13 ms·

CISPA Passes in the House - Full Roll Call

355 points by sethbannon 14y ago

jimktrains2 14y ago
If your rep voted "nay," be sure to thank them.
deepblueocean 14y ago
I found this slightly more readable: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/113-2013/h117 http://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/113-2013/h117 Call your congressperson. They do care what you think, at least a little bit, especially if you take the time to call or write their office thoughtfully.
- gknoy 14y ago
  What good does it do for me to contact my congressman now, since it's already passed?
  - wavesounds 14y ago
    Contact your Senator! http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_c...
  - sharth 14y ago
    Let's say the senate amends the bill, and successfully passes that. The house would need to vote on that modified bill. Normally, once the two sides pass relatively similar bills, a conference committee is formed to resolve any differences, and then that resulting legislation is voted on.
  - toomuchtodo 14y ago
    Agreed. We should be funding a tech-based SuperPAC to get those who voted yes out of office.
    - redblacktree 14y ago
      I'd donate.
      - charonn0 14y ago
        Ditto.
  - johnbellone 14y ago
    You should call them and let them know that you plan on voting against them, irregardless of their party affiliation, the next round of elections.
  - deepblueocean 14y ago
    If your congressperson voted for the bill, you can express your dissatisfaction, which counts for something. This kind of thing is not the sort of issue your congressperson likely understands or even thinks about for very long - they just do what their staff suggest and they don't expect to be called on it when they get back home to their districts. So if you can make it an issue, make it something they think might affect votes, you'll raise the priority and raise the level of discussion a little bit. And that makes it harder for the kind of disinformation that spreads around CISPA to survive. Congresspeople are currently very afraid of "getting SOPAed" where they try to make some kind of tech policy regulation and then accidentally set off a huge wave of activism. Keep in mind, just because something passes in the House doesn't mean it's law. There's a long process - right now it's still just a bill (that they voted for on Capitol Hill (sorry)). There's a lot that can be done, and, now, probably will be done to mobilize on this issue. I doubt that it will come to SOPA-level activity (SOPA would have affected the bottom lines of big tech companies. This is "just" about privacy). But there's always room for trying to make things more reasonable.
- fnordfnordfnord 14y ago
  Called them yesterday, didn't help.
  - bmj 14y ago
    That's the wrong attitude to take. Perhaps you were the only person in your district that called? This is roughly like saying "I voted for X, but Y still happened."
- psionski 14y ago
  I'm not from America, but, as an Internet citizen, I still care deeply about the issue. Can I just call American politicians to express my dissatisfaction? Does it count if I don't have a social security number? I already donated to Fight for the Future, is there something else I can do about this?
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
t0dd 14y ago
the only way this is going to be stopped now is if Google, Twitter, and the other big tech companies come out strongly against it. except for reddit, they've been quiet so far. don't count on Obama's veto threat at all.
- lawnchair_larry 14y ago
  Zero chance Obama will veto it, he just gave a massive budget to the spying program that CISPA was created to facilitate.
  - flipcoder 14y ago
    Obama veto threat = false sense of security to CISPA opposers His track record tells me he'll sign it happily while saying "I have serious reservations about this".
    - saraid216 14y ago
      I'm really proud of how you guys managed a 3-deep comment thread saying the same thing each time. It really speaks to the breadth of intellectual quality we have available here.
      - flipcoder 14y ago
        Well it's better than you'll get on reddit.
    - gergles 14y ago
      He'll sign it with a signing statement going "I don't really like any of this, but I'm going to sign it anyway" and claim that is somehow a solution.
- notmarkus 14y ago
  To be fair, the majority of YEA's come from Republicans, who control the House, and the majority of NAY's come from Democrats, who control the Senate. This has already died in the Senate once, so I wouldn't be surprised if that happens again.
kylec 14y ago
So Massachusetts didn't even vote at all? That's extremely frustrating.
- keithwinstein 14y ago
  Most of the delegation is attending the interfaith services here today re: the attack on the Boston marathon.
  - eyeface 14y ago
    Are the MA representatives allowed to vote while not present? It seems very strange that an entire state's representatives will not have a vote on this issue because of a scheduling conflict. Can the votes not be phoned in?
    - chimeracoder 14y ago
      Unfortunately, that sets a very dangerous precedent. Already we have a situation in which senators and congressmen skip debates and skip votes, and end up uninformed about the bills they do vote on. Do you really want to increase that? And if they can vote absentee for 'extreme' circumstances only, who gets to decide? The party leaders? The proponents of the bill? The opponents? Feingold is the only one that sticks out in my mind as bucking this trend - he never missed a single vote, even as he was losing his 2010 re-election campaign and his opponent was working the campaign trail every day. Unfortunately, people like Feingold are the exception, not the rule.
- cmelbye 14y ago
  Uh, they kind of have more important things to deal with right now...
  - obviouslygreen 14y ago
    Do they? I don't think there's anything more important for these particular politicians than representing the interests of their constituents. There's a reason we have police and local authorities in addition to high-level politicians. They handle local politics and issues. If we actually need our state representatives so involved in something like this that they can't perform the functions they were elected for, then that's a systemic problem that should be addressed. Is this a bit insensitive? Perhaps. But these people have a responsibility to look at the big picture, and if that means ignoring something tragic but not related to their responsibilities, they need to recognize that and act appropriately.
