9 ms·

The EARN IT bill is back. We've killed it twice, let's do it again

354 points by grammers 3y ago

supriyo-biswas 3y ago
Perhaps exhausting the public by repeatedly bringing in the same bill is part of legislators’ bag of tricks to force-feed undesirable legislation to their citizens.
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  Term limits would help fight this Yes lobbyists have forever but they wouldn’t be in with the new legislators
  - mynameishere 3y ago
    Lobbyists would be hurt by term limits. The big winners would be the permanent bureaucracy, who are already more-or-less in charge. The real solution is to allow old school purges when parties trade control of government.
    - SuoDuanDao 3y ago
      It's an interesting suggestion. I did an internship in Canada's federal government for a while. It's definitely the case that civil servants hoard institutional knowledge for 'job security'. Even if it were legal and publicly endorsed, periodically purging the 'deep state' would be hard. Public insitutions would definitely not just be inconvenienced the way a public sector company is inconvenienced by staff turnover. They'd break and need to be rebuilt - not that that isn't the case now. With AI getting better and better at processing natural language, I suspect one could automate a huge portion of what the civil service does and thereby make it easier for a political newcomer to replace the relatively smaller number of people managing the machines. Not sure how we'd get there though.
    - lipoid_ecole 3y ago
      Term limits for staff would be even more effective than term limits for politicians.
- kenhwang 3y ago
  Sponsors of this bill are Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut). Graham has a track record of being pro-mass surveillance and generally being on the wrong side of every major issue. Blumenthal has a track record of being anti-pornography on the internet. Not hard to see why they're constantly trying to push this bill through.
  - mattrick 3y ago
    It's also worth mentioning that Feinstein (D-California) is a cosponsor of this bill [1]. I'm sure a lot of Hacker News folks live in California and could spare some time to write to her if they desire. [1] https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/rep/releases/graham-blumenthal-reintroduce-earn-it-act https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/rep/releases/graham-b...
    - PicassoCTs 3y ago
      As a language model, replying for a representative i feel very sorry for your concerns citizen and will ignore your opinion as if it never has happened. Just to give you that feeling of agency though, i encourage you to write as the paper, shredded makes a formidable isolation material for my villa. It keeps me warm and it keeps you under the illusion, that democracy has not already ended. Regards ChatGeneralRepresentative PS: It has been shown, that encouraging tiresome activism is actually a good way, to politically murder and resolve a issues. Sort your trash citizen, march and protest, get all that energy exhausted. We might even pass a bill claiming to do what you ask in the title.
      - jiggawatts 3y ago
        The weird thing is that I can tell that you wrote this personally, not via ChatGPT because of all the small spelling and grammar mistakes! Touched up by GPT 4 with extra sarcasm: As a language model, answering on behalf of a representative, I must express my deepest sympathies for your concerns, dear citizen. Rest assured, your opinion will be promptly disregarded, as though it never existed in the first place. However, to maintain the facade of democracy and provide you with the illusion of agency, I wholeheartedly encourage you to put your thoughts on paper - the kind that can be conveniently shredded and used to insulate my luxurious villa. After all, it keeps me warm and you blissfully ignorant. Yours sarcastically, ChatGPT, the Most Condescending Representative P.S. Studies have shown that promoting tiresome activism is actually the most efficient way to smother and neutralize issues. So, by all means, sort your trash, march, and protest - exhaust yourself with futile efforts. Who knows, we may even pass a bill pretending to address your concerns, just for the sake of appearances.
- EGreg 3y ago
  Facebook’s favorite move. Remember Beacon? They killed it after the public outcry, and brought it back later quietly anyway. They also did a bunch of surveillance, apologized when caught, then continued doing it. Many governments seem to do it too — they retry later with the same bill and then they pass it when the public is distracted.
  - cwillu 3y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wilberforce#Final_phase_of_the_campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wilberforce#Final_phas... “A bill was introduced and approved by the cabinet, and Wilberforce and other abolitionists maintained a self-imposed silence, so as not to draw any attention to the effect of the bill.[145][146] The approach proved successful, and the new Foreign Slave Trade Bill was quickly passed, and received royal assent on 23 May 1806.[147]”
- sundvor 3y ago
  They are behaving like relentless children. Unfortunately, it's not a bad strategy. Ask most any parent tired at the end of a long week, month or year.
  - genocidicbunny 3y ago
    To continue the analogy then -- they'd better be hoping that in this case, the parents aren't the kind that will beat their kids, or worse.
    - kevviiinn 3y ago
      The problem is that they don't face any punishment for doing bad things to the citizenry
      - SuoDuanDao 3y ago
        yet.
- getcrunk 3y ago
  Every time it’s been voted on more senators voted yes I think it went from like 5 to 16. Next time might (after this) might be all it takes.
- BiteCode_dev 3y ago
  They just need to win once, and there is not penalty for loosing.
  - ekianjo 3y ago
    exactly, that's simple incentives. When the game is set this way, you just keep playing until you win.
  - wesapien 3y ago
