5 ms·

DHS is using obscure law to snoop on journalists, non-profits, unions

465 points by firefax 1mo ago

firefax 1mo ago
edited title for length
java-man 1mo ago
19 USC 1509 – dealing with customs imports https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/19/1509 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/19/1509
- edot 1mo ago
  I like 2D, that one's nice. So in total it reads (ellipses for brevity): "In any investigation or inquiry conducted for the purpose of ascertaining the correctness of any entry, for determining the liability of any person for duty, fees and taxes due or duties, fees and taxes which may be due the United States, for determining liability for fines and penalties, or for insuring compliance with the laws of the United States administered by the United States Customs Service, the Secretary (but no delegate of the Secretary below the rank of district director or special agent in charge) may ... summon, upon reasonable notice ... any other person he may deem proper". And of course, one could argue that it's important to just double check and determine (note it doesn't say suspect, just determine) if someone has entered the country legally, ever, and paid all import taxes, ever. In order to do that, you'd need to see a lot of records. And of course the result can be "nope, they're all good". You don't need to have a good-faith suspicion of these things, just that you have a need to determine these things. How many laws like this are on the books? In the same way that LLMs are fantastic at finding bugs, what other bugs are in the U.S. Code or similar that LLMs could find? We've been living in a world for a long time where things like this wouldn't be exploited, or maybe even noticed, but now it feels like these vulns are being hoarded and used like software exploits.
  - lovich 1mo ago
    It also requires a judge who is willing to interpret the rule the way you want. Law doesn’t execute deterministically like code does.
    - edot 1mo ago
      No that’s the whole point of this article. In this case, the private companies being summonsed are acting as both judges and data holders being summonsed. This doesn’t go to a judge to approve. So in this case, the point they’re making is most private companies just roll over at the sight of a summons, so the law absolutely executes deterministically (ok, not truly deterministic, but you’re relying on the judgement of private companies and their legal teams who don’t want that heat from the government, so, close enough). “About a month after the judge’s ruling in late February, the government said it was withdrawing the request. But officials hadn’t given up on getting the data. Less than a month later, the DHS served Google with a different request for the YouTube information. This time, DHS utilized a different method that didn’t require approval from a judge, only a sign-off from a DHS official. It served Google an administrative summons citing an arcane provision of federal law – 19 USC 1509 – dealing with customs imports. The provision gives the DHS broad power to inspect records in order to determine whether duties and taxes are being correctly levied on imported items. It also instructed the recipients of the summons to keep it secret.” With a gag order as a bonus! No judge required!
      - inigyou 1mo ago
        Keeping it secret isn't part of that law. And they don't have to turn over anything not relevant to the payment of duties and taxes.
      - lovich 1mo ago
        So that also requires all judges who a case could be brought to about this, declaring that they don’t have jurisdiction. It’s still a choice made by the judges. Granted someone does have to actually file a suit
      - FireBeyond 1mo ago
inigyou 1mo ago
Use small platforms where possible. Oh wait, small platforms get sanctioned as terrorist organisations. I've been thinking I need to get my own IP range, but that requires exposing a lot of personal information.
- noman-land 1mo ago
  They just removed ownership reporting requirements. Feel free to start an anonymous company and buy an IP block.
  - inigyou 1mo ago
    Hm true but I'm not in the US (and if I was I'd have much bigger problems). Maybe I have to register a company in my country that owns one in the US. But I wouldn't want the US to have power over my IP assignment, that defeats the point. Even if it was a US company registering with RIPE, the US government would have a veto by deleting the company. There may be other uses for an anonymous US company though.
inigyou 1mo ago
I'm surprised they still need a law.
softwaredoug 1mo ago
> In several cases, the DHS has withdrawn a 1509 summons after it was challenged in court and before a judge could rule on its legality. That may be a deliberate strategy to avoid having a judge rule on the legality of the summons. They have a toy, they’re increasingly abusing it, then trying to dodge from it being taken away. The thing is nobody has to comply with 1509 summons, DHS has to go to court to enforce it. A lot of the fault is on a company that complies without just ignoring it.
- hackyhacky 1mo ago
  > The thing is nobody has to comply with 1509 summons, DHS has to go to court to enforce it. You're not wrong, but companies such as Google make business decisions, not moral decisions. It's far easier and cheaper for them to comply, while there is basically no incentive for them to fight the summons. Especially given the current administration's proven record of taking retaliation against anyone who stands in their way. If you want companies to behave in the interest of the general public, you need to create an incentive structure that supports that.