tocomment 14y ago
Why aren't we invoking the internet bat signal already? [1] [1] http://internetdefenseleague.org/ http://internetdefenseleague.org/
- D9u 14y ago
  Kind of late now, huh? The "Cat Signal" was activated prior to this debacle as a means to urge netizens to contact their elected representatives and garner opposition to CISPA. My elected representative voted no. Thank you Tulsi!
- Udo 14y ago
  That already happened. From the IDL release on March 19th: Dear Internet Defense League member, Last year, right on the heels of our historic victory against SOPA, a piece of really nasty legislation almost passed that would have radically undermined online privacy. It was called CISPA. And it raced through the US House of Representatives, passing before any of us had a chance to react. We stalled the bill in the Senate, but now CISPA is back, and we don't want to make the same mistake twice. Before there is *any* movement on the bill, we want to send a strong message to Congress that CISPA shouldn't pass. That's why we're partnering with the Electronic Frontier Foundation to launch an Internet Defense League action starting tomorrow, Tuesday March 19th. Can you participate? If so, get the code for your site here: http://members.internetdefenseleague.org The problem is that online activism seldomly accomplishes anything. But a more pessimistic point of view might also suggest that we don't stand a chance against this, because this shit will come back every year until it passes. It will pass in pieces because they have to hack it up into easily swallowable packets, but it will pass. Online privacy and freedom goes the same way as net neutrality, sadly.
  - tocomment 14y ago
    I thought when activated it would black out all of the member sites. And I thought it had some big names like Reddit. But I don't remember anything special happening on March 19th. It must really not be working if someone like me who reads tech sites every day didn't notice it?
sailfast 14y ago
Forgive my ignorance but can I get a clarification on what specific parts of the bill will be damaging to privacy? From what I've read so far of the bill it will permit government organizations with classified intelligence about a possible threat to tell those that might be attacked without going through a lengthy declassification process. While that is certainly valuable, I gather there are other provisions that allow for sharing of user data without consent by those under threat? EDIT: Seeing now that the measure does not require participants to remove user data, but it doesn't prohibit that, correct? EDIT2: The CISPA Myths vs. Facts and the EFF articles are informative. Regardless, I think it is important to note that because of classification this information may not have been able to be communicated to organizations prior to something like this bill being in place. I would highly recommend encapsulating each constructive measure in its own bill (and I favor that for all legislative endeavors) however that may not work given the difficulty of the process these days.
gdubya 14y ago
Obviously this is bad for those of us in the USA, but can someone explain how this will affect the rest of the world? And is there anything that those of us outside the US can do to try and defeat this, other than spread the word?
- Andrenid 14y ago
  > can someone explain how this will affect the rest of the world? A lot of the "rest of the world" data is stored in the US, or passes through US servers. That gives them access to it. Anything you have in Google services, Microsoft services, Yahoo, Apple iCloud, etc etc etc
  - lucb1e 14y ago
    It's frightening to see how much of my data is stored in the US. The new Whatpulse (2.0+) keeps track of how much data is sent per country, using a geoip database. By far, most data went to America. That quite convinced me I should get my e-mail out of there at the very least (MS/Hotmail), and possibly find alternatives for Google services like Plus and Drive. Edit: For clarity, I'm from the Netherlands.
    - gdubya 14y ago
      Right, so the only option for "the rest of the world" is to switch to solutions that do not store any data in the US? Is that realistically feasible? How can "the rest of the world" protest against CISPA?
      - lucb1e 14y ago
        Well put it this way: What can they do that we can't replicate? ;) Behind China's great firewall there are lots of alternatives to twitter, youtube, facebook, google (this one I know by name: Baidu), etc. So technically feasible, yes. Realistically... depends on whether developers of these clones can find something that gives them an advantage over the originals, besides privacy or legal issues. Businesses want to keep data in-house regardless, and not many consumers care enough. Having one global network for social networks has certainly advantages, but when the laws in the "home country" (for the lack of a better word, if there is any) become hostile and privacy invading... then I don't know. If I could pay to get off of all google services and have my data imported into a dutch google clone, I'd do it.
st0p 14y ago
I live in the Netherlands, can anyone tell me what this law is about and why it is damaging to the internet?
- wavefunction 14y ago
  Do you use any sites in America? Do you access any sites hosted outside of America but accessed via any network infrastructure owned by an American company? If so, any of this information can be easily shared with the US Government free of charge to you!
  - tptacek 14y ago
    Can you tell a short story about how some specific piece of information this person shares with a US site winds up shared with the USG?
    - samstave 14y ago
      I am no expert on the matter, but I believe what this does is pave the pre-approval for something that has long been in place; echelon. Basically the government had previously stated that capturing of any electronic information and storing it is not the same as wire-tapping/reviewing the information. They can capture and record whatever they want and should they at a later date want to look at anything you did, they can get the warrant and look at this historical info. With CISPA -- the legal process for doing any of this is now far easier for them. (please correct me if this is not true)