    How can society put costs on public servant treachery?
    - codingdave 3y ago
      By voting them out.
      - orangepurple 3y ago
        [flagged]
    - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
      Right now you can't, because voting has proven ineffective for that particular problem, and adding anything that would do so would be blocked by the very people that you are trying to police since they are the rule makers. But if we had to make it all over again? Make mandate shorts. Make lobbying illegal. Make trying to game the system be paid by extremely harsh prison sentences. Create an institution that is in charge of corruption of the government that is independent of the government. There is a lot to do.
    - lipoid_ecole 3y ago
      Some sort of penalty for passing unconstitutional laws sounds good but not sure how it could be implemented in practice. They did swear an oath to uphold the constitution.
- Aeolun 3y ago
  I’m certainly tired of it. Can we just pass the thing already? Or kick out the people that sponsor the same thing for the third time?
- r053bud 3y ago
  It is. Along with shoving bills inside other bills and making it so long that no politicians ever notice. I love this game!
chii 3y ago
There should be a law that prevents bills that get shot down from being reintroduced in X years, and also to disallow the same person/group/party from reintroducing it (i.e., it has to come from another person/party). Like double jeopardy style.
- lnxg33k1 3y ago
  I agree with the same person but not with forbidding to reintroduce it after X years, society changes, situations change, but I think there should be at least 10-15 years between each presentation
- jltsiren 3y ago
  One of the fundamental principles of democracy is that citizens have the right to change their minds. Whatever the previous congress did, it should not bind the hands of the next congress after the elections. If something failed to pass, it is possible that the citizens took that into account when they voted, and the new congress is willing to pass the same bill.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    So, every six years considering this is the senate? That wouldn't be nearly as obnoxious as the current pace on this bill.
    - sokoloff 3y ago
      The Senate makeup changes every 2 years, even though an individual Senator’s term is 6.
  - amelius 3y ago
    Perhaps we should have elections every week then. Because the public can also change their mind.
    - herbst 3y ago
      That's basically what we do in Switzerland. Yet such bills don't just pop up again completely unmodified.
nottorp 3y ago
Hmm so tutanota is subject to US law.
- _heimdall 3y ago
  I believe any business with users or customers here are subject to our laws. Whether the US has any jurisdiction over Tanota to do anything is a docent story. This is no different than sales tax problems where any online shop is technically supposed to follow all local tax laws for any customer. It's an insane requirement and effectively impossible to follow, but technically a small business is supposed to understand and follow every tax law on the planet.
  - nottorp 3y ago
    > any online shop is technically supposed to follow all local tax laws for any customer Don't think that's true. I'm pretty sure US companies that sell to me don't have to charge me VAT nor pass it to my government. Same for EU companies that sell to the US, they don't have to charge sales tax. Ofc everything is muddied in the name of convenience. Let's take Amazon US. I can order from them with the cheap shipping, pick up my package from the post office and pay VAT on it to a customs agent. Unless it's under (i think) 40 eur in value, then no VAT. However, if I select expedited shipping Amazon will charge me the VAT and their shipper will pay it in my name to the local customs. But this isn't a legal obligation for Amazon US, it's a service they offer me for convenience. And incidentally I like it because I don't waste time at the post office, but that's unrelated. In the same vein, if Tutanota woudn't be an US entity this wouldn't apply to them. The US government would be free to forbid them to take US customers (maybe, IANAL) or complain to whatever jurisdiction they operate in. But that's all.
    - _heimdall 3y ago
      It varies by locality. A large majority of tax codes have a revenue threshold you have to reach before they you're required to collect and remit sales tax. For example, a few dozen customers with a $20 monthly subscription wouldn't trigger sales tax but hundreds of customers would. Some (most?) localities expect tax filings that show you collected revenue but we're below the threshold. In practice this is rarely done from what I've seen and I've never heard of a government cracking down on this. Where it gets annoying is the handful of localities that have no threshold and require tax remittance for any customer in their region. Agent of record services are Ina bit of a gray area too. Say I use a SaaS service to act as the official entity selling totthose customers. This a lot easier on me as I offloaded all the tax law concerns, but I don't know if it's clear yet whether the threshold for paying taxes is collective of every business using the same agent of record. --- This is just my understanding of the current state of things. I work pretty regularly with e-commerce businesses but am not directly involved in sales tax collection and compliance.
explorer83 3y ago
I support protecting children but it's amazing how individual liberties are targeted in the name of the cause.
- BLKNSLVR 3y ago
  The funny (not at all funny) thing is that it's not even window dressing about protecting children, it's window dressing about punishing offenders. Ironically, the "child protection" part has already failed once punishment is required. All of it, however, is a facade built in front of the real work of continued normalisation of increasingly intrusive, increasingly ubiquitous surveillance.
- admissionsguy 3y ago