  - buzer 1mo ago
    Wouldn't the affected individual be able to sue the provider at least in some cases? From what I understand e.g. Stored Communications Act might allow suing T-Mobile in this case, at least if the individual isn't covered by binding arbitration. And possibly even government under 18 U.S.C. §2712. Of course then it's up to judge to determine if the request was valid or not.
    - coldtea 1mo ago
      >Wouldn't the affected individual be able to sue the provider at least in some cases? And lose time and money, which they also likely don't have?
      - buzer 1mo ago
        Both SCA and 18 U.S.C. §2712 can grant punitive damages and attorney fees. So there might be lawyers who would take it on contingency, and in this kind of case some non-profit could also have interest in litigating the issue. And as this is something that has already happened there isn't much else the person in question can do. Third parties always have option to just disclose information to whoever asks it, at most you can hold them accountable for it later if it was unlawful. And what accountability exactly means depends on what laws exists. If you want some real accountability for the people/companies involved in these kinds of decisions then get Congress to pass such laws (however impossible it might be).
skybrian 1mo ago
Apparently in this case, T-Mobile caved and Google didn't: > The DHS also sought and obtained six months of phone records for Fort from T-Mobile, which included records for more than 10,000 calls and text messages. Fort was not notified the government was seeking the records until mid-July, when government lawyers produced them to her lawyers. Fort’s lawyers wrote in a filing this week they were “stunned” to see the government had unilaterally been able to obtain a log of her communications after a judge had warned them about obtaining records about a journalist. ... > In Fort’s case, Google did not comply with the summons for any of the accounts. The company responded to the DHS by saying it had not offered evidence of how it was related to a customs investigation. > A Google spokesperson said the company reviews each request for data it gets to ensure it is legal and pushes back when it is too broad or doesn’t follow the correct process.
- edot 1mo ago
  [flagged]
  - noir_lord 1mo ago
    An extremely cosy relationship between large corporations and a government. I've seen this somewhere before and I can't quite put my finger on where I saw it.
  - deleted 1mo ago
    [deleted]
  - xoa 1mo ago
    >Since when were private companies part of the Judicial Branch? What part of GP's quote from the article gets you to "private companies are part of the judicial branch"? The judicial branch wasn't involved there, only the executive. All of us, private individuals or organizations, have the right to challenge any requests by the executive branch (and by the same token, unless forbidden by law we can also just voluntarily go along with its requests). The judicial branch can then rule on who is right. If the executive wants to force it then it can go to the judicial branch up front and get an actual for real warrant. If it wants to bypass judicial review, then it doesn't have the same legal force either. Here, it asked T-Mobile and Google for a bunch of stuff on a journalist. T-Mobile said sure. Google said no, come back with a warrant. >I don’t remember that part of the Constitution. Might want to reread if it's been awhile for you.
blurbleblurble 1mo ago
Friends don't let friends use SMS/MMS
shevy-java 1mo ago
Welcome to the dictatorship. One has to wonder whether all Trump voters wanted this. I don't think so.
- LtWorf 1mo ago
  They wanted it, but for someone else.
  - tialaramex 1mo ago
    A key Republican insight, many years ago was that their voters prioritize causing harm to those they dislike. You might naively assume that out of "Kick everybody in the head" and "Kick nobody in the head" the latter would be more popular with voters, but Republicans discovered that their voters absolute will pick "Kick everybody in the head" so long as you emphasise that people they don't like get kicked in the head. They don't enjoy being kicked in the head, they agree that part is bad, but they experience joy knowing that people they don't like got kicked in the head. A difficulty is coming up with a way to ensure your wealthiest donors don't get kicked in the head, they annoyingly may not accept that it's a fair price unlike voters - but you can often fiddle around this, we'll find a way. If that donor doesn't even live in the area affected by the policy, for example because he's a War Criminal who lives in a different country entirely, that's not a problem...
    - tdeck 1mo ago
      This state of affairs benefits the ruling class of both parties. Causing harm is much simpler for the state to follow through on than improving conditions, and it's less likely to require meaningful sacrifices from wealthy elites. Republicans can run on "we'll hurt people you don't like". Democrats can run on "we won't hurt people as much as they will". Both can avoid dealing with spiraling wealth inequality, the sacred cash cow of US militarism, the healthcare system we've all been complaining about for decades and decades, etc...
