Andrew Crocker of the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Andrew Crocker of the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
“[The bill’s] vague requirements and criminal penalties would result in companies over-reporting users to the [DEA] for innocent, protected speech. And because the bill encourages companies to undermine encryption out of fear of liability, it could lead to dragnet scanning of private user communications. This bill contains no warrant requirement, no required notice, and limited user protections, and deserves to be defeated on the Senate floor.”
It's a decidedly terrible idea to offload policing onto the tech industry. One only needs to look at Twitter to see how fickle leadership of these tech companies can be. Do we really want Elon...
It's a decidedly terrible idea to offload policing onto the tech industry. One only needs to look at Twitter to see how fickle leadership of these tech companies can be. Do we really want Elon Musk and his ilk being our police?
Then we just stop interacting with their services, unfortunately. Until they ban encryption, I’m using it. If they criminalize it, I’m getting a dumb phone. This site and Lemmy are the only...
Then we just stop interacting with their services, unfortunately. Until they ban encryption, I’m using it. If they criminalize it, I’m getting a dumb phone. This site and Lemmy are the only socials I use. While I would initially hate no longer being a citizen of the internet, I don’t think I’d miss out on much that I’m not already passing on anyways.
It's not that we're offloading policing to these companies, but rather that policing shouldn't be able to touch these areas to protect civilian freedoms. Yes, these tech companies will absolutely...
It's not that we're offloading policing to these companies, but rather that policing shouldn't be able to touch these areas to protect civilian freedoms. Yes, these tech companies will absolutely let drug dealers and whatever slip through their grasp. We'll just have to deal with it.
That's OK. Sometimes you have to tradeoff the ability to enforce laws with personal freedom. That's why things like the 5th amendment exist.
edit:
To draw an analogy, it would be like suggesting the police be allowed to place bugs in everyone's homes. The friends and family of drug dealers no doubt let them in their homes, from which they can communicate and do business. It's a terrible idea to offload policing onto civilians, who are no doubt heavily biased towards their associates.
It is nonetheless not an acceptable solution to bug everyone's homes. Because it's a terrible violation of privacy.
If the tech companies would be required to monitor and report drug deals by this proposed law under threat of fine as this article very clearly states, then the tech companies have absolutely had...
If the tech companies would be required to monitor and report drug deals by this proposed law under threat of fine as this article very clearly states, then the tech companies have absolutely had police work offloaded onto them. If the police are bugging people then the police are doing police work, as is intended. This is private companies not affiliated in any way with law enforcement being required to act in a law enforcement capacity, and my point was that this is always a bad idea.
There are a lot of countries with laws about what you can and can't share online...CSAM is obviously the big one, but there are rules in Germany about Nazi speech, and in Australia about the...
There are a lot of countries with laws about what you can and can't share online...CSAM is obviously the big one, but there are rules in Germany about Nazi speech, and in Australia about the posting of the Christchurch shooting, and so on. But I can't think of any even close to the level of vague as this one is. No one is out there being like, "I'm selling fentanyl, 100 bucks", it's all vague implications and coded language. I'm sure every trust and safety department in the US is looking at this and praying that it dies in committee, this would be a nightmare to write moderation policy on. Also, I think it'd be terrible for morale for front line moderators. Having to enforce a wide reaching and vague policy about something that I think a lot of people just don't really have a problem with - I could not care less about people DMing each other to buy drugs, personally, I wouldn't recommend it but that's up to you - would definitely make most moderators I worked with tired very quickly. Especially knowing that the DEA's getting the information you provide.
Reading the article, the basis of the bill doesn't seem totally malicious with intent to create that backdoor for abuse, but just another case of Congress members having zero clue how the internet...
Reading the article, the basis of the bill doesn't seem totally malicious with intent to create that backdoor for abuse, but just another case of Congress members having zero clue how the internet works. I'm actually more struck by that than the potential privacy invasion. I make no claims of being an expert, but it just seems impossible.
Besides the issues with severely violating privacy, finding drug dealers through text seems like it would be incredibly tricky. Let's say they set a filter to automatically search for any usage of a drug name, since obviously they can't have people manually reviewing every single conversation online ever. That already creates an issue since drugs can come up in so many contexts besides drug dealing, like discussions of news articles or talking about relatives or just writers talking and doing research. Not to mention a lot of drugs are discussed with nicknames that are commonly applied in other contexts. Molly, weed, crack, etc.
They could have AI examine the context of the conversation, but it's not a perfect technology and prone to mistakes. They'd likely still need to send it to a human for a final review before reporting someone to the government for having a dead drug dealer sister named Molly, or people role playing Breaking Bad. So there would still be a lot of work for human workers. And that's just for what's caught. It's almost guaranteed that something will slip through the cracks.
