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U.S. Proposes Allowing Foreign Officials to Serve Warrants on Internet Firms
- Implicated 10y agoBetween this and the TPP - it seems as though the lines are getting increasingly fuzzy between borders.
- rayiner 10y agoThis is what you get when you embrace internationalism. You break down borders between countries, and now you not only have to deal with your own corrupt and/or incompetent bureaucrats, but everyone else's too. There's no kumbaya scenario where there are no borders for the proletariat but governments still mind their own business.
- hyperbovine 10y agoI notice that "internationalism" has acquired a pejorative connotation of late, particularly in the right-wing US media. I'd just like to put in a good word for internationalism, which has successfully staved off a land war in Europe for 70 years now, and is the best / only hope we have of preventing WWIII going forward...
- Natsu 10y agoWhile I certainly hope we keep peace with each other, but I think what people want is for it to be easy to choose which sort of government they live under, but what we get is other governments "forcing" our government to do things our country doesn't want. (I put "forcing" in quotes because quite often it's more of an excuse than a reason.)
- TeMPOraL 10y agoReminds me of the "Archipelago" idea Scott Alexander used to play with[0] - the concept that takes the assumption that people, given freedom of association, eventually form into groups they feel good in, and follows it to a logical extreme. You'd have a word formed into "countries" and a central body that basically enforces two rules: 1) no aggressive actions of one country against another, and 2) freedom of movement for all - so if you don't like your group, you can migrate freely to a different one. There are some caveats in that thought experiment, but it does strongly resemble what you said - that "what people want is for it to be easy to choose which sort of government they live under". [0] - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/07/archipelago-and-atomic-communitarianism/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/07/archipelago-and-atomic-...
- wcummings 10y agoThis. Perspective is important, especially in light of recent events in Europe.
- killerpopiller 10y agoso, the price for peace is to further the international 1% and give up democracy in exchange for plutocracy?
- marcoperaza 10y agoI'm pretty sure that the massive presence of American troops in Europe (which amazingly outnumber all European troops combined) and nuclear deterrents are what's keeping the peace.
- Teever 10y agoAre you sure it wasn't the development of nuclear weapons that has staved off another major war?
- TeMPOraL 10y agoGiven how close we were to launching them at each other during Cold War? I guess we'll never[0] know. Human societies are a very complex system, so it's hard to pinpoint the real, exact cause of a particular geopolitical event - a cause that if it was hypothetically removed from the timestream, would change the outcome of that event or prevent it from happening. [0] - for a practical, pre-singularity definition of "never"
- dexterdog 10y agoSomething about horseshoes and hand grenades.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoI'm not sure what you mean. Could you elaborate? I could only find references to a song, a musical band and a videogame. EDIT: I guess you mean the phrase "Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades"?
- zarriak 10y agoI think all the examples of times in which the situation demanded the launch of nuclear weapons but they were not launched demonstrates how far away humanity was from ending it all.
- fapjacks 10y agoThis is totally off-topic, but your point can't be emphasized enough: Both sides of that potential nuclear war went to great lengths not to fire their missiles. Up to and including insubordination by missileers in the silos. Having spent most of my adult life serving in the infantry in various warzones, I have a pet theory about why this happens. The reason we don't start a nuclear war is because that would bring the war from the front lines to grandma's house. War is a thing that plays to the male psyche of being a kind of exciting grand adventure. This may seem hard to believe for those of you that haven't been shot at or shot at other human beings. But after a while, when the urgency of mortal concerns begins to wear off, you can see things for what they really are. I think that war is a very male extension of childhood play. It's exciting until faced with one's own mortality, and indeed nobody thinks they'll be the ones getting blown to pieces. There's a great quote by Winston Churchill about being shot at. But I think nuclear war is such an existential thing that transcends conventional warfare to such a degree that no one wants to "play" with destroying the everything. As proof of my theory, I predict that the person that actually employs more than one-off nuclear weapons (and escalates a conventional war to a full-scale nuclear war) will be widely seen as being a total psychopath, legitimately insane.
- MicroBerto 10y agoYou act like WWIII isn't inevitable but for other reasons. The fear of nationalism thanks to WWII has caused the pendulum to swing way too far in the other direction. And it's okay to call it "globalism" like everyone else does.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoIt's a scary thought - one that I end up thinking more and more often. It seems that while memories of WWII were fresh in Europe, and the destruction still clearly visible, people were very much into peace and cooperation. But now, with new generations for which WWII is a story told by dying or dead grandparents, who were born into wealthy world and take it as a given - not realizing how much work of several past generations it took to build it anew after the World Wars - I fear we'll be facing another huge conflict here in Europe in the coming decades.
