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If it were coming back "tweaked" to address the flaws of the bill, then sure, that'd be how the system is supposed to work. Except that's not what's happening a

If it were coming back "tweaked" to address the flaws of the bill, then sure, that'd be how the system is supposed to work. Except that's not what's happening and things aren't working. The issue is that CISPA is fundamentally flawed; I have no doubt that there are well-meaning people who believe we need something to address the problems CISPA allegedly addresses. But any solution which consists of "first, we stop caring about the Fourth Amendment" is a non-starter and must always be.

DannyBee 14y ago
The 4th amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, not all of them.
- warfangle 14y ago
  And when the guy sysoping your data is the one who makes the decision about what's reasonable...?
- trobertson 14y ago
  Would you find it unreasonable to have a search warrant on every single American's internet activity? As far as I understand it, that is, in effect, what CISPA proposes.
  - andylei 14y ago
    > a search warrant on every single American's internet activity? As far as I understand it, that is, in effect, what CISPA proposes. no. no. not at all. please read the bill. it says nothing of the sort.
    - lawnchair_larry 14y ago
      Except that it does, and that's why it's being pushed. See new details uncovered by EPIC: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57581161-38/u.s-gives-big-secret-push-to-internet-surveillance/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57581161-38/u.s-gives-big-... CISPA's true motivation is becoming very clear. It's needed to expand a pilot program for dragnet surveillance by the NSA and defense contractors. You know, the same thing they've been doing for ages and getting sued over by the EFF. If you read the letters in support of CISPA by the defense contractors who are lobbying for it and funding Mike Rogers who authored it, they even acknowledge this program by name (it's called the DIB cyber pilot). That's why the bill is so vague, and why they refuse amendments to narrow the scope. It's a get out of jail free card for complicit companies and they can claim virtually anything is related to "security". They can also be wrong, as long as they claim it was "in good faith". It's more or less the "state secrets privilege" equivalent, but for companies cooperating with the "data sharing". It solves nothing, because it's already legal to share threat data. You just have to scrub it of private or protected information. If its protected, it's because we passed a law for something we felt was worth protecting. For CISPA to just undo all of those laws wholesale is outrageous.
      - GHFigs 14y ago
        It's needed to expand a pilot program for dragnet surveillance by the NSA and defense contractors. What horseshit! Even your own link describes the program as applicable to private networks of the participating companies. That's why there's a quote from an email wondering (emphasis mine) "Will the program cover all parts of the company network -- including say day care centers (as mentioned as a question in a [deputies committee meeting]) and what are the policy implications of this?"
        lawnchair_larry 14y ago
        No, you stopped reading too soon. It's being extended to ISPs, and customer data.
        GHFigs 14y ago
        I didn't stop reading.
  - DannyBee 14y ago
    This is not what CISPA proposes. It really isn't. There are a lot of advocacy organizations (EPIC, etc) that like to bluster about what it does. Right now EPIC is blustering that it's part of authorizing a secret program. What they didn't tell you is that this is their real goal is to gain possible congressional support for the FOIA request they filed, they are just trying to tie it all together so they can gain support from CISPA haters. A lot of these advocacy orgs that lobby are good in the sense of trying to do what they think is right but they often present pretty extreme (IMHO) interpretations of bills/laws and viewpoints to support this. Full disclosure: I have interned at one of these advocacy orgs before (CDT). It's true the government would be happy if they could monitor everyone's activity, but that isn't CISPA, and crying wolf repeatedly about every bill just makes people less likely to care. If they really wanted to monitor everyone's activity, they'd just do it, and clean up the mess later.
    - dontstealmyname 14y ago
      Like passing retroactive bills so its "not illegal". (not saying this one is just that but they have done it in the past so the telcos didn't get sued I believe)
