6 ms·

Devil's advocate, why not let Vermonters vote in their own privacy law for their own government?

by nfoz 7y ago

paulddraper 7y ago
At the risk of getting too political on HN, the knee-jerk reaction to national (sometimes even international) solutions for every problem is tiresome and unwise. Some problems necessitate that, but most do not, this being one of them. I can't find the source, but I read a strong argument about the difficult of moving between nations, states, and municipalities, and the conclusion was that the more localized the legislation, the greater freedom people have. "Vote with your feet"-type deal.
- download13 7y ago
  If you can afford to move
  - paulddraper 7y ago
    Right. And moving between cities is easier than moving between states which is easier than moving between countries. So the more local the policies the lower the barrier to choose them.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - nerdponx 7y ago
    If access to healthcare weren't tied to employment, it would be a lot less risky to move.
- Keverw 7y ago
  Yeah but with other states and countries saying their privacy laws applies outside of the border, seems like a bunch of duplication and conflicting laws. Kinda insane as soon as you put something on a server, you are expected to comply with laws all over the world. For example School Districts in Ohio are suing Facebook for selling ads to a charter school that went out of business. If someone from California buys a summer house and registers a car to keep in Vermont to garage there and never drives it to California, I wonder if California considers Vermont violating their new privacy law since no opt-out but wonder if they could really enforce it on Vermont anyways. Seems like uncharted territory, but I know some companies have said they plan to follow the sticker privacy laws even if you live outside of California or Europe since it's easier to developed processes that way. Seems like privacy law in the US is all over the place. One for banking, one for children, one for education, one for health, one for email marketing and then laws scattered all over the different states. Then I think there's even a specific law about library books checkout history too. So seems bad for startups or even mid size companies to keep up with it, especially if states start saying it applies even if you don't have a office in California. Then if you have a service, legal requests for peoples data you have to handle and the more popular you are, the more common people might misuse your services. For example drug dealers were using Sony Playstations to communicate with each other and then Jussie Smollett for example, Google has to hand over a year of Gmail relating to the hoax he pulled(Maybe he talked to others using Gmail when planning it), but I think if he was a European citizen then providers have to decide to break US or European law, but some stuff is as clear as mud. I feel in that case they'd follow the warrant and deal with breaking European law as I don't think they'd have much choice as a catch 22. So even if you are trying to do the right thing following the law - maybe even helping get a dangerous criminal of the streets, so many conflicting privacy laws and different agencies responsible for different ones too. Not sure though if Europe has gone after any companies for handing over data to a foreign government relating to a valid legal request where they have offices or data centers but seems you could be screwed either way when trying to decide how to handle the conflicts. Then there was a case involving Microsoft, just because you are a US company if you keep servers anywhere in the world the US can subject them to requests. So sounds like a mess for a company to decide how to handle these edge cases where things conflict, so standardizing on one would help give businesses clarity. Maybe even treaties too.
  - pkaye 7y ago
    Sometimes companies form separate legal entities in each region or country so they can deal with each in isolation.
    - Keverw 7y ago
      Yeah but not sure how that works if the parent company is US based, since the US says legal requests even applied to foreign servers in that case. Since large companies have servers all over the world. Then with the cloud and globally accessible services, hard to isolate I think unless there were separate Facebook for each country where you can't friend your friends from Europe if you are in America. Just seems like a mess, but the big companies have enough lawyers to deal with this stuff and advice on conflicts but seems a blow to startups.
