I really do. But sometimes the combination of Orwell and Rand becomes too obtrusive to bear. To wit: the CISA blowup.
The gloriously bipartisan Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015, sponsored by freedom-loving Republican Richard Burr (NC) and — guess who? — our old friend Dianne Feinstein (D-Control Freak) would “allow” tech companies to “voluntarily” share information about their customers with the federal “security” apparatus “so it can be analyzed for signs of lawbreaking – be it computer related or not.”
Companies that “volunteer” would be given legal immunity against angry customers. But as the linked article in The Register points out, legal action by betrayed customers would be unlikely because the information sharing would be secret and not even subject to Freedom of Information Act requests.
Feinstein said organizations won’t be forced to reveal citizens’ private lives to Uncle Sam: it won’t be mandatory for businesses to hand over people’s private records, she claimed.
“If you don’t like the bill, you don’t have to do it,” Feinstein said.
Oh good. That must mean us little folks get to opt out, right? Right?
Feinstein continues:
“So it’s hard for me to understand why we have companies like Apple and Google and Microsoft and others saying they can’t support the bill at this time. You have no reason, because you don’t have to do anything, but there are companies by the hundreds if not thousands that want to participate in this.”
Please name those eager thousands, Ms Feinstein. So we can publicize their good citizenship!
And those companies that don’t “volunteer”? Ms Feinstein’s collaborator Burr has words for them:
… Burr said on the floor that he couldn’t understand the opposition to CISA. Businesses against the new law will put their users at risk, he said, because by not sharing people’s personal information, they will not be given intelligence and heads up on attacks from the Feds.
“When the companies who are against this get hacked, they are going to be begging to cooperate with the federal government,” he opined.
So … “volunteer” and the fedgov will help protect your company (while screwing your users). Fail to “volunteer” and you won’t be warned of known security threats to your operation (thus screwing your users). And we’ll soon have you on your knees, begging.
And no, it’s not too much of a leap to assume that if you fail to “volunteer” to rat on your customers the fedgov’s “security” agencies themselves will become that threat to your company’s security.
—–
This creepy mess, with all its Randian-Orwellian justifications, is expected to come up for a Senate vote soon. Yes, Mr. Burr, Ms. Feinstein. You just go ahead and hammer that new nail in the coffin of U.S. tech industries. Farewell to their hopes of operating overseas, especially in Europe. Farewell to their brightest U.S. customers.
It’s hard to believe that even these petty tyrants and the secretive unintelligent agencies that have no doubt put them up to this can be so obsessed with omnivorous information gathering that they’ve blinded themselves to the ruination they’d be wreaking.
One teeny part of me almost wants to see this bill pass. For their past collaboration with illegal NSA snoopery (known and unknown) the group of companies usually referred to as “the tech giants” deserves the blow that such a law would deliver. Never mind that they’ve so recently found privacy religion.
Then the better part of me quickly says no, don’t let this happen. Not to anybody.
But for cryin’ out loud, if you’re going to do it, at least be honest about what you’re up to.
Oh. But I forget. They’re politicians. And this is the 21st century where saying what you mean and meaning what you say is strictly for us rubes.
Whenever I read such things as Mr. Burr’s jerimiad, it calls to mind the classic image of a couple of Cosa Nostra soldiers “selling fire ensurance” to the proprietor of a new restaurant.
“Nice place ya got here, my friend, real classy…I’ll bet this paintjob musta costcha’ bundle. Sure would be a shame if you was t’have a accident…like a fire’a somethin’. Man takes all the trouble inna world, but y’know how it goes…one bad pilot light an’ FOOM! Saw it hap’n just las’ mont’ over on 93rd, poor fella’s whole life savin’s up inta smoke. Sure would hate ferdat t’happen t’YOUS…”
“It’s hard to believe that even these petty tyrants and the secretive unintelligent agencies that have no doubt put them up to this can be so obsessed with omnivorous information gathering that they’ve blinded themselves to the ruination they’d be wreaking.”
Unless, of course, that was the point.
“Unless, of course, that was the point.”
Yup. And that reeks of Rand, doesn’t it? I’ve been slogging my way through Atlas Shrugged again, finding it ridiculously exaggerated. Then I read this …
“image of a couple of Cosa Nostra soldiers”
Perhaps Sen. Burr will have a second (and dare I say more respectable) career ahead of him.