- charcircuit 1mo ago
  [flagged]
ck2 1mo ago
we went full authoritarian empire in less than a year imagine two more years by 2028 what this nightmare is going to look like even if the Dems get the Senate somehow it will barely slow them down Bush admin was horrible with Iraq War and economy crashing but this is a whole new level of corruption and I am starting to believe USPS is most definitely going to destroy voting by mail handing them the midterms anyway while supreme court slow-walks sorting it out if not making it 100x worse
- kccoder 1mo ago
  Not less than a year. This has been in the works for a very, very long time. They needed six seats on the Supreme Court, a decades long propaganda machine to produce a population scared, hateful, and malinformed enough to elect such an obvious empathy lacking charlatan as president, … Fascism happens slow at first, then all at once. Sadly, that’s where we find ourselves.
smalltorch 1mo ago
[flagged]
- sph 1mo ago
  I wouldn’t trust a week-old vibe coded project to protect my identity against state actors.
  - DaSHacka 1mo ago
    Especially when it's GP's own project lol https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49330876 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49330876 > On the other hand, I'm working on a prototype to completely throw away conventional email. Creating a system where you can simply spin your own physical mail box and node, and reach others at their unique address.
    - sph 1mo ago
      I gave it a deeper look and it bundles 500+ kB minified OpenPGP library in JavaScript, presumably to do all the encryption and key management logic. Not saying it's necessarily malicious, but if I wanted to do malice this is exactly how I'd do it.
      - smalltorch 1mo ago
        I thought the exact same thing and that's what I would do too(I didn't). This is from the official openpgp repository and you end up asking your self these things. PGP is set up in a way where this wouldn't be that hard either. You could easily encrypt every message with a master key so that every PGP message sent would be decryptable. That's how group messaging works, everyone encrypts the same message with everyone's key. Otherwise you would not be able to read your own outbound main for instance. The hardest thing you would have to do is hide the fact that your key exists inside the source code, as well as the instruction set to encrypt it with this key.
        sph 1mo ago
JumpCrisscross 1mo ago
Note that the DHS budget ($100bn) is sufficient to provide healthcare to every uninsured child, and about half (EDIT: a third) of what it would cost to provide universal healthcare to every American under 18 at the CMS average rate. At the end of the day this sort of wastefulness eventually attracts attention.
- some_random 1mo ago
  Medicare alone costs $1.21 Trillion, I find that extremely hard to believe.
  - JumpCrisscross 1mo ago
    > Medicare alone costs $1.21 Trillion To cover 70.5 million seniors [1]. $17k per senior. “Per person personal health care spending for the 65 and older population was $22,356 in 2020, over 5 times higher than spending per child ($4,217) and almost 2.5 times the spending per working-age person ($9,154)” [2]. 80 million under 19 [3] at that rate comes to about $400bn. And most efficiency estimates would take at least a third off that when we eliminate redundant billing processes. Given 6% of children lack health insurance, we could cover them for about $24bn. Less than Trump’s war in Iran has cost [4]. [1] https://data.cms.gov/summary-statistics-on-beneficiary-enrollment/medicare-and-medicaid-reports/medicare-monthly-enrollment https://data.cms.gov/summary-statistics-on-beneficiary-enrol... [2] https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-reports/national-health-expenditure-data/nhe-fact-sheet https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-repo... [3] https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-reports/national-health-expenditure-data/nhe-fact-sheet https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-repo... [4] https://www.aecf.org/blog/uninsured-children-in-america https://www.aecf.org/blog/uninsured-children-in-america
- DrHungers 1mo ago
  I hope it attracts attention. Everything bad that rational people predicted about the DHS when it was created has come true, but people seem to have become comfortable with their civil liberties taken away.
wolfcola 1mo ago
ah, but the boot is off of a16z’s neck, so it’s all worth it!
- antonvs 1mo ago
  Joke’s on them, Andreesen has no neck.
charcircuit 1mo ago
[flagged]
- smalltorch 1mo ago
  Can you expound on your viewpoint? It's dicey to say that because warrants are needed in the majority of places to search and individual.
  - charcircuit 1mo ago
    [flagged]
    - deathanatos 1mo ago
