[HN Gopher] Proposed bill to ban US government from buying locat...
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Proposed bill to ban US government from buying location data [pdf]
Author : jbegley
Score : 356 points
Date : 2021-04-21 14:48 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wyden.senate.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wyden.senate.gov)
| the-dude wrote:
| Is this a proposal or a new bill?
| rubyist5eva wrote:
| Generally I dislike the big D Democrats, but I'm behind any bill
| that decreases the power of the government.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| I didn't check them all, but there is at least one Republican
| on there (Dianes, Montana)
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Their untenable economic fanstasies aside, the neo-socialists
| (Bernie, AOC and friends) who are rising in the democratic
| party are TONS better than the neoliberal old guard (Biden,
| Feinstein, etc. those kinds of dinosaurs) when it comes to
| showing restraint before throwing additional state law
| enforcement power at problems.
|
| The republicans have made a similar shift in that the
| moralizing christian right has a lot less influence among the
| new ones.
|
| I think things will be a lot better in 10-20yr as the dinosaurs
| from both parties drop dead.
| asimpletune wrote:
| How about just banning buying location data period?
| meowster wrote:
| "It's okay, we didn't buy it, we _shared_ it. "
| monkeybutton wrote:
| Whenever I see articles about this topic I'm left with so many
| questions. Where does one go to buy such location data? Is it
| expensive? Are there minimum orders or do I have to buy all of it
| and hope what I'm looking for is contained in it? Are there
| restrictions on who is allowed to buy it? Who are other consumers
| of the data besides the government, insurance companies? Private
| investigators?
| meowster wrote:
| I'd really like for someone to get a contract, then sell the
| information a la carte for $1-$5 a pop. Until that happens,
| people won't care.
| monkeybutton wrote:
| After some light research, you can apparently subscribe for
| as little as $5k per-month [0]. Not sure how you'd link a
| GAID/IDFA to a person's identity though.
|
| [0] https://datarade.ai/data-products/lifesight-mobility-data
| eatbitseveryday wrote:
| How about we forbid the sale of our location data as a general
| principle, rather than just forbidding the government from
| purchasing it? Couldn't they just contract with a non-govt-entity
| that does have access to the information, and achieve results
| that way?
| an_opabinia wrote:
| This is missing the forest for the trees.
|
| There isn't like, a piece of evidence presented here that any
| of this will matter.
|
| Wyden and others introduce bills of little substance all the
| time, they turn the best polling headline / title into bills.
|
| So in one perspective this is just politics as usual. Wyden's
| idiosyncratic donor focus groups ranked this highest this month
| and we're only hearing about it because this is Hacker News,
| and on some other forum there's some other bill we don't care
| about but also polled well with some other senator's donor
| focus groups.
|
| This isn't saying much, that legislation is reactionary, but
| it's interesting the specific mechanisms nowadays are super-
| representative, super-cheap focus groups and polling, enabled
| by services like Facebook and Instagram that these bills,
| ironically, target.
|
| _Do_ these bills advance the cause of privacy? I don 't really
| need location tracking data to guess that most of the time,
| you're at home or at work.
|
| And if you're eeking out such a subsistence existence that you
| don't have a permanent home or you're jobless? The bigger
| injustice is that the government has set an adversarial sight
| on you in the first place.
| superkuh wrote:
| That is partially how they do things now, yes. This bill is a
| step in the right direction but doesn't actually fix anything.
|
| Since the cell phone system literally cannot work without
| location data (base stations need to know where the handset is)
| the data will always be there. But there's no reason to store
| it for 2-5 years as is currently done by US telcos. A "fix" for
| this situation would be to limit the stored location data to,
| say, a week. Then there would be no incentives for the
| companies to sell the data.
| mjburgess wrote:
| That data is absolutely vital in many criminal investigations
| to, eg., determine whether alibis are accurate. Many
| criminals have been caught in lies by taking calls that place
| them not-where-they-said-they-were.
|
| There's a please clear justification for holding that data
| and making it accessible via a warrant.