The uproar over this bill is completely ignoring the fact that it calls for sharing information “– be it computer related or not.” So it’s not just technology and tech companies that are involved here, but any/every company the feds want information from. The entire business world would soon be attached to the “federal “security” apparatus” (and soon to be taken over _a la_ the banks.) .
Too late… The barn door has been open for so long some of us forget that the horses are long gone… Is there any business left that would resist “sharing” our information? I’d like a list, please.
I had to see a doctor this week. They just HAD to see my driver’s license, or a passport… No choice, it’s the “LAW” to prove my identity. Never mind that I’ve lived in this very small town for ten years. So, ok. It’s not as if the PTB don’t already have access to that. It’s their card and numbers, far as I’m concerned.
I was amazed, however, not to be asked all the stupid and pointless questions we’ve discussed from time to time. They didn’t even ask me about guns… and were bright enough not to even offer me a “flu shot.”
Yes… a dentist office asked for my SS number a few years ago, they said the law demanded that they ask for it. I told them “But I don’t have to give it.” They took me anyway. I don’t know what would happen now; the medical field has already been semi-nationalized, so I probably would be refused.
But it’s the “indie” shops of local communities that worry me. The big money businesses (including the medical profession), helped bring it on themselves through lobbying and complying with government. But every law that’s passed affects the little guy, and that includes the small businessman in this case. It wouldn’t be just Walmart or Verizon whose info is in jeopardy, but eventually the dry cleaner, the one-chair beauty shop, the local ice cream parlor, even the babysitter, will be affected.
I don’t say it will happen tomorrow, but this bill would lend credence to any demand that comes along from any fed “official,” for any or no reason, *and without warrant.* It smacks of British soldiers indiscriminately entering houses and taverns looking for trouble-makers. It assumes guilt of the individual (“…so it can be analyzed for signs of lawbreaking – be it computer related or not.”). And is another [(large) nail in the fascist coffin.
Is it time yet?!
ML, not long ago I was driving from Wyoming to Oregon and stopped in a little town to get a motel room. I usually look for very “basic” motels, and this was a fairly sad little town. I signed the card for the room and handed it back, with the cash. She said, “How about filling the rest of this out?” (Car make, tags, my home address, etc.) I said, rolling my eyes, “Do you really need that?” She thought for a second and said, “No’. I suppose she wrote something fanciful in there later.
People just need a little training in resistance and disobedience. After a while it becomes natural to them. 🙂
The Cosa Nostra reference brought this piece to mind:
http://ncc-1776.org/tle2013/tle733-20130811-04.html
As for the protection from lawsuits thing. What’s to prevent a company to rat you out to the Feds ahead of any lawsuits? Thus preventing said lawsuit from happening in the first place? If they cooperate, voila, immunity from lawsuits. And what about vindictive actions if you done business with them in the past but decided to upgrade with a competitor this year?
A whole stew of possibilities of abuses here.
Pat, I gave a great deal of thought to the SSN thing long ago. It is “required” for so many things and I just got weary of the fight. Then I realized that it’s THEIR damned number to start with. They own it, and anyone who really wants it wouldn’t have any trouble getting it… I don’t actually care what they do with it anyway. I know that “identity theft” used to be the big buggaboo, but I seriously doubt that that number alone would do the job anymore. At least nobody’s ever tried it with me.
So, if some outfit insists I must give them the number… so what? Now, if they start to ask how many guns I have, then we have a problem. 🙂
CISA is likely to come up for its full Senate vote on Tuesday afternoon:
http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/257785-mcconnell-schedules-final-vote-on-cyber-bill-for-tuesday
Well, since we’re talking about privacy, this seems a good place to note the Secret Service’s new “policy” of allowing the use of warrantless Stingrays “if there’s believed to be a nonspecific [!!] threat to the president or another protected person.” Note that “protected persons” include former presidents and their wives, presidential candidates, and lots of other self-important high muckety-mucks. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/secret-service-allowed-warrantless-cellphone-tracking-34636995
It’s beyond me how they can avoid the legal requirement of first obtaining a warrant by the simple expedient of adopting a “policy”, but I guess that’s because I’m ignorant. Clearly “policies” now trump the Constitution.
[It’s beyond me how they can avoid the legal requirement of first obtaining a warrant by the simple expedient of adopting a “policy”]
A warrant is pretty silly anyway, if you think about it. Just a piece of paper. Not a heck of a lot of protection there…
We all retain these statist fantasies that there are wise and fair judges out there who weigh the evidence and hand out a warrant or not based on that. But the “or not” never seems to happen. The judges are just as corrupt as anyone else in the government. They act in their own interest, and not in ours. Nor should we expect them to do otherwise.
