10 ms·

U.S. lawmakers call for privacy legislation after Reuters report on Amazon

178 points by CapitalistCartr 5y ago

harry8 5y ago
Money vs people re-deploying their votes. Who wins? Why?
umeshunni 5y ago
Politicians make meaningless statements on Twitter. News at 11.
ancode 5y ago
If only they had the power to actually enact legislation
- maxerickson 5y ago
  This sort of cynicism is confusing. Bringing attention to an issue is an obvious component of enacting legislation when there are many different topics competing for that attention in the legislature. If it was a resolution passed by the full house calling on Amazon to be nice guys, well then okay, be as cynical as you want about that.
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    Passing bills is another component - quite an important one. The federal government currently faces challenges getting bills through.
  - Aunche 5y ago
    >when there are many different topics competing The number one thing competing from legislature's time is creating soundbytes that make them seem tough. So many bills are intentionally politically infeasible because people vote for politicians based on what they say rather than what they accomplish. They don't have any time left to learn about areas that they aren't particularly passionate about, so they'll just listen to that intelligent-sounding Amazon lobbyist has to say about how a bill would destroy a million jobs.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
ren_engineer 5y ago
> Internal documents reveal how a former aide to Joe Biden helped the tech giant build a lobbying juggernaut that has gutted legislation nothing is going to happen, especially considering the complaints are related to Alexa recordings. NSA/DOJ love the idea of having recording devices they can hack/subpoena whenever they want, they are basically opt-in 1984 telescreens. All Amazon has to do is remind Congress behind closed doors that they are an extension of the surveillance state
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  It's really interesting to see, on the one hand, the claim from the former Alexa engineer that they're not doing this and take privacy seriously, and on the other hand, the claim that they're government surveillance devices. Because it's possible that they could both be true. The engineers take privacy seriously, think they're preserving it well, and then the man from the government comes in and PRISMs their servers and only he and one other person at the whole company knows about it. But obviously privacy legislation isn't going to fix that.
  - LogonType10 5y ago
    You know it's a crackpot theory when it's so unfalsifiable as to be absurd. You think one person--just one person--can manage the data of millions of people, the backups, the government requests, the exporting, and the IT troubleshooting? That's awfully convenient, and I expect you'll never be proven wrong and have to feel dumb for believing it.
    - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
      The rest of the people work for the government, not the corporation? All they need is someone inside the company whose job it is to keep other people inside the company from finding out. It's the same model as police use for informants and intelligence services use for espionage. It's also kind of pointless to talk about how to falsify a class of thing we have affirmative evidence is happening. When we found out about PRISM, the heads of the companies said they didn't know anything about it. So either they were lying or their subordinates successfully kept it a secret from them. Moreover, the interesting question isn't whether it's happening right now. It's that given we know it can happen, how do we prevent it from happening? For example, by using software with published source code that runs on your own device instead of someone else's.
encryptluks2 5y ago
US lawmakers can't even take on robocallers and spammers, so I don't have much faith in their ability. When they are willing to actually impose harsh criminal liability on companies and employees like they do for citizens, then things like this won't be an issue.
- criddell 5y ago
  I had great hope when I heard about the STIR/SHAKEN protocol [1]. It's been in effect for five months now and I think I get more spam calls than ever before. [1]: https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentication https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentication
  - encryptluks2 5y ago
    Same here. I feel like of they'd just label robocallers terrorist and treat them as such, it would be a lot harder to find people willing to take that risk even in foreign countries. Sanctions would go a long way as well in other countries taking it more seriously.
    - tatersolid 5y ago
      Further watering down the definition of “terrorist” is the last thing anyone sane should suggest. Not unless you really want the governments of 1984 or V for Vendetta to come quickly. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/terrorism https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/terrorism
- dboreham 5y ago
  US lawmakers _are_ the robocallers and spammers.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
loteck 5y ago
Despite the day to day situation in congress, it seems inevitable that in the short to mid term, the US will have to stand up new privacy legislation in order to maintain participation in the digital economy. The question will be how they define privacy, and who will write the law. If activism doesn't interest you and you're looking for a reasonable shortcut, follow the work/proposals of Sen. Ron Wyden. He employs actual expert technologists who advise him on policy, and their expertise frequently shows up in the legislation he proposes.
- mgh2 5y ago
  So right: "This is now the classic Big Tech move: deploy money and armies of lobbyists to fight meaningful reforms in the shadows but claim to support them publicly."
- ssklash 5y ago
  Wyden is the single best tech-related legislator in Congress, in my opinion. A great all around senator as well.
  - rileyphone 5y ago