|
| What here needs reform is the warrant process, and more
| precisely, the incentive structures around policing.
|
| US DAs/Judges/Police/etc. need to be independent and
| impartial. At the moment excessive US electoral "democracy"
| creates pathological incentive structures.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| They did just fine before location data.
|
| They'll do just fine after location data.
|
| Especially with all the other digital breadcrumbs left
| around (security cameras and whatnot). If you don't think
| someone was somewhere they say they were there's a million
| other ways than phone data to check it out.
|
| Besides, it's not like "oh look his phone was elsewhere"
| ever stopped police from investigating someone. They just
| assume you left it at home or gave it to someone for the
| purposes of an alibi.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _They did just fine before location data._
|
| I hear this sort of argument a lot, and often use it
| myself, but... did they? Sure, law enforcement existed
| and solved cases before they had access to location data,
| but are there some (more recent) cases that would have
| been unsolvable without it? Or has police efficacy not
| increased at all because of access to location data? Do
| we have data on this?
|
| As much as I'm not positive on law enforcement in
| general, I think it's reasonable to have access to
| location data. But that access should be gated behind a
| limited-scope court order, and judges should not be
| rubber-stamping them.
|
| On the other hand, it seems like any capability granted
| to law enforcement ends up getting abused, so I'm
| sympathetic to the idea of just banning all location data
| use.
| apazzolini wrote:
| IANAL, but it seems to me that cell tower triangulation
| data proves a phone was at a given place at a given time
| but says nothing about who was in possession of the phone.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Correct, but if I tell police I took a call from you
| while relaxing at home, and it turns out I did take the
| call, but was actually at the crime scene, then my alibi
| falls apart.
|
| Note this is not an endorsement of the grandparent's
| policy view, just an explanation of how it can be
| applied.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _That data is absolutely vital in many criminal
| investigations_
|
| What you're arguing for here is to holding data _on
| everyone_ for several years on the grounds that you might
| commit a crime in the future or be planning to commit a
| crime now. I 'm OK with this for someone who has aroused
| sufficient suspicion to justify surveillance, but your
| approach makes mass surveillance the default condition.
| Sleepytime wrote:
| Most criminals know to use burner phones or at least turn
| off their phones, I'd be shocked if anything more than a
| token number of them were caught with this data.
|
| Meanwhile it can and does put innocent bystanders (often
| minorities) at risk of arrest or defamation for simply
| being in the area.
|
| >US DAs/Judges/Police/etc. need to be independent and
| impartial.
|
| This is like wishing hell had an air conditioner.
| pupdogg wrote:
| Agreed! Also note that violent Criminals have absolutely
| 0% incentive to purchase firearms via legal means or
| actual background checks leading to denial. Their intent
| to commit harm is by any means possible and they WILL
| figure out a way.
| [deleted]
| ska wrote:
| > There's a please clear justification for holding that
| data and making it accessible via a warrant.
|
| That's not a justification, that's an argument.
|
| A justification would involved evidence-based analysis of
| why the potential benefits (that you point out) outweigh
| the potential risks (abuse of process, targeting, etc.).
|
| Given the current state of affairs (as you point out) it's
| not clear at all that the benefits win.
| kelnos wrote:
| That's what legal holds are for. I agree that a week is
| probably too short, but 3-5 years seems way too long. Six
| months, maybe? And a law enforcement agency can apply for a
| court order to put a hold on deleting data for specific
| people (a request that would require less scrutiny than
| requesting access to the data itself).
