US Senate Amends EARN IT Act -- To Let States Restrict Encryption (engadget.com) 89
Long-time Slashdot reader stikves reminded us that a committee in the U.S. Senate passed an amended version of the "EARN IT" act on Thursday. And this new version could do more than just end personal end-to-end encryption, warns Engadget:
The other major concern opponents of the EARN IT Act raise has to do with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which says that companies are not liable for much of the content that users post. Originally, the EARN IT Act proposed requiring that companies "earn" Section 230 protections by following recommended practices outlined by a Department of Justice commission. Without those protections, companies like Twitter or Facebook might be compelled to remove anything that might prompt a legal challenge, which could threaten freedom of speech. The amendments passed Thursday strip the Department of Justice commission of any legal authority and will not require companies to earn Section 230 protections by following recommended practices.
But the amended bill would change Section 230 to allow lawsuits from states, and state legislatures could restrict or outlaw encryption technologies.
The senior policy counsel for Free Press Action, a media reform advocacy group, harshly criticized the legislation's new version.
"Even as amended today, it invites states to begin passing all sorts of laws under the guise of protecting against abuse, but replicating the problems with the original EARN IT Act's text."
But the amended bill would change Section 230 to allow lawsuits from states, and state legislatures could restrict or outlaw encryption technologies.
The senior policy counsel for Free Press Action, a media reform advocacy group, harshly criticized the legislation's new version.
"Even as amended today, it invites states to begin passing all sorts of laws under the guise of protecting against abuse, but replicating the problems with the original EARN IT Act's text."
Big Brother (Score:1)
This government keels over faster than the Weimar Republic. At least their legislators were properly educated.
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So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
Internet lawsuits are always federal (Score:2)
So it's basically relieving restrictions on social media companies (unlike what we've been told, which would be to increase restrictions and regulation). Given Internet lawsuits are always federal, I'm not sure what the worry is that states may provide restrictions. Simply don't do business in that state then, the Feds regulate the Internet since it's nearly always crossing state lines.
Re:Internet lawsuits are always federal (Score:4, Insightful)
the Feds regulate the Internet since it's nearly always crossing state lines.
The state can still make regulations for the part of commerce that happens within the state. The "Use Tax" is a common example of this.
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It's not end to end encryption if it doesn't make it to the other end. Really, though, it's a very clear 1st amendment issue and doesn't stand a chance in a reasonable court.
Re:Internet lawsuits are always federal (Score:5, Informative)
it's a very clear 1st amendment issue and doesn't stand a chance in a reasonable court.
I think you are probably correct that the government cannot force companies to break end-to-end encryption. So instead, the government is saying, "If you let us snoop, we will reward you with section 230 protections."
Under the law, there is speech you can be sued for, such as saying lies that hurt other people (libel). Section 230 says, "the website hosting the content isn't responsible for that content, the person who posted it is." Without section 230, you could sue both the person who posted it, and the website that hosted it.
It has a chilling effect because websites won't want to allow comments and risk being sued, but I don't see why it would fail in court.
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Kind of hard to be responsible for the contents of a message that nobody can read. Still wouldn't have any teeth.
Re:Internet lawsuits are always federal (Score:4, Informative)
Kind of hard to be responsible for the contents of a message that nobody can read.
This argument shows you didn't read and don't understand the law. If Apple isn't letting the feds snoop on messages in iChat, then they lose the protections of 230 for all their websites. Same with Google.
Re: Internet lawsuits are always federal (Score:1)
We no longer have reasonable courts.
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I still believe the Use Tax for Internet purchases would be unconstitutional. The fact that our lawmakers disagree because they need the income doesn't make it morally wrong.
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"in order to speed up the process and relieve the already clogged justice system" ofcourse
im not sure (one never is here) but i dont think it passed
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Social media companies do require restrictions because people will be people. There should be a legal distinction between 'real name' social people, people using the actual name in public social interactions and pseudonym social media where people communicate through anonymising public social interactions.
People using their real name with public statements, pushes it all into the more factual legal area, less about opinions and more about statements of fact. Using a pseudonym immediately puts in into the mo
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You want my real name for your antisocial media? Screw you, that Russian/Chinese/Iranian site over there doesn't, I'm going there!
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"Pseudonym based social media because of the anonymisation factor, create that barrier, keeping the silliness online where it is way more harmless than real world interactions, where that silliness often become real world violence."
You are not paying any attention at all.
"To quieten things down, real name social media, full legal liability for all statements made. Pseudonym social media than maintains anonymisation distance for it's participants, limited liability if the specific content breaks the law and
Dumbest idea ever (Score:5, Interesting)
How, pray tell, are encrypted communications supposed to function as they pass through multiple points in varying States all of which will have different laws ?
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That will be interstate commerce. Would require a Constitutional amendment to make that a state power.
Re: Dumbest idea ever (Score:2)
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Because if you don't support the PATRIOT act and the PROTECTKIDS act you are a terrorist pedophile who hates America.
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As an outsider I have to ask: why are so many laws in the USA given such torturously tortuous acronyms?