      - tptacek 14y ago
        CISPA doesn't revoke ECPA or SCA. It overrides it, purportedly for the sole purpose of enabling the sharing of operational network security information, in roughly two scenarios: discovery/dissemination of new vulnerabilities, and ongoing incidents.
        lawnchair_larry 14y ago
27182818284 14y ago
Weren't they supposed to activate the "Cat Signal" that would go up on everyone's favorite websites? I never saw it, and that seems like it would have been the only thing that could have re-invigorated people to action like they were for SOPA and such.
w1ntermute 14y ago
Like I said before guys, start using end-to-end encryption. Stop talking and start sticking it to the man. If a company cooperates with the government, then don't use their products or services.
- Udo 14y ago
  What good is end-to-end encryption if the server you're communicating with is legally obliged to forward your data to a gov database?
  - sneak 14y ago
    End to end, not client to server.
    - Udo 14y ago
      User-to-user encryption is really not feasible/possible for public forums, social media, blogging, photo sharing, or web search. It's hard enough to do where it actually is feasible, such as message interchange - especially considering the fact that we now all have multiple auto-synched devices.
      - betterunix 14y ago
        "User-to-user encryption is really not feasible/possible for...social media" The research community has a thing or two to say about that: https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity12/social-networking-frientegrity-privacy-and-integrity-untrusted-provider https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity12/social-ne...
        boi_v2 14y ago
        This is great stuff betterunix
      - jterce 14y ago
        Everything you just mentioned is more or less public by its very nature. Encryption wouldn't make any sense even were it feasible.
badalyan 14y ago
CISPA: Myths vs Facts http://intelligence.house.gov/sites/intelligence.house.gov/files/images/041613cispamythfact.pdf http://intelligence.house.gov/sites/intelligence.house.gov/f...
- u2328 14y ago
  CISPA: FAQ on What it is and Why it's Still Dangerous https://www.eff.org/cybersecurity-bill-faq https://www.eff.org/cybersecurity-bill-faq
  - tptacek 14y ago
    This FAQ includes what I think are very misleading statements about CISPA; for instance, CISPA is clearly not intended to enforce copyright, and includes provisions that no copyright advocate would have accepted were that the purpose of the law. For instance, CISPA, unlike any other statute in the US Code, specifically exempts ToS violations from the purview of the statute.
    - ldng 14y ago
      Not intended to but might/will be used to ?
      - tptacek 14y ago
        Reread my comment: the bill contains measures that make it difficult to use the act to defend copyright. If it's a backdoor SOPA (the venn diagram between those two acts are two adjacent disconnected circles), why does it do that?
        u2328 14y ago
        'Backdoor SOPA?' Those are your words, not the EFF's, and they're concerned about a lot of this legislation besides the abuse by copright holders. Anyways, I believe you're referring to this section: 'Does CISPA do enough to prevent abuse of the law for copyright enforcement?' Here's the relevant text from that section: CISPA’s definition of "cyber threat information" includes information directly pertaining to a threat to "confidentiality." But what does confidentiality mean? The definition encompasses measures designed for preserving "authorized restrictions on access," including means for protecting "proprietary information." "Proprietary information" is not defined, and could be read to include copyrighted information. For example, one type of restriction on access that is designed to protect proprietary information is digital rights management (DRM). The problem here is the vagueness of the language. As others as have pointed out, the concern is not so much about intent of the language, but abuse of the vagueness to strongly serve the interests' of copyright holders over the general public.
Lewisham 14y ago
Nothing says "small government" like expanding government oversight, right? I really don't understand what the Republican party actually stands for. There's no consistency in their platform. I might not agree with the Libertarian Party either, but at least I understand why they say what they say. Can someone help me out here?
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats support the views they claim to. Those are just ways to get votes from their gullible and emotionally persuadable constituents who will pick the least-worst of the 2 choices as long as the candidate of their choice presents a veneer of authenticity. Politicians really support the views of the people who actually matter to them - the donors who fund their campaigns, the lobbyists who give them nice perks while they're in office, and the companies who promise them high-paying jobs once they've left public office.
- straight_talk 14y ago
  It obviously stands for global fascist totalitarian government.
- betterunix 14y ago
  The major parties in the United States are what the rest of the world calls "the right wing." Their goals are more or less "keep the wealth in the hands of the wealthy" and "keep the power in the hands of the powerful." The only difference is which groups of wealthy and powerful people the parties cater to, though there is plenty of overlap there.
- ajscherer 14y ago
  When politicians say "small government" they really mean "low taxes", and when they say "liberty" that is measured as 100% minus the top marginal tax rate. Restrictions on people's behavior or privacy aren't really part of the discussion. When they say "spending" you can safely suffix that with "on someone other than me". Seriously though, the Republican party isn't a libertarian organization and never has been. They've been marketing themselves that way lately, since they are a bit closer to the libertarian ideal than the Democrats (I guess not in this case though!).
fedxc 14y ago
So it passed... now what?
- moens 14y ago
  It still has to pass the Senate.
buro9 14y ago