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Problem is history has shown that the mere existence of
| such information is too much of a temptation to resist. The
| "extraordinary" circumstances used to justify getting this
| data has a way of expanding over time until it becomes
| almost any routine reason being justification enough. The
| only way to combat this is for the information to not
| exist.
|
| Yes, in some cases this means a guilty person will go free
| but we have a long standing belief in western legal culture
| that it is better for some of the guilty to go free than to
| punish the innocent for the actions of the guilty. Invading
| everyone's privacy in the name of catching the small
| minority that engage in criminal activities is punishing
| the innocent for the crimes of the guilty.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _Yes, in some cases this means a guilty person will go
| free but we have a long standing belief in western legal
| culture that it is better for some of the guilty to go
| free than to punish the innocent for the actions of the
| guilty._
|
| I think that's a fine ideal (that I agree with), but I
| don't think any reverence for it is shared by many in law
| enforcement or the legal profession in general.
| Conviction rates are king, and incentives are often not
| aligned with true justice.
| Sleepytime wrote:
| >The "extraordinary" circumstances used to justify
| getting this data has a way of expanding over time until
| it becomes almost any routine reason being justification
| enough.
|
| One need to look no further than the widespread use of
| swat teams and no knock raids for mundane purposes, when
| even 50 years ago most cities didn't even have a swat
| team.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| That's use it or lose it budgeting for you.
|
| Kind of hard to justify the "APC maintenance" line item
| if the answer to "how much did you use that thing" is
| "never" so things like MRAPs and the swat team get used
| in situations they shouldn't be just to inflate their
| usefulness on paper.
| jfrunyon wrote:
| People wouldn't think the world is so much more dangerous
| than 50 years ago if we didn't use the SWAT so often. And
| if people didn't think the world is more dangerous, then
| those in power wouldn't be able to get away with nearly
| as much money.
| jfrunyon wrote:
| > Then there would be no incentives for the companies to sell
| the data.
|
| That's just not true. You do realize that they sell your
| _live_ location data, right?
| atat7024 wrote:
| Yes there would.
|
| They'd just sell it to the same buyer, or an intermediary, as
| it happens.
| joshka wrote:
| >Couldn't they just contract with a non-govt-entity that does
| have access to the information, and achieve results that way?
|
| On page 2 of the bill, the definition of 'covered customer or
| subscriber record' includes the following:
| (II) an intermediary service provider that delivers,
| stores, or processes communications of such covered
| person;
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| It's pretty clear that the US government has become very
| comfortable using corporate entities to do their dirty work for
| them. This, along with agreements with foreign governments such
| as the Five Eyes Alliance, means the government has pretty much
| limitless power to ignore the spirit of any privacy law while
| still complying with the letter of the law.
|
| Unfortunately many are fine with this because they believe it
| benefits their ideological group, which is more important than
| individual rights.
| undefined1 wrote:
| that's a huge problem and terribly short sighted. it assumes
| a continued hold on power.
| jessaustin wrote:
| The people who own politicians in "both" parties _can_
| assume that.
| barbacoa wrote:
| >Unfortunately many are fine with this because they believe
| it benefits their ideological group, which is more important
| than individual rights.
|
| Sadly true.
|
| A good example from this year:
|
| https://theintercept.com/2021/02/22/capitol-riot-fbi-
| cellpho...
|
| >...the FBI relied in some cases on emergency orders that do
| not require court authorization in order to quickly secure
| actual communications from people...
|
| I remember back in the day when this would outrage people.
| colpabar wrote:
| What really scares me is that it feels like in today's
| climate, the press would not even touch a story like the
| Snowden leaks. Not only that, but any outlet that did would
| be labeled as a spreader of misinformation, and banned.
|
| After all, it's a conspiracy theory, which means it's
| verboten.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| It's not like the press really did all that much with
| Snowden. The few journalists that were involved haven't
| exactly jumped in fame or popularity greatly. In fact,
| looking at Greenwald who was recently ousted out of the
| outlet he started, pretty much the opposite.
|
| The press ran the story in my opinion half heartedly and
| imo forgave the transgressions because it was Obama in at
| the time. Most of the kick was directed right or wrong
| back to Bush.
|
| It's not like Brennan or Clapper or Rice or Yates ever
| faced even a degree of heat for directly lying to
| Congress about domestic spying.
