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Despite privacy concerns, CISA bill poised for passage

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Re: Despite privacy concerns, CISA bill poised for passage

#41
post #17
post #13

There's an AMA on reddit right now with the EFF, Access, Fight for the Future, FFTF, and Demand Progress about this. https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3qban2/oh_look_its_th... Looks like it just started a few minutes ago, so no idea if it'll be useful, or not.

I'm never super happy with EFF's advocacy (I think they do good and important legal and technical work but I'm almost always unhappy with how they represent policy to the public). I've been uniformly discouraged by FFTF's advocacy, which I find goes way past "misleading" into "straight up dishonest", such as their recent piece that strongly suggested Facebook supported CISA (a fact not in evidence, for whatever that'…

If you think they do important work why do you consider it your duty to go on every advocacy thread and say how you disagree with their tactics? How does your tactic of constantly discouraging people from advocating for these issues serve your stated shared goals better than EFF's?

Re: Despite privacy concerns, CISA bill poised for passage

#42
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feinstein is a senator. How could gerrymandering have anything to do with her election?

Have you seen the shape of California? I mean, it's implausible at best. :-) But seriously, it's kind of fun to imagine what life would be like if U.S. states were shaped like House districts. Maryland is probably the closest, geometrically.

There's a cool exhibit in the Oakland Museum of California about proposals for the shape of the eastern border of California!

Interestingly, some of the motivations for the proposals did involve something like gerrymandering, in terms of arguments about how many Mormons who had emigrated to the west would end up being included in California's territory.

Another interesting thing about the California-Nevada border that ended up getting adopted is where the northwest line turns north (where the bend is): it's inside of Lake Tahoe. That makes it a lot easier to remember!

Re: Despite privacy concerns, CISA bill poised for passage

#43
post #28
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is uncontroversial to state that corporations and special interest groups frequently lobby in public for a position and in private against a position. Frequently you know this only through un-attributable information passed to you. Advocacy organizations are not journalists. They don't need to cite their sourcing before making claims they believe are true. The purpose of calling out Facebook is an attempt force th…

This is a blog post that makes two very broad claims: 1. That Chrysler can exploit CISA to avoid liability for vulnerabilities in their cars simply by sharing the flaws with the USG as an "indicator". 2. That the USG can use CISA to collude with private companies to avoid warrant requirements and spy on their customers. Both of these points are, I think, false. I've linked upthread to the text of the bill and provide…

I'm not sure why you were downvoted for a reasonable post citing original sources (I upvoted you to try to correct that).

I expect I will disagree with you about the desirability of CISA, just as we disagreed years ago about CISPA, but enjoy your posts on the topic nevertheless. They make thoughtful and reasonable points. Even if you end up on the wrong side. :)

Re: Despite privacy concerns, CISA bill poised for passage

#44
post #39
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could bug Marcy for an answer. I will do totally inadequate job of defending her analysis compared to her. It seems relatively simple to read this passage in the following way: Let's say a major car company decided to leave open a port with a remote code execution vulnerability on their cars. Let's say this car company discovered this port was being exploited and informs the NSA of affected vehicles IMEI numbers, I…

Again: they can't be prosecuted for sharing , for monitoring , or for receipt of information. This is statutory language and the words matter. If there's an authority under which Chrysler can be prosecuted for having vulnerabilities (spoiler: I don't believe there is), CISA doesn't change any of that. Certainly, there's no clear linkage between CISA sharing and a private actor's ability to sue Chrysler for torts emer…

It is probably impossible for a lay person to understand how a court is likely to interpret statutory language. I prefer my analysis from folks who devote a substantial amount of time to it.

Marcy compares the CISA liability protections to the very similar Section 314(b) of the Patriot Act financial information sharing liability safe harbor.

It seems at least plausible that they will operate in a similar fashion if CISA becomes law.

https://www.emptywheel.net/2015/10/14/time-to-get-very-conce...

Re: Despite privacy concerns, CISA bill poised for passage

#45
post #2

Once again we can thank Dianne Feinstein for this. How did she get re-elected again? Was it gerrymandering or did her NSA buddies, which she keeps propping up, hack the poorly secured voting machines?

