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>Here's the actual text of the bill, which of course doesn't say any of that: Of course it does. Learn to read. >Boing Boing, the EFF, and Demand Progress ha

>Here's the actual text of the bill, which of course doesn't say any of that: Of course it does. Learn to read. >Boing Boing, the EFF, and Demand Progress have seized upon the words "theft or misappropriation of private or government information, intellectual property, or personally identifiable information", claiming that they betray an intent for CISPA to be used as a tool for antipiracy. Yes, they "claim" that a law about the theft of intellectual property is about anti-piracy. Heavens to Betsy! What will they claim next? >I am personally much more cynical about the motives of major anti-CISPA activists. Do tell! What are the motives of Boing Boing, the EFF and Demand Progress? They hate America, right? Sorry tptacek, but your above comment is truth-free. If you have any actual comment on the bill, feel free to make it. The bill says exactly what I said it says.

tptacek 15y ago
What action currently unlawful under the more restrictive, pre-PATRIOT ECPA would be made lawful in a plain reading of CISPA?
- jellicle 15y ago
  I have to say, an argument that a particular proposed law does nothing - literally has no effect - seems inherently dishonest on its face. Your argument then is that the proponents are, um, doing it for their health? Because they're bored and have nothing else to do? I've only ever seen such arguments made about governmental actions by the most dishonest and most self-interested parties. I would say there's a 100% overlap in the sets of people who say "pay no attention to bill 17, it does nothing" and people who stand to benefit substantially from bill 17. ECPA is actually fairly strict. It would be both illegal and tortious for Google to, for example, share the entire contents of your Gmail archives with the MPAA, currently. But after CISPA passes, it would be neither illegal nor a tort. As for the government, it overturns and eliminates warrant/certification requirements for a wide swath of purposes. Under ECPA, a communications provider could give data to the government only if it reasonably believed it was immediately necessary to prevent death or serious injury. Under CISPA, any internet entity can give any data to the government OR ANY OTHER ENTITY for almost any sort of reason - "ensuring the integrity" of any internet service cuts a giant, giant swath. And specifically enumerated in CISPA, but entirely absent from ECPA, are that anything relating to antipiracy efforts is also covered. You seem to have a very confused idea about ECPA-1986 if you think it has much in common with CISPA-2012. To the extent that they overlap, CISPA is intended to overrule protections that ECPA provided.
  - tptacek 15y ago
    As someone who has actually had dialog with an attorney after having his mail stolen by a provider incident to a (bogus) security investigation, I believe you're wrong. Service providers have broad authority to capture, read, and even disclose information carried on their networks incident to their (sweeping) duties to operate their services and protect their property. Also: your understanding of warrant requirements under ECPA is skewed; service providers also have broad authority to disclose information to people acting under color of law in the course of criminal investigations. Again: under the restrictive 1986 ECPA (which is not the current law of the land). Also, you're mistaken about the argument I'm making. I don't think CISPA replaces ECPA.
    - jellicle 15y ago
      Okay, so we've discovered the problem. You had a situation, where an attorney told you that you had no remedy at law for some privacy breach, and you've turned that into "any new law that eliminates privacy protections doesn't do anything because I already don't have any privacy". I don't think that was a good life lesson to have learned. ECPA says service providers can access data "as may be necessarily incident to the rendition of the service or to the protection of the rights or property of the provider of that service;". This is an narrow exception intended to make it legal for a sysadmin, doing legitimate work, to tail a mail queue or something like that. CISPA grabs that exception with both hands and does a goatse.cx on it. I think there's a big big difference between allowing providers access to data necessary for providing the service, and eliminating ALL civil and criminal liability for giving your data to, well, just about anyone, for just about any reason. Again, CISPA is intended to legalize the wholesale sharing of your online activities FROM Google/Facebook/Verizon/etc. TO the MPAA/RIAA/Media Defender/government/etc., based on any tangible connection to the integrity of any online service (spamming? too many comments on HN? That's a-sharin'!) or any sort of copyright/trademark/trade secret infringement claim. That simply isn't legal today.
      - tptacek 15y ago
        None of this follows from my previous comment. You seem intent on making this argument about me, and not about the law we're discussing.
Locke1689 15y ago
tptacek already made a very reasonable claim about the bill which you have yet to refute: that the bill doesn't make anything important legal that wasn't already legal.
- harshreality 15y ago
  Let's assume the ECPA already allows all the information sharing and immunity from liability and disclosure that this bill allows. 1) This bill still says what it says, even if it is redundant. 2) Why is Facebook supporting this bill if it does nothing? They like risking social capital for a no-op?
  - tptacek 15y ago
    This mindset, very common on HN, confuses me. It says, in effect, that it's more important for us to pick sides and cheer on our teams than to understand what is actually happening. If I said that about a Javascript library, I'd be run off the site on a rail. But when I suggest people actually read the bills they're yelling about, the opposite happens. Why do I care whether Facebook supports the bill?
    - tedunangst 15y ago
      It's hard to show how right you are without proving how wrong someone else is. Today you get to be the somebody who is wrong.
      - tptacek 15y ago
        Oh, I'm not indignant about it. It's obvious why pointing out the specifics of CISPA is bound to be unpopular here. I'm just confused by the mindset that says "what Cory Doctorow thinks about CISPA is more important than what the bill says".
      - rayiner 15y ago
        He's not wrong. He's giving an argument based on a reading got the text of the bill, while harshreality is giving an argument (it doesn't even rise to the level of argument) based on nothing.
ahelwer 15y ago
Wow, what an incredibly hostile comment. "Learn to read"? "Truth-free"? "Actual comment"? Really? A little civility, please. It'd be much appreciated if you worked to keep this from degenerating into the usual shouting matches found elsewhere on the internet.