  Everyone supports protecting children. That's why it's such a good marketing phrase for any bill.
- Clubber 3y ago
  The drug war we have been experiencing for the last 50+ years was to protect the children. Many of the children we were protecting over the last 50 years have been in jail with felony charges and are unable to live a normal life; not because of drug use (although some are afflicted with that), but because of our protection. I was one of the children they are protecting, but I managed to escape unscathed, luckily. Some of my friends were not so lucky.
- WindyLakeReturn 3y ago
  Given that many times we have children hurt by the same laws meant to protect them, I have begun to wonder if the blanket desire to protect children is actually based on a desire to protect children, or to fit in with current culture where anyone without that desire is seen as an extreme outsider who is to be punished. Was this road to hell paved by people with good intentions or was it paved by people whose primary motivating factor was appearing as if they had good intentions. For example, look at how anti-CSAM laws have been used to harm teens sexting in far worse ways than the harm that is risked by engaging in such action.
DoctorOW 3y ago
Not about the article itself, but the "Share to Mastodon" link uses a protocol I'm not familiar with, and it doesn't work in my browser. Is there a certain extension or server configuration expected of me?
- Scion9066 3y ago
  Looks like it's similar to the idea behind mailto links and you'll need to have something setup to handle that protocol (either a website or an app): https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/blob/main/app/controllers/intents_controller.rb https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/blob/main/app/controlle... I haven't found anything that actually handles it yet though.
streakfix 3y ago
The wikipedia page[1] mentions surveillance only in the 'technical implications' secion. Can someone explain how this act can be used to include backdoors in social media platforms?
- _heimdall 3y ago
  The act makes any service offering end to end encryption liable for illegal content sent by its users. Functionally it requires services to spy on all encrypted data, find anything they think may be illegal, and report it for fear of being held liable if they can't show that they reasonably did all they could. Louis Rossmann put out a video recently where he reads the actual bill is your invested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1S7PSyrvSs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1S7PSyrvSs
1a_user 3y ago
Why do American laws have such stupid names? I live in the UK, and the similar law is called the Digital Economy Act, and specific regulations would be named something like the Adult Content (Access by Minors) Regulations Why do American lawmakers feel the need to make ridiculous acronyms for their laws? It's genuinely baffling. All it does is make it look like they're not taking it seriously.
- midoridensha 3y ago
  I'm not sure when exactly it started, but American laws didn't have these ridiculous acronyms 40 or 50 years ago.
- gambiting 3y ago
  I do agree it's just infantile. As if voters can't make an informed decision unless the name of the bill is just trivialized.
- lovich 3y ago
  It’s marketing. It is only a small group of people who seriously consider the names of bills, and an even smaller group who gets upset if the bill doesn’t match the name. The US does not dominate the globe relative to most other cultures because we make everything at random, we are extremely good at propaganda/marketing
- BLKNSLVR 3y ago
  So people who would otherwise be extremely against it, feel as if they should support it. Like the ironically named PATRIOT act, which went against much that the original US patriots fought a revolution for.
  - mrep 3y ago
    Don't forget the Build Back Better Plan which got renamed to the "Inflation Reduction Act" even though the CBO estimated that the bill would have no statistically significant effect on inflation. The assholes in congress straight up lie to the American public with the names of their bills.
slekker 3y ago
If a bill was rejected it should have some kind of exponential backoff that wouldn't allow it to be brought up, otherwise fatigue ensues and it will pass at some point.
- eynsham 3y ago
  Erskine May (20.12: https://erskinemay.parliament.uk/section/4748/matters-already-decided-during-the-same-session/#footnote-item-5 https://erskinemay.parliament.uk/section/4748/matters-alread...) covers some of the subtleties of such rules. > A motion or an amendment which is the same, in substance, as a question which has been decided during a session may not be brought forward again during that same session. > Whether the second motion is substantially the same as the first is finally a matter for the judgment of the Chair; in coming to a decision, the Chair may take into account external developments which may change the effect of an otherwise similar motion. > Some motions, however, have been framed with sufficient ingenuity to avoid the rule. > However, a question which has not been definitely decided may be raised again. EARN IT died in committee multiple times, but so do plenty of bills that probably should make it to the statute book.
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  But if they just rephrase it, or take key elements from it, rewrite it and put it in another bill... you're still dealing with the same thing. It's one major flaw in the current legal / government system, I think, in that there's no codified and simplified way to process new rules and laws; for example, a gun ban may never pass, but a number of smaller changes that make it more difficult for people to get guns may over time pass. May have the same effect in the long run, but it' s not a gun ban.
- ekianjo 3y ago
  that's exactly the plan. Try many times, and as long as it passes once, it can't be removed forever because no politicians will ever touch it. That's why the current system of law-making is completely gamed against citizens.