On a related note, is there a list of cloud providers and hosts with zero US presence? I'm looking for a European provider of virtual machines, with competitive prices and features, but with no US company behind it and ideally not even a US datacenter. Just a strong IaaS offering within the EU and a commitment to stay out of the US.
- LoneWolf 14y ago
  The only one that comes to mind is Hetzner.de as far as I know they don't have any US datacenter.
- larrydavid 14y ago
  Take a look LowEndBox, and the related forums LowEndTalk. The first site collates prices/deals, where you can filter by location. They also carry out a quarterly survey as an attempt to gauge customer satisfaction for each provider (http://www.lowendtalk.com/wiki/top-providers http://www.lowendtalk.com/wiki/top-providers). I've been looking for a VPS recently and found the above 2 sites very useful. http://www.lowendbox.com/ http://www.lowendbox.com/ http://www.lowendtalk.com/ http://www.lowendtalk.com/
  - gboudrias 14y ago
    That site (LowEndBox) is full of sketchy deals, and a lot of companies it promotes stop existing a few months afterwards. It shouldn't surprise anyone that choosing their VPS provider by price alone can be a bad idea, but I really don't recommend it.
    - avenger123 14y ago
      Yes and No. You have to look at the companies with a critical eye but there are well established ones. Buyvm.net is a no fuss provider and they have been around for a while.
- corry 14y ago
  OVH.fr - great machines, good prices. We have a machine in western Europe. VPS or dedicated servers.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
LandoCalrissian 14y ago
Thank you Keith Ellison for being sensible and voting no on this bill.
aamar 14y ago
288 Yea votes. They're very close to 290, which would be enough to override a veto. Even if it doesn't come to that, a credible veto threat is often enough to get the President to sign the thing. So bending even a few votes in either direction may have some political meaning here.
dllthomas 14y ago
I want to thank my representative for voting against. Hopefully she can pull more of her colleagues next time 'round.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
- rorrr 14y ago
  http://www.politifact.com/personalities/ http://www.politifact.com/personalities/
Xcelerate 14y ago
Could someone give me a specific concrete example of how this would be bad? I read the bill and found that many of the online claims about it are simply incorrect. Maybe I missed something.
artursapek 14y ago
Look at them custom HTML tags! <vote-data> <recorded-vote><legislator name-id="A000055" sort-field="Aderholt" unaccented-name="Aderholt" party="R" state="AL" role="legislator">Aderholt</legislator><vote>Yea</vote></recorded-vote>
rockmeamedee 14y ago
Everybody's saying contact your senator. Call them, write them a letter... Is the problem the disconnect between the elected officials and the public? If so, can we make the communication a bit easier? My grandparents write me letters. I barely use my phone to call. What if each elected official's website had a place where their electorate can create and fill out polls, giving the member of congress access to much finer grain information? It seems to me that if you told me that you're running for the House in my district and you'll answer my questions on 8thdistrictva.com or whatever, I would completely believe you're better than the other guy. You might listen to me. Has anybody tried to do this? To be fair I've barely looked at my representative's web page. But this seems much better than calling or writing a letter. I guess you could email them, but every standard means of communication I just imagine an office full of overcaffeinated interns skimming the message for keywords and picking the closest automatic reply. Most of the time, I'd just want to communicate a simple feeling (eg I don't like this bill) and I'd be okay with them looking at a graph of the poll results.
- xradionut 14y ago
  You need to buy your senator and make sure they stay bought.
- bmelton 14y ago
  Having worked in political advocacy, what you're wanting is exactly the right way to go. It's almost impossible to get an email to your actual representative. What you want to do is get your sentiment to their aide via email. Simply put, your subject should be one of: "Please oppose Senate Bill <number>" or "Please support Senate Bill <number>". Make sure you know if it's a senate bill or a house bill, and make sure you know the number. If you can't be bothered to perform that simple amount of research, then it's a signal to them you probably aren't a voter, or don't have strong opinions on the matter (right or wrong). In the contents of the email, which probably won't be read, but in the case that they are, state your name, district (if applicable), and whether you're registered to vote, and if it's for their party, then say so. If it isn't, omit it. After that, do whatever you like, but keep it brief, polite and on-topic.
dguido 14y ago
I find opposition to this bill somewhat hilarious. On one hand on the front page right now, we have FBI soliciting the public for information after we've experienced a serious attack. Efforts are underway to crowdsource the identities of the perpetrators in a completely unstructured and privacy-invading manner on forums like Reddit (/r/findbostonbombers). On the other, we have people loudly complaining that companies shouldn't be able to do the same when they experience an attack. Sharing of this information would occur via structured records and include oversight and audits that get reported to the public. I think the problem is one of perspective. In the Boston bombings, it's incredibly simple to see the harm and it directly affects those being asked to share the information they have to help. In the persistent and ongoing computer intrusions that are now a reality for any successful business, the public is largely unaware and only indirectly affected by such events. Hence, why try to solve it?
- psionski 14y ago
  * for any successful business that doesn't care the slightest bit about security, i.e. remains the lowest hanging fruit.
DigitalSea 14y ago
Time to see if Obama and his office are going to follow through with their veto threats and play their hand. Considering the amount of publicity his opposition to the bill has received, it would be in his best interests to follow through.
eyuelt 14y ago
Now how do I get the roll call of the vote on the gun control bill?

