7 ms·

Congress Starts to Get Serious About Online Privacy

92 points by hvo 11y ago

NiftyFifty 11y ago
That's sort of laughable, considering the only major legislation passed since the WWW became legit has been Net Neutrality. As for Facebook's Zuckerberg said famously - privacy is dead.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > That's sort of laughable, considering the only major legislation passed since the WWW became legit has been Net Neutrality. This is false in two ways: (1) Net neutrality has never been passed as legislation, (2) Lots of other legislation has been passed (some later struck down as unconstitutional, other that have stuck) directed toward online life since the web became commonly used on topics other than net neutrality (including some on privacy -- both for and against) -- examples include COPA, CIPA, COPPA, DMCA, USA PATRIOT, and USA FREEDOM, among others.
ck2 11y ago
300 sponsors? There is something else in that bill they want, I assure you.
- zmanian 11y ago
  This bill was extremely close to becoming law in 2013 before Snowden. The nice thing that happened in the meantime is we got a stronger law passed in California that applied to all digital service customer information and not just messages. We think what the Intel Community wants in this bills is a PRISM like program for UK law enforcement and GCHQ. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/the-british-want-to-come-to-america--with-wiretap-orders-and-search-warrants/2016/02/04/b351ce9e-ca86-11e5-a7b2-5a2f824b02c9_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/the-b...
  - mtgx 11y ago
    ECPA already has "emergency" carve-outs in it, when a warrant is not required. If it's not restricted, it could easily be as abused as the NSLs are. At the very least a judge should be able to retrospectively review the law enforcement request and all the data they got (and the company itself should have evidence of all of this as well).
- rayiner 11y ago
  Read it yourself, it's like 6 pages: https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/699/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/699/...
  - mhurron 11y ago
    Plenty of time for riders to get attached.
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      Then we watch it all the way through.
    - ck2 11y ago
      Or an anonymous hold that never ends.
dtrizzle 11y ago
I know that the HN crowd supports this, but it can be a nightmare for a criminal defense attorney attempting to acquire exculpatory information. Remember, whenever a warrant is required to get data, that means the defendant cannot get stored data through ANY legal process. Thus by passing such a law, prosecutors and police can always get the data, but defense attorneys can never get the data. For example: I’m the victim of an unprovoked attack and beat up by four men. One of the men records the attack and uploads the video to facebook, He makes it private, but shares it with a few friends to shame me. In the attack, I try to defend myself but am only able to get in a few hits on one of the men. The man that I hit goes to the police and accuses me of battery. I’m arrested and charged by a prosecutor for battery. I plan to claim self-defense at trial. I try to collect as much evidence as I can on my behalf. With a warrant requirement, the video that I know exist on facebook which would show that these men beat me in an unprovoked attack and would certainly lead to a not guilty verdict is now completely inaccessible to me or my attorney. Think about that for a minute. And, as you probably know from watching Making a Murderer, the police have no duty to investigate potentially exculpatory information. I’m not saying that a warrant requirement for stored data is a bad idea. But the ups and downs need to be considered. I never see anyone present the downsides that I present here. I’ve brought it up before on HN before and got very little attention. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10066879 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10066879. No one will care until innocent people are convicted. I wish tech and legal people would work together on this to prevent the perverse consequences. Here is an example of this happening: Facebook v. Superior Court: http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/A144315.PDF http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/A144315.PDF (This case is currently being reviewed by the CA Supreme Court.) Here is a law review article on point: http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7263&context=jclc http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent... My background: California attorney for 7 years. Prosecutor for 4 1/2 years, defense attorney for 2 1/2 years. Tech savvy for a lawyer - Associates degree in Computer Science. Edit 1: added link to law review article. Edit 2: added my background. Edit 3: added link to Facebook v. Superior Court.
- charonn0 11y ago
  I don't understand. Doesn't the defense still have the power to subpoena the video?
rmc 11y ago
Probably not enough to make US companies a legal place for EU personal data. Remember the 4th Amendment doesn't apply to Europeans in Europe (but our Charter of Fundamental Rights applies to USians in USA)
meddlepal 11y ago
Oh good. I am sure they will manage to fuck this up. I have about as much confidence in Congress getting tech stuff right as I do a monkey performing brain surgery.