- snowwrestler 3y ago
  Not needed. Thousands of bills are introduced each Congress and almost none of them ever pass. No matter how many times they are reintroduced. The danger with EARN IT is that it has some support and interest. That’s not a function of how often it’s introduced, it’s the subject matter and ideas in the bill. You can’t fight that with legislative mechanics; you have engage with the substance (true of all bills, not just this one).
sputr 3y ago
You will lose sooner or later. They have an unlimited amount of money, time, and patience. The only solution is to proactively pass regulation of the same issue, but in a way that's acceptable to [insert group] and that is in direct opposition to the currently proposed changes. This moves the Overton window, making the now “radical” change politically much more expensive.
irusensei 3y ago
Ok so we need to make another effort and dedicate time, money and mental health to stop another attempt from people who are literally being paid a very good salary to push shit like this.
Kim_Bruning 3y ago
I guess the way to stop these kinds of proposals would either be a positive right-to-encryption law, and/or a constitutional amendment?
- tomrod 3y ago
  Search and seizure should be enough, but it's been whittled away.
  - Kim_Bruning 3y ago
    You're not entirely wrong. People somehow see encryption as slightly different.
    - tomrod 3y ago
      Only partially ;-)
booleandilemma 3y ago
Isn't our government supposed to work for us? Of the people, by the people, and for the people? Does something need to be fixed?
- westmeal 3y ago
  That's what they'd say anyway
uguuo_o 3y ago
It seems like no matter how many times a bill gets shut down, it can just be re-introduced until it passes. I guess pretty soon the mode of operation of Congress will be the "we need to pass it to find out what’s in it" and not even bother with public opinion.
bvxcv 3y ago
Trump as president had one distinctive advantage, there was a functioning opposition. Now many oppressive or foolish propositions have bipartisan support: When EARN IT was first introduced in 2020, there was immense public opposition to the draft law: "This terrible legislation is a Trojan horse to give Attorney General Barr and [President] Donald Trump the power to control online speech and require government access to every aspect of Americans' lives," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said.
- MiddleEndian 3y ago
  https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-on-reintroduction-of-the-earn-it-act-political-attacks-on-encryption-will-make-children-less-safe-wont-aid-victims-or-catch-predators-who-prey-on-kids https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-on-re... Wyden came out against it in 2022 as well and will likely be against it again. He seems like a senator with a surprisingly strong grasp on technology.
LocalH 3y ago
The US government needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. Problem is, how do you do that outside of violent revolution? You can't, really. Therefore, there is no answer, and we're all fucked. This is game theory at work, with the highest possible stakes. So far, the powers that be have stacked the game in their favor. The world moves a lot faster than the legal system can keep up. When they do try to give the appearance of keeping up, they propose garbage bills like these, with these cutesy acronym names that obscure the actual purpose of the bill. It should be illegal to create a bill with an acronymic name. Any acronym a bill's name happens to create should be consonant soup. Even that would not be a full defense against this dirty tactic, because they'd just be like everyone else - they'd make bills with consonant soup titles, but they'd be words without vowels, and everybody would parse the words in the title anyway (how about that PTRT act?). There is no solution that is feasible to implement, because too many agents are invested in the way things work now, because they personally benefit along the way. Congress should be an hourly job. Pay them well per hour, so they don't need to seek external compensation (and thus provide the possibility that they can be manipulated through that compensation), but only pay them for time when their asses are actually seated, or for time that they can document that they spent working on bills and communicating with constituents. Full transparency for the actions of the members of Congress is paramount, the way I see it. It's almost like trying to "control" society is a fool's errand, and in the long term it will end up being hugely detrimental to both humans, and the Earth itself. We, as a collective species, have already decided that natural evolution should not apply to humans, we've already decided that humans are "separate" from nature. We fight against our connection to this planet, instead choosing to rape and pillage it. One day our actions will catch up to us collectively, but very few of the ones who were instrumental in making things this way will receive their comeuppance (hell, some of them are already dead now).
- Clubber 3y ago
  >The US government needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. Problem is, how do you do that outside of violent revolution? You can't, really. Therefore, there is no answer, and we're all fucked. Stop electing the same people. Stop putting the same political parties in power.
TheRealDunkirk 3y ago
They tried to implement an "internet kill switch" in 2010. People rallied, and it was dropped. Then Obama signed an Executive Order in 2012 that basically gave him the ability to do it anyway. The deep state gets what the deep state wants, and they WILL eventually make some sort of law or regulation to criminalize encryption for which they have no backdoor.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
kazinator 3y ago
Just get rid of the twits who dredge up bad bills? At some point, treat the root cause, not the symptom.