      > My viewpoint is that we should eventually have AI be assisting in determining if a search is reasonable in the moment. That is truly bananas. Whose AI? Trained on what data? We've had numerous studies show how AIs can be biased, and a police dept. is going to choose whatever AI "works best for them" — i.e., keeps most out of their way. You can see Flock for examples here: despite requiring justification for searches, cops are entering things like "hehehe"[1]; the AI would similarly be given bad or falsified inputs. > If there is an actual constitutional violation that that happens it can be resolved after the fact. The entire point of the Constitution is to prevent exactly that. There is no resolution for violating someone's rights; you cannot merely go back in time and unviolate them. The point is to be free from unreasonable searches & seizures. Your comments read like police have no ability to search without a warrant, which isn't true. If circumstances warrant it, a warrant from a judge is not required, and I'm sure a good number of people would argue that that's already true more often than it ought to be. Part of the point of having a separate branch of government involved, too, is to prevent the first branch from just deciding "why, of course I'm right. What else would I be?", and to evaluate the facts separately (which the police cannot by definition do). > I believe every part of the law enforcement and legal system needs to be systematically reevaluated finding ways to increase efficiency. I'm all for increased efficiency, but AI is not that. "Slop, faster" is not the same "the correct action, while respecting the rights of the citizens, faster". [1]: https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/tracking-alpr-cameras/flock-safety-credibility-lost-as-it-repeatedly-lies-to-city-councils-police-departments-and-public-across-the-country https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/tracking-alpr-c...
creamedcorn 1mo ago
[flagged]
- firefax 1mo ago
  I know we're not supposed to comment on voting, but you're not fixing anything with a ten day old account that's already in the negative IMO.
iJohnDoe 1mo ago
This is like UAE and North Korea behavior. If you have to spy on these particular groups then you know you’re doing something wrong.
0xbadcafebee 1mo ago
“It’s outrageous conduct on so many levels. It’s hard to know where to begin,” Do they not get that we live under an authoritarian regime? The regime doesn't care about the law. They have been installing their own people at every level of government for years, taking over parts of the government, and granting themselves new powers. When eventually every powerful person in government is part of the regime, it won't matter what the law says. This isn't hyperbole, this is how they have been operating for 1.5 years. This is what the beginning looks like. The end looks like Germany 1942.
- tootie 1mo ago
  Remember when Republicans ran on small government, don't tread on me, Tea Party libertarians fighting the surveillance state? That was less than 20 years ago. Probably it was always a fraud.
kingkawn 1mo ago
They are disgusting pigs and the sooner the public sends them to political hell the better
simianparrot 1mo ago
Domestic terrorists do exist. And Don Lemon got kicked out of the CNN. Not surprised he’s mentioned here. Not everything is an abuse of power.
- hardbass 1mo ago
  Definitely we need to arrest and after a trial jail, and if necessary hang the terrorists in DHS.
- kccoder 1mo ago
  When dealing with an entity that constantly abuses power, it is safe to assume as the default that they are abusing their power in every situation. The administration is evil, filled with evil people committing evil acts against humanity every single day. It is best to assume all of their acts are a form of abuse. They are the domestic terrorists, not Don Lemon.
AngryData 1mo ago
Honestly not sure how we escape this shit pile of fascist government organizations other than completely abolishing the DHS, ICE, and the majority of police departments at a minimum and start fresh again. But I don't see that happening without a complete upheaval and downfall of both major political parties which seems even more unlikely.
- distortionfield 1mo ago
  The democrats are completely complacent right now. They don’t even want to pretend to fight anymore.
  - qsera 1mo ago
    democrats thought they don't need competence as long as they have the "political correctness" magic wand. Looks like they were wrong! Thankfully!
yatopifo 1mo ago
Most countries are on the path to curtail privacy in the name of security and profit. The US, however, is really good at being at the forefront of the movement while pretending to be otherwise. It’s extremely obvious to outsiders how blissfully ignorant the average american is.
ChristmasTomer 1mo ago
[dead]
spl757 1mo ago
The government isn't big brother, they just let mega corps do all of the spying via "ads" and then just buy your data from a data broker to whom you let have all of your personal information for game on your phone that gives you a little dopamine hit. We somehow let corporations just take the data that we all create every day and then sell it and make billions in profit. I want that to change. I want to own any and all data I create interacting with anything anywhere, to be copyright by me, in an enforcable way. I should get paid for the data I generate. The problem is that as long as we, collectively, allow ads that spy on us in exchange for really nothing other than amusement and that pursuit of the next dopamine hit we get. I can't enforce agency and ownership of the data I create unless we, collecively, change the rules. We have the power to do that by voting for the candidates that speaks to the issues you care about. We also need to tell politicians what we want, because if we do not, nothing will change. I think the data we create should be automatically copyright of the person generating it, so I can make money from my data if I choose, or not to, if I don't. Don't you want to own and make money from the data you create every single day?

