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Email privacy bill unanimously passes U.S. House
- cvwright 10y agoSo this passed unanimously in the House, and is supported by more than 25% of Senators. But it might not pass the senate because Grassley doesn't want to discuss it "during an election year"? WTF?!? Where's the controversy? This sounds more like an opportunity for a big bi-partisan win that everyone in both parties could brag about.
- lsiebert 10y agoAccording to https://morningconsult.com/2016/04/email-privacy-act-faces-senate-hurdles/ https://morningconsult.com/2016/04/email-privacy-act-faces-s... Grassley wants to give civil agencies like the FTC and SEC an exemption.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- cmdrfred 10y agoAhh, that must be the real reason this was passed. Somebody doesn't like the SEC looking at their email.
- cvwright 10y agoLeave it to HN to find the cloud in every silver lining. :) That said, perhaps you have a point...
- deadowl 10y agoWith the ACLU and EFF backing, I'm not finding any significant negatives. On the other hand, this bill is so overdue that it leaves me wondering.
- meddlepal 10y agoIt's pathetic but I wouldn't put it past our elected officials to do this.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- marcoperaza 10y agoAnd why shouldn't the SEC need a warrant just like the FBI does?
- cmdrfred 10y agoBecause the SEC regulates publicly traded companies. If you wish to keep your email private simply don't go public.
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago> the SEC regulates publicly traded companies Nope. The SEC regulates all securities issued by American companies or to American investors. Tesla and SpaceX are both SEC regulated.
- Retric 10y agoIMO, there is not much difference in regulating public stock and public debt. If SpaceX wants to borrow from bank of America fine, but if they want to issue trade-able bonds and borrow from John Q Public that's a separate thing. PS: Arguably this is the same reason banks are regulated.
- Analemma_ 10y agoHave you seen the Senate recently? Grassley is a Republican, and the current MO of the Republican Senate is to do absolutely nothing, no matter how uncontroversial, until the Evil Tyrant Obama is finally defeated.
- cvwright 10y agoSigh.. I was kind of hoping we were past all that. Notice that, in the House, more Republicans than Democrats voted for this.
- themartorana 10y agoPast it? How's Garland's SCOTUS confirmation going?
- loeg 10y agoIt was unanimous—the absolute number of R and D votes just reflects the political demographics of the House.
- studentrob 10y agoObama, Sanders and Clinton didn't want to discuss encryption around election year either. They knew their constituents are divided on it and that might give Republicans a stronger position. I believe that's why Congress wouldn't give the FBI a law to mandate that companies decrypt data. And, it sort of explains why Sanders and Clinton both said they sought "middle ground" regarding encryption and then never spoke about it again If you've already made up your mind to do something that pisses off a lot of your constituents or your party's constituents, you should avoid discussing it during an election year. It's too bad, since more debate would've been more educational for everyone, but it is what it is. Politicians can choose what they want to talk about just like we can.
- rhizome 10y agothat's why Congress wouldn't give the FBI a law to mandate that companies decrypt data When? Feinstein-Burr is still in play. http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/technology/277467-encryption-showdown-burr-feinstein-vs-mccaul-warner http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/technology/277467-enc...
- studentrob 10y agoIts release was delayed. It was meant to come out last year. It didn't get released until after the Democratic debates, and even now it's only in draft form.
- rhizome 10y agoI still wouldn't say, "wouldn't give."
- studentrob 10y agoCool. I'm not you. "Wouldn't give" and "did not pass last year" are equivalent to me. Everyone understands Congress must vote on ideas periodically and what I wrote is shorthand for that.
- rayiner 10y agoThe article is somewhat confusingly worded. Under the ECPA (passed in 1986), a warrant is required to access email less than 180 days old. Back in the days of POP email, when the user checked his email, it would be downloaded and deleted from the server. So the reasoning was that an email still on the server more than 180 days had been "abandoned" there by the user. What this bill does is apply the warrant requirement to emails older than 180 days as well. So the net effect is that accessing any email will now require a warrant.
- themartorana 10y agoWhen the NSA intercepts it on the wire, under the presumption of investigating international terrorists (presumably in near-real-time) and the then shares it [0] with domestic three-letter-agencies, does it matter that they need a warrant to get it from "provider" (Google, etc.)? [0] http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/us/politics/obama-administration-set-to-expand-sharing-of-data-that-nsa-intercepts.html?_r=1 http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/us/politics/obama-admin...
- rayiner 10y agoThis law applies to all email communications, including those between U.S. persons. The article you linked to talks about incidental data about U.S. persons collected by means other than "from a wire on American soil." Specifically, the NSA collection extends to: > [The] contents of the phone calls and email the security agency vacuums up around the world, including bulk collection of satellite transmissions, communications between foreigners as they cross network switches in the United States, and messages acquired overseas or provided by allies.
- kevin_thibedeau 10y agoExcept if you dare to use encryption. Then it becomes "foreign" even if the endpoints are domestic.
- disremembered 10y ago
- deadowl 10y agoAbout fucking time (pardon my language)
- BlackjackCF 10y agoI'm surprised this passed, to be honest.
- nickpsecurity 10y agoUnanimously. How often does that happen?