355 points by sethbannon 14y ago

If your rep voted "nay," be sure to thank them.

I found this slightly more readable: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/113-2013/h117 http://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/113-2013/h117 Call your congressperson. They do care what you think, at least a little bit, especially if you take the time to call or write their office thoughtfully.

gknoy 14y ago
What good does it do for me to contact my congressman now, since it's already passed?
- wavesounds 14y ago
  Contact your Senator! http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_c...
- sharth 14y ago
  Let's say the senate amends the bill, and successfully passes that. The house would need to vote on that modified bill. Normally, once the two sides pass relatively similar bills, a conference committee is formed to resolve any differences, and then that resulting legislation is voted on.
- toomuchtodo 14y ago
  Agreed. We should be funding a tech-based SuperPAC to get those who voted yes out of office.
  - redblacktree 14y ago
    I'd donate.
    - charonn0 14y ago
      Ditto.
- johnbellone 14y ago
  You should call them and let them know that you plan on voting against them, irregardless of their party affiliation, the next round of elections.
- deepblueocean 14y ago
  If your congressperson voted for the bill, you can express your dissatisfaction, which counts for something. This kind of thing is not the sort of issue your congressperson likely understands or even thinks about for very long - they just do what their staff suggest and they don't expect to be called on it when they get back home to their districts. So if you can make it an issue, make it something they think might affect votes, you'll raise the priority and raise the level of discussion a little bit. And that makes it harder for the kind of disinformation that spreads around CISPA to survive. Congresspeople are currently very afraid of "getting SOPAed" where they try to make some kind of tech policy regulation and then accidentally set off a huge wave of activism. Keep in mind, just because something passes in the House doesn't mean it's law. There's a long process - right now it's still just a bill (that they voted for on Capitol Hill (sorry)). There's a lot that can be done, and, now, probably will be done to mobilize on this issue. I doubt that it will come to SOPA-level activity (SOPA would have affected the bottom lines of big tech companies. This is "just" about privacy). But there's always room for trying to make things more reasonable.
fnordfnordfnord 14y ago
Called them yesterday, didn't help.
- bmj 14y ago
  That's the wrong attitude to take. Perhaps you were the only person in your district that called? This is roughly like saying "I voted for X, but Y still happened."
psionski 14y ago
I'm not from America, but, as an Internet citizen, I still care deeply about the issue. Can I just call American politicians to express my dissatisfaction? Does it count if I don't have a social security number? I already donated to Fight for the Future, is there something else I can do about this?

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

t0dd 14y ago

the only way this is going to be stopped now is if Google, Twitter, and the other big tech companies come out strongly against it. except for reddit, they've been quiet so far. don't count on Obama's veto threat at all.

lawnchair_larry 14y ago
Zero chance Obama will veto it, he just gave a massive budget to the spying program that CISPA was created to facilitate.
- flipcoder 14y ago
  Obama veto threat = false sense of security to CISPA opposers His track record tells me he'll sign it happily while saying "I have serious reservations about this".
  - saraid216 14y ago
    I'm really proud of how you guys managed a 3-deep comment thread saying the same thing each time. It really speaks to the breadth of intellectual quality we have available here.
    - flipcoder 14y ago
      Well it's better than you'll get on reddit.
  - gergles 14y ago
    He'll sign it with a signing statement going "I don't really like any of this, but I'm going to sign it anyway" and claim that is somehow a solution.
notmarkus 14y ago
To be fair, the majority of YEA's come from Republicans, who control the House, and the majority of NAY's come from Democrats, who control the Senate. This has already died in the Senate once, so I wouldn't be surprised if that happens again.

kylec 14y ago

So Massachusetts didn't even vote at all? That's extremely frustrating.

keithwinstein 14y ago
Most of the delegation is attending the interfaith services here today re: the attack on the Boston marathon.
- eyeface 14y ago
  Are the MA representatives allowed to vote while not present? It seems very strange that an entire state's representatives will not have a vote on this issue because of a scheduling conflict. Can the votes not be phoned in?
  - chimeracoder 14y ago
    Unfortunately, that sets a very dangerous precedent. Already we have a situation in which senators and congressmen skip debates and skip votes, and end up uninformed about the bills they do vote on. Do you really want to increase that? And if they can vote absentee for 'extreme' circumstances only, who gets to decide? The party leaders? The proponents of the bill? The opponents? Feingold is the only one that sticks out in my mind as bucking this trend - he never missed a single vote, even as he was losing his 2010 re-election campaign and his opponent was working the campaign trail every day. Unfortunately, people like Feingold are the exception, not the rule.
cmelbye 14y ago
Uh, they kind of have more important things to deal with right now...
- obviouslygreen 14y ago
  Do they? I don't think there's anything more important for these particular politicians than representing the interests of their constituents. There's a reason we have police and local authorities in addition to high-level politicians. They handle local politics and issues. If we actually need our state representatives so involved in something like this that they can't perform the functions they were elected for, then that's a systemic problem that should be addressed. Is this a bit insensitive? Perhaps. But these people have a responsibility to look at the big picture, and if that means ignoring something tragic but not related to their responsibilities, they need to recognize that and act appropriately.