465 points by firefax 1mo ago

edited title for length

19 USC 1509 – dealing with customs imports https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/19/1509 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/19/1509

edot 1mo ago
I like 2D, that one's nice. So in total it reads (ellipses for brevity): "In any investigation or inquiry conducted for the purpose of ascertaining the correctness of any entry, for determining the liability of any person for duty, fees and taxes due or duties, fees and taxes which may be due the United States, for determining liability for fines and penalties, or for insuring compliance with the laws of the United States administered by the United States Customs Service, the Secretary (but no delegate of the Secretary below the rank of district director or special agent in charge) may ... summon, upon reasonable notice ... any other person he may deem proper". And of course, one could argue that it's important to just double check and determine (note it doesn't say suspect, just determine) if someone has entered the country legally, ever, and paid all import taxes, ever. In order to do that, you'd need to see a lot of records. And of course the result can be "nope, they're all good". You don't need to have a good-faith suspicion of these things, just that you have a need to determine these things. How many laws like this are on the books? In the same way that LLMs are fantastic at finding bugs, what other bugs are in the U.S. Code or similar that LLMs could find? We've been living in a world for a long time where things like this wouldn't be exploited, or maybe even noticed, but now it feels like these vulns are being hoarded and used like software exploits.
- lovich 1mo ago
  It also requires a judge who is willing to interpret the rule the way you want. Law doesn’t execute deterministically like code does.
  - edot 1mo ago
    No that’s the whole point of this article. In this case, the private companies being summonsed are acting as both judges and data holders being summonsed. This doesn’t go to a judge to approve. So in this case, the point they’re making is most private companies just roll over at the sight of a summons, so the law absolutely executes deterministically (ok, not truly deterministic, but you’re relying on the judgement of private companies and their legal teams who don’t want that heat from the government, so, close enough). “About a month after the judge’s ruling in late February, the government said it was withdrawing the request. But officials hadn’t given up on getting the data. Less than a month later, the DHS served Google with a different request for the YouTube information. This time, DHS utilized a different method that didn’t require approval from a judge, only a sign-off from a DHS official. It served Google an administrative summons citing an arcane provision of federal law – 19 USC 1509 – dealing with customs imports. The provision gives the DHS broad power to inspect records in order to determine whether duties and taxes are being correctly levied on imported items. It also instructed the recipients of the summons to keep it secret.” With a gag order as a bonus! No judge required!
    - inigyou 1mo ago
      Keeping it secret isn't part of that law. And they don't have to turn over anything not relevant to the payment of duties and taxes.
    - lovich 1mo ago
      So that also requires all judges who a case could be brought to about this, declaring that they don’t have jurisdiction. It’s still a choice made by the judges. Granted someone does have to actually file a suit
    - FireBeyond 1mo ago

inigyou 1mo ago

Use small platforms where possible. Oh wait, small platforms get sanctioned as terrorist organisations. I've been thinking I need to get my own IP range, but that requires exposing a lot of personal information.

noman-land 1mo ago
They just removed ownership reporting requirements. Feel free to start an anonymous company and buy an IP block.
- inigyou 1mo ago
  Hm true but I'm not in the US (and if I was I'd have much bigger problems). Maybe I have to register a company in my country that owns one in the US. But I wouldn't want the US to have power over my IP assignment, that defeats the point. Even if it was a US company registering with RIPE, the US government would have a veto by deleting the company. There may be other uses for an anonymous US company though.

inigyou 1mo ago

I'm surprised they still need a law.

softwaredoug 1mo ago

> In several cases, the DHS has withdrawn a 1509 summons after it was challenged in court and before a judge could rule on its legality. That may be a deliberate strategy to avoid having a judge rule on the legality of the summons. They have a toy, they’re increasingly abusing it, then trying to dodge from it being taken away. The thing is nobody has to comply with 1509 summons, DHS has to go to court to enforce it. A lot of the fault is on a company that complies without just ignoring it.