- intrasight 10y agoLiberal democracies can have political conflict, but never in history have they gone to war.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoThere's first time for everything. I don't see anything in liberal democracies that would make them unable to wage a war. Not to mention that regimes change, and their names even more often. Today it's a democracy, tomorrow it gets called fascist, day after tomorrow it goes to war.
- intrasight 10y agoBut it's never happened - let's hope it never does
- MicroBerto 10y agoOdd that right now we're living in an era where the "liberals" have become intolerant and aggressive, criminal war hawks as well as enablers for criminal activity. It might be time we started qualifying what liberal really means anymore.
- Shivetya 10y agoInternationalism has become the you cannot escape the state no matter where you reside. either because you pissed off some politician over tax or spying issues. a land war hasn't occurred in Europe simply because the US and the USSR stalemated each other. Once the USSR ceased to be trade had a tendency to convince people having stuff was fun.
- dredmorbius 10y agoThere are different flavours. There's the League of Nations / United Nations model, which tends to be fairly constructive. There's the "citizen of the world" / cosmopolitan model, which has tended to have egalitarian and idealistic overtones. There's the Mont Pelerin Society / Atlas Network "Free Trade / Invisible Hand" globalisation model, which seeks benefits for transnational corporations and the plutocracy, without any safety nets or provisions for the mass of the world's population. This viewpoint is strongly adopted among many who align as "right", contrasted with left. Generally, neoliberalism. See Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, George Monbiot, Naomi Oreskes, or Bill McKibben as among its critics. The populist conservative mode of xenophobic / nonalignment / isolationist tendencies is another element, and among the few which are specifically opposed to international engagement. It's hardly specific to any one nation -- you'll find it expressed among the populist conservative factions of the UK, France, Germany, much of the Islam world, Japan, Russia, and the United States, just off the top of my head.
- iofj 10y agoUnfortunately, as illustrated here and in many other places: http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-obama-anti-business-president/ http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-obama-anti-business-p... The democratic party belongs to the 3rd category and the republicans can't pick between 3 and 4. For most parties worldwide the same goes. 1 and 2 only occur in the movies. Also, worldwide, a majority wants : criminal punishment for non-standard sexuality non-equality between the sexes no free speech (a large majority is against free speech as it exists in America) and very significant minorities want to kill freedom of religion equality between people of different religion ... The obvious problem is very simple: internationalism/globalization is a slight benefit in the short term, and a long term disaster.
- berkut 10y agoThis. Obviously having massive troop presence prevented war with the soviets, but it can't be overestimated what stuff like the European Coal and Steel Community, the EEC and other following integration steps did after WWII in terms of getting France and Germany to "need" each other, instead of wanting "revenge" and repayment.
- Semiapies 10y agoRevenge is an excuse to get citizens whipped up for the wars the governments already want. The problem with Europe is the concentration of powerful and aggressive nations jockeying for advantage. The world wars were just the latest examples of cyclic major wars in Europe, exacerbated by the empires many of those countries still had. The EEC and the EU haven't kept Europe from having another two or three major wars since the fall of Nazi Germany. (Whether they could have started more world wars after the end of their empires is less clear). Outside powers imposing alliances that prevented the usual suspects from going to war with each other kept this from happening. Today, NATO keeps this from happening.
- berkut 10y agoI suggest you read up on stuff like the European Coal and Steel Community and the Schuman Declaration. Some of their implicit goals were harmonising French and German interests so they wouldn't want to go to war again.
- Semiapies 10y agoI suggest you read up on stuff like the League of Nations.
- nl 10y agoWhat are the two or three wars you speak of? There have of course been wars in Europe outside the EU (the former Yugoslavia and various wars in the former Soviet states), but within the EU or even involving a EU member? The closest I know of is the Cyprus conflict in 1974, but Greece wasn't an EU member then.
- SturgeonsLaw 10y agoThere's still war being waged, but it's being done using lawyers and banks rather than troops and tanks.
- Crito 10y agoAre you trying to use the thought of world war to scare people into accepting absurd IP law bureaucracy?
- ra1n85 10y agoYes, that's the argument.