tptacek 15y ago

What action currently unlawful under the more restrictive, pre-PATRIOT ECPA would be made lawful in a plain reading of CISPA?

jellicle 15y ago
I have to say, an argument that a particular proposed law does nothing - literally has no effect - seems inherently dishonest on its face. Your argument then is that the proponents are, um, doing it for their health? Because they're bored and have nothing else to do? I've only ever seen such arguments made about governmental actions by the most dishonest and most self-interested parties. I would say there's a 100% overlap in the sets of people who say "pay no attention to bill 17, it does nothing" and people who stand to benefit substantially from bill 17. ECPA is actually fairly strict. It would be both illegal and tortious for Google to, for example, share the entire contents of your Gmail archives with the MPAA, currently. But after CISPA passes, it would be neither illegal nor a tort. As for the government, it overturns and eliminates warrant/certification requirements for a wide swath of purposes. Under ECPA, a communications provider could give data to the government only if it reasonably believed it was immediately necessary to prevent death or serious injury. Under CISPA, any internet entity can give any data to the government OR ANY OTHER ENTITY for almost any sort of reason - "ensuring the integrity" of any internet service cuts a giant, giant swath. And specifically enumerated in CISPA, but entirely absent from ECPA, are that anything relating to antipiracy efforts is also covered. You seem to have a very confused idea about ECPA-1986 if you think it has much in common with CISPA-2012. To the extent that they overlap, CISPA is intended to overrule protections that ECPA provided.
- tptacek 15y ago
  As someone who has actually had dialog with an attorney after having his mail stolen by a provider incident to a (bogus) security investigation, I believe you're wrong. Service providers have broad authority to capture, read, and even disclose information carried on their networks incident to their (sweeping) duties to operate their services and protect their property. Also: your understanding of warrant requirements under ECPA is skewed; service providers also have broad authority to disclose information to people acting under color of law in the course of criminal investigations. Again: under the restrictive 1986 ECPA (which is not the current law of the land). Also, you're mistaken about the argument I'm making. I don't think CISPA replaces ECPA.
  - jellicle 15y ago
    Okay, so we've discovered the problem. You had a situation, where an attorney told you that you had no remedy at law for some privacy breach, and you've turned that into "any new law that eliminates privacy protections doesn't do anything because I already don't have any privacy". I don't think that was a good life lesson to have learned. ECPA says service providers can access data "as may be necessarily incident to the rendition of the service or to the protection of the rights or property of the provider of that service;". This is an narrow exception intended to make it legal for a sysadmin, doing legitimate work, to tail a mail queue or something like that. CISPA grabs that exception with both hands and does a goatse.cx on it. I think there's a big big difference between allowing providers access to data necessary for providing the service, and eliminating ALL civil and criminal liability for giving your data to, well, just about anyone, for just about any reason. Again, CISPA is intended to legalize the wholesale sharing of your online activities FROM Google/Facebook/Verizon/etc. TO the MPAA/RIAA/Media Defender/government/etc., based on any tangible connection to the integrity of any online service (spamming? too many comments on HN? That's a-sharin'!) or any sort of copyright/trademark/trade secret infringement claim. That simply isn't legal today.
    - tptacek 15y ago
      None of this follows from my previous comment. You seem intent on making this argument about me, and not about the law we're discussing.

Locke1689 15y ago

tptacek already made a very reasonable claim about the bill which you have yet to refute: that the bill doesn't make anything important legal that wasn't already legal.

harshreality 15y ago
Let's assume the ECPA already allows all the information sharing and immunity from liability and disclosure that this bill allows. 1) This bill still says what it says, even if it is redundant. 2) Why is Facebook supporting this bill if it does nothing? They like risking social capital for a no-op?
- tptacek 15y ago
  This mindset, very common on HN, confuses me. It says, in effect, that it's more important for us to pick sides and cheer on our teams than to understand what is actually happening. If I said that about a Javascript library, I'd be run off the site on a rail. But when I suggest people actually read the bills they're yelling about, the opposite happens. Why do I care whether Facebook supports the bill?
  - tedunangst 15y ago
    It's hard to show how right you are without proving how wrong someone else is. Today you get to be the somebody who is wrong.
    - tptacek 15y ago
      Oh, I'm not indignant about it. It's obvious why pointing out the specifics of CISPA is bound to be unpopular here. I'm just confused by the mindset that says "what Cory Doctorow thinks about CISPA is more important than what the bill says".
    - rayiner 15y ago
      He's not wrong. He's giving an argument based on a reading got the text of the bill, while harshreality is giving an argument (it doesn't even rise to the level of argument) based on nothing.

ahelwer 15y ago

Wow, what an incredibly hostile comment. "Learn to read"? "Truth-free"? "Actual comment"? Really? A little civility, please. It'd be much appreciated if you worked to keep this from degenerating into the usual shouting matches found elsewhere on the internet.