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SOPA apparantly isn't dead yet!!

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paw broon:
You might be interested in this:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/01/irish-sopa-legislation-passed?newsfeed%3Dtrue
The Republic has succumbed.
And what the Irish Times has to say about it:-
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2012/0412/1224314639423.html

John C:
I'm also surprised that ACTA didn't cause open revolt across Europe.  Whereas most of these laws at least are public and have an open vote, ACTA was negotiated in secret and signed by parts of the governments that may not have the authority to do so.  I remember, for example, the Obama administration has been trying to pass it off as an "agreement" (I think that's the term) rather than a "treaty," and somehow unrelated to trade, because either condition would require legislative involvement and void our signing.

Plus, of course, it stomps on a whole pile of laws in each of the signing countries.  It's kind of shocking that there was outrage against the United States passing a stupid law, but somehow not for our inflicting the same basic law on the rest of the world.

John C:
Regarding CISPA, it passed the House by something like a 2-1 margin.  My understanding is that the opponents were all shouted down with the author repeating that the law is narrowly targetted, protects privacy, and will protect us from the big imaginary doomsday resulting from when some hacker crashes Facebook's servers because they couldn't be bothered to upgrade their software or something...

None of those are true, but apparently if you repeat them enough, Congressmen just agree.

Anyway, this now moves to the Senate.  But, in the Senate, they have their own insane draconian bills to keep tabs on every Internet user.  Err...I meant to say "protect us."

After that, the White House did issue a statement that it'd probably get vetoed, but it's the usual politics-speak of in its current form, the President's close advisors would most likely recommend that he veto the bill, not an actual statement of "this is stupid."

I like the concept, but the bill itself is crammed with misunderstandings about where risks come from, how they propagate, and who needs protection.  It also seems to utterly misunderstand the Bill of Rights, since my count is that it allows for routine violations of at least three rights (against warrantless search and seizure, against self-incrimination, and for confronting accusers) by trying to deputize (all) companies without giving them the responsibilities that go with it.

The right way for government to get involved in "cybersecurity" (idiotic a word as that is) is to ban the trafficking (and use) of software exploits, allow people to sue for negligence if flaws aren't reported or fixed quickly, and keep public records of what software is up to date.  Oh, and exempt security researchers from the DMCA provisions about bypassing DRM.  Much easier.

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