- hyperbovine 10y agoAbsolutely. Neither you, nor I, nor anyone reading this has ever lived through anything even remotely approaching the sort of privations that were routinely experienced by people everywhere in every century up until the last. "IP law bureaucracy" pales in comparison. Again, I say this not as someone with any sort of firsthand knowledge, but simply as a student of history.
- Crito 10y agoAbsolutely disgusting.
- hyperbovine 10y agoThe feeling is mutual.
- ra1n85 10y agoCitation needed. Quite a limb to claim that internationalism is the lone reason that Europe hasn't imploded again.
- johnnyhillbilly 10y agoCompletely depleted economies[1], a general anti-war movement, a cold war + nuclear weapons surely mean there is no credit left for "internationalism". 1) barring the US' selective rebuilding of the West German economy after the war.
- tarikjn 10y agoThere are two (or more) dimensions around these issues: (1) is being open to commerce and immigration for law-abiding entrants, and nurturing friendships with other nations while respecting their sovereignty. This is considered a good thing by moral standards and economic theory. Also the George Washington school of though: "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none" (2) is starting with closed borders to the detriment of a country's citizens but giving more power to leaders and creating a system of favors and alliances, interventionism, adventurism etc. this is what create wars in the first place. Let's call it the Trump school of thought. Looks like this kind of deal is more (2): giving up sovereignty though alliances, for no benefit to the common citizen, but increased power for the powers at play.
- marcoperaza 10y agoIt's amusing that you've somehow attached Trump to a bunch of positions that range from things he's never said to things he's said the exact opposite of. Looks like he's the boogeyman of the year.
- tarikjn 10y agoIf you judge Trump by what he says, you're in for a big surprise. It is true he claim to be non-interventionist, but on the other hand he nurtures antagonization, so what good does it do if he ends up forcing interventions through provocations? He has also openly proposed creating systems/actions on trade that correspond to (2) (e.g. comments on Ford).
- Turing_Machine 10y agoIt's pretty much a given that any Republican candidate is going to be HITLER!!! in the eyes of the opposition. Reagan was HITLER!!!, Bush I was HITLER!!!, Bush II was HITLER!!!, heck, even a mild-mannered nebbish like Mitt Romney got the HITLER!!! treatment. Given that, as far as I know, none of the above ever launched a global war of domination, nor murdered millions of people for belonging to a specific ethnicity, I'm pretty sure that none of those guys were Hitler. The problem is that the opposition has cried Hitler so many times that no one (other than their fellow rabid partisans) pays the slightest bit of attention any more. Certainly I don't. Nor does Donald Trump. A nice guy like Mitt Romney gets upset when people call him a Nazi and tries to prove that he isn't one. Trump doesn't give a shit. He's the honey badger of candidates. That's going to suck pretty bad if an actual Hitler ever comes along. I think there's some kind of old fable about that, isn't there? Note: I do not like Donald Trump and am not planning on voting for him. I expect him to win handily, though, so we'd better hope he's not, you know, actually Hitler.
- revelation 10y agoIt seems there should be a strict ordering here though. Why yield official privileges to country X that your own plebs can't even enter without inquisition-level interrogation? There is police cooperation in Schengen countries because yeah, you can pretty much just stroll over the border. But the timing was open borders, then interpol.
- ajmurmann 10y agoWhat you are saying is of course true. However, I believe we also are getting the worst of both worlds right now. The state of the EU is a good example of this. On one hand more and more things are regulated on an international level. In the case of the EU these decisions are being made by representatives who were in many cases indirectly elected. If we had something like a European president people would have a much better, direct way choosing what and whom they want. It also would give a platform for previous representatives to point out what good they actually accomplished. During the Brexit I heard that large parts of the nature conservation program Natural England is funded by the EU. Yet no one knows, because it's in nobody's interest to point these things out. Local politicians will either not talk about it or pretend they did it. EU politicians have almost no media platform. A direct election would change that. We might benefit from similar institutions on a UN level or similar as well as more and more decisions are being made at those levels.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoFunny thing, your comment reminds me of a reflection I had some time ago - that EU should IMO invest much more into propaganda. Not to paper over its deficiencies, but because people invent anti-EU messages on their own accord, and it dominates the conversation. Similarly with Natural England program you mentioned, EU is doing good work in many other places too - but people don't know it, because nobody cares to highlight it. So it feels EU is all about bureaucracy and creating another USSR - because that's the only thing people are talking about. (It pisses me off in my country in particular, because a lot of people complain about paying to EU not realizing that we're still a net beneficiary, and just how much infrastructure around them was built or upgraded by EU money. The playgrounds they take their kids to. The roads and bridges they drive over. I mean, given how much money our local "entrepreneurs" steal from EU grants all the time, people should be at least a little bit grateful.)