hackyhacky 1mo ago
> The thing is nobody has to comply with 1509 summons, DHS has to go to court to enforce it. You're not wrong, but companies such as Google make business decisions, not moral decisions. It's far easier and cheaper for them to comply, while there is basically no incentive for them to fight the summons. Especially given the current administration's proven record of taking retaliation against anyone who stands in their way. If you want companies to behave in the interest of the general public, you need to create an incentive structure that supports that.
- buzer 1mo ago
  Wouldn't the affected individual be able to sue the provider at least in some cases? From what I understand e.g. Stored Communications Act might allow suing T-Mobile in this case, at least if the individual isn't covered by binding arbitration. And possibly even government under 18 U.S.C. §2712. Of course then it's up to judge to determine if the request was valid or not.
  - coldtea 1mo ago
    >Wouldn't the affected individual be able to sue the provider at least in some cases? And lose time and money, which they also likely don't have?
    - buzer 1mo ago
      Both SCA and 18 U.S.C. §2712 can grant punitive damages and attorney fees. So there might be lawyers who would take it on contingency, and in this kind of case some non-profit could also have interest in litigating the issue. And as this is something that has already happened there isn't much else the person in question can do. Third parties always have option to just disclose information to whoever asks it, at most you can hold them accountable for it later if it was unlawful. And what accountability exactly means depends on what laws exists. If you want some real accountability for the people/companies involved in these kinds of decisions then get Congress to pass such laws (however impossible it might be).

skybrian 1mo ago

Apparently in this case, T-Mobile caved and Google didn't: > The DHS also sought and obtained six months of phone records for Fort from T-Mobile, which included records for more than 10,000 calls and text messages. Fort was not notified the government was seeking the records until mid-July, when government lawyers produced them to her lawyers. Fort’s lawyers wrote in a filing this week they were “stunned” to see the government had unilaterally been able to obtain a log of her communications after a judge had warned them about obtaining records about a journalist. ... > In Fort’s case, Google did not comply with the summons for any of the accounts. The company responded to the DHS by saying it had not offered evidence of how it was related to a customs investigation. > A Google spokesperson said the company reviews each request for data it gets to ensure it is legal and pushes back when it is too broad or doesn’t follow the correct process.

edot 1mo ago
[flagged]
- noir_lord 1mo ago
  An extremely cosy relationship between large corporations and a government. I've seen this somewhere before and I can't quite put my finger on where I saw it.
- deleted 1mo ago
  [deleted]
- xoa 1mo ago
  >Since when were private companies part of the Judicial Branch? What part of GP's quote from the article gets you to "private companies are part of the judicial branch"? The judicial branch wasn't involved there, only the executive. All of us, private individuals or organizations, have the right to challenge any requests by the executive branch (and by the same token, unless forbidden by law we can also just voluntarily go along with its requests). The judicial branch can then rule on who is right. If the executive wants to force it then it can go to the judicial branch up front and get an actual for real warrant. If it wants to bypass judicial review, then it doesn't have the same legal force either. Here, it asked T-Mobile and Google for a bunch of stuff on a journalist. T-Mobile said sure. Google said no, come back with a warrant. >I don’t remember that part of the Constitution. Might want to reread if it's been awhile for you.

blurbleblurble 1mo ago

Friends don't let friends use SMS/MMS

shevy-java 1mo ago

Welcome to the dictatorship. One has to wonder whether all Trump voters wanted this. I don't think so.

LtWorf 1mo ago
They wanted it, but for someone else.
- tialaramex 1mo ago
  A key Republican insight, many years ago was that their voters prioritize causing harm to those they dislike. You might naively assume that out of "Kick everybody in the head" and "Kick nobody in the head" the latter would be more popular with voters, but Republicans discovered that their voters absolute will pick "Kick everybody in the head" so long as you emphasise that people they don't like get kicked in the head. They don't enjoy being kicked in the head, they agree that part is bad, but they experience joy knowing that people they don't like got kicked in the head. A difficulty is coming up with a way to ensure your wealthiest donors don't get kicked in the head, they annoyingly may not accept that it's a fair price unlike voters - but you can often fiddle around this, we'll find a way. If that donor doesn't even live in the area affected by the policy, for example because he's a War Criminal who lives in a different country entirely, that's not a problem...
  - tdeck 1mo ago
    This state of affairs benefits the ruling class of both parties. Causing harm is much simpler for the state to follow through on than improving conditions, and it's less likely to require meaningful sacrifices from wealthy elites. Republicans can run on "we'll hurt people you don't like". Democrats can run on "we won't hurt people as much as they will". Both can avoid dealing with spiraling wealth inequality, the sacred cash cow of US militarism, the healthcare system we've all been complaining about for decades and decades, etc...
charcircuit 1mo ago
[flagged]