Here’s another one I did about an earlier incarnation of this legislation:
http://strike-the-root.com/cispa-should-we-care
I should add that I have gotten a western Canadian VPN service, but it doesn’t work very well. A lot of drop-outs and halts and such. I thought I would see if a $3 per month service is workable, but apparently not (even if only anecdotally). I have done pretty well with a $5 per month service. So I will have to do an upgrade to a service with a better rep.
More news from the privacy front: http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/10/new-material-promises-nsa-proof-wallpaper/123066/?oref=d-river Once this hits the market we can all create “faraday rooms” in our homes!
So several days ago I click on a link from here to a YouTube video. It plays an ad first. I glance up and think, “She looks like Jane. (A lady active in our local little theater group.) I look closer. It is Jane.
Turns out our local Ford dealer made a locally-produced video ad, and YouTube runs it just for local residents. (I’s the local angle that’s surprising. I always see Ford ads after I renew my Jeep license plates.)
But I fixed them. One of the shelves in my refrigerator cracked and I online-ordered a new one, so now all the ads on my computer are for refrigerator parts.
So for a story I’m writing I need to research modern companies that thatch roofs. (Yes, that’s still a thing.) It will be interesting to see what the internet makes of that.
(Sorry. We’re in the midst of voting for seven Texas Constitutional amendments, and I’m serioused out.)
“So for a story I’m writing I need to research modern companies that thatch roofs. (Yes, that’s still a thing.) It will be interesting to see what the internet makes of that.”
Oh, please tell us. Now, if you get an ad that shows roof thatching and stars your friend Jane, that’ll really be something.
I visited Ireland way back when and recall entire towns that were all thatchy. They got awards for being so cute and everything. You have a project in mind, LarryA?
I’ve assumed since Snowden that every site visited, every email sent, and every comment on a message board is being dutifully logged and filed away in the giant of all storage facilities in Ogden, Utah. For future use as either blackmail or (il)legal pretext for arrest. For the time when my little self becomes either too annoying or too easy a target. Or just because. Because I don’t give a rat’s ass and to insure that this one isn’t overlooked: find bomb, assassinate, New York, Jew, Trade Center, Waco, CIA, FBI, etc…
Claire slogging my way through Atlas Shrugged…
Damn Rand for writing it. It’s become a how to guide for the bastards.
OP — I think the bastards knew “how to”, long before Atlas was written.
And BTW, your comment — “Because I don’t give a rat’s ass and to insure that this one isn’t overlooked: find bomb, assassinate, New York, Jew, Trade Center, Waco, CIA, FBI, etc…” —
may insure that you’re not overlooked, it also may insure that this blogsite and BHM are not overlooked. (It also suggests that you’re anti-Semitic, but that’s your problem.)
Pat, I don’t think we need to worry about that exactly. The feds don’t have a clue what they are doing with all that listening, so I don’t expect any of us to understand it either. Totally random, far as I can determine.
I decided that one day when I called my girlfriend down the hill. We had not even finished saying hello when there was a “click” on the line. I clearly said, “Welcome Mr. Fed! Hope you enjoy our conversation as much as we will.” Heard another click… and the two of us finished arranging our shooting schedule for the next few weeks.
Probably the vast majority of those doing the listening (in person or via computer recording) don’t give a rat’s ass what is being said. They’re punching a clock, getting paid, and dreaming about what they’ll do the next weekend like most everyone else. Even in government, the truly evil and dedicated controllers are in the minority.
I’m not worried about it, I’m just pointing it out: if you believe trouble’s looking your way, don’t drag others into it.
Pat, oh please. Suggest that I’m anti-Semitic? Absolutely nothing could be more off base. The point is that merely writing certain words without context would flag a comment for scrutiny is the problem. As to drawing the feds attention to this site, I believe anyone who wrote the books listed at this link knows full well what to expect from a paranoid quasi-police state. I had absolutely nothing to do with any of that.
http://www.amazon.com/101-Things-Til-Revolution-Self-Liberation/dp/189362613X
You have a project in mind, LarryA?
Writing project, not physical.
Thatch is the last thing I’d want here where it’s so dry. We’ve spent most of the last two years under a burn ban, and the volunteer fire departments’ grass trucks stay real busy.