tocomment 14y ago

Why aren't we invoking the internet bat signal already? [1] [1] http://internetdefenseleague.org/ http://internetdefenseleague.org/

D9u 14y ago
Kind of late now, huh? The "Cat Signal" was activated prior to this debacle as a means to urge netizens to contact their elected representatives and garner opposition to CISPA. My elected representative voted no. Thank you Tulsi!
Udo 14y ago
That already happened. From the IDL release on March 19th: Dear Internet Defense League member, Last year, right on the heels of our historic victory against SOPA, a piece of really nasty legislation almost passed that would have radically undermined online privacy. It was called CISPA. And it raced through the US House of Representatives, passing before any of us had a chance to react. We stalled the bill in the Senate, but now CISPA is back, and we don't want to make the same mistake twice. Before there is *any* movement on the bill, we want to send a strong message to Congress that CISPA shouldn't pass. That's why we're partnering with the Electronic Frontier Foundation to launch an Internet Defense League action starting tomorrow, Tuesday March 19th. Can you participate? If so, get the code for your site here: http://members.internetdefenseleague.org The problem is that online activism seldomly accomplishes anything. But a more pessimistic point of view might also suggest that we don't stand a chance against this, because this shit will come back every year until it passes. It will pass in pieces because they have to hack it up into easily swallowable packets, but it will pass. Online privacy and freedom goes the same way as net neutrality, sadly.
- tocomment 14y ago
  I thought when activated it would black out all of the member sites. And I thought it had some big names like Reddit. But I don't remember anything special happening on March 19th. It must really not be working if someone like me who reads tech sites every day didn't notice it?

sailfast 14y ago

Forgive my ignorance but can I get a clarification on what specific parts of the bill will be damaging to privacy? From what I've read so far of the bill it will permit government organizations with classified intelligence about a possible threat to tell those that might be attacked without going through a lengthy declassification process. While that is certainly valuable, I gather there are other provisions that allow for sharing of user data without consent by those under threat? EDIT: Seeing now that the measure does not require participants to remove user data, but it doesn't prohibit that, correct? EDIT2: The CISPA Myths vs. Facts and the EFF articles are informative. Regardless, I think it is important to note that because of classification this information may not have been able to be communicated to organizations prior to something like this bill being in place. I would highly recommend encapsulating each constructive measure in its own bill (and I favor that for all legislative endeavors) however that may not work given the difficulty of the process these days.

gdubya 14y ago

Obviously this is bad for those of us in the USA, but can someone explain how this will affect the rest of the world? And is there anything that those of us outside the US can do to try and defeat this, other than spread the word?

Andrenid 14y ago
> can someone explain how this will affect the rest of the world? A lot of the "rest of the world" data is stored in the US, or passes through US servers. That gives them access to it. Anything you have in Google services, Microsoft services, Yahoo, Apple iCloud, etc etc etc
- lucb1e 14y ago
  It's frightening to see how much of my data is stored in the US. The new Whatpulse (2.0+) keeps track of how much data is sent per country, using a geoip database. By far, most data went to America. That quite convinced me I should get my e-mail out of there at the very least (MS/Hotmail), and possibly find alternatives for Google services like Plus and Drive. Edit: For clarity, I'm from the Netherlands.
  - gdubya 14y ago
    Right, so the only option for "the rest of the world" is to switch to solutions that do not store any data in the US? Is that realistically feasible? How can "the rest of the world" protest against CISPA?
    - lucb1e 14y ago
      Well put it this way: What can they do that we can't replicate? ;) Behind China's great firewall there are lots of alternatives to twitter, youtube, facebook, google (this one I know by name: Baidu), etc. So technically feasible, yes. Realistically... depends on whether developers of these clones can find something that gives them an advantage over the originals, besides privacy or legal issues. Businesses want to keep data in-house regardless, and not many consumers care enough. Having one global network for social networks has certainly advantages, but when the laws in the "home country" (for the lack of a better word, if there is any) become hostile and privacy invading... then I don't know. If I could pay to get off of all google services and have my data imported into a dutch google clone, I'd do it.

st0p 14y ago

I live in the Netherlands, can anyone tell me what this law is about and why it is damaging to the internet?

wavefunction 14y ago
Do you use any sites in America? Do you access any sites hosted outside of America but accessed via any network infrastructure owned by an American company? If so, any of this information can be easily shared with the US Government free of charge to you!
- tptacek 14y ago
  Can you tell a short story about how some specific piece of information this person shares with a US site winds up shared with the USG?
  - samstave 14y ago
    I am no expert on the matter, but I believe what this does is pave the pre-approval for something that has long been in place; echelon. Basically the government had previously stated that capturing of any electronic information and storing it is not the same as wire-tapping/reviewing the information. They can capture and record whatever they want and should they at a later date want to look at anything you did, they can get the warrant and look at this historical info. With CISPA -- the legal process for doing any of this is now far easier for them. (please correct me if this is not true)
    - tptacek 14y ago
      CISPA doesn't revoke ECPA or SCA. It overrides it, purportedly for the sole purpose of enabling the sharing of operational network security information, in roughly two scenarios: discovery/dissemination of new vulnerabilities, and ongoing incidents.
      - lawnchair_larry 14y ago

27182818284 14y ago

Weren't they supposed to activate the "Cat Signal" that would go up on everyone's favorite websites? I never saw it, and that seems like it would have been the only thing that could have re-invigorated people to action like they were for SOPA and such.

w1ntermute 14y ago

Like I said before guys, start using end-to-end encryption. Stop talking and start sticking it to the man. If a company cooperates with the government, then don't use their products or services.