- ccvannorman 10y ago"Yes, we need to read all emails to keep America safe." whisper whisper from a staff aid "WHAT? You mean Jenkins down at NSA, Sally at FTC, Bob at FBI, any of them can read MY emails any time and I'd never even know it!? We must do something!" Fortunately congresspeople are citizens too. ;-]
- nickpsecurity 10y agoThe defense I kept telling Schneier et al to post, but haven't seen, is how susceptible our dirty Congress is to blackmail. Probably have to be a closed session to get the honesty there. We can present it less like they're scumbags and more like "we know how the world works so let's be real about risk to you and therefore rest of us." I heavily pushed on different blogs extrapolating the Hoover precedent to NSA-level capabilities. I think it's the best route as it's in their self interests. I think getting the business and international elites on board might be helpful as well. Unfortunately, they often push for surveillance or police states since they're good for business at various levels. However, even a minority push might hold back the worst legislation while letting whatever passes contain a loophole big enough for them and maybe some of us. Plus, they have the money to fund key solutions in the stack. So, those are two ideas I've pushed in the various debates.
- lukeschlather 10y ago
- dcw303 10y agoMy knowledge of US criminal law is limited to what I've grokked from watching crime tv shows, so I'm not clear on the definitions of some terms. Does a search warrant imply that the person being searched will be notified? I know that a court has to approve the request, but wanted to confirm if it means that the person under suspicion is informed. The way the article contrasts this new law to the current ECPA seems to suggest this is the case. Additionally, the article mentions requests made to service providers. What if I host my own server? Is it just a case of the law agency making the request to my hosting company, or are they required to contact me to get the information?
- devindotcom 10y agoNo notification needed (just like you wouldn't tell someone you were tapping their phone) - though the HR669 writers wanted to include a clause that would make that required too. It got stripped out in committee. Self-hosted stuff is an interesting question. You might be able to plead the fifth, but I really have no idea.
- deadowl 10y agoIf you host your own private server, from what I recall reading (and looks consistent with a cursory Google search), a warrant is required to review your emails. Edit: looks like it only applies to in-home servers, not hosted ones.
- lucaspiller 10y agoHost the mail server on DO then download and delete it (heh, a use for POP!) from that to a server in your house.
- icebraining 10y agoYou can also configure it to encrypt incoming mail: https://grepular.com/Automatically_Encrypting_all_Incoming_Email https://grepular.com/Automatically_Encrypting_all_Incoming_E...
- MikeKusold 10y agoAs a Boulder, CO resident I'm extremely proud that our representative co-authored this bill. Polis is one of the few representatives that seem to always be on the side of privacy. http://polis.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=398099 http://polis.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=3...
- deadowl 10y agoAs a Vermont resident, I'm happy Senator Batman (Leahy) co-authored the Senate version.
- nkw 10y agoI was absolutely astounded when I looked up the bill and found my representative (http://yoder.house.gov/ http://yoder.house.gov/) introduced the bill. I probably come down on the opposite side of him on most issues, but kudos to him for his work on this one.
- jsmthrowaway 10y agoJared Polis is one of us and got his start in life running an ISP, if I recall. A friend of a friend of a friend ran into him in a League game, allegedly. I'm not surprised.
- JOnAgain 10y agodo they not need a warrant for emails not 180 days old? Edit: Do they need a warrant for emails less than 180 days old?
- nbb 10y agoUmmm... yes?
- deadowl 10y agoIf they're on a home email server, they always need a warrant. For hosted email, they don't require a warrant for older emails.
- ryanfreeborn 10y agoThat's not really the case. The courts have decided otherwise: http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/Theofel_v._Farey-Jones http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/Theofel_v._Farey-Jones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Warshak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Warshak
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- deadowl 10y agoOn a downer note, this is so overdue that I'm wondering why now instead of ten years ago.
- bottled_poe 10y agoBecause, due to recent leaks, they now understand the implications from a purely selfish perspective.
- alrs 10y agoBusiness doesn't care about privacy, until business realizes that the mechanisms used to hunt for terrorists are also used by the IRS. It will be interesting times for "the cloud" when business realizes that investigations and subpoenas are transparently happening in the background, without the heads-up of marshalls at the doorstep.
- eumoria 10y agoThis will only hurt small to mid-sized businesses like every other piece of legislation or trade regulation. The fine print so small it's invisible: "Does not apply to the oligarchy."
- nxzero 10y agoWhy is this bill important?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- lwf 10y agoThe Senate version of the bill is S.283 https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/283 https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/283 If you live in the United States and want to voice your opinion with your senator, http://www.digital4th.org/ http://www.digital4th.org/ has a tool that provides a template along with contact links to the senators for your state.
- teekert 10y agoThis is only for Americans right? And what if I run my own email server? Can I be forced to hand over my own emails after 180 days? Are they allowed to hack the server in my basement?
- JensRantil 10y agoI'm pretty sure they don't need a warrant for obtaining emails for international citizens. Also, this bill doesn't seem to protect for non-warranted snooping by NSA.
- cm3 10y agoWhat's the process in the US to undo/invalidate a law? Is it the same as in other countries, where you'd go through the supreme court? I stated this in another post yesterday, but I firmly think laws may only be passed after a long >=5 years process and those pushing for the same law repeatedly in disguise need to be penalized or precluded from doing so. We see so many things get blocked due to popular outcry, to just be hidden inside trojan package and passed as a side note.
- adanto6840 10y agoIt requires Congress to pass a new law repealing the old; alternatively the Judicial Branch can invalidate the law as well, which would culminate at the level of the US Supreme Court.
- AJAlabs 10y agoSo emails less than 180 days old are not protected?
- ascagnel_ 10y agoThey were already protected.