    > In May 2017, Wyden co-sponsored the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, Senate Bill 720, which made it a federal crime, punishable by a maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment,[55] for Americans to encourage or participate in boycotts against Israel and Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories if protesting actions by the Israeli government. The bill would make it legal for U.S. states to refuse to do business with contractors that engage in boycotts against Israel.[56] It amazes me how otherwise sensible legislators look like goons when it's AIPAC calling, approving bills that make free speech a crime.
    - mschuster91 5y ago
      > The bill would make it legal for U.S. states to refuse to do business with contractors that engage in boycotts against Israel. I fail to see the problem in the government not indirectly funding entities supporting agitation against a close military and political ally of the US.
putlake 5y ago
The cartoon playing out in the media once again reminds me of Gell-Mann Amnesia because I used to work at Alexa. The lengths that they go to for preserving consumer privacy actually seemed absurd to me. Alexa engineers and applied scientists' lives would have been much easier if they didn't take customer privacy -- and their right to request and delete their data -- so seriously. Yes, they are lobbying against regulation. But that's because no business wants to have to deal with 50 different laws in 50 states. They're saying let's have one federal regulation so it's easier to comply. It's not that they don't care about privacy -- they very much do. In fact, all these large companies want regulation because it strengthens their moat. A startup won't have the resources to comply with such regulations on Day 1. They just want it to be reasonable because dealing with different state-level regulations is too much.
- sitkack 5y ago
  How about we regulate AND make it easy for startups to compete. Living in world where the big corps can all responsibly handle your data (what ever that actually means) and competition stagnates. Our brand of capitalism pretends in runs on competition. *edit and from the article, if Amazon is quietly curtailing and preventing privacy laws on a state basis, what effort are they using ton unify those laws on a federal basis? > No major federal privacy legislation has passed Congress in years because members have been deadlocked on the issue. I assume Amazon is assisting here as well. All large corporations have a lot of folks at the edges actually doing the work. The internal controls for privacy are strong, but those are nearly orthogonal to the larger corporate goals. If you leak or improperly use customer data, that could have huge ramifications from the political and legal fall out. The amoral or immoral use of customer data at the whole org level are what people are generally talking about when it comes to data privacy from corporations.
  - 1cvmask 5y ago
    The laws are written to entrench incumbents and their moats. Startups have neither the resources or the lobbyists to compete while they try to get their bare feeble MVP off the ground. The only way you can do that is if you carve out exemptions for smaller companies. This law does not apply if you have less than 300 employees and 100 million is net turnover etc.
Brendinooo 5y ago
A reminder that no one's making you use Amazon, especially the Alexa stuff. I invested in Mycroft to try and kickstart a privacy-focused alternative; the hardware isn't there yet but they've made good strides on the software side. You can invest too! https://www.startengine.com/mycroftai https://www.startengine.com/mycroftai Make the world we want to live in.
- tyingq 5y ago
  Some of it is foisted on you whether you like it or not though. Like your across-the-street neighbor's Ring doorbell sharing HD footage of you, your house, etc, to law enforcement.
  - willis936 5y ago
    I noticed an Alexa in a family member's bathroom recently. Yeah, I don't have to own them, but that doesn't mean their existence doesn't affect me. This is ripe for legislation.
    - Brendinooo 5y ago
      Sure. I just don't want to get my hopes too high that I'll get what I want in that arena...
- LogonType10 5y ago
  Amazon delivery vans scan nearby WiFi networks for SSIDs and tag that with geolocation. Amazon knows all about your home network.
  - jjulius 5y ago
    This is the first time I've heard that claim. Can you please provide a source?
  - mistrial9 5y ago
    Google pioneered this on mass-scale, I dont doubt it
aww_dang 5y ago
"U.S. lawmakers call for regulatory capture to further benefit the donor classes, because they deeply care about your privacy..." Are these not the same politicians that passed mass surveillance legislation?
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
When reading reports like this, remember that HN commenters frequently try to discredit major news media reports on privacy issues by pointing to news websites' use of ad tech. Watch for it. It has been going on for years. HN commenters will infallibly comment on news reports relating to privacy issues by pointing to news website use of ad tech. The question to ask is would this argument have made a difference here. Did these members of the Senate and House consider if a Reuters website uses ad tech. If the Reuters reporting is factually correct, then Reuters' use of ad tech should not have any effect on the potential for others to take action on the basis of Reuters reporting. As the saying goes, "Don't shoot the messenger." HN commenters keep trying to shoot the messenger. It only diverts attention from any facts contained in the message.
comeonseriously 5y ago
Wait, so Amazon allegedly undermined privacy by spending tons of money lobbying, and Congress wants to pass legislation on privacy. How about passing legislation on LOBBYING?
- dhimes 5y ago
  This is the real problem. All meetings should be public and a matter of public record. We may need some workarounds for Defense/Sensitive issues, but standard conversations need to be disclosed.