It reflects the mental age of the drafters.
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Indeed, at the very best you will be forced to follow the laws of the most regressive state of all nationally...
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How, pray tell, are encrypted communications supposed to function as they pass through multiple points in varying States all of which will have different laws ?
Precisely the way the government wants them to.
Senators should “earn” their pensions (Score:2)
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Politicians should be paid fuck-all and any time they're not at work when needed for literally anything they should be arrested and dragged to their chair kicking and screaming.
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The problem with this is obvious (Score:2)
Criminals are going to continue to use end-to-end encryption regardless of these laws, and in practice there isn't any actual way to know when and where end-to-end encryption is being used unless you just outlaw absolutely all communication that those in law enforcement simply don't happen to understand.
Which means that the proposal is actually the same thing as making it illegal to communicate in any language that law enforcement doesn't happen to have any available means of translating.
Re:The problem with this is obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
In their eyes, everyone is a criminal online. And yeah, we'll probably all keep using end to end encryption. You can't put the genie back in the bottle now.
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There's a saying in German, the knave thinks (others are) the way he is.
Never been more applicable than with politicians and the laws they make.
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It's just showboating. It's politicians saying "we're tough on crime," and then when the law gets promptly struck down as unconstitutional (and completely absurd), they'll blame activist judges.
Talk about unworkable. (Score:4, Interesting)
You can't restrict compromised encryption to a single state and they know it. This bill is garbage and any congress critter supporting it deserves all the ridicule they receive.
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Ridicule is water off a duck's back when they're just reelected for the 5th, 6th, 7th time.
Instead of "ridicule", think about replacement
And blocking unauthorized encryption is quite trivial, even without deep packet inspection
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Sure you can. Just look at how the US government stopped the spread of encryption technologies in the 90s. Remember how there were two software packages, one for the USA with strong encryption, and one for the rest of the world with weak encryption, and no one ever downloaded the one not intended for their jurisdiction?
Yeah I don't remember that either, and yes my post was sarcastic. It seems the government has not learnt that global services don't follow arbitrary state/nation boundaries.
It'll be rewritten a few more times (Score:2, Interesting)
There will be more amendments and there would have to be a House version and then they go to a committee to reconcile the differences and then the potus can still veto it.
As described this version sounds like crap but the final could be dramatically different.
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Don't forget the unrelated bullshit both parties will cram in if they think the primary bill will pass.
The only winners are lawyers (Score:2)
The US Senate is broken on so many levels. They can't even get a vote on a police reform bill.
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Of course they can't reform the police. If you want to reform the police then you'll have to fund the services that used to be done before budget cuts just transferred everything over to the police. Things like dealing with hyperactive kids in schools, responding to people in mental crisis, juvenile crime, domestic situations, etc. You need to hire extra teachers, mental health workers, youth workers, and social workers to deal with all of those problems. Public education, free mental health care, youth pro
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It's because they can't figure out how to write one in a way that will win them more votes. When you understand that they don't care about the people, they only care about staying in power and enriching themselves, their behavior is more easily understood.
more citizens become criminals, Win for the Gov. (Score:1)
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."
-- Ayn Rand
If we lose Section 230 the Internet is done (Score:5, Insightful)
It'll turn into cable TV. Only the wealthiest will have a voice. Which is exactly why they're attacking S230. Christ, can we, as a nation, really be this dumb? How can we not see this coming? It's not going to be the free speech paradise everybody thinks it is. It's the opposite. Money will be censorship. If you don't have money you'll censored.
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It will no longer be his site, his rules. It will be run by lawsuit instead.
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So Section 230 is just a 'help keep the wealthy people wealthy' law. It can go, IMO.
S230 is the "give poor people a voice" law. Without it, we'll head back to the 3 broadcast networks model, where all content will be created by megacorps and blanded down by their army of lawyers. S230 is what lets Slashdot publish my opinion that the President is a dick without worrying about getting sued. Without it, they could not let you know that I think the President is a dick.
IOW, it's pretty important to anyone who posts anything they created themselves on the Interwebs.
It is his voice (Score:3)
Zuck will make sure his company gets protections in whatever replaces S230. His competitors will be left out in the cold. You will have nowhere else to go but Facebook, and everything you say online will be vetted by Zuckerberg and a handful of the ultra rich.
That's their goal. What I don't get is why so few seem to realize it.
#votethebumsout (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously. I don't care if you're a Republican, or a Democrat, or Independent or Klingon.
If you are 18 or older, register to vote, find the least worst candidate running in your local elections for Congress, and remove these people. If it's a tie for least worst, vote out all the incumbents.
Eventually we may even find some CongressCritters who actually put their constituents interests ahead of their greed and power hunger. If not, lather, rinse, repeat.
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A campaign to make people think there are more people to elect than the president would help quite a bit.
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The obvious way to game that system is to just run against any incumbent and pretend to be better, which is clearly what happens. Rinsing and repeating will just get more of the same.
Ideally (IMO) we would have some sort of merit-based qualification for federal office (just a basic reasoning test really), a multiparty system with ranked voting, and an effective recall system. Out of all of those, an effective recall system would probably be the most difficult thing to implement.
