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"Undead" is more like. This thing will keep coming back under different names until it passes.

by tsotha 14y ago

TheCapn 14y ago
As long as the people that wish to see it pass are around there's a group of people that don't want to see it pass fighting it. If we keep the public educated on the consequences of such bills we'll keep playing this game but hopefully gain a bit more support on each iteration. This is one of those scenarios, as I see it, where it is as easy as supporting the groups battling on the hill and educating/informing your friends when the topic comes up over a beer or such. My girlfriend asked me yesterday about what a "Kispah" was. Once I figured out what the hell she was talking about I simply gave her the quick overview of what it was introduced for and why it is against our best interests. She knows now and can make up her own decisions on support.
- ryguytilidie 14y ago
  That is the thing though. The senators and interest groups who want this passed understand how to work around their opponents. I'd predict there will be some sort of major hacking scare and this bill will piggyback on that and pass while everyone is scared and willing to forego their rights.
  - jaibot 14y ago
    I will predict that this does not happen within the next 5 years, 85% confidence.
    - obviouslygreen 14y ago
      Questionable confidence ratings aside, what you're betting against is a very narrow example of the many things that could happen that would push this through. It died once and is back; it got farther this time, and whether it's because of a hacking scare, because even fewer people are paying attention, or for any of myriad other reasons, it will eventually go through.
      - jaibot 14y ago
        It's the price I'd put on it if Intrade were still around.
  - tsotha 14y ago
    Yeah, they'll just chop it into pieces and attach them to "must pass" legislation. These guys know what they're doing.
- prawks 14y ago
  Mind if I ask how you explained it to her (in what I'm guessing was a relatively short time)? It seems to me that most explanations of the bill are very biased one way or another, or don't mention enough detail to be worthwhile.
jaibot 14y ago
The US Legislative System is built for gridlock. Lots of things come up again and again over the decades, but passage remains unlikely - especially for an issue where the opposition is more engaged (see gun control).
rektide 14y ago
No joke- Obama threatened a veto on privacy concerns and the senate punted on it- and yet: The government is dead serious about turning every sizable company on the internet into a part of a gross-national cybersecurity infrastrucutre maintainer, and they are not going to quit until the internet has been adequately leashed by the legislative hand. If corporations are people, this is definitely a violation of the 3rd amendment. Look it up, you probably haven't heard of it in the past couple hundred years or so.
- rcthompson 14y ago
  The 3rd amendment doesn't exist anymore. It only applies in time of peace, and we are now in an eternal global war on terror.
  - mcintyre1994 14y ago
    We have always been at war with <enemy>. I kid, but I honestly wasn't aware of that, was the constitution written to exclude wartime or did somebody have to amend it because some condition was untenable during wartime?
    - EvanKelly 14y ago
      The third amendment has always stated "in time of peace". The specification is due to the fact that any foreseeable war was to be fought on US soil (War of 1812!) and we didn't have the infrastructure to deal with housing troops in the event of that war. I don't think SCOTUS has had to interpret "time of peace" in the 3rd Amendment in modern times.
- awj 14y ago
  > The government is dead serious about turning every sizable company on the internet into a part of a gross-national cybersecurity infrastrucutre maintainer, Which government? The head of the executive branch that threatened to veto such a thing over privacy concerns, or the Senate that wouldn't even give the bill the time of day (again, due to privacy concerns). The government is a big damned huge complicated thing. Statements like "The government wants to do X" are silly simply due to the scale, even more so when two distinct pieces of "the government" are blocking the action you're asserting as their "dead serious" goal.
tzs 14y ago
Isn't that how it is supposed to work? There is pretty widespread agreement even among opponents of CISPA in its current form that the problems it is trying to address are real, serious, and need to be addressed, and I believe that there is even wide agreement that CISPA addresses them. The objections are that it needs some tweaking to prevent abuse (e.g., tighten up some definitions). Why should it not come back after those tweaks are made?
- tomku 14y ago
  Some people oppose CISPA because of fixable issues regarding privacy or overly broad scope, some oppose it because they they think that it'll let the government spy on every URL they visit or allow the MPAA to take down all of Facebook for copyright infringement. According to the latter, CISPA isn't just a bad idea, it's pure malicious evil - the people supporting it need to be defeated so soundly that they never even try to bring it up again. Unfortunately, that latter group is quite well-represented here on HN.
  - SwellJoe 14y ago
    You make it sound as though those are the only two kind of people on this issue: Those who are reasonable and think CISPA can be fixed, and those who think CISPA is a bill to make spying on every American citizen the legal obligation of every ISP and internet company. You leave no room for the vast majority of us who believe that the US government already has more than enough authority to spy on people; the government can get a warrant for collecting all of the data they currently want access to. Pretending the government doesn't already have the tools needed to enforce the law is disingenuous. Pretending that this bill is a "reasonable" response to real problems is disingenuous. It isn't a debate between calm, rational, reasonable people who think the bill is fine (with maybe a tweak or two) on one side, and nutjobs who are paranoid and think like Gene Hackman in The Conversation on the other. There are reasonable people on both sides...but, I question the intentions (and possibly the integrity) of people, particularly people in the tech industry, who support the bill as it stands today. It shouldn't be surprising that so many people on HN are uncompromising on Internet freedom. It's something we know more than most about, and something we care more than most about.
rhizome 14y ago
That's why an online-rights law should be passed, so the offensive things that these bills try do are shut down as a matter of law.
flyinRyan 14y ago
It's neither. It's tabled until the Senate finishes their own CISPA like bill which will presumably be merged with CISPA before being passed.