harry8 5y ago

Money vs people re-deploying their votes. Who wins? Why?

umeshunni 5y ago

Politicians make meaningless statements on Twitter. News at 11.

ancode 5y ago

If only they had the power to actually enact legislation

maxerickson 5y ago
This sort of cynicism is confusing. Bringing attention to an issue is an obvious component of enacting legislation when there are many different topics competing for that attention in the legislature. If it was a resolution passed by the full house calling on Amazon to be nice guys, well then okay, be as cynical as you want about that.
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  Passing bills is another component - quite an important one. The federal government currently faces challenges getting bills through.
- Aunche 5y ago
  >when there are many different topics competing The number one thing competing from legislature's time is creating soundbytes that make them seem tough. So many bills are intentionally politically infeasible because people vote for politicians based on what they say rather than what they accomplish. They don't have any time left to learn about areas that they aren't particularly passionate about, so they'll just listen to that intelligent-sounding Amazon lobbyist has to say about how a bill would destroy a million jobs.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

ren_engineer 5y ago

> Internal documents reveal how a former aide to Joe Biden helped the tech giant build a lobbying juggernaut that has gutted legislation nothing is going to happen, especially considering the complaints are related to Alexa recordings. NSA/DOJ love the idea of having recording devices they can hack/subpoena whenever they want, they are basically opt-in 1984 telescreens. All Amazon has to do is remind Congress behind closed doors that they are an extension of the surveillance state

AnthonyMouse 5y ago
It's really interesting to see, on the one hand, the claim from the former Alexa engineer that they're not doing this and take privacy seriously, and on the other hand, the claim that they're government surveillance devices. Because it's possible that they could both be true. The engineers take privacy seriously, think they're preserving it well, and then the man from the government comes in and PRISMs their servers and only he and one other person at the whole company knows about it. But obviously privacy legislation isn't going to fix that.
- LogonType10 5y ago
  You know it's a crackpot theory when it's so unfalsifiable as to be absurd. You think one person--just one person--can manage the data of millions of people, the backups, the government requests, the exporting, and the IT troubleshooting? That's awfully convenient, and I expect you'll never be proven wrong and have to feel dumb for believing it.
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    The rest of the people work for the government, not the corporation? All they need is someone inside the company whose job it is to keep other people inside the company from finding out. It's the same model as police use for informants and intelligence services use for espionage. It's also kind of pointless to talk about how to falsify a class of thing we have affirmative evidence is happening. When we found out about PRISM, the heads of the companies said they didn't know anything about it. So either they were lying or their subordinates successfully kept it a secret from them. Moreover, the interesting question isn't whether it's happening right now. It's that given we know it can happen, how do we prevent it from happening? For example, by using software with published source code that runs on your own device instead of someone else's.

encryptluks2 5y ago

US lawmakers can't even take on robocallers and spammers, so I don't have much faith in their ability. When they are willing to actually impose harsh criminal liability on companies and employees like they do for citizens, then things like this won't be an issue.

criddell 5y ago
I had great hope when I heard about the STIR/SHAKEN protocol [1]. It's been in effect for five months now and I think I get more spam calls than ever before. [1]: https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentication https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentication
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  Same here. I feel like of they'd just label robocallers terrorist and treat them as such, it would be a lot harder to find people willing to take that risk even in foreign countries. Sanctions would go a long way as well in other countries taking it more seriously.
  - tatersolid 5y ago
    Further watering down the definition of “terrorist” is the last thing anyone sane should suggest. Not unless you really want the governments of 1984 or V for Vendetta to come quickly. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/terrorism https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/terrorism
dboreham 5y ago
US lawmakers _are_ the robocallers and spammers.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

loteck 5y ago

Despite the day to day situation in congress, it seems inevitable that in the short to mid term, the US will have to stand up new privacy legislation in order to maintain participation in the digital economy. The question will be how they define privacy, and who will write the law. If activism doesn't interest you and you're looking for a reasonable shortcut, follow the work/proposals of Sen. Ron Wyden. He employs actual expert technologists who advise him on policy, and their expertise frequently shows up in the legislation he proposes.