|
| I don't at all disagree we live in a different world now,
| I just don't have a perspective that this specific
| example was really that big at the time. Blurbs and
| tweets and Snowden Celebrity withstanding, the leaks had
| little to no actionable effect I can recall. I could be
| forgetting though.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| ["It's illegal to possess these stolen documents. It's
| different for the media. So everything you learn about
| this you're learning from _us._
| "](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15ZTiAf8fp8)
|
| -CNN
| mLuby wrote:
| Outlaw the sharing (and therefore resale) of _all_ personally
| identifiable information.
|
| If companies want PII from their users, they should ask those
| users directly for permission. The legal test for a violation
| is straightforward: if a user can be de-anonymized from what
| the company shares along with public information.
| teawrecks wrote:
| Or how about a GDPR for the US.
| GloriousKoji wrote:
| As much as I love the spirit of the GDPR it hasn't done much
| other than add in an extra layer of annoying float over bars
| to webpages harassing me about cookies.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I'm in California so our similar law produced a similar
| result, but it's only once per website and (importantly)
| it's extremely clear and gives me a simple choice focused
| on my preferences, rather than those of the website
| operator.
|
| Now if we could just do something about js popups...
| jfrunyon wrote:
| Then you haven't been looking or you aren't in the EU and
| it therefore doesn't even apply to you...
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Absolutely! Please contact your federal Congressional
| representatives and ask them to draft and assemble cosponsors
| for such legislation.
|
| California has made headway with CCPA, you don't need many
| more states before it becomes the default without federal
| action.
|
| There is momentum, and it'd be a shame to waste it.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| what is the indication on how this bill vote will go ?
|
| I see that the cosponsors cross party lines. But is it enough
| that it will make it into law ?
| some_random wrote:
| This is utterly insane, ban private companies from being allowed
| to harvest and sell this data. Why do we think targeting ads to
| pregnant women is a more legitimate use than hunting terrorists
| to the point where the former is ignored and the latter is
| banned?
| LatteLazy wrote:
| I feel like I'm out of the loop on this one. Is there a specific
| reason the government shouldn't buy location data?
|
| I can think of good uses for the data (the census, mapping
| traffic patterns, pandemic modeling).
|
| Purchase histories seem more telling to me if you want to know
| someone's secrets?
|
| Isn't the whole point of organisations like 5-eyes to bypass what
| little domestic restrictions there are?
|
| There are plenty of other entities I'd prefer not to access my
| data including state and lower level governments, corps,
| insurers, foreign governments (I'm a brit to be fully
| transparent).
|
| So why this particular combination of conditions?
| lolthishuman wrote:
| So just use a contractor with access to it?
| joshka wrote:
| On page 2 of the bill, the definition of 'covered customer or
| subscriber record' includes the following:
| (II) an intermediary service provider that delivers,
| stores, or processes communications of such covered
| person;
| lolthishuman wrote:
| Sounds easily bypassed through layers of indirection. Sadly
| this is just legal noise. It doesn't solve the core problem.
| sgc wrote:
| Who will interpret what is meant by "service provider"? If it
| is just a data seller who buys it without receiving it in the
| course of providing a service to the first company, is it
| covered? Will it require a ruling to know for sure?
| imchillyb wrote:
| LOL!!!
|
| The loopholes that this bill leaves unclosed make this entire
| bill just another dog-and-pony-show.
|
| This is just for show, not to affect any type of meaningful
| change.
|
| Making the SALE of ALL location data illegal, to any 3rd party,
| would more than suffice. This proposal is just a song and dance
| for the generally uneducated and uninformed populace.
|
| The government will simply purchase the data from another
| government...
|
| ...YOU KNOW LIKE THEY DO NOW WITH THE 5 EYES PROGRAM...
|
| Useless pandering. They suck.
| abeppu wrote:
| Why would we be concerned specifically about the government
| "buying" this information? I don't know or care how much money
| has exchanged hands through the NSA/AT&T/Room 641A surveillance
| -- if AT&T did that all for free, it wouldn't be any better.
| williesleg wrote:
| Google and apple can keep it! Same with verizon, I trust them
| all!
| minikites wrote:
| Why are private companies more trustworthy than the government?
| mpalczewski wrote:
| People in private companies want to make money.
|
| People in government want power.
| superkuh wrote:
| Private companies cannot use physical force against you or
| deprive you of your volition.
| meowster wrote:
| Apple disagrees with you.
|
| https://www.mercurynews.com/2011/09/02/apple-security-
| person...