      - DannyBee 14y ago
        Sure, but note that this is completely constitutional, the constitution explicitly grants Congress the right to set the jurisdiction of all courts inferior to the Supreme Court.
- darkarmani 14y ago
  Except the ones that aren't unreasonable are carried out with a judge's signature or have very narrow latitude (plain sight, hot pursuit).
  - stan_rogers 14y ago
    And is not part of the problem here trying to determine the "cyber equivalent" of such things as plain sight and hot pursuit? A lot of what goes on online is the equivalent of high noon in the public square, even if people don't quite understand that.
  - DannyBee 14y ago
    No. The judge signature is basically the other part of the 4th amendment, about warrants. That is what makes an otherwise unreasonable search, reasonable: it was reviewed by a neutral magistrate, and the neutral magistrate determined they had probable cause. If the search is reasonable, you don't need anything from a judge. This doesn't mean you can go busting into places, but ...
    - MereInterest 14y ago
      What? No, no, no, NO. That is completely wrong. There are cases where a warrant is not necessary, such as immediate danger to an officer. However, a warrant is issued only upon probable cause. This still needs to be reasonable, and the judge is the one who decides if the search is reasonable.
      - DannyBee 14y ago
        What? You are confusing the warrant requirement, which is completely separate from the reasonableness of a search. I'm not sure how you are coming up with what you think is th analysis, but every law school textbook, supreme court opinion, etc, will tell you that you start with whether the search was reasonable. If the search was reasonable by law , there is no 4th amendment violation. Period. Maybe you are confused because they often say these are not searches? For example, you will read that doing helicopter flyovers, even when looking in people's fields, is reasonable (which at the time, meant it wasn't a violation of the subject's reasonable expectation of privacy), and thus, not considered a search that is subject to the rest of the 4th amendment. This isn't because it's "not a search" in reality, it's because the 4th only protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, not all searches and seizures, and thus, for the rest of 4th amendment purposes, it's not a search. If the search was not reasonable, it either has to fall into an exception, or requires a warrant. Now, current jurisprudence considers most searches without a warrant unreasonable (subject to plain sight, automobile exceptions, etc), but that is irrelevant to the steps in the analysis. You seem to be mixing a lot of the analysis and requirements around.
diminoten 14y ago
A passable CISPA is one that wouldn't allow companies to share information specific to its users (except it's not that simple, if I'm a hacker do I get some kind of special immunity if I register on the website I hacked? What if part of the hack required me to register, is that information suddenly invalid because I have a username and a password?). I should be able to share the md5s of malware I found on my system with my direct competitor without being hit in the face by the Sherman Antitrust Act. I should also be able to disclose to my users/the public that I was hacked in the first place, without fear of being sued. Are you seriously saying these aren't problems?
- ubernostrum 14y ago
  As far as I can tell, I argued that the "solution" CISPA offers is one that is not compatible with the Constitution of the United States. Again, that makes it a bit of a non-starter, regardless of what problem it's attempting to solve.
  - DannyBee 14y ago
    But you haven't explained why it is incompatible. It looks perfectly compatible to me.
  - diminoten 14y ago
    If you invite the soldier into your home, you're bypassing the Constitutional protections you're granted. If Facebook gives its information to the government willingly, there is no Constitutional question to be had. CISPA was a voluntary program, you had to solicit the government in order to be involved, not the other way around.
    - ubernostrum 14y ago
      CISPA is not me inviting police in to search my home. It's someone else coming into my home on behalf of the police, conducting a search the police couldn't legally do, and then reporting back on the results the police. And they're doing this with the encouragement of the police and with a promise of legal immunity from the police. But we're going to pretend that wasn't really a search and that the restrictions that apply to the police don't apply here.