For the vast majority of Americans, surveillance and internet security are pretty close to the bottom of their list of concerns. This is a forum is an echo chamber full of a tiny concentrated group of technical people many of whom are very extreme single issue voters about this sort of thing which is a gross micharacterization of Californians or Americans as a whole.

People elect Feinstein because they think she is doing a good job. They might even agree with you that she's wrong on your pet issue but that issue just isn't as important to them as it is to you.

Re: Despite privacy concerns, CISA bill poised for passage

#46
post #36
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is uncontroversial to state that corporations and special interest groups frequently lobby in public for a position and in private against a position. Frequently you know this only through un-attributable information passed to you. Advocacy organizations are not journalists. They don't need to cite their sourcing before making claims they believe are true. The purpose of calling out Facebook is an attempt force th…

| Advocacy organizations are not journalists. They don't need to cite their sourcing before making claims they believe are true. Tell me where you find these journalists today.

You can find some on The Intercept (https://theintercept.com/).

Re: Despite privacy concerns, CISA bill poised for passage

#47
post #17
post #13

There's an AMA on reddit right now with the EFF, Access, Fight for the Future, FFTF, and Demand Progress about this. https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3qban2/oh_look_its_th... Looks like it just started a few minutes ago, so no idea if it'll be useful, or not.

I'm never super happy with EFF's advocacy (I think they do good and important legal and technical work but I'm almost always unhappy with how they represent policy to the public). I've been uniformly discouraged by FFTF's advocacy, which I find goes way past "misleading" into "straight up dishonest", such as their recent piece that strongly suggested Facebook supported CISA (a fact not in evidence, for whatever that'…

> Example from today's AMA is FFTF's claim that CISA "exempts itself from FOIA", making it impossible to challenge in court: they're referring to Sec 4 (d) (4) (b), which exempts from FOIA individual shared indicators, which of course must be the case, because indicators are things like compromised account names and passwords. That's all the law exempts from disclosure.

Nope. The bill clearly defines "cyber threat indicators" to include the entire content of whatever these companies disclose to the government. The things that make up "cyber threat indicators" go on for an entire page, and it's an "or" list rather than an "and" list. For Facebook, it would probably be something like a particular Facebook post that tripped their "threat" trigger, plus all the info that Facebook has about that user account (maybe every post that account ever made), including IP addresses that posted to that account and everything else.

And yes, every single thing "shared" with the government (I'm reminded of "the sharing economy" with this usage) is entirely exempt from FOIA disclosure, as the CISA bill clearly says. And of course no cause of action shall lie in any court, so there's no help there either. So no, there will never be any way to review the scope or magnitude of this "sharing", apart from whatever information (truthful or not) the government deigns to share.

Your description of CISA is the one that is straight up dishonest.

Re: Despite privacy concerns, CISA bill poised for passage

#48
Dianne Feinstein again? Wasn't she Really angry some time ago when it was revealed the NSA spied on Congress? Does privacy apply only to Congress and not to ordinary citizens?

Ms. Feinstein peaked before the computer was invented. It is time this 82-year-old was retired and we get in charge someone who understands technology. How does this woman keep getting elected?

Re: Despite privacy concerns, CISA bill poised for passage

#49
post #13

There's an AMA on reddit right now with the EFF, Access, Fight for the Future, FFTF, and Demand Progress about this. https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3qban2/oh_look_its_th... Looks like it just started a few minutes ago, so no idea if it'll be useful, or not.

It will be pointless because it is going to happen.

American: Home of the safe and the surveilled.

Re: Despite privacy concerns, CISA bill poised for passage

#50

Dianne Feinstein again? Wasn't she Really angry some time ago when it was revealed the NSA spied on Congress? Does privacy apply only to Congress and not to ordinary citizens? Ms. Feinstein peaked before the computer was invented. It is time this 82-year-old was retired and we get in charge someone who understands technology. How does this woman keep getting elected?

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