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/09/sfpd-
| investigating-i...
| site-packages1 wrote:
| i.e. not necessarily less trustworthy, but less able to
| enforce their will upon you
| username90 wrote:
| Neither can the government, there are laws against that. If
| you argue that they can ignore the law since they are
| politicians, then what use are laws stating that the
| government can't keep your private information?
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I don't think the "deprive you of your volition" part is
| true. Private companies can absolutely do this to you as an
| individual - either as an employee or a consumer. And, they
| can do it through both direct and indirect means.
| Natsu wrote:
| That doesn't exactly make them trustworthy. Also, that hasn't
| always been true... e.g.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town
| klvino wrote:
| Understand the intent behind the bill. Wouldn't the bill be
| closer to effectiveness if it banned corporations from selling to
| any government and not only the US government? By only banning
| the "US government" in the "purchase" of the data, it doesn't
| prevent acquiring the same data from another governmental body
| (Canada buys the data and shares with US Intelligence community,
| suddenly & mysteriously trade relations with Canada improve).
|
| So many loopholes, the bill becomes 'feel good' legislation
| instead of effective legislation.
| xxpor wrote:
| I'm not sure it'd be constitutional for congress to ban selling
| something to a state government if the goods aren't themselves
| illegal
| stevenicr wrote:
| Also make it so selling / giving access to location data
| without explicit opt-in consent, along with notification to
| users if their data was accessed / rented / sold / used in a
| thing that others had access to.. basic transparency should
| be added as well imho.
|
| that could make some of 'the goods' illegal.
|
| and no I don't think t-mobile's recent email about privacy
| changes should count as opted in - I know the other users of
| the plans did not even get such an email also.
| NwtnsMthd wrote:
| ITAR restrictions come to mind but I'm not sure if they're
| the same. For example, if I were to produce a gyroscope with
| sufficient accuracy the U.S. government can legally prevent
| me from selling it to foreign entities. Sure my product has
| excellent civil uses but it can also be used in weaponry
| (e.g. missiles). Data may have similar implications but I've
| never thought about this in depth.
| cfqycwz wrote:
| Not a lawyer but I think this would be constitutional in the
| same way that international sanctions are constitutional. The
| regulation of interstate and foreign commerce is an
| enumerated power given to congress and usually interpreted
| pretty broadly.
| xxpor wrote:
| That's right, but a company in a state selling to a state
| gov isn't engaging in interstate commerce. Maybe SCOTUS
| will use the cockamamie "but the market is nationwide so it
| still affects it" excuse but normally...
| willcipriano wrote:
| Wickard v. Filburn pretty much ended the idea of any real
| limitations in regards to calling something interstate
| commerce:
|
| "An Ohio farmer, Roscoe Filburn, was growing wheat to
| feed animals on his own farm. The US government had
| established limits on wheat production, based on the
| acreage owned by a farmer, to stabilize wheat prices and
| supplies. Filburn grew more than was permitted and so was
| ordered to pay a penalty. In response, he said that
| because his wheat was not sold, it could not be regulated
| as commerce, let alone 'interstate" commerce'..."
|
| Roscoe lost.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Wickard v. Filburn pretty much ended limitations in
| regards to interstate commerce.
|
| It did not, illustrated by among others, _US v. Lopez_.
|
| https://www.oyez.org/cases/1994/93-1260
| willcipriano wrote:
| How would they claim this isn't a economic activity?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > That's right, but a company in a state selling to a
| state gov isn't engaging in interstate commerce.
|
| A company commercially gathering data that is not
| exclusively limited to data on in-state activities of in-
| state residents from (transitively) exclusively in-state
| sources, and selling it, is engaging in interstate
| commerce.