Udo 14y ago
What good is end-to-end encryption if the server you're communicating with is legally obliged to forward your data to a gov database?
- sneak 14y ago
  End to end, not client to server.
  - Udo 14y ago
    User-to-user encryption is really not feasible/possible for public forums, social media, blogging, photo sharing, or web search. It's hard enough to do where it actually is feasible, such as message interchange - especially considering the fact that we now all have multiple auto-synched devices.
    - betterunix 14y ago
      "User-to-user encryption is really not feasible/possible for...social media" The research community has a thing or two to say about that: https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity12/social-networking-frientegrity-privacy-and-integrity-untrusted-provider https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity12/social-ne...
      - boi_v2 14y ago
        This is great stuff betterunix
    - jterce 14y ago
      Everything you just mentioned is more or less public by its very nature. Encryption wouldn't make any sense even were it feasible.

badalyan 14y ago

CISPA: Myths vs Facts http://intelligence.house.gov/sites/intelligence.house.gov/files/images/041613cispamythfact.pdf http://intelligence.house.gov/sites/intelligence.house.gov/f...

u2328 14y ago
CISPA: FAQ on What it is and Why it's Still Dangerous https://www.eff.org/cybersecurity-bill-faq https://www.eff.org/cybersecurity-bill-faq
- tptacek 14y ago
  This FAQ includes what I think are very misleading statements about CISPA; for instance, CISPA is clearly not intended to enforce copyright, and includes provisions that no copyright advocate would have accepted were that the purpose of the law. For instance, CISPA, unlike any other statute in the US Code, specifically exempts ToS violations from the purview of the statute.
  - ldng 14y ago
    Not intended to but might/will be used to ?
    - tptacek 14y ago
      Reread my comment: the bill contains measures that make it difficult to use the act to defend copyright. If it's a backdoor SOPA (the venn diagram between those two acts are two adjacent disconnected circles), why does it do that?
      - u2328 14y ago
        'Backdoor SOPA?' Those are your words, not the EFF's, and they're concerned about a lot of this legislation besides the abuse by copright holders. Anyways, I believe you're referring to this section: 'Does CISPA do enough to prevent abuse of the law for copyright enforcement?' Here's the relevant text from that section: CISPA’s definition of "cyber threat information" includes information directly pertaining to a threat to "confidentiality." But what does confidentiality mean? The definition encompasses measures designed for preserving "authorized restrictions on access," including means for protecting "proprietary information." "Proprietary information" is not defined, and could be read to include copyrighted information. For example, one type of restriction on access that is designed to protect proprietary information is digital rights management (DRM). The problem here is the vagueness of the language. As others as have pointed out, the concern is not so much about intent of the language, but abuse of the vagueness to strongly serve the interests' of copyright holders over the general public.

Lewisham 14y ago

Nothing says "small government" like expanding government oversight, right? I really don't understand what the Republican party actually stands for. There's no consistency in their platform. I might not agree with the Libertarian Party either, but at least I understand why they say what they say. Can someone help me out here?

w1ntermute 14y ago
Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats support the views they claim to. Those are just ways to get votes from their gullible and emotionally persuadable constituents who will pick the least-worst of the 2 choices as long as the candidate of their choice presents a veneer of authenticity. Politicians really support the views of the people who actually matter to them - the donors who fund their campaigns, the lobbyists who give them nice perks while they're in office, and the companies who promise them high-paying jobs once they've left public office.
straight_talk 14y ago
It obviously stands for global fascist totalitarian government.
betterunix 14y ago
The major parties in the United States are what the rest of the world calls "the right wing." Their goals are more or less "keep the wealth in the hands of the wealthy" and "keep the power in the hands of the powerful." The only difference is which groups of wealthy and powerful people the parties cater to, though there is plenty of overlap there.
ajscherer 14y ago
When politicians say "small government" they really mean "low taxes", and when they say "liberty" that is measured as 100% minus the top marginal tax rate. Restrictions on people's behavior or privacy aren't really part of the discussion. When they say "spending" you can safely suffix that with "on someone other than me". Seriously though, the Republican party isn't a libertarian organization and never has been. They've been marketing themselves that way lately, since they are a bit closer to the libertarian ideal than the Democrats (I guess not in this case though!).

fedxc 14y ago

So it passed... now what?

moens 14y ago
It still has to pass the Senate.

buro9 14y ago

On a related note, is there a list of cloud providers and hosts with zero US presence? I'm looking for a European provider of virtual machines, with competitive prices and features, but with no US company behind it and ideally not even a US datacenter. Just a strong IaaS offering within the EU and a commitment to stay out of the US.