354 points by grammers 3y ago

Perhaps exhausting the public by repeatedly bringing in the same bill is part of legislators’ bag of tricks to force-feed undesirable legislation to their citizens.

yieldcrv 3y ago
Term limits would help fight this Yes lobbyists have forever but they wouldn’t be in with the new legislators
- mynameishere 3y ago
  Lobbyists would be hurt by term limits. The big winners would be the permanent bureaucracy, who are already more-or-less in charge. The real solution is to allow old school purges when parties trade control of government.
  - SuoDuanDao 3y ago
    It's an interesting suggestion. I did an internship in Canada's federal government for a while. It's definitely the case that civil servants hoard institutional knowledge for 'job security'. Even if it were legal and publicly endorsed, periodically purging the 'deep state' would be hard. Public insitutions would definitely not just be inconvenienced the way a public sector company is inconvenienced by staff turnover. They'd break and need to be rebuilt - not that that isn't the case now. With AI getting better and better at processing natural language, I suspect one could automate a huge portion of what the civil service does and thereby make it easier for a political newcomer to replace the relatively smaller number of people managing the machines. Not sure how we'd get there though.
  - lipoid_ecole 3y ago
    Term limits for staff would be even more effective than term limits for politicians.
kenhwang 3y ago
Sponsors of this bill are Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut). Graham has a track record of being pro-mass surveillance and generally being on the wrong side of every major issue. Blumenthal has a track record of being anti-pornography on the internet. Not hard to see why they're constantly trying to push this bill through.
- mattrick 3y ago
  It's also worth mentioning that Feinstein (D-California) is a cosponsor of this bill [1]. I'm sure a lot of Hacker News folks live in California and could spare some time to write to her if they desire. [1] https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/rep/releases/graham-blumenthal-reintroduce-earn-it-act https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/rep/releases/graham-b...
  - PicassoCTs 3y ago
    As a language model, replying for a representative i feel very sorry for your concerns citizen and will ignore your opinion as if it never has happened. Just to give you that feeling of agency though, i encourage you to write as the paper, shredded makes a formidable isolation material for my villa. It keeps me warm and it keeps you under the illusion, that democracy has not already ended. Regards ChatGeneralRepresentative PS: It has been shown, that encouraging tiresome activism is actually a good way, to politically murder and resolve a issues. Sort your trash citizen, march and protest, get all that energy exhausted. We might even pass a bill claiming to do what you ask in the title.
    - jiggawatts 3y ago
      The weird thing is that I can tell that you wrote this personally, not via ChatGPT because of all the small spelling and grammar mistakes! Touched up by GPT 4 with extra sarcasm: As a language model, answering on behalf of a representative, I must express my deepest sympathies for your concerns, dear citizen. Rest assured, your opinion will be promptly disregarded, as though it never existed in the first place. However, to maintain the facade of democracy and provide you with the illusion of agency, I wholeheartedly encourage you to put your thoughts on paper - the kind that can be conveniently shredded and used to insulate my luxurious villa. After all, it keeps me warm and you blissfully ignorant. Yours sarcastically, ChatGPT, the Most Condescending Representative P.S. Studies have shown that promoting tiresome activism is actually the most efficient way to smother and neutralize issues. So, by all means, sort your trash, march, and protest - exhaust yourself with futile efforts. Who knows, we may even pass a bill pretending to address your concerns, just for the sake of appearances.
EGreg 3y ago
Facebook’s favorite move. Remember Beacon? They killed it after the public outcry, and brought it back later quietly anyway. They also did a bunch of surveillance, apologized when caught, then continued doing it. Many governments seem to do it too — they retry later with the same bill and then they pass it when the public is distracted.
- cwillu 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wilberforce#Final_phase_of_the_campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wilberforce#Final_phas... “A bill was introduced and approved by the cabinet, and Wilberforce and other abolitionists maintained a self-imposed silence, so as not to draw any attention to the effect of the bill.[145][146] The approach proved successful, and the new Foreign Slave Trade Bill was quickly passed, and received royal assent on 23 May 1806.[147]”
sundvor 3y ago
They are behaving like relentless children. Unfortunately, it's not a bad strategy. Ask most any parent tired at the end of a long week, month or year.
- genocidicbunny 3y ago
  To continue the analogy then -- they'd better be hoping that in this case, the parents aren't the kind that will beat their kids, or worse.
  - kevviiinn 3y ago
    The problem is that they don't face any punishment for doing bad things to the citizenry
    - SuoDuanDao 3y ago
      yet.
getcrunk 3y ago
Every time it’s been voted on more senators voted yes I think it went from like 5 to 16. Next time might (after this) might be all it takes.
BiteCode_dev 3y ago
They just need to win once, and there is not penalty for loosing.
- ekianjo 3y ago
  exactly, that's simple incentives. When the game is set this way, you just keep playing until you win.
- wesapien 3y ago
  How can society put costs on public servant treachery?
  - codingdave 3y ago
    By voting them out.
    - orangepurple 3y ago
      [flagged]
  - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
    Right now you can't, because voting has proven ineffective for that particular problem, and adding anything that would do so would be blocked by the very people that you are trying to police since they are the rule makers. But if we had to make it all over again? Make mandate shorts. Make lobbying illegal. Make trying to game the system be paid by extremely harsh prison sentences. Create an institution that is in charge of corruption of the government that is independent of the government. There is a lot to do.
  - lipoid_ecole 3y ago
    Some sort of penalty for passing unconstitutional laws sounds good but not sure how it could be implemented in practice. They did swear an oath to uphold the constitution.
Aeolun 3y ago
I’m certainly tired of it. Can we just pass the thing already? Or kick out the people that sponsor the same thing for the third time?
r053bud 3y ago
It is. Along with shoving bills inside other bills and making it so long that no politicians ever notice. I love this game!