| yazaddaruvala wrote:
| Wouldn't you just do an export ban on that "product"? I'm not
| a lawyer, but as I understand it there is no constitutional
| limitation. A relatively recent example[0], although maybe
| congress/POTUS require extenuating circumstances to get
| around the constitution?
|
| [0] https://www.fema.gov/fact-sheet/allocation-rule-personal-
| pro...
| lvs wrote:
| Export controls. Interstate commerce. There's plenty of
| precedent for federal statute regulating international and
| interstate commerce.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| Precedent isn't necessary when that is one of the federal
| government's few enumerated powers.
| lvs wrote:
| I understand you're being pedantic, but that's actually
| false.
| slg wrote:
| >Wouldn't the bill be closer to effectiveness if it banned
| corporations from selling to any government and not only the US
| government?
|
| Why stop there? If this data is dangerous for governments to
| have it, why is it safe for corporations to have it? Why not
| have a bill banning the collection of this data or these
| specific use cases of already collected data? I don't
| understand why we should inherently trust corporations more
| than governments.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| roenxi wrote:
| Mainly because 'the government' has all these people with
| guns and flak jackets that are perfectly happy to come after
| people proactively.
|
| If McDonalds maintained a SWAT team and was run by people
| known to bomb weddings in the pursuit of regional stability,
| I'd be worried about them having my location data too. But
| they're not going to so that, they're going to come up with a
| crooked scheme to feed me more burgers.
|
| The quality of the outcome is arguable, but the level of risk
| is much lower.
| gentleman11 wrote:
| Speaking of loopholes, does this affect border control
| agencies? I read that they can sort of do what they like within
| x miles of a border
| Black101 wrote:
| They have a lot of freedom 100 miles inside the border, and
| pretty much all of Florida is covered by this 100 mile non-
| sense and probably at least half of California:
| https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/border-zone/
| jcranmer wrote:
| FWIW, that map isn't accurate. The border starts from the
| boundary of international waters, not the coastline itself,
| which cuts out a few areas (most notably Chicago and DC, as
| Lake Michigan and the Chesapeake Bay are no longer the
| starting point).
|
| (I haven't seen the ACLU provide any legal citation to the
| claim that it starts from the coastline.)
| coliveira wrote:
| This is not the interpretation given by enforcement
| agencies, it seems:
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-14/mappin
| g-w...
|
| Maybe what you say was the origina intent, but we know
| how the enforcement agencies love to reinterpret the laws
| to their advantage.
| jcranmer wrote:
| I looked into the case a touch more (see
| https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6106095/michigan-
| immigr...).
|
| The key relevance I see is https://www.courtlistener.com/
| recap/gov.uscourts.mied.316027... (which includes the
| CBP's response to the allegations of the 100-mile border
| being counted from the coastline), where the CBP sort of
| denies that this is the case. It also sort of doesn't
| deny it, but this can very easily be a case of "we don't
| want to stake out a position in legal documents if we
| don't have to" (which is not an unreasonable thing for a
| lawyer to do whether the ACLU's claim is right or wrong).
| coliveira wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the ACLU wouldn't invent a case regarding
| border laws if they're not being used to persecute
| people. You seem to be asking the ACLU to prove that the
| law is correct as a prerequisite to fight against abuses
| of this law.
| [deleted]
| zrail wrote:
| Page 10 of this PDF from the Congressional Research
| Service has an updated map that shows what the parent
| commenter is talking about:
| https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46601
| Black101 wrote:
| > Wouldn't the bill be closer to effectiveness if it banned
| corporations from selling to any government
|
| They should just ban them from selling it to anyone. Otherwise,
| they can buy the information from a homeless Russian?
| lvs wrote:
| I doubt the limitation is lost on Wyden et al, but there is a
| political barrier to getting a bill like this passed at all.