  - dmitrygr 7y ago
    In theory, yes, CA can sue VT in that case. There is precedent for states suing states: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-3/section-2/clause-1/suits-between-two-or-more-states https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-3/sec...
- slg 7y ago
  The only time I have ever heard of people moving somewhere because of laws is rich people moving to save on taxes. I have not personally known a single person who has actually voted with their feet on issues like this. Maybe I'm an outlier on that, but anecdotally it just doesn't seem like a real thing in practice despite it being a common theory. I would guess that is especially true on something like privacy which is likely very few peoples top priorities when choosing a place to live.
  - paulddraper 7y ago
    Many people move because of taxes, government programs, cost of living, education, social norms, housing, transportation, job opportunities, etc. All of these are directly or indirectly influenced by policy. --- Would you move purely because of a DMV privacy policy? No, probably not. But the basic principal of being able to choose your government by your location is sound. At the extreme local level, consider HOAs. Their presence certainly influences people's choice to live there.
    - slg 7y ago
      Almost all the things you listed that in my experience actually motivate people are indirectly influenced by policy. The things that are directly influenced by government action like government programs rarely seem to have an impact (taxes can be an exception like previously mentioned). >Would you move purely because of a DMV privacy policy? No, probably not. But the basic principal of being able to choose your government by your location is sound. But doesn't that last sentence invalidate the first? If no one actually moves based off privacy law, the idea of allowing people to choose their own privacy law through voting with their feet is pointless in practice. I don't think HOAs are a good comparison because it is trivially easy to move a couple blocks within a city in comparison to moving to a different state or country. Also a lot of problems within HOAs stem from interpersonal conflicts and not fundamental differences in political ideology.
      - paulddraper 7y ago
        > it is trivially easy to move a couple blocks within a city in comparison to moving to a different state or country Exactly. Extreme example of how the more localized we can keep politics, the better people can choose their government. > If no one actually moves based off privacy law A. Just like employment, there is a totality of factors to consider. B. That should tell you how important it is. > Also a lot of problems within HOAs stem from interpersonal conflicts Have you ever seen state or national news? --- I'm suggesting that as a rule, it's best to localize policy when possible. Even if you disagree with the principal of "vote with your feet", there is still the point of how unnecessary it is to have 300 million people reach a consensus on DMV operation, when all you really need is the couple million it actually affects.
- jeltz 7y ago
  But I think this is one of the problems which requires a national solution (or for small countries an international solution). Look at the EU where many of the member countries had their own privacy laws, some of them stricter than the GDPR, but until the GDPR few cared about privacy laws, not even all government agencies in did. A unified privacy law at the EU level got a much higher rate of adoption than the previous mesh of local laws.
- glitchc 7y ago
  I am arguing for GDPR. Corporations and local entities will exploit workarounds if privacy policy is a patchwork across jurisdictions (imagining all servers in the country moving to Arkansas because their privacy laws are non-existent or absent). National standards and federal enforcement are the only way to guarantee consistency.
imgabe 7y ago
It's unclear if a Federal law dictating what states can do with information would even be constitutional. This is not a power enumerated to the Federal government in the Constitution.
- pixl97 7y ago
  Seemingly, the Commerce clause gives the fed's near unlimited power.