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It will take a massive voter initiative to get those kinds of rules put into place. Some places are making baby steps, so anything is possible.
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The obvious way to game that system is to just run against any incumbent and pretend to be better, which is clearly what happens. Rinsing and repeating will just get more of the same.
Ideally (IMO) we would have some sort of merit-based qualification for federal office (just a basic reasoning test really), a multiparty system with ranked voting, and an effective recall system. Out of all of those, an effective recall system would probably be the most difficult thing to implement.
Merit-based qualification? Isn't that like Science? With the current political climate, trying to use Science to get anything done means nothing will happen.
The hardest part of an effective recall system would be getting anyone in Congress to vote in favor of it. And then probably they'd abrogate responsibility at the Federal level, and make each state implement it's own solution... kind of like the article that started this whole mess.
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Merit-based qualification [for holding federal office]? Isn't that like Science?
No, it's like literacy tests for voting.
- It sounds like a good idea - that voting "ought to" be limited th those able to read the news and make informed decisions on the people and issues they vote on.
- But as implemented, bogus tests were used to disqualify the voters who might have opposed the powers that be.
In particular, it was used to disenfranchise the freedmen and poor farmers in the post-civil-war south,
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- It sounds like a good idea - that voting "ought to" be limited th those able to read the news and make informed decisions on the people and issues they vote on.
In particular, it was used to disenfranchise the freedmen and poor farmers in the post-civil-war south, which is what got it banned.
And also used as the copy protection for Leisure Suit Larry!
All politicians are
a. hardworking.
b. honest.
c. ethical.
d. on the public payroll.
(Correct answer: d)
Paul, John, Ringo and
a. Fred.
b. George.
c. Harry.
d. me.
(Correct answer: b)
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...and that points to a greater problem. Everything is potentially gamed, and people have grown to believe that something should be gamed if it can be. By and large, people have become increasingly selfish and unethical; they lack an inherent intolerance for bad behavior, they accept it in their lives and exhibit it constantly online. It's not clear at all why we should look to voting as a solution to anything when voting is gamed like everything else. Democracy doesn't work when the people have no back
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If you are 18 or older, register to vote, find the least worst candidate running in your local elections for Congress, and remove these people.
The least worst candidate is one of those people. You've the choice between dog shit and horse shit for dinner. Which do you prefer?
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Free speech is already gone (Score:2)
The Left and the Right both want to control what you say and make it only what they want to hear. We will be left with nothing in the end.
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https://pelosi.house.gov/news/... [house.gov]
Encryption is freedom of speech (Score:4)
It should be unconstitutional to do anything with encryption because it protects freedom of speech. Since it is treated as a munition it can be regulated and controlled like a weapon.
Encryption should enjoy constitutional protection under US law.
my 2c
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2A protects guns and encryption? interesting theory but i doubt the SCOTUS has the balls
That's your theory. Encryption is subject to export control laws as a munition.
In reality encryption should enjoy 1A protection.
These people are morns! (Score:2)
Yea! Right!!!
Just my 2 cents
Check the "Aout" page of (Score:1)
tough titties (Score:2)
I express myself in encrypted form, typically AES-512. You can't stop me. Since it's legal to shout "fuck it" in a crowded room, then I can say "shpx vg" whenever I want.
Priorities (Score:2)
They'll withold state funding (Score:3)
But the amended bill would change Section 230 to allow lawsuits from states, and state legislatures could restrict or outlaw encryption technologies
I see what they're doing here - instead of the federal government mandating that E2E encryption is illegal/outlawed/must be circumventable, they'll force states to do that - by making it a condition for funding (or other such thing).
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That's a fairly standard part of US politics. If the federal government lacks the power to do something that states can, it may force the hand of states by making funding conditional upon it. Often the area being funded is completely unrelated to the pressure desired. In one particularly amusing case, back in the 70s, funding for highway construction was conditional upon states having a religious exemption to child abuse laws. What's the connection between child abuse and highways? There isn't one: But if s
Pet peeve (Score:2)
Why is it that most "news" platforms and even opinion spouters have an amazing inability to clearly list *which* highly respected overpaid dimwitted excuses for braindamaged houseplants in the Senate, House or Lunar orbit support the bill? They don't care about anything except money or things that might interfere with getting re-elected & a flood of irate emails about something they don't really care about does get their attention. Mean email = unhappy voter. Senator Gronk staff say they see many. Senat
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Wow (Score:2)
Sure glad my country is not this stupid.
You can have my PGP (Score:1)
Updates at the last minute before a holiday (Score:2)
These idiots are trying to hide their BS with last minute updates before a holiday. You can't force master keys on all of electronic communications, just like you can't force master keys on all safes and physical locks (and I'm not talking about the TSA and flying here).
Vote these idiots out, its the only way. Taking away privacy needs to be a career ending move in politics or it will keep coming back.
Longer keys, shorter life for certs. Now this? (Score:1)
Seems like we take a step forward and right after that they want to take a few steps backwards!