DannyBee 14y ago

The 4th amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, not all of them.

warfangle 14y ago
And when the guy sysoping your data is the one who makes the decision about what's reasonable...?
trobertson 14y ago
Would you find it unreasonable to have a search warrant on every single American's internet activity? As far as I understand it, that is, in effect, what CISPA proposes.
- andylei 14y ago
  > a search warrant on every single American's internet activity? As far as I understand it, that is, in effect, what CISPA proposes. no. no. not at all. please read the bill. it says nothing of the sort.
  - lawnchair_larry 14y ago
    Except that it does, and that's why it's being pushed. See new details uncovered by EPIC: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57581161-38/u.s-gives-big-secret-push-to-internet-surveillance/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57581161-38/u.s-gives-big-... CISPA's true motivation is becoming very clear. It's needed to expand a pilot program for dragnet surveillance by the NSA and defense contractors. You know, the same thing they've been doing for ages and getting sued over by the EFF. If you read the letters in support of CISPA by the defense contractors who are lobbying for it and funding Mike Rogers who authored it, they even acknowledge this program by name (it's called the DIB cyber pilot). That's why the bill is so vague, and why they refuse amendments to narrow the scope. It's a get out of jail free card for complicit companies and they can claim virtually anything is related to "security". They can also be wrong, as long as they claim it was "in good faith". It's more or less the "state secrets privilege" equivalent, but for companies cooperating with the "data sharing". It solves nothing, because it's already legal to share threat data. You just have to scrub it of private or protected information. If its protected, it's because we passed a law for something we felt was worth protecting. For CISPA to just undo all of those laws wholesale is outrageous.
    - GHFigs 14y ago
      It's needed to expand a pilot program for dragnet surveillance by the NSA and defense contractors. What horseshit! Even your own link describes the program as applicable to private networks of the participating companies. That's why there's a quote from an email wondering (emphasis mine) "Will the program cover all parts of the company network -- including say day care centers (as mentioned as a question in a [deputies committee meeting]) and what are the policy implications of this?"
      - lawnchair_larry 14y ago
        No, you stopped reading too soon. It's being extended to ISPs, and customer data.
        GHFigs 14y ago
        I didn't stop reading.
- DannyBee 14y ago
  This is not what CISPA proposes. It really isn't. There are a lot of advocacy organizations (EPIC, etc) that like to bluster about what it does. Right now EPIC is blustering that it's part of authorizing a secret program. What they didn't tell you is that this is their real goal is to gain possible congressional support for the FOIA request they filed, they are just trying to tie it all together so they can gain support from CISPA haters. A lot of these advocacy orgs that lobby are good in the sense of trying to do what they think is right but they often present pretty extreme (IMHO) interpretations of bills/laws and viewpoints to support this. Full disclosure: I have interned at one of these advocacy orgs before (CDT). It's true the government would be happy if they could monitor everyone's activity, but that isn't CISPA, and crying wolf repeatedly about every bill just makes people less likely to care. If they really wanted to monitor everyone's activity, they'd just do it, and clean up the mess later.
  - dontstealmyname 14y ago
    Like passing retroactive bills so its "not illegal". (not saying this one is just that but they have done it in the past so the telcos didn't get sued I believe)
    - DannyBee 14y ago
      Sure, but note that this is completely constitutional, the constitution explicitly grants Congress the right to set the jurisdiction of all courts inferior to the Supreme Court.
darkarmani 14y ago
Except the ones that aren't unreasonable are carried out with a judge's signature or have very narrow latitude (plain sight, hot pursuit).
- stan_rogers 14y ago
  And is not part of the problem here trying to determine the "cyber equivalent" of such things as plain sight and hot pursuit? A lot of what goes on online is the equivalent of high noon in the public square, even if people don't quite understand that.
- DannyBee 14y ago
  No. The judge signature is basically the other part of the 4th amendment, about warrants. That is what makes an otherwise unreasonable search, reasonable: it was reviewed by a neutral magistrate, and the neutral magistrate determined they had probable cause. If the search is reasonable, you don't need anything from a judge. This doesn't mean you can go busting into places, but ...
  - MereInterest 14y ago
    What? No, no, no, NO. That is completely wrong. There are cases where a warrant is not necessary, such as immediate danger to an officer. However, a warrant is issued only upon probable cause. This still needs to be reasonable, and the judge is the one who decides if the search is reasonable.
    - DannyBee 14y ago
      What? You are confusing the warrant requirement, which is completely separate from the reasonableness of a search. I'm not sure how you are coming up with what you think is th analysis, but every law school textbook, supreme court opinion, etc, will tell you that you start with whether the search was reasonable. If the search was reasonable by law , there is no 4th amendment violation. Period. Maybe you are confused because they often say these are not searches? For example, you will read that doing helicopter flyovers, even when looking in people's fields, is reasonable (which at the time, meant it wasn't a violation of the subject's reasonable expectation of privacy), and thus, not considered a search that is subject to the rest of the 4th amendment. This isn't because it's "not a search" in reality, it's because the 4th only protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, not all searches and seizures, and thus, for the rest of 4th amendment purposes, it's not a search. If the search was not reasonable, it either has to fall into an exception, or requires a warrant. Now, current jurisprudence considers most searches without a warrant unreasonable (subject to plain sight, automobile exceptions, etc), but that is irrelevant to the steps in the analysis. You seem to be mixing a lot of the analysis and requirements around.

diminoten 14y ago

A passable CISPA is one that wouldn't allow companies to share information specific to its users (except it's not that simple, if I'm a hacker do I get some kind of special immunity if I register on the website I hacked? What if part of the hack required me to register, is that information suddenly invalid because I have a username and a password?). I should be able to share the md5s of malware I found on my system with my direct competitor without being hit in the face by the Sherman Antitrust Act. I should also be able to disclose to my users/the public that I was hacked in the first place, without fear of being sued. Are you seriously saying these aren't problems?

ubernostrum 14y ago
As far as I can tell, I argued that the "solution" CISPA offers is one that is not compatible with the Constitution of the United States. Again, that makes it a bit of a non-starter, regardless of what problem it's attempting to solve.
- DannyBee 14y ago
  But you haven't explained why it is incompatible. It looks perfectly compatible to me.
- diminoten 14y ago
  If you invite the soldier into your home, you're bypassing the Constitutional protections you're granted. If Facebook gives its information to the government willingly, there is no Constitutional question to be had. CISPA was a voluntary program, you had to solicit the government in order to be involved, not the other way around.
  - ubernostrum 14y ago
    CISPA is not me inviting police in to search my home. It's someone else coming into my home on behalf of the police, conducting a search the police couldn't legally do, and then reporting back on the results the police. And they're doing this with the encouragement of the police and with a promise of legal immunity from the police. But we're going to pretend that wasn't really a search and that the restrictions that apply to the police don't apply here.