| It's a lot more symbolic to introduce a bill with no chance in
| hell of passing the Senate than to introduce one that has at
| least a fighting shot. That is the piecemeal and practical
| nature of the legislative process. It will be more achievable
| to get Senate votes to constrain the government's actions than
| to regulate business. Until there's a stronger shift in the
| political winds in favor of more robust regulation of the
| private sector data collection business, the probability of
| getting over the filibuster hurdle to pass a stronger bill is
| remote.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I'd imagine the intent is to require government to obtain a
| warrant prior to collecting location data.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| They won't regulate the data broker industry precisely
| because they don't want the warrantless data pipe to be cut
| off. Location tracking is just a small piece of the invasive
| activities going on.
| kevmo wrote:
| Bernie Sanders is on the right side of damn near everything.
| psychlops wrote:
| Why is the fourth amendment not sufficient to stop this? Why do
| we need a bill to stop companies from selling to the government
| which is violating constitutional law by consuming the data?
|
| No specific warrant, the data cannot be used.
| advisedwang wrote:
| The fourth amendment stops the government forcing a company to
| disclose customer records, but it doesn't stop that company
| voluntarily turning over the records (ie selling it).
| joshka wrote:
| There's a better 1 page summary of the bill at
| https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/The%20Fourth%20Am...
| yellowyacht wrote:
| I'd love to see a similar bill to ban the US Government from
| banning encryption. Would that need to be an amendment?
| RobRivera wrote:
| new legal racket on acquiring and providing 'free' data to the
| government, totally unrelated to other contracts, when?
| shockeychap wrote:
| I get why bills are written in the same long-form as contracts.
| But it creates the problem that, just like most contracts, people
| don't really understand the contents. (Did you actually read the
| pile of papers you signed for your mortgage?)
|
| Would it be unreasonable to require any proposed legislation
| include a comprehensive summary written at something like a 10th
| grade reading level?
|
| Something like this could help eliminate the manner in which
| long-form effectively bars most citizen participation in the
| legislative process. It would also force a degree of clarity on
| the implications and meanings within a proposal.
|
| We should never, ever have to hear "We need to pass it so we can
| see what's in it."
|
| As an aside, I also think there should be hard limits on the size
| of a single piece of legislation. If a competent reader can't sit
| down, read, and understand it in a single sitting, it's too long.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| > Did you actually read the pile of papers you signed for your
| mortgage?
|
| Yes, and it took a long time and really pissed off the sales
| person. Apparently I was the only one to actually read that
| stuff. And I learned how to opt-out of their marketing crap and
| I did so - boy were they bothered when I called them on sharing
| my info after I opted out. I think I must have been the only
| one ever to opt-out.
| Ruthalas wrote:
| Out of curiosity, how do you make changes or opt out?
| meowster wrote:
| I also read my mortgage paperwork (annoyed the title
| company, but they didn't make it an issue, my realtor was
| fine with it). Mine didn't have anything about advertising
| or data sharing though. Mine was through a credit union,
| and the fine print was all reasonable.
| randomdude402 wrote:
| I read mine also. The lender seemed way more surprised
| than I would have expected.
|
| Then the title person later was like, "Almost all of this
| is standardized stuff. It's not really like you can
| negotiate it at this point."
|
| Whatever, lady, I want to know what I'm signing, I want
| to see that this version matches the version I already
| signed last night (it didn't), and for half a million
| bucks, you can hang out for ten minutes while I do it.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| There was no way to make changes, it was sign or walk away.
| But I still wanted to know what I was signing. I was told
| over and over 'this is all boilerplate'. The part about
| their selling my new address and personal info was not
| boilerplate and had an opt-out option in the fine print. I
| just exercised the opt-out - something I had to send in
| separately.
| deathanatos wrote:
| > _I was told over and over 'this is all boilerplate'._
|
| I really hate this response, and I've heard it so many
| times. It's "boilerplate" only because nobody can be
| bothered to read it to find out how they're being
| screwed, mostly because most of these are ridiculously
| long. If one doesn't want to negotiate, that's fine, but
| just be straight about it and quit wasting my time.
|
| In one particular "contract", it was also insinuated that
| I didn't know what I was talking about, because I was
| (am) not a lawyer. I might not be, but I am not signing
| anything about "copywrite" (sic). (And there were more
| semantic errors to that particular one: I was being asked
| to sign over rights to a work that I didn't have rights
| to. They had waited until _literally the day of a
| performance_ to show us this, too. It didn 't get
| signed.)