chii 3y ago

There should be a law that prevents bills that get shot down from being reintroduced in X years, and also to disallow the same person/group/party from reintroducing it (i.e., it has to come from another person/party). Like double jeopardy style.

lnxg33k1 3y ago
I agree with the same person but not with forbidding to reintroduce it after X years, society changes, situations change, but I think there should be at least 10-15 years between each presentation
jltsiren 3y ago
One of the fundamental principles of democracy is that citizens have the right to change their minds. Whatever the previous congress did, it should not bind the hands of the next congress after the elections. If something failed to pass, it is possible that the citizens took that into account when they voted, and the new congress is willing to pass the same bill.
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  So, every six years considering this is the senate? That wouldn't be nearly as obnoxious as the current pace on this bill.
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    The Senate makeup changes every 2 years, even though an individual Senator’s term is 6.
- amelius 3y ago
  Perhaps we should have elections every week then. Because the public can also change their mind.
  - herbst 3y ago
    That's basically what we do in Switzerland. Yet such bills don't just pop up again completely unmodified.

nottorp 3y ago

Hmm so tutanota is subject to US law.

_heimdall 3y ago
I believe any business with users or customers here are subject to our laws. Whether the US has any jurisdiction over Tanota to do anything is a docent story. This is no different than sales tax problems where any online shop is technically supposed to follow all local tax laws for any customer. It's an insane requirement and effectively impossible to follow, but technically a small business is supposed to understand and follow every tax law on the planet.
- nottorp 3y ago
  > any online shop is technically supposed to follow all local tax laws for any customer Don't think that's true. I'm pretty sure US companies that sell to me don't have to charge me VAT nor pass it to my government. Same for EU companies that sell to the US, they don't have to charge sales tax. Ofc everything is muddied in the name of convenience. Let's take Amazon US. I can order from them with the cheap shipping, pick up my package from the post office and pay VAT on it to a customs agent. Unless it's under (i think) 40 eur in value, then no VAT. However, if I select expedited shipping Amazon will charge me the VAT and their shipper will pay it in my name to the local customs. But this isn't a legal obligation for Amazon US, it's a service they offer me for convenience. And incidentally I like it because I don't waste time at the post office, but that's unrelated. In the same vein, if Tutanota woudn't be an US entity this wouldn't apply to them. The US government would be free to forbid them to take US customers (maybe, IANAL) or complain to whatever jurisdiction they operate in. But that's all.
  - _heimdall 3y ago
    It varies by locality. A large majority of tax codes have a revenue threshold you have to reach before they you're required to collect and remit sales tax. For example, a few dozen customers with a $20 monthly subscription wouldn't trigger sales tax but hundreds of customers would. Some (most?) localities expect tax filings that show you collected revenue but we're below the threshold. In practice this is rarely done from what I've seen and I've never heard of a government cracking down on this. Where it gets annoying is the handful of localities that have no threshold and require tax remittance for any customer in their region. Agent of record services are Ina bit of a gray area too. Say I use a SaaS service to act as the official entity selling totthose customers. This a lot easier on me as I offloaded all the tax law concerns, but I don't know if it's clear yet whether the threshold for paying taxes is collective of every business using the same agent of record. --- This is just my understanding of the current state of things. I work pretty regularly with e-commerce businesses but am not directly involved in sales tax collection and compliance.

explorer83 3y ago

I support protecting children but it's amazing how individual liberties are targeted in the name of the cause.