And that's before you get into potential HIPAA violations. And the fact that the internet consists of more users than JUST Americans, people from countries with totally different privacy laws, and also different laws on drugs. Several countries have decriminalized drugs like heroin or cocaine so addicts can safely seek help without fear of being jailed for it. Facebook and Google in particular are global companies. Should they report every discussion of drugs between people in Portugal to American?
This bill just feels totally infeasible at its most basic premise.
I generally agree with the rest of what you're saying, but this specifically... from what we've seen in the past, the US doesn't care about laws in other countries. Also, besides everything you've...
more users than JUST Americans, people from countries with totally different privacy laws, and also different laws on drugs
I generally agree with the rest of what you're saying, but this specifically... from what we've seen in the past, the US doesn't care about laws in other countries.
Also, besides everything you've mentioned, street criminals are starting to practice basic digital hygiene anyways so its only going to get harder to use this info.
How about a bill that would ban social media sites that run all kinds of markets from selling pharmaceuticals and impose hefty fees and other penalties for every incident when they are caught....
How about a bill that would ban social media sites that run all kinds of markets from selling pharmaceuticals and impose hefty fees and other penalties for every incident when they are caught. Then have DEA monitor those networks by pretending to be regular users and report every incident to DOJ?
I mean there are other illegal things to sell that way not just drugs, what about guns, assassination attempts, there bunch of chemicals that are regulated etc. Why drugs are special?
Twilio and TMobile already spy on their clients and will boot your from their platform or block your number if they suspect any cannabis related messages.
Twilio and TMobile already spy on their clients and will boot your from their platform or block your number if they suspect any cannabis related messages.
With decent baseline information it's super easy to correlate the anonymized data they can just straight up buy from tech companies. Quick operation and bam, they can track your location,...
With decent baseline information it's super easy to correlate the anonymized data they can just straight up buy from tech companies.
Quick operation and bam, they can track your location, spending, and so much more.
Andrew Crocker of the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
It's a decidedly terrible idea to offload policing onto the tech industry. One only needs to look at Twitter to see how fickle leadership of these tech companies can be. Do we really want Elon Musk and his ilk being our police?
Then we just stop interacting with their services, unfortunately. Until they ban encryption, I’m using it. If they criminalize it, I’m getting a dumb phone. This site and Lemmy are the only socials I use. While I would initially hate no longer being a citizen of the internet, I don’t think I’d miss out on much that I’m not already passing on anyways.
Not interacting with the internet is not realistic for 99% of the population.
It's not that we're offloading policing to these companies, but rather that policing shouldn't be able to touch these areas to protect civilian freedoms. Yes, these tech companies will absolutely let drug dealers and whatever slip through their grasp. We'll just have to deal with it.
That's OK. Sometimes you have to tradeoff the ability to enforce laws with personal freedom. That's why things like the 5th amendment exist.
edit:
To draw an analogy, it would be like suggesting the police be allowed to place bugs in everyone's homes. The friends and family of drug dealers no doubt let them in their homes, from which they can communicate and do business. It's a terrible idea to offload policing onto civilians, who are no doubt heavily biased towards their associates.
It is nonetheless not an acceptable solution to bug everyone's homes. Because it's a terrible violation of privacy.
If the tech companies would be required to monitor and report drug deals by this proposed law under threat of fine as this article very clearly states, then the tech companies have absolutely had police work offloaded onto them. If the police are bugging people then the police are doing police work, as is intended. This is private companies not affiliated in any way with law enforcement being required to act in a law enforcement capacity, and my point was that this is always a bad idea.
There are a lot of countries with laws about what you can and can't share online...CSAM is obviously the big one, but there are rules in Germany about Nazi speech, and in Australia about the posting of the Christchurch shooting, and so on. But I can't think of any even close to the level of vague as this one is. No one is out there being like, "I'm selling fentanyl, 100 bucks", it's all vague implications and coded language. I'm sure every trust and safety department in the US is looking at this and praying that it dies in committee, this would be a nightmare to write moderation policy on. Also, I think it'd be terrible for morale for front line moderators. Having to enforce a wide reaching and vague policy about something that I think a lot of people just don't really have a problem with - I could not care less about people DMing each other to buy drugs, personally, I wouldn't recommend it but that's up to you - would definitely make most moderators I worked with tired very quickly. Especially knowing that the DEA's getting the information you provide.
Reading the article, the basis of the bill doesn't seem totally malicious with intent to create that backdoor for abuse, but just another case of Congress members having zero clue how the internet works. I'm actually more struck by that than the potential privacy invasion. I make no claims of being an expert, but it just seems impossible.
Besides the issues with severely violating privacy, finding drug dealers through text seems like it would be incredibly tricky. Let's say they set a filter to automatically search for any usage of a drug name, since obviously they can't have people manually reviewing every single conversation online ever. That already creates an issue since drugs can come up in so many contexts besides drug dealing, like discussions of news articles or talking about relatives or just writers talking and doing research. Not to mention a lot of drugs are discussed with nicknames that are commonly applied