the general outline of regulation and require the relevant bureaucracy to fill in the details. Though in this particular case, unless this is based on a change to the law it seems like an overreach by the FCC.

> There is a level of detail that isn't practical to include in law. Isn't this the argument against unelected rulemaking? Suppose administrative agencies worked like this: They draft rules and then periodically submit them to Congress who decides whether to enact them. For uncontroversial changes this is essentially a rubber stamp, Congress defers to the experts' recommendations and passes the proposed rules. But no…

Congresspeople (or local legislators) do not have the expertise to evaluate the rules. Or even bandwidth. For example, the NEC is around 800 pages and is extremely technical.

That's why these minutiae are delegated to agencies. But Congress can step in at _any_ point and override the decisions of individual agencies. The rulemaking process is also _extremely_ slow on purpose, giving Congress plenty of time to act.

Re: FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs

#227

Post by mcmcmc »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #222
mcmcmc wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Administrative law is the (suboptimal) answer to congressional gridlock, which is the real problem. If Congress is incapable of making new laws, we still need them somehow. Regardless the overturning of Chevron deference makes administrative rules like this more susceptible to challenge. Assuming the telcos have the backbone to do so of course.

> If Congress is incapable of making new laws, we still need them somehow. Do we though? When there is a lack of consensus on what federal law should be, those are exactly the times the federal apparatus should be silent and leave it to the states.

So states can regulate interstate commerce, congressional stock trading, foreign policy, military spending guidelines, federal lands and financial exchanges now?

This is just dodging the question of why can’t Congress do its job.

Re: FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs

#228

Post by sdellis »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #195
mcmcmc wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Administrative law is the (suboptimal) answer to congressional gridlock, which is the real problem. If Congress is incapable of making new laws, we still need them somehow. Regardless the overturning of Chevron deference makes administrative rules like this more susceptible to challenge. Assuming the telcos have the backbone to do so of course.

Congress passes plenty of laws. 95 so far just since the last election: https://www.congress.gov/public-laws/119th-congress Last congress passed 274. It's really only the controversial stuff that gets gridlocked. The problem is that our government is now so large and complicated that it's simply no longer possible for Congress to effectively set policy for all of it. (This would be true even if they weren't so polari…

Two-party politics promotes gridlock. Multi-party systems, as long as they don't have veto players, don't have as much stagnation and do a better job of citizen representation.

Re: FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs

#229

Post by laughing_man »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #209
laughing_man wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a level of detail that isn't practical to include in law. It's pretty normal for Congress to sketch the general outline of regulation and require the relevant bureaucracy to fill in the details. Though in this particular case, unless this is based on a change to the law it seems like an overreach by the FCC.

> There is a level of detail that isn't practical to include in law. Isn't this the argument against unelected rulemaking? Suppose administrative agencies worked like this: They draft rules and then periodically submit them to Congress who decides whether to enact them. For uncontroversial changes this is essentially a rubber stamp, Congress defers to the experts' recommendations and passes the proposed rules. But no…

Realistically, in this case, you're moving decision-making from unelected bureaucrats to unelected Congressional staff. It's an invitation for corruption without really improving the process.

Re: FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs

#230

Post by JumpCrisscross »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #213
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they're not "laws" just "rules" that the government will come after you if you break If you break a rule you get fined. If you break a law you can go to jail. (Congress can delegate regulation around crimes to an agency, but the crime generally has to be substantially described by statute.)

>If you break a rule you get fined. If you break a law you can go to jail That's a distinction without a difference when talking about the kinds of ruinous fines government agencies levy and how equivalently ruinous lawyering up to fight them is. Most people receiving these fines happily spend a month in prison for six figures because six figures is years of discretionary income to most people.

> That's a distinction without a difference

Criminal versus civil is a distinction with massive difference.

> Most people receiving these fines happily spend a month in prison for six figures

Most civil monetary penalties are for reporting and filing violations to the FEC, HHS or FinCEN; submitting false information in a Medicare/Medicaid claim [1], grant, contract or bid; or violating consumer protection, employer, OSHA, environmental or patient care laws. The “you” is probably a corporation. And I’m not sure anyone would rationally escalate a fine for e.g. submitting a contract bid with outdated information into a criminal conviction.

[1] https://oig.hhs.gov/fraud/enforcement/types-of-civil-monetar...:

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