- ajmurmann 10y agoI think investing in "propaganda" would be a good start. However, we don't need to do that for any other part of the government which really is a smell.
- kaonashi 10y agoPrivate organizations cooperating across borders is what's driving this.
- sliverstorm 10y agoThe internet is rather borderless in nature though.
- cscurmudgeon 10y agoAmazing. The western world was all pro "internationalism" when it came to exploiting the east and Africa (centuries of colonialism), but now, want to go back into their shells. Can't have it both ways.
- Turing_Machine 10y agoYou are confusing colonialism with internationalism. They're not really related concepts.
- adrenalinelol 10y agoNo he isn't, the trade deals which allowed near slave labor in SE Asia and exploiting for natural resources in Africa (by foreign actors) is from the same economic doctrine that allows sweatshops in Mexico (NAFTA) and will be the same ideology that passes TPP.
- Turing_Machine 10y agoYou haven't actually studied mercantilism much, have you? No, they were not the "same economic doctrine", or anything like it.
- twblalock 10y agoNear slave labor exists in SE Asia because the national governments in that part of the world are willing to tolerate it. There are plenty of countries with free trade agreements that don't have poor working conditions. Near slavery is not a necessary consequence of trade deals -- it is a consequence of bad government. It existed long before free trade agreements. Similarly, resource exploitation occurs in countries whose governments are willing to allow their resources to be exploited. It happened hundreds of years before any free trade agreements were signed, and it will continue to happen until those governments change their practices.
- aleh 10y agoWhat about Opium wars?
- FireBeyond 10y agoFor governments. For individuals wishing to immigrate, not so much.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- rahkiin 10y agoWould the USG require from the foreign government that the US can warrant on foreign sole as well?
- billh 10y agoYes, the article states that this would take the form of reciprocal agreements between the countries involved.
- kevin_b_er 10y agoThat's probably the end-goal. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-usa-warrant-idUSKCN0ZU1RJ http://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-usa-warrant-idUS... The feds can no longer spy easily on foreigners by using a US corporation as leverage. However if they get a foreign government to agree to remote warrants, they can then use remote warrants themselves. Since they can't compel Microsoft Ireland to deliver emails, if they can just get Ireland to agree to this, then they can just compel Microsoft Ireland through Irish authority to do the same thing.
- marcoperaza 10y agoYou're misinterpreting the ruling in that case. They ruled that the law that the government was relying on didn't allow extraterritorial warrants for electronic information. Congress could just change the law. And if this becomes a major hindrance to American law enforcement, you can bet they will.
- krapp 10y agoUnder the proposed agreements described by Mr. Wiegmann, foreign investigators would be able to serve a warrant directly on a U.S. firm to see a suspect’s stored emails or intercept their messages in real time, as long as the surveillance didn’t involve U.S. citizens or residents. Such deals would also give U.S. investigators reciprocal authority to search data in other countries. Why does this seem like they're trying to 'legitimize' something that's probably been done in secret for years?
- fweespeech 10y ago> Why does this seem like they're trying to 'legitimize' something that's probably been done in secret for years? Because that is exactly what they are doing based on what Snowden said?
- aleh 10y agoPerhaps since this practice got exposed, other countries became less willing to cooperate. With such a treaty in place it will be more difficult to say no.
- HappyFunGuy 10y agoSue in a corrupt jurisidiction to read enemies email? Accidentally violate a privacy law? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy#Applicable_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy#Applicable_law Honest jurisdiction complies quickly and completely, less reliable jurisdiction slow plays and gives inaccurate/no response. Crypto please save us.
- lisper 10y ago> Crypto please save us. Working on it. https://sc4.us https://sc4.us
- cjslep 10y agoWhat would be the benefit of buying sc4's HSM over a YubiHSM?
- iancarroll 10y agoBesides the price (I assume), the YubiHSM does not support public-key cryptography and is primarily designed for use with Yubikeys.
- subway 10y agoFree side channel attacks.