"Undead" is more like. This thing will keep coming back under different names until it passes.

by tsotha 14y ago

"Undead" is more like. This thing will keep coming back under different names until it passes.

As long as the people that wish to see it pass are around there's a group of people that don't want to see it pass fighting it. If we keep the public educated on the consequences of such bills we'll keep playing this game but hopefully gain a bit more support on each iteration. This is one of those scenarios, as I see it, where it is as easy as supporting the groups battling on the hill and educating/informing your friends when the topic comes up over a beer or such. My girlfriend asked me yesterday about what a "Kispah" was. Once I figured out what the hell she was talking about I simply gave her the quick overview of what it was introduced for and why it is against our best interests. She knows now and can make up her own decisions on support.

ryguytilidie 14y ago
That is the thing though. The senators and interest groups who want this passed understand how to work around their opponents. I'd predict there will be some sort of major hacking scare and this bill will piggyback on that and pass while everyone is scared and willing to forego their rights.
- jaibot 14y ago
  I will predict that this does not happen within the next 5 years, 85% confidence.
  - obviouslygreen 14y ago
    Questionable confidence ratings aside, what you're betting against is a very narrow example of the many things that could happen that would push this through. It died once and is back; it got farther this time, and whether it's because of a hacking scare, because even fewer people are paying attention, or for any of myriad other reasons, it will eventually go through.
    - jaibot 14y ago
      It's the price I'd put on it if Intrade were still around.
- tsotha 14y ago
  Yeah, they'll just chop it into pieces and attach them to "must pass" legislation. These guys know what they're doing.
prawks 14y ago
Mind if I ask how you explained it to her (in what I'm guessing was a relatively short time)? It seems to me that most explanations of the bill are very biased one way or another, or don't mention enough detail to be worthwhile.

jaibot 14y ago

The US Legislative System is built for gridlock. Lots of things come up again and again over the decades, but passage remains unlikely - especially for an issue where the opposition is more engaged (see gun control).

rektide 14y ago

No joke- Obama threatened a veto on privacy concerns and the senate punted on it- and yet: The government is dead serious about turning every sizable company on the internet into a part of a gross-national cybersecurity infrastrucutre maintainer, and they are not going to quit until the internet has been adequately leashed by the legislative hand. If corporations are people, this is definitely a violation of the 3rd amendment. Look it up, you probably haven't heard of it in the past couple hundred years or so.

rcthompson 14y ago
The 3rd amendment doesn't exist anymore. It only applies in time of peace, and we are now in an eternal global war on terror.
- mcintyre1994 14y ago
  We have always been at war with <enemy>. I kid, but I honestly wasn't aware of that, was the constitution written to exclude wartime or did somebody have to amend it because some condition was untenable during wartime?
  - EvanKelly 14y ago
    The third amendment has always stated "in time of peace". The specification is due to the fact that any foreseeable war was to be fought on US soil (War of 1812!) and we didn't have the infrastructure to deal with housing troops in the event of that war. I don't think SCOTUS has had to interpret "time of peace" in the 3rd Amendment in modern times.
awj 14y ago
> The government is dead serious about turning every sizable company on the internet into a part of a gross-national cybersecurity infrastrucutre maintainer, Which government? The head of the executive branch that threatened to veto such a thing over privacy concerns, or the Senate that wouldn't even give the bill the time of day (again, due to privacy concerns). The government is a big damned huge complicated thing. Statements like "The government wants to do X" are silly simply due to the scale, even more so when two distinct pieces of "the government" are blocking the action you're asserting as their "dead serious" goal.

tzs 14y ago

Isn't that how it is supposed to work? There is pretty widespread agreement even among opponents of CISPA in its current form that the problems it is trying to address are real, serious, and need to be addressed, and I believe that there is even wide agreement that CISPA addresses them. The objections are that it needs some tweaking to prevent abuse (e.g., tighten up some definitions). Why should it not come back after those tweaks are made?

tomku 14y ago
Some people oppose CISPA because of fixable issues regarding privacy or overly broad scope, some oppose it because they they think that it'll let the government spy on every URL they visit or allow the MPAA to take down all of Facebook for copyright infringement. According to the latter, CISPA isn't just a bad idea, it's pure malicious evil - the people supporting it need to be defeated so soundly that they never even try to bring it up again. Unfortunately, that latter group is quite well-represented here on HN.
- SwellJoe 14y ago
  You make it sound as though those are the only two kind of people on this issue: Those who are reasonable and think CISPA can be fixed, and those who think CISPA is a bill to make spying on every American citizen the legal obligation of every ISP and internet company. You leave no room for the vast majority of us who believe that the US government already has more than enough authority to spy on people; the government can get a warrant for collecting all of the data they currently want access to. Pretending the government doesn't already have the tools needed to enforce the law is disingenuous. Pretending that this bill is a "reasonable" response to real problems is disingenuous. It isn't a debate between calm, rational, reasonable people who think the bill is fine (with maybe a tweak or two) on one side, and nutjobs who are paranoid and think like Gene Hackman in The Conversation on the other. There are reasonable people on both sides...but, I question the intentions (and possibly the integrity) of people, particularly people in the tech industry, who support the bill as it stands today. It shouldn't be surprising that so many people on HN are uncompromising on Internet freedom. It's something we know more than most about, and something we care more than most about.

rhizome 14y ago

That's why an online-rights law should be passed, so the offensive things that these bills try do are shut down as a matter of law.

flyinRyan 14y ago

It's neither. It's tabled until the Senate finishes their own CISPA like bill which will presumably be merged with CISPA before being passed.