ck2 1mo ago

we went full authoritarian empire in less than a year imagine two more years by 2028 what this nightmare is going to look like even if the Dems get the Senate somehow it will barely slow them down Bush admin was horrible with Iraq War and economy crashing but this is a whole new level of corruption and I am starting to believe USPS is most definitely going to destroy voting by mail handing them the midterms anyway while supreme court slow-walks sorting it out if not making it 100x worse

kccoder 1mo ago
Not less than a year. This has been in the works for a very, very long time. They needed six seats on the Supreme Court, a decades long propaganda machine to produce a population scared, hateful, and malinformed enough to elect such an obvious empathy lacking charlatan as president, … Fascism happens slow at first, then all at once. Sadly, that’s where we find ourselves.

smalltorch 1mo ago

[flagged]

sph 1mo ago
I wouldn’t trust a week-old vibe coded project to protect my identity against state actors.
- DaSHacka 1mo ago
  Especially when it's GP's own project lol https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49330876 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49330876 > On the other hand, I'm working on a prototype to completely throw away conventional email. Creating a system where you can simply spin your own physical mail box and node, and reach others at their unique address.
  - sph 1mo ago
    I gave it a deeper look and it bundles 500+ kB minified OpenPGP library in JavaScript, presumably to do all the encryption and key management logic. Not saying it's necessarily malicious, but if I wanted to do malice this is exactly how I'd do it.
    - smalltorch 1mo ago
      I thought the exact same thing and that's what I would do too(I didn't). This is from the official openpgp repository and you end up asking your self these things. PGP is set up in a way where this wouldn't be that hard either. You could easily encrypt every message with a master key so that every PGP message sent would be decryptable. That's how group messaging works, everyone encrypts the same message with everyone's key. Otherwise you would not be able to read your own outbound main for instance. The hardest thing you would have to do is hide the fact that your key exists inside the source code, as well as the instruction set to encrypt it with this key.
      - sph 1mo ago

JumpCrisscross 1mo ago

Note that the DHS budget ($100bn) is sufficient to provide healthcare to every uninsured child, and about half (EDIT: a third) of what it would cost to provide universal healthcare to every American under 18 at the CMS average rate. At the end of the day this sort of wastefulness eventually attracts attention.

some_random 1mo ago
Medicare alone costs $1.21 Trillion, I find that extremely hard to believe.
- JumpCrisscross 1mo ago
  > Medicare alone costs $1.21 Trillion To cover 70.5 million seniors [1]. $17k per senior. “Per person personal health care spending for the 65 and older population was $22,356 in 2020, over 5 times higher than spending per child ($4,217) and almost 2.5 times the spending per working-age person ($9,154)” [2]. 80 million under 19 [3] at that rate comes to about $400bn. And most efficiency estimates would take at least a third off that when we eliminate redundant billing processes. Given 6% of children lack health insurance, we could cover them for about $24bn. Less than Trump’s war in Iran has cost [4]. [1] https://data.cms.gov/summary-statistics-on-beneficiary-enrollment/medicare-and-medicaid-reports/medicare-monthly-enrollment https://data.cms.gov/summary-statistics-on-beneficiary-enrol... [2] https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-reports/national-health-expenditure-data/nhe-fact-sheet https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-repo... [3] https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-reports/national-health-expenditure-data/nhe-fact-sheet https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-repo... [4] https://www.aecf.org/blog/uninsured-children-in-america https://www.aecf.org/blog/uninsured-children-in-america
DrHungers 1mo ago
I hope it attracts attention. Everything bad that rational people predicted about the DHS when it was created has come true, but people seem to have become comfortable with their civil liberties taken away.

wolfcola 1mo ago

ah, but the boot is off of a16z’s neck, so it’s all worth it!

antonvs 1mo ago
Joke’s on them, Andreesen has no neck.

charcircuit 1mo ago

[flagged]

