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Senate narrowly rejects plan to require a warrant for Americans’ browsing data

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Re: Senate narrowly rejects plan to require a warrant for Americans’ browsing data

#171

Post by null0pointer »

VPN + DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) is a very potent combo turning your internet connection into an opaque pipe, as far as your ISP is concerned. DoH hides your DNS requests from your ISP, and a VPN service (basically glorified proxies these days) hide the IPs of site you're visiting. If you are concerned about this issue then I urge you to use that combo. The more people doing that and the more normal that kind of traffic becomes the less able law enforcement is to use it as probable cause or similar.

AFAIK Mullvad is a non-US VPN service that does not require personal info for sign up and accepts cryptocurrency payments. Though I haven't used them myself so I can't speak for service quality. For DoH, I'm only aware of Google and Cloudflare offering that. However they are both US companies so if anyone has a non-US recommendation I would appreciate it. At least using them is one step removed from your ISP, making it a little harder to get your records.

Please correct me if I have anything wrong.

Re: Senate narrowly rejects plan to require a warrant for Americans’ browsing data

#172

Post by bantunes »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #170
gkoberger wrote: post #151

As a Bernie supporter, I'm disappointed by his lack of a YES vote. We at least deserve a statement. I'm going to suggest a potential explanation, but I'm still disappointed by the lack of vote and/or statement. Based on how Patty Murray (D) has said she would have voted YES but wasn't able to get to DC in time, it's clear it was never going to pass to begin with. This happens often – someone like Mitch McConnell migh…

Bernie not voting yes for this is the final nail in the coffin for my enthusiasm towards him. I'd still take him over others, but he's no longer the firebrand anti-authoritarian that I took him for initially.

What were the other nails?

Re: Senate narrowly rejects plan to require a warrant for Americans’ browsing data

#173

Post by danShumway »

ueu33hyrdd wrote: post #121
javajosh wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It violates the core principle of equal justice. What if we only required search or arrest warrants for those with more than $10M in assets? Your comment would still apply, and would be more obviously unjust.

Whether it harmonizes perfectly with the spirit of equal justice or not is irrelevant to whether or not it still represents an improvement over the status quo. Your hypothetical is similarly asanine and works mainly as a straw man because, as far as the integrity of the democratic process, there's a clear difference between shielding individuals competing in a public election and random rich people on the street. You…

If you have a broken system, and you allow people in power to fix it in targeted ways that only affect them, then it will never get fixed for ordinary people.

Your point might hold true if the people being exempted from surveillance weren't also the people deciding who can be exempted from surveillance. But since they are, it is counterproductive to the privacy cause to allow Congress to give itself these kinds of special rules.

Force everyone in society to play by the same rules, and everyone in society will get the benefits. Allow Congress to get into the habit of exempting themselves from social systems or problems, and those problems will continue to exist.

In other words, when setting up incentives you have to think pragmatically about the entire system in the long term; you can't always just focus on short-term goals to the exclusion of everything else. Local optimums[0] aren't just a problem in AI, they're also a problem in real life. Because of the long term consequences, we're not interested in forming privacy castes in scenarios where doing so will make it harder for us to improve the system in the future.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_optimum

Re: Senate narrowly rejects plan to require a warrant for Americans’ browsing data

#174

Post by closeparen »

np_tedious wrote: post #105
toofy wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> McConnell is drafting language to prevent this from being used on “federal election candidates” which of course is expected to pass. So privacy for those in positions of power but not for us plebes.

Do they have to be viable candidates? I don't mind being in a permanent state of casual campaigning

>An individual running for a seat in the House or Senate or for the office of U.S. President becomes a candidate when he or she raises or spends more than $5,000 in contributions or expenditures.

One generally needs a certain number of petition signatures to appear on a ballot, but apparently not needed just to legally be a candidate.

https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/registeri...

Re: Senate narrowly rejects plan to require a warrant for Americans’ browsing data

#176

Post by rrix2 »

ashtonkem wrote: post #46
kitotik wrote: post #19

Once again the lack of media coverage on this is appalling. Rand Paul has introduced an amendment that goes up for vote tomorrow that would disallow this surveillance on American citizens, which of course is not expected to pass. McConnell is drafting language to prevent this from being used on “federal election candidates” which of course is expected to pass.

Would this mean that applying for a federal election is a free pass out of warrant less surveillance?

yeah the NSA will put a note in your file saying DO NOT SPY THIS PERSON and if someone sees that note and spies anyways, you can engage in a long and ultimately fruitless battle against the US DoJ.

Re: Senate narrowly rejects plan to require a warrant for Americans’ browsing data

#177

Post by creato »

gkoberger wrote: post #151

As a Bernie supporter, I'm disappointed by his lack of a YES vote. We at least deserve a statement. I'm going to suggest a potential explanation, but I'm still disappointed by the lack of vote and/or statement. Based on how Patty Murray (D) has said she would have voted YES but wasn't able to get to DC in time, it's clear it was never going to pass to begin with. This happens often – someone like Mitch McConnell migh…

> Based on how Patty Murray (D) has said she would have voted YES but wasn't able to get to DC in time, it's clear it was never going to pass to begin with. This happens often – someone like Mitch McConnell might whip the votes, realize they're ahead, and allow a few Republicans that are at-risk to vote YES to provide cover for them in the future.

So make them vote yes. If they think it is a weakness to vote yes, all the more reason to force them to do so.

Re: Senate narrowly rejects plan to require a warrant for Americans’ browsing data

#179

Post by bb611 »

0xdeadb00f wrote: post #143
xwdv wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just use a damn VPN.

And when a court order requests the provider hand over your information?

No perfect solution, for sure, but you have some reasonably options to mitigate risk. If you can, use one outside the US i.e. with no financial presence of any kind there.

Admittedly that's a high bar, the next best choice is one that claims to keep no logs and has successfully defended such a claim to law enforcement. Not a long list here, but there are some.

Re: Senate narrowly rejects plan to require a warrant for Americans’ browsing data

#180

Post by [deleted] »

taurath wrote: post #88
VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the lack of media coverage on this is appalling What media do you think should cover this? FOX News? CNN? MSNBC? Do you think Rachel Maddow should report on this? Who is going to report on this kind of stuff?

Its in the interest of every single person in america that has ever googled something they would prefer to not talk about. It should be on the 5PM, 7PM and 11PM local news, and every cable org.

[deleted]
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