Devil's advocate, why not let Vermonters vote in their own privacy law for their own government?

by nfoz 7y ago

Devil's advocate, why not let Vermonters vote in their own privacy law for their own government?

At the risk of getting too political on HN, the knee-jerk reaction to national (sometimes even international) solutions for every problem is tiresome and unwise. Some problems necessitate that, but most do not, this being one of them. I can't find the source, but I read a strong argument about the difficult of moving between nations, states, and municipalities, and the conclusion was that the more localized the legislation, the greater freedom people have. "Vote with your feet"-type deal.

download13 7y ago
If you can afford to move
- paulddraper 7y ago
  Right. And moving between cities is easier than moving between states which is easier than moving between countries. So the more local the policies the lower the barrier to choose them.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- nerdponx 7y ago
  If access to healthcare weren't tied to employment, it would be a lot less risky to move.
Keverw 7y ago
Yeah but with other states and countries saying their privacy laws applies outside of the border, seems like a bunch of duplication and conflicting laws. Kinda insane as soon as you put something on a server, you are expected to comply with laws all over the world. For example School Districts in Ohio are suing Facebook for selling ads to a charter school that went out of business. If someone from California buys a summer house and registers a car to keep in Vermont to garage there and never drives it to California, I wonder if California considers Vermont violating their new privacy law since no opt-out but wonder if they could really enforce it on Vermont anyways. Seems like uncharted territory, but I know some companies have said they plan to follow the sticker privacy laws even if you live outside of California or Europe since it's easier to developed processes that way. Seems like privacy law in the US is all over the place. One for banking, one for children, one for education, one for health, one for email marketing and then laws scattered all over the different states. Then I think there's even a specific law about library books checkout history too. So seems bad for startups or even mid size companies to keep up with it, especially if states start saying it applies even if you don't have a office in California. Then if you have a service, legal requests for peoples data you have to handle and the more popular you are, the more common people might misuse your services. For example drug dealers were using Sony Playstations to communicate with each other and then Jussie Smollett for example, Google has to hand over a year of Gmail relating to the hoax he pulled(Maybe he talked to others using Gmail when planning it), but I think if he was a European citizen then providers have to decide to break US or European law, but some stuff is as clear as mud. I feel in that case they'd follow the warrant and deal with breaking European law as I don't think they'd have much choice as a catch 22. So even if you are trying to do the right thing following the law - maybe even helping get a dangerous criminal of the streets, so many conflicting privacy laws and different agencies responsible for different ones too. Not sure though if Europe has gone after any companies for handing over data to a foreign government relating to a valid legal request where they have offices or data centers but seems you could be screwed either way when trying to decide how to handle the conflicts. Then there was a case involving Microsoft, just because you are a US company if you keep servers anywhere in the world the US can subject them to requests. So sounds like a mess for a company to decide how to handle these edge cases where things conflict, so standardizing on one would help give businesses clarity. Maybe even treaties too.
- pkaye 7y ago
  Sometimes companies form separate legal entities in each region or country so they can deal with each in isolation.
  - Keverw 7y ago
    Yeah but not sure how that works if the parent company is US based, since the US says legal requests even applied to foreign servers in that case. Since large companies have servers all over the world. Then with the cloud and globally accessible services, hard to isolate I think unless there were separate Facebook for each country where you can't friend your friends from Europe if you are in America. Just seems like a mess, but the big companies have enough lawyers to deal with this stuff and advice on conflicts but seems a blow to startups.
- dmitrygr 7y ago
  In theory, yes, CA can sue VT in that case. There is precedent for states suing states: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-3/section-2/clause-1/suits-between-two-or-more-states https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-3/sec...
slg 7y ago
The only time I have ever heard of people moving somewhere because of laws is rich people moving to save on taxes. I have not personally known a single person who has actually voted with their feet on issues like this. Maybe I'm an outlier on that, but anecdotally it just doesn't seem like a real thing in practice despite it being a common theory. I would guess that is especially true on something like privacy which is likely very few peoples top priorities when choosing a place to live.
- paulddraper 7y ago
  Many people move because of taxes, government programs, cost of living, education, social norms, housing, transportation, job opportunities, etc. All of these are directly or indirectly influenced by policy. --- Would you move purely because of a DMV privacy policy? No, probably not. But the basic principal of being able to choose your government by your location is sound. At the extreme local level, consider HOAs. Their presence certainly influences people's choice to live there.
  - slg 7y ago
    Almost all the things you listed that in my experience actually motivate people are indirectly influenced by policy. The things that are directly influenced by government action like government programs rarely seem to have an impact (taxes can be an exception like previously mentioned). >Would you move purely because of a DMV privacy policy? No, probably not. But the basic principal of being able to choose your government by your location is sound. But doesn't that last sentence invalidate the first? If no one actually moves based off privacy law, the idea of allowing people to choose their own privacy law through voting with their feet is pointless in practice. I don't think HOAs are a good comparison because it is trivially easy to move a couple blocks within a city in comparison to moving to a different state or country. Also a lot of problems within HOAs stem from interpersonal conflicts and not fundamental differences in political ideology.
    - paulddraper 7y ago
      > it is trivially easy to move a couple blocks within a city in comparison to moving to a different state or country Exactly. Extreme example of how the more localized we can keep politics, the better people can choose their government. > If no one actually moves based off privacy law A. Just like employment, there is a totality of factors to consider. B. That should tell you how important it is. > Also a lot of problems within HOAs stem from interpersonal conflicts Have you ever seen state or national news? --- I'm suggesting that as a rule, it's best to localize policy when possible. Even if you disagree with the principal of "vote with your feet", there is still the point of how unnecessary it is to have 300 million people reach a consensus on DMV operation, when all you really need is the couple million it actually affects.
jeltz 7y ago
But I think this is one of the problems which requires a national solution (or for small countries an international solution). Look at the EU where many of the member countries had their own privacy laws, some of them stricter than the GDPR, but until the GDPR few cared about privacy laws, not even all government agencies in did. A unified privacy law at the EU level got a much higher rate of adoption than the previous mesh of local laws.
glitchc 7y ago
I am arguing for GDPR. Corporations and local entities will exploit workarounds if privacy policy is a patchwork across jurisdictions (imagining all servers in the country moving to Arkansas because their privacy laws are non-existent or absent). National standards and federal enforcement are the only way to guarantee consistency.

imgabe 7y ago

It's unclear if a Federal law dictating what states can do with information would even be constitutional. This is not a power enumerated to the Federal government in the Constitution.

pixl97 7y ago
Seemingly, the Commerce clause gives the fed's near unlimited power.