92 points by hvo 11y ago

That's sort of laughable, considering the only major legislation passed since the WWW became legit has been Net Neutrality. As for Facebook's Zuckerberg said famously - privacy is dead.

dragonwriter 11y ago
> That's sort of laughable, considering the only major legislation passed since the WWW became legit has been Net Neutrality. This is false in two ways: (1) Net neutrality has never been passed as legislation, (2) Lots of other legislation has been passed (some later struck down as unconstitutional, other that have stuck) directed toward online life since the web became commonly used on topics other than net neutrality (including some on privacy -- both for and against) -- examples include COPA, CIPA, COPPA, DMCA, USA PATRIOT, and USA FREEDOM, among others.

ck2 11y ago

300 sponsors? There is something else in that bill they want, I assure you.

zmanian 11y ago
This bill was extremely close to becoming law in 2013 before Snowden. The nice thing that happened in the meantime is we got a stronger law passed in California that applied to all digital service customer information and not just messages. We think what the Intel Community wants in this bills is a PRISM like program for UK law enforcement and GCHQ. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/the-british-want-to-come-to-america--with-wiretap-orders-and-search-warrants/2016/02/04/b351ce9e-ca86-11e5-a7b2-5a2f824b02c9_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/the-b...
- mtgx 11y ago
  ECPA already has "emergency" carve-outs in it, when a warrant is not required. If it's not restricted, it could easily be as abused as the NSLs are. At the very least a judge should be able to retrospectively review the law enforcement request and all the data they got (and the company itself should have evidence of all of this as well).
rayiner 11y ago
Read it yourself, it's like 6 pages: https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/699/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/699/...
- mhurron 11y ago
  Plenty of time for riders to get attached.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    Then we watch it all the way through.
  - ck2 11y ago
    Or an anonymous hold that never ends.

dtrizzle 11y ago

I know that the HN crowd supports this, but it can be a nightmare for a criminal defense attorney attempting to acquire exculpatory information. Remember, whenever a warrant is required to get data, that means the defendant cannot get stored data through ANY legal process. Thus by passing such a law, prosecutors and police can always get the data, but defense attorneys can never get the data. For example: I’m the victim of an unprovoked attack and beat up by four men. One of the men records the attack and uploads the video to facebook, He makes it private, but shares it with a few friends to shame me. In the attack, I try to defend myself but am only able to get in a few hits on one of the men. The man that I hit goes to the police and accuses me of battery. I’m arrested and charged by a prosecutor for battery. I plan to claim self-defense at trial. I try to collect as much evidence as I can on my behalf. With a warrant requirement, the video that I know exist on facebook which would show that these men beat me in an unprovoked attack and would certainly lead to a not guilty verdict is now completely inaccessible to me or my attorney. Think about that for a minute. And, as you probably know from watching Making a Murderer, the police have no duty to investigate potentially exculpatory information. I’m not saying that a warrant requirement for stored data is a bad idea. But the ups and downs need to be considered. I never see anyone present the downsides that I present here. I’ve brought it up before on HN before and got very little attention. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10066879 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10066879. No one will care until innocent people are convicted. I wish tech and legal people would work together on this to prevent the perverse consequences. Here is an example of this happening: Facebook v. Superior Court: http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/A144315.PDF http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/A144315.PDF (This case is currently being reviewed by the CA Supreme Court.) Here is a law review article on point: http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7263&context=jclc http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent... My background: California attorney for 7 years. Prosecutor for 4 1/2 years, defense attorney for 2 1/2 years. Tech savvy for a lawyer - Associates degree in Computer Science. Edit 1: added link to law review article. Edit 2: added my background. Edit 3: added link to Facebook v. Superior Court.

charonn0 11y ago
I don't understand. Doesn't the defense still have the power to subpoena the video?

rmc 11y ago

Probably not enough to make US companies a legal place for EU personal data. Remember the 4th Amendment doesn't apply to Europeans in Europe (but our Charter of Fundamental Rights applies to USians in USA)

meddlepal 11y ago

Oh good. I am sure they will manage to fuck this up. I have about as much confidence in Congress getting tech stuff right as I do a monkey performing brain surgery.