OTOH right now we’re getting the reminants of Patricia, so everyone had to remember where the umbrellas and slickers were stashed.
“OTOH right now we’re getting the reminants of Patricia, so everyone had to remember where the umbrellas and slickers were stashed.”
I hear there are arks under construction.
just had to stop here. The bill passed. As expected. Still some arguing to be done with it I think but it really doesn’t matter. I kind of figure that this stuff has been going on for a long time with some of the bigger companies. Perhaps not all, as they are not all run by people with no morals, but many are.
I am just sorry I am from MI. We have Sen. Stabenaw and Peters. They are both about as far left as you can get. If you don’t live on the South East side of the state, your vote is of little consequence. And the means Detroit, Ann Arbor, and the Democratic strong holds. Out here in the real world, we are just hoping for sanity to prevail, but also preparing for if it doesn’t.
It’s the offer you can’t refuse Ms Claire.
They created this diktat in response to the backlash from previous acts by various tech companies refusal to submit completely to the sonofabitches and their insatiable appetite for data on everyone.
The f**kers are worried. They are bleating and beating the bushes of flyover country looking for the great white tea party bitter clinging right wing extremist bogey man.
The smoldering cold anger of millions of us is right out in the open. No need to extort the data required to search and destroy the grass roots of liberty.
This is theater these “Acts” the sonofabitches are committing. Its their way of projecting power, because they don’t have power, only the illusion of power. What they are making such a big show of “finding” is what scares the shit out of them.
Backlash.
They see backlash under every rock, in every living room, with every stroke of a computer key, swipe of a smart phone and purchase of every bullet.
What do the dipshits expect? Regardless, it is consent they are trying to force through fear. It is a time honored strategy of totalitarian’s. Make as many afraid as you can, they will submit their tasit consent out of a false security of an illusion of safety, then everyone who isn’t afraid of the fuckers sticks out like a sore thumb and you can pick them off piecemeal one at a time or in small groups. These acts are like a bird dog when you go pheasant hunting. You know where the birds are, you just use the dog to flush them one at a time when you are set up for the best shot when they leave their cover.
Thing is, that kind of tyrannical bullshit works great in a closed society, disarmed cultures, and small nation states that don’t have a cultural knowledge or instinctive hereditary memory of liberty.
The federal leviathan as in it is so intrusive in every facet of the sphere of our activities interestingly also applies the other way. It is a funny kind of proportional backlash. The sonofabitches aren’t the only ones who have a monopoly on power. Its just that we who refuse our consent, openly or more importantly through our hearts and minds, and are revolting against the bastards have’t yet grasped we are a huge plurality, and the moment we begin to understand we are a plurality, we become a plurality that eclipses all in our legitimacy. It is not so much power as a plurality, but power only a plurality that knows it is one has the power to define everything. It is the dynamic. It is what paradigm is.
This f**king crap these clowns are pulling with these mind games is divide and conquer. Its a mind job. Like everything these cultural marxist jack asses do, they signal everything. The this “Act” and the that “Act”. It is all an act! It is agitprop for the sake of creating an illusion they have power and you as a free individual self determining person doesn’t have.
They can take their lousy “acts” and shove them right up their worthless no good corrupt fucking arses for all their worth. The acts or themselves.
They ain’t worth a bucket of warm spit.
That is all there is to it Ms. Claire.
They are the bogey man. Make believe. And for two centuries we as people have consistently fell for the ruse.
It is all an illusion and we are the cash cow that keeps it, the illusion, funded.
And the sonofabitches are horrified the gravy train will end. They should be. Backlash is a mighty powerful thing.
And in America, the shear size and the character and indomitable will that thrives in it, the kind of backlash that is possible has no comparison in history. The fuckers should know, they have created what they have sowed. They have gone too far.
They. Are. Scared. We. Will. Revolt.
You want to change the world Ms. Claire?
You write great stuff Ms. Claire. Your a critical thinker, a though leader. Lead people of liberty to understand we are a huge all encompassing plurality. We are everywhere, we are not alone, isolated, helpless. That is what the fuckers passing these “Acts” want us to feel like. Fuck them and the horse they rode in on.
Show us how to grok what a plurality is. It is a difficult thing to grasp at first, its like the horse, can’t make the horse drink, but you can lead the horse to the waters edge. Like giving a fish to a man to feed him, or teaching him to fish for himself. Senneca said it best though, about how ideas are like seeds, once planted they grow out of all proportion to their tiny stature.