LoneWolf 14y ago
The only one that comes to mind is Hetzner.de as far as I know they don't have any US datacenter.
larrydavid 14y ago
Take a look LowEndBox, and the related forums LowEndTalk. The first site collates prices/deals, where you can filter by location. They also carry out a quarterly survey as an attempt to gauge customer satisfaction for each provider (http://www.lowendtalk.com/wiki/top-providers http://www.lowendtalk.com/wiki/top-providers). I've been looking for a VPS recently and found the above 2 sites very useful. http://www.lowendbox.com/ http://www.lowendbox.com/ http://www.lowendtalk.com/ http://www.lowendtalk.com/
- gboudrias 14y ago
  That site (LowEndBox) is full of sketchy deals, and a lot of companies it promotes stop existing a few months afterwards. It shouldn't surprise anyone that choosing their VPS provider by price alone can be a bad idea, but I really don't recommend it.
  - avenger123 14y ago
    Yes and No. You have to look at the companies with a critical eye but there are well established ones. Buyvm.net is a no fuss provider and they have been around for a while.
corry 14y ago
OVH.fr - great machines, good prices. We have a machine in western Europe. VPS or dedicated servers.

deleted 14y ago

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LandoCalrissian 14y ago

Thank you Keith Ellison for being sensible and voting no on this bill.

aamar 14y ago

288 Yea votes. They're very close to 290, which would be enough to override a veto. Even if it doesn't come to that, a credible veto threat is often enough to get the President to sign the thing. So bending even a few votes in either direction may have some political meaning here.

dllthomas 14y ago

I want to thank my representative for voting against. Hopefully she can pull more of her colleagues next time 'round.

deleted 14y ago

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rorrr 14y ago
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/ http://www.politifact.com/personalities/

Xcelerate 14y ago

Could someone give me a specific concrete example of how this would be bad? I read the bill and found that many of the online claims about it are simply incorrect. Maybe I missed something.

artursapek 14y ago

Look at them custom HTML tags! <vote-data> <recorded-vote><legislator name-id="A000055" sort-field="Aderholt" unaccented-name="Aderholt" party="R" state="AL" role="legislator">Aderholt</legislator><vote>Yea</vote></recorded-vote>

rockmeamedee 14y ago

Everybody's saying contact your senator. Call them, write them a letter... Is the problem the disconnect between the elected officials and the public? If so, can we make the communication a bit easier? My grandparents write me letters. I barely use my phone to call. What if each elected official's website had a place where their electorate can create and fill out polls, giving the member of congress access to much finer grain information? It seems to me that if you told me that you're running for the House in my district and you'll answer my questions on 8thdistrictva.com or whatever, I would completely believe you're better than the other guy. You might listen to me. Has anybody tried to do this? To be fair I've barely looked at my representative's web page. But this seems much better than calling or writing a letter. I guess you could email them, but every standard means of communication I just imagine an office full of overcaffeinated interns skimming the message for keywords and picking the closest automatic reply. Most of the time, I'd just want to communicate a simple feeling (eg I don't like this bill) and I'd be okay with them looking at a graph of the poll results.

xradionut 14y ago
You need to buy your senator and make sure they stay bought.
bmelton 14y ago
Having worked in political advocacy, what you're wanting is exactly the right way to go. It's almost impossible to get an email to your actual representative. What you want to do is get your sentiment to their aide via email. Simply put, your subject should be one of: "Please oppose Senate Bill <number>" or "Please support Senate Bill <number>". Make sure you know if it's a senate bill or a house bill, and make sure you know the number. If you can't be bothered to perform that simple amount of research, then it's a signal to them you probably aren't a voter, or don't have strong opinions on the matter (right or wrong). In the contents of the email, which probably won't be read, but in the case that they are, state your name, district (if applicable), and whether you're registered to vote, and if it's for their party, then say so. If it isn't, omit it. After that, do whatever you like, but keep it brief, polite and on-topic.

dguido 14y ago

I find opposition to this bill somewhat hilarious. On one hand on the front page right now, we have FBI soliciting the public for information after we've experienced a serious attack. Efforts are underway to crowdsource the identities of the perpetrators in a completely unstructured and privacy-invading manner on forums like Reddit (/r/findbostonbombers). On the other, we have people loudly complaining that companies shouldn't be able to do the same when they experience an attack. Sharing of this information would occur via structured records and include oversight and audits that get reported to the public. I think the problem is one of perspective. In the Boston bombings, it's incredibly simple to see the harm and it directly affects those being asked to share the information they have to help. In the persistent and ongoing computer intrusions that are now a reality for any successful business, the public is largely unaware and only indirectly affected by such events. Hence, why try to solve it?

psionski 14y ago
* for any successful business that doesn't care the slightest bit about security, i.e. remains the lowest hanging fruit.

DigitalSea 14y ago

Time to see if Obama and his office are going to follow through with their veto threats and play their hand. Considering the amount of publicity his opposition to the bill has received, it would be in his best interests to follow through.

eyuelt 14y ago

Now how do I get the roll call of the vote on the gun control bill?