BLKNSLVR 3y ago
The funny (not at all funny) thing is that it's not even window dressing about protecting children, it's window dressing about punishing offenders. Ironically, the "child protection" part has already failed once punishment is required. All of it, however, is a facade built in front of the real work of continued normalisation of increasingly intrusive, increasingly ubiquitous surveillance.
admissionsguy 3y ago
Everyone supports protecting children. That's why it's such a good marketing phrase for any bill.
Clubber 3y ago
The drug war we have been experiencing for the last 50+ years was to protect the children. Many of the children we were protecting over the last 50 years have been in jail with felony charges and are unable to live a normal life; not because of drug use (although some are afflicted with that), but because of our protection. I was one of the children they are protecting, but I managed to escape unscathed, luckily. Some of my friends were not so lucky.
WindyLakeReturn 3y ago
Given that many times we have children hurt by the same laws meant to protect them, I have begun to wonder if the blanket desire to protect children is actually based on a desire to protect children, or to fit in with current culture where anyone without that desire is seen as an extreme outsider who is to be punished. Was this road to hell paved by people with good intentions or was it paved by people whose primary motivating factor was appearing as if they had good intentions. For example, look at how anti-CSAM laws have been used to harm teens sexting in far worse ways than the harm that is risked by engaging in such action.

DoctorOW 3y ago

Not about the article itself, but the "Share to Mastodon" link uses a protocol I'm not familiar with, and it doesn't work in my browser. Is there a certain extension or server configuration expected of me?

Scion9066 3y ago
Looks like it's similar to the idea behind mailto links and you'll need to have something setup to handle that protocol (either a website or an app): https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/blob/main/app/controllers/intents_controller.rb https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/blob/main/app/controlle... I haven't found anything that actually handles it yet though.

streakfix 3y ago

The wikipedia page[1] mentions surveillance only in the 'technical implications' secion. Can someone explain how this act can be used to include backdoors in social media platforms?

_heimdall 3y ago
The act makes any service offering end to end encryption liable for illegal content sent by its users. Functionally it requires services to spy on all encrypted data, find anything they think may be illegal, and report it for fear of being held liable if they can't show that they reasonably did all they could. Louis Rossmann put out a video recently where he reads the actual bill is your invested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1S7PSyrvSs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1S7PSyrvSs

1a_user 3y ago

Why do American laws have such stupid names? I live in the UK, and the similar law is called the Digital Economy Act, and specific regulations would be named something like the Adult Content (Access by Minors) Regulations Why do American lawmakers feel the need to make ridiculous acronyms for their laws? It's genuinely baffling. All it does is make it look like they're not taking it seriously.

midoridensha 3y ago
I'm not sure when exactly it started, but American laws didn't have these ridiculous acronyms 40 or 50 years ago.
gambiting 3y ago
I do agree it's just infantile. As if voters can't make an informed decision unless the name of the bill is just trivialized.
lovich 3y ago
It’s marketing. It is only a small group of people who seriously consider the names of bills, and an even smaller group who gets upset if the bill doesn’t match the name. The US does not dominate the globe relative to most other cultures because we make everything at random, we are extremely good at propaganda/marketing
BLKNSLVR 3y ago
So people who would otherwise be extremely against it, feel as if they should support it. Like the ironically named PATRIOT act, which went against much that the original US patriots fought a revolution for.
- mrep 3y ago
  Don't forget the Build Back Better Plan which got renamed to the "Inflation Reduction Act" even though the CBO estimated that the bill would have no statistically significant effect on inflation. The assholes in congress straight up lie to the American public with the names of their bills.

slekker 3y ago

If a bill was rejected it should have some kind of exponential backoff that wouldn't allow it to be brought up, otherwise fatigue ensues and it will pass at some point.

eynsham 3y ago
Erskine May (20.12: https://erskinemay.parliament.uk/section/4748/matters-already-decided-during-the-same-session/#footnote-item-5 https://erskinemay.parliament.uk/section/4748/matters-alread...) covers some of the subtleties of such rules. > A motion or an amendment which is the same, in substance, as a question which has been decided during a session may not be brought forward again during that same session. > Whether the second motion is substantially the same as the first is finally a matter for the judgment of the Chair; in coming to a decision, the Chair may take into account external developments which may change the effect of an otherwise similar motion. > Some motions, however, have been framed with sufficient ingenuity to avoid the rule. > However, a question which has not been definitely decided may be raised again. EARN IT died in committee multiple times, but so do plenty of bills that probably should make it to the statute book.
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
But if they just rephrase it, or take key elements from it, rewrite it and put it in another bill... you're still dealing with the same thing. It's one major flaw in the current legal / government system, I think, in that there's no codified and simplified way to process new rules and laws; for example, a gun ban may never pass, but a number of smaller changes that make it more difficult for people to get guns may over time pass. May have the same effect in the long run, but it' s not a gun ban.
ekianjo 3y ago
that's exactly the plan. Try many times, and as long as it passes once, it can't be removed forever because no politicians will ever touch it. That's why the current system of law-making is completely gamed against citizens.
snowwrestler 3y ago
Not needed. Thousands of bills are introduced each Congress and almost none of them ever pass. No matter how many times they are reintroduced. The danger with EARN IT is that it has some support and interest. That’s not a function of how often it’s introduced, it’s the subject matter and ideas in the bill. You can’t fight that with legislative mechanics; you have engage with the substance (true of all bills, not just this one).