- lisper 10y agoThe SC4-HSM is user-programmable, and it has a display, which offers security benefits. See the FAQ for details.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- primitivesuave 10y agoI believe that if this proposal passed, it would merely create "safe havens" for Internet hosting in countries that are not part of this partnership, just as there are currently tax havens in countries that do not respect taxation laws of other countries. This is already the case for operators of websites that infringe on copyright law, they simply choose to host from any of the countries that do not respect international copyright agreements.
- mtgx 10y agoAnd with this kind of deal being done with the UK first, there's even more of a reason for tech companies to leave the UK (after Brexit, and soon the passage of the IPBill, which will also make it possible for the UK government to "demand decryption", among other things).
- johansch 10y agoAre you saying e.g. Facebook would move their management and core development team to like Guatemala or something because of this?
- twblalock 10y agoWhy would they have to do that? They would just have to keep the data in a country that won't be part this new legal framework. As the article says, these plans were announced after Microsoft won a court case to prevent the US government from searching Microsoft's servers located overseas. The government's solution to this is to honor foreign warrants to search US servers, so that foreign governments will reciprocally honor US warrants to search foreign servers. This will enable the US government to get data from Microsoft's servers if they are located in any country which is part of this agreement. So, just find a country that isn't part of this agreement, and is not likely to become part of it, and keep the data there. Amazon could open a few AWS datacenters in such countries and make a lot of money.
- olij 10y agoAnd then Panama Leaks happen. We live in a new age. With Panama leaks we have whistle blowers who haven't got stuck in jail or in exile. People and corps can't play the old games.
- codeonfire 10y agoHow are they going to 'serve' warrants when foreign governments have no police force in the U.S. Why wouldn't a company simply just ignore any warrants they receive as this scheme seems highly illegal. The Obama administration is not a legal body or a lawmaking body and doesn't have the power regardless to enforce warrants from foreign governments.
- KC8ZKF 10y agoExtradition treaties or agreements. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition
- codeonfire 10y agoHow does extradition apply as there is no person to be extradited? The feds would also not be able to legally search because of this little thing called the fourth amendment and the fact that there is no court sanctioning the search.
- Crito 10y agoCould it possibly work the same way asset forfeiture works? Sue the property, not the owner. Extradite the server, not the owner?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- sverige 10y agoThere would be a court in that jurisdiction that would issue the warrant to be enforced by their police arm (U.S. Marshals or their proxies in the case of federal courts). This has been accepted in certain cases for a long time; e.g., under maritime law, the Marshals can arrest a foreign flagged ship at a U.S. port.
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- faddat 10y agoTHIS IS TO CENSOR YOU. THIS IS TO FUCK OVER YOU. THIS IS TO EMPOWER THE GOVERNMENT. IF YOU VALUE THE INFORMATION SOCIETY, IF YOU VALUE AN IOTA OF LIBERTY, RESIST THIS FIERCELY. And now that I'm done with my #allcaps, seriously ain't this treason?
- sathackr 10y agoWhat I don't understand is... In the Constitution of the United States are these words "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..." Morally, it seems that the US, as a people, claim the rights granted by the Constitution are rights due to all men. Why then, do we selectively apply these rights to only US citizens? Are the citizens of other countries of a lesser status that they do not deserve due process? Is that why it's okay to summarily judge and execute someone in another country when we suspect them of terrorism? Why can we legally do something(execute without due process, invade privacy, etc...) to a person in another country, that is illegal for their own country to do to them? Legally, of course, the Constitution can only be applied to those under its legal protection. But why is the rest of the world treated like second-class human beings by the US Government? The US Government should be bound by the constraints of the Constitution when dealing with any human being, not just a US Citizen.
- haliax 10y agoIn fact, those words are not in our constitution but in the Declaration of Independence, which is not a legally binding document. The Bill of Rights, which is law, doesn't talk about "all men" (neither does the Constitution) but says things like "Congress shall make no law..." or "No warrant shall issue...", and says nothing about " all men". In the case of terrorism executions specifically the justification given is that they are an act of war.
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoNot legally binding! I think Great Britain thought it was binding - a war was fought over it. Its a founding document of our country, and lays out all the moral principles our Constitution is based upon. It illuminates and explains what those fine words in the Constitution are meant to mean. As such it has been referred to in legal proceedings for centuries.
- joelhooks 10y agoThe war was well under way prior to the Declaration being drafted and signed. 1775.
- smartbit 10y agohttp://archive.is/nfHk2 http://archive.is/nfHk2 without paywall