smalltorch 1mo ago
Can you expound on your viewpoint? It's dicey to say that because warrants are needed in the majority of places to search and individual.
- charcircuit 1mo ago
  [flagged]
  - deathanatos 1mo ago
    > My viewpoint is that we should eventually have AI be assisting in determining if a search is reasonable in the moment. That is truly bananas. Whose AI? Trained on what data? We've had numerous studies show how AIs can be biased, and a police dept. is going to choose whatever AI "works best for them" — i.e., keeps most out of their way. You can see Flock for examples here: despite requiring justification for searches, cops are entering things like "hehehe"[1]; the AI would similarly be given bad or falsified inputs. > If there is an actual constitutional violation that that happens it can be resolved after the fact. The entire point of the Constitution is to prevent exactly that. There is no resolution for violating someone's rights; you cannot merely go back in time and unviolate them. The point is to be free from unreasonable searches & seizures. Your comments read like police have no ability to search without a warrant, which isn't true. If circumstances warrant it, a warrant from a judge is not required, and I'm sure a good number of people would argue that that's already true more often than it ought to be. Part of the point of having a separate branch of government involved, too, is to prevent the first branch from just deciding "why, of course I'm right. What else would I be?", and to evaluate the facts separately (which the police cannot by definition do). > I believe every part of the law enforcement and legal system needs to be systematically reevaluated finding ways to increase efficiency. I'm all for increased efficiency, but AI is not that. "Slop, faster" is not the same "the correct action, while respecting the rights of the citizens, faster". [1]: https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/tracking-alpr-cameras/flock-safety-credibility-lost-as-it-repeatedly-lies-to-city-councils-police-departments-and-public-across-the-country https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/tracking-alpr-c...

creamedcorn 1mo ago

[flagged]

firefax 1mo ago
I know we're not supposed to comment on voting, but you're not fixing anything with a ten day old account that's already in the negative IMO.

iJohnDoe 1mo ago

This is like UAE and North Korea behavior. If you have to spy on these particular groups then you know you’re doing something wrong.

0xbadcafebee 1mo ago

“It’s outrageous conduct on so many levels. It’s hard to know where to begin,” Do they not get that we live under an authoritarian regime? The regime doesn't care about the law. They have been installing their own people at every level of government for years, taking over parts of the government, and granting themselves new powers. When eventually every powerful person in government is part of the regime, it won't matter what the law says. This isn't hyperbole, this is how they have been operating for 1.5 years. This is what the beginning looks like. The end looks like Germany 1942.

tootie 1mo ago
Remember when Republicans ran on small government, don't tread on me, Tea Party libertarians fighting the surveillance state? That was less than 20 years ago. Probably it was always a fraud.

kingkawn 1mo ago

They are disgusting pigs and the sooner the public sends them to political hell the better

simianparrot 1mo ago

Domestic terrorists do exist. And Don Lemon got kicked out of the CNN. Not surprised he’s mentioned here. Not everything is an abuse of power.

hardbass 1mo ago
Definitely we need to arrest and after a trial jail, and if necessary hang the terrorists in DHS.
kccoder 1mo ago
When dealing with an entity that constantly abuses power, it is safe to assume as the default that they are abusing their power in every situation. The administration is evil, filled with evil people committing evil acts against humanity every single day. It is best to assume all of their acts are a form of abuse. They are the domestic terrorists, not Don Lemon.

AngryData 1mo ago

Honestly not sure how we escape this shit pile of fascist government organizations other than completely abolishing the DHS, ICE, and the majority of police departments at a minimum and start fresh again. But I don't see that happening without a complete upheaval and downfall of both major political parties which seems even more unlikely.

distortionfield 1mo ago
The democrats are completely complacent right now. They don’t even want to pretend to fight anymore.
- qsera 1mo ago
  democrats thought they don't need competence as long as they have the "political correctness" magic wand. Looks like they were wrong! Thankfully!

yatopifo 1mo ago

Most countries are on the path to curtail privacy in the name of security and profit. The US, however, is really good at being at the forefront of the movement while pretending to be otherwise. It’s extremely obvious to outsiders how blissfully ignorant the average american is.

ChristmasTomer 1mo ago

[dead]

spl757 1mo ago

The government isn't big brother, they just let mega corps do all of the spying via "ads" and then just buy your data from a data broker to whom you let have all of your personal information for game on your phone that gives you a little dopamine hit. We somehow let corporations just take the data that we all create every day and then sell it and make billions in profit. I want that to change. I want to own any and all data I create interacting with anything anywhere, to be copyright by me, in an enforcable way. I should get paid for the data I generate. The problem is that as long as we, collectively, allow ads that spy on us in exchange for really nothing other than amusement and that pursuit of the next dopamine hit we get. I can't enforce agency and ownership of the data I create unless we, collecively, change the rules. We have the power to do that by voting for the candidates that speaks to the issues you care about. We also need to tell politicians what we want, because if we do not, nothing will change. I think the data we create should be automatically copyright of the person generating it, so I can make money from my data if I choose, or not to, if I don't. Don't you want to own and make money from the data you create every single day?