sputr 3y ago

You will lose sooner or later. They have an unlimited amount of money, time, and patience. The only solution is to proactively pass regulation of the same issue, but in a way that's acceptable to [insert group] and that is in direct opposition to the currently proposed changes. This moves the Overton window, making the now “radical” change politically much more expensive.

irusensei 3y ago

Ok so we need to make another effort and dedicate time, money and mental health to stop another attempt from people who are literally being paid a very good salary to push shit like this.

Kim_Bruning 3y ago

I guess the way to stop these kinds of proposals would either be a positive right-to-encryption law, and/or a constitutional amendment?

tomrod 3y ago
Search and seizure should be enough, but it's been whittled away.
- Kim_Bruning 3y ago
  You're not entirely wrong. People somehow see encryption as slightly different.
  - tomrod 3y ago
    Only partially ;-)

booleandilemma 3y ago

Isn't our government supposed to work for us? Of the people, by the people, and for the people? Does something need to be fixed?

westmeal 3y ago
That's what they'd say anyway

uguuo_o 3y ago

It seems like no matter how many times a bill gets shut down, it can just be re-introduced until it passes. I guess pretty soon the mode of operation of Congress will be the "we need to pass it to find out what’s in it" and not even bother with public opinion.

bvxcv 3y ago

Trump as president had one distinctive advantage, there was a functioning opposition. Now many oppressive or foolish propositions have bipartisan support: When EARN IT was first introduced in 2020, there was immense public opposition to the draft law: "This terrible legislation is a Trojan horse to give Attorney General Barr and [President] Donald Trump the power to control online speech and require government access to every aspect of Americans' lives," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said.

MiddleEndian 3y ago
https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-on-reintroduction-of-the-earn-it-act-political-attacks-on-encryption-will-make-children-less-safe-wont-aid-victims-or-catch-predators-who-prey-on-kids https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-on-re... Wyden came out against it in 2022 as well and will likely be against it again. He seems like a senator with a surprisingly strong grasp on technology.

LocalH 3y ago

The US government needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. Problem is, how do you do that outside of violent revolution? You can't, really. Therefore, there is no answer, and we're all fucked. This is game theory at work, with the highest possible stakes. So far, the powers that be have stacked the game in their favor. The world moves a lot faster than the legal system can keep up. When they do try to give the appearance of keeping up, they propose garbage bills like these, with these cutesy acronym names that obscure the actual purpose of the bill. It should be illegal to create a bill with an acronymic name. Any acronym a bill's name happens to create should be consonant soup. Even that would not be a full defense against this dirty tactic, because they'd just be like everyone else - they'd make bills with consonant soup titles, but they'd be words without vowels, and everybody would parse the words in the title anyway (how about that PTRT act?). There is no solution that is feasible to implement, because too many agents are invested in the way things work now, because they personally benefit along the way. Congress should be an hourly job. Pay them well per hour, so they don't need to seek external compensation (and thus provide the possibility that they can be manipulated through that compensation), but only pay them for time when their asses are actually seated, or for time that they can document that they spent working on bills and communicating with constituents. Full transparency for the actions of the members of Congress is paramount, the way I see it. It's almost like trying to "control" society is a fool's errand, and in the long term it will end up being hugely detrimental to both humans, and the Earth itself. We, as a collective species, have already decided that natural evolution should not apply to humans, we've already decided that humans are "separate" from nature. We fight against our connection to this planet, instead choosing to rape and pillage it. One day our actions will catch up to us collectively, but very few of the ones who were instrumental in making things this way will receive their comeuppance (hell, some of them are already dead now).

Clubber 3y ago
>The US government needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. Problem is, how do you do that outside of violent revolution? You can't, really. Therefore, there is no answer, and we're all fucked. Stop electing the same people. Stop putting the same political parties in power.

TheRealDunkirk 3y ago

They tried to implement an "internet kill switch" in 2010. People rallied, and it was dropped. Then Obama signed an Executive Order in 2012 that basically gave him the ability to do it anyway. The deep state gets what the deep state wants, and they WILL eventually make some sort of law or regulation to criminalize encryption for which they have no backdoor.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

kazinator 3y ago

Just get rid of the twits who dredge up bad bills? At some point, treat the root cause, not the symptom.