8 ms·

It is really sad and disturbing to me how little coverage the CLOUD act has gotten. A law was passed quietly that was snuck into page 2,201 of an unrelated spen

by craigc 9y ago

It is really sad and disturbing to me how little coverage the CLOUD act has gotten. A law was passed quietly that was snuck into page 2,201 of an unrelated spending/budget bill just before Congress voted on it to allow warrantless surveillance by foreign governments and law enforcement on any US citizen, and not one mainstream media source has written about it. It was signed into law by Trump just a couple days later without a single hearing or debate in Congress. Please read: - https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/23/cloud_act_spending_bill/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/23/cloud_act_spending_... - https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/responsibility-deflected-cloud-act-passes https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/responsibility-deflect... I personally believe the Facebook “scandal” is/was a smoke screen to draw the media attention away from this (4 or 5 year old scandal with regards to data collected for the Government to begin with). No private information was leaked (private messages, chats, etc) from Facebook as far as I am aware. I am not saying Facebook is innocent here – they are far from it, but I can’t stop thinking that the timing is too convenient and too much of a coincidence. Also recall that Zuckerberg liquidated around $500 million of Facebook stock in February. All of the major tech companies (Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc) co-authored a letter supporting this legislation saying that it represents “notable progress to protect consumers’ rights.” despite the fact that it does the exact opposite. I think it will save them money from drawn out legal battles, legal fees, and the possibility of having to build additional data centers in other countries/continents to replicate and provide access to customer’s data for law enforcement agencies. The CLOUD act allows access to ANY data including emails, private messages, etc. without requiring a warrant or having to inform the person that it is being collected. It gives additional power to the executive branch as the attorney general and certain members of the cabinet can access data on unsuspecting individuals without having to notify Congress or the Judicial branch. Also data collected from another party interacting with someone else could be used to criminally prosecute them even if they were not under any suspicion or investigation to begin with.

cmurf 9y ago
It's a combination of corporate money in politics, and a nation of spectators, not citizens. The citizens have yielded their participation and power to corporations, on purpose, and many are proud that they've done this, if they care at all. It's only hindsight being 20/20 that they go, oh fuck that was a bad idea, how did we get here? Complacency. No one said democracy was easy. It requires constant vigilance. And people are too happy to be entertained by other things. Of course the better system would be the benevolent dictator for a push button operation, the small problem is they're not benevolent for very long.
- buvanshak 9y ago
  > the small problem is they're not benevolent for very long. Would it be possible to appoint a dictator, who has no other incentive other then serve the people. For ex, they ll sever every human relation, cannot own property, will have zero privacy, cannot reproduce and have children etc. But they ll be held to the highest honor and their every needs taken care of... In short, something like the life of a religious saint or a nun.
  - evanlivingston 9y ago
    Power corrupts.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - golergka 9y ago
    The most horrible and bloody dictators had only the best intentions in mind. The most bloody and horrible ideology in the world – communism – was driven by idealists. I'll always take a corrupt politician over a benevolent dictator.
    - acqq 9y ago
      The problem, independent of the ideology, is the quality of “checks and balances” which protect the human and other rights of the citizens. And as we see, even in the USA as we speak it’s easy to take some rights from the people without too much fuss (just enough distraction).
    - buvanshak 9y ago
      >I'll always take a corrupt politician over a benevolent dictator. Am I wrong in saying that if you have enough resources, corrupt politicians and authorities will let you dictate the affairs under them? So a dictator, as you say exerciser their power to enforce their own agenda. While a corrupt politician sells them off to the highest bidder, to enforce what ever agenda they have... The only thing better in that scenario is that the "highest bidder" may have an incentive to not kill droves of people, since they probably have a business to run, and that often require people..Also, business does not really have an ideology or a philosophy. It just need to grow its profits..
wallace_f 9y ago
The CLOUD act allows domestic or foreign police to collect your data without a warrant, any review by a judge, or any awareness of the individual; and even explicitly allows foreign police to ignore existing US privacy laws applicable to US citizens >no mention in mainstream media Terrifying and surreal
tdhoot 9y ago
> warrantless surveillance by foreign governments and law enforcement on any US citizen Source? I only see that it allows foreign governments to get information on their own citizens, even if that information is stored on US soil.
- jacobush 9y ago
  If one or two (million) US citizens data happen to get included, well that’s unfortunate. It’s not against the law in those countries. Purely by coincidence, these other countries can then notify the US government if they see something of interest, some dirt on a US citizen. Now there is something to be concerned about and the US government has cause to look more closely. Outsource all unkempt activity!
- tsmarsh 9y ago
  It’s edge cases like this that make me wonder about the whole concept of nations. It makes citizens sound like property / cattle. “I believe my cow pooped on your lawn. I demand the right to inspect your lawn for my cows poop to retrieve the poop. Expect further consultation if we decide you illegally benefited from that poop. I don’t care that you are ok with the poop or that the cow came to your lawn and pooped there of its own valition. In Cowville pooping outside of your allotted pen is illegal.” Of course when you take that argument to its logical conclusion I may find that I’ve just argued for a firewall / vetting system that would prevent data leaving the national networks ‘illegally’. Maybe I am. Or maybe I’m arguing the other way, that national borders make less sense than ever and freedom of people, ideas and data requires a completely different take on national soverignty.
  - wu-ikkyu 9y ago
    National boundaries are kaput on the World Wide Web.
  - liberte82 9y ago
    Once corporations start deciding it's cheaper to just provide their own healthcare to its workers rather than going through the broken American system, watch out. Corporate fascism is the new feudalism.
mtgx 9y ago
Not just a lack of media coverage, but no debate in Congress either. The bill was sneaked into the omnibus spending bill. That sort of thing is usually reserved for a certain type of bills (and I don't mean just budget bills, sadly) ...