| blackboxlogic wrote:
| I also read my mortgage, bank man said no one had ever done
| that and he clearly had not read it himself. The agreement
| obligated me to pay the bank unlimited money (in fees) and
| forbid using the loan for the purposes it was advertised for.
| karmelapple wrote:
| Agreed. And add in having easily-viewed diffs over the course
| of the bill's evolution, so we can see who's making which
| changes.
|
| But there's a lot of inertia against changes like this. And
| hard limits on bills mean there's less horse-trading to help
| certain legislators sign onto a bill (which often might be
| pork). Not a great realization, but it's part of how bills get
| passed.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _And add in having easily-viewed diffs over the course of the
| bill's evolution, so we can see who's making which changes._
|
| We already have that, except a) it's not as easily to read as
| it might be and b) without significant study, it's often not
| obvious what the import of a change is.
|
| I think we need to be thinking about a long term goal fo
| dispensing with representatives as they currently exist and
| moving toward a wiki-ocracy, where anyone can write or edit
| parts of the legal code but there are procedures for conflict
| resolution, as well as constraints of various kinds.
| infogulch wrote:
| We need radically more light on the activities of
| legislators. Sunlight cleanses all.
|
| I think this is necessary to get us out of the quagmire that
| we find ourselves in, but any additional transparency will
| inevitably lead to witch hunts which -- even if deserved --
| will lead to instability. We need to give ourselves and our
| representatives a path to transition to the light without
| letting cynical people bomb out the foundations of our
| society with emotion-fueled rage mobs.
|
| Perhaps another post on the front page right now is relevant
| here:
|
| On the bare necessity of psychological safety -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26860743
| jfrunyon wrote:
| That (sorta) exists. This bill doesn't appear to be on
| Congress.gov yet, but as an example,
| https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1
| shockeychap wrote:
| I appreciate the example, but that's way too broad and
| abstract compared to what I'm talking about.
|
| "Specifically, the bill expands voter registration (e.g.,
| automatic and same-day registration) and voting access (e.g.,
| vote-by-mail and early voting). It also limits removing
| voters from voter rolls."
|
| "The bill addresses ethics in all three branches of
| government, including by requiring a code of conduct for
| Supreme Court Justices, prohibiting Members of the House from
| serving on the board of a for-profit entity, and establishing
| additional conflict-of-interest and ethics provisions for
| federal employees and the White House."
|
| What does any of that mean specifically? Expands voter
| registration and access how? Imposes what limits on removing
| voters from voter rolls? What's in the code of conduct for
| Supreme Court Justices? And on and on and on.
|
| There has to be middle ground between a useless and abstract
| summary - that sounds more like a commercial than a true
| summary - and the bill itself with several pages of preamble
| just to define well-understood terms.
| Thrymr wrote:
| The more specific the summary, the more likely it is to be
| incorrect in some strict sense. Then if all of it becomes
| law, the courts have to interpret which part is right.
| shockeychap wrote:
| So, by that logic, a summary must be so vague as to be
| meaningless, lest it risk being incorrect by the
| strictest of standards.
|
| We can do better. It would be very easy to establish a
| broad "good-faith" standard for a legislative summary
| while also specifying it's use for "informational
| purposes only."
| tediousdemise wrote:
| Counterpoint: perhaps companies could still "donate" location
| data to the government, maybe even for exclusive perks such as
| tax write-offs or access to information and resources.
|
| This bill sounds nice in principle, but like everything else,
| could be completely negated by simple loopholes. It could even be
| smoke and mirrors, so that they can say this issue has already
| been addressed by legislation. Defective legislation is rampant.
| jessaustin wrote:
| IANAL, but those perks would seem to be covered by " _in
| exchange for anything of value_ ".
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Surely the NSA already has all this data, whether legal or not?
|
| Do people think things have fundamentally changed after Snowden?
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