mgh2 5y ago
So right: "This is now the classic Big Tech move: deploy money and armies of lobbyists to fight meaningful reforms in the shadows but claim to support them publicly."
ssklash 5y ago
Wyden is the single best tech-related legislator in Congress, in my opinion. A great all around senator as well.
- rileyphone 5y ago
  > In May 2017, Wyden co-sponsored the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, Senate Bill 720, which made it a federal crime, punishable by a maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment,[55] for Americans to encourage or participate in boycotts against Israel and Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories if protesting actions by the Israeli government. The bill would make it legal for U.S. states to refuse to do business with contractors that engage in boycotts against Israel.[56] It amazes me how otherwise sensible legislators look like goons when it's AIPAC calling, approving bills that make free speech a crime.
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    > The bill would make it legal for U.S. states to refuse to do business with contractors that engage in boycotts against Israel. I fail to see the problem in the government not indirectly funding entities supporting agitation against a close military and political ally of the US.

putlake 5y ago

The cartoon playing out in the media once again reminds me of Gell-Mann Amnesia because I used to work at Alexa. The lengths that they go to for preserving consumer privacy actually seemed absurd to me. Alexa engineers and applied scientists' lives would have been much easier if they didn't take customer privacy -- and their right to request and delete their data -- so seriously. Yes, they are lobbying against regulation. But that's because no business wants to have to deal with 50 different laws in 50 states. They're saying let's have one federal regulation so it's easier to comply. It's not that they don't care about privacy -- they very much do. In fact, all these large companies want regulation because it strengthens their moat. A startup won't have the resources to comply with such regulations on Day 1. They just want it to be reasonable because dealing with different state-level regulations is too much.

sitkack 5y ago
How about we regulate AND make it easy for startups to compete. Living in world where the big corps can all responsibly handle your data (what ever that actually means) and competition stagnates. Our brand of capitalism pretends in runs on competition. *edit and from the article, if Amazon is quietly curtailing and preventing privacy laws on a state basis, what effort are they using ton unify those laws on a federal basis? > No major federal privacy legislation has passed Congress in years because members have been deadlocked on the issue. I assume Amazon is assisting here as well. All large corporations have a lot of folks at the edges actually doing the work. The internal controls for privacy are strong, but those are nearly orthogonal to the larger corporate goals. If you leak or improperly use customer data, that could have huge ramifications from the political and legal fall out. The amoral or immoral use of customer data at the whole org level are what people are generally talking about when it comes to data privacy from corporations.
- 1cvmask 5y ago
  The laws are written to entrench incumbents and their moats. Startups have neither the resources or the lobbyists to compete while they try to get their bare feeble MVP off the ground. The only way you can do that is if you carve out exemptions for smaller companies. This law does not apply if you have less than 300 employees and 100 million is net turnover etc.

Brendinooo 5y ago

A reminder that no one's making you use Amazon, especially the Alexa stuff. I invested in Mycroft to try and kickstart a privacy-focused alternative; the hardware isn't there yet but they've made good strides on the software side. You can invest too! https://www.startengine.com/mycroftai https://www.startengine.com/mycroftai Make the world we want to live in.

tyingq 5y ago
Some of it is foisted on you whether you like it or not though. Like your across-the-street neighbor's Ring doorbell sharing HD footage of you, your house, etc, to law enforcement.
- willis936 5y ago
  I noticed an Alexa in a family member's bathroom recently. Yeah, I don't have to own them, but that doesn't mean their existence doesn't affect me. This is ripe for legislation.
  - Brendinooo 5y ago
    Sure. I just don't want to get my hopes too high that I'll get what I want in that arena...
LogonType10 5y ago
Amazon delivery vans scan nearby WiFi networks for SSIDs and tag that with geolocation. Amazon knows all about your home network.
- jjulius 5y ago
  This is the first time I've heard that claim. Can you please provide a source?
- mistrial9 5y ago
  Google pioneered this on mass-scale, I dont doubt it

aww_dang 5y ago

"U.S. lawmakers call for regulatory capture to further benefit the donor classes, because they deeply care about your privacy..." Are these not the same politicians that passed mass surveillance legislation?

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago

When reading reports like this, remember that HN commenters frequently try to discredit major news media reports on privacy issues by pointing to news websites' use of ad tech. Watch for it. It has been going on for years. HN commenters will infallibly comment on news reports relating to privacy issues by pointing to news website use of ad tech. The question to ask is would this argument have made a difference here. Did these members of the Senate and House consider if a Reuters website uses ad tech. If the Reuters reporting is factually correct, then Reuters' use of ad tech should not have any effect on the potential for others to take action on the basis of Reuters reporting. As the saying goes, "Don't shoot the messenger." HN commenters keep trying to shoot the messenger. It only diverts attention from any facts contained in the message.

comeonseriously 5y ago

Wait, so Amazon allegedly undermined privacy by spending tons of money lobbying, and Congress wants to pass legislation on privacy. How about passing legislation on LOBBYING?

dhimes 5y ago
This is the real problem. All meetings should be public and a matter of public record. We may need some workarounds for Defense/Sensitive issues, but standard conversations need to be disclosed.