by craigc 9y ago

cmurf 9y ago

It's a combination of corporate money in politics, and a nation of spectators, not citizens. The citizens have yielded their participation and power to corporations, on purpose, and many are proud that they've done this, if they care at all. It's only hindsight being 20/20 that they go, oh fuck that was a bad idea, how did we get here? Complacency. No one said democracy was easy. It requires constant vigilance. And people are too happy to be entertained by other things. Of course the better system would be the benevolent dictator for a push button operation, the small problem is they're not benevolent for very long.

buvanshak 9y ago
> the small problem is they're not benevolent for very long. Would it be possible to appoint a dictator, who has no other incentive other then serve the people. For ex, they ll sever every human relation, cannot own property, will have zero privacy, cannot reproduce and have children etc. But they ll be held to the highest honor and their every needs taken care of... In short, something like the life of a religious saint or a nun.
- evanlivingston 9y ago
  Power corrupts.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- golergka 9y ago
  The most horrible and bloody dictators had only the best intentions in mind. The most bloody and horrible ideology in the world – communism – was driven by idealists. I'll always take a corrupt politician over a benevolent dictator.
  - acqq 9y ago
    The problem, independent of the ideology, is the quality of “checks and balances” which protect the human and other rights of the citizens. And as we see, even in the USA as we speak it’s easy to take some rights from the people without too much fuss (just enough distraction).
  - buvanshak 9y ago
    >I'll always take a corrupt politician over a benevolent dictator. Am I wrong in saying that if you have enough resources, corrupt politicians and authorities will let you dictate the affairs under them? So a dictator, as you say exerciser their power to enforce their own agenda. While a corrupt politician sells them off to the highest bidder, to enforce what ever agenda they have... The only thing better in that scenario is that the "highest bidder" may have an incentive to not kill droves of people, since they probably have a business to run, and that often require people..Also, business does not really have an ideology or a philosophy. It just need to grow its profits..

wallace_f 9y ago

The CLOUD act allows domestic or foreign police to collect your data without a warrant, any review by a judge, or any awareness of the individual; and even explicitly allows foreign police to ignore existing US privacy laws applicable to US citizens >no mention in mainstream media Terrifying and surreal

tdhoot 9y ago

> warrantless surveillance by foreign governments and law enforcement on any US citizen Source? I only see that it allows foreign governments to get information on their own citizens, even if that information is stored on US soil.

jacobush 9y ago
If one or two (million) US citizens data happen to get included, well that’s unfortunate. It’s not against the law in those countries. Purely by coincidence, these other countries can then notify the US government if they see something of interest, some dirt on a US citizen. Now there is something to be concerned about and the US government has cause to look more closely. Outsource all unkempt activity!
tsmarsh 9y ago
It’s edge cases like this that make me wonder about the whole concept of nations. It makes citizens sound like property / cattle. “I believe my cow pooped on your lawn. I demand the right to inspect your lawn for my cows poop to retrieve the poop. Expect further consultation if we decide you illegally benefited from that poop. I don’t care that you are ok with the poop or that the cow came to your lawn and pooped there of its own valition. In Cowville pooping outside of your allotted pen is illegal.” Of course when you take that argument to its logical conclusion I may find that I’ve just argued for a firewall / vetting system that would prevent data leaving the national networks ‘illegally’. Maybe I am. Or maybe I’m arguing the other way, that national borders make less sense than ever and freedom of people, ideas and data requires a completely different take on national soverignty.
- wu-ikkyu 9y ago
  National boundaries are kaput on the World Wide Web.
- liberte82 9y ago
  Once corporations start deciding it's cheaper to just provide their own healthcare to its workers rather than going through the broken American system, watch out. Corporate fascism is the new feudalism.

mtgx 9y ago

Not just a lack of media coverage, but no debate in Congress either. The bill was sneaked into the omnibus spending bill. That sort of thing is usually reserved for a certain type of bills (and I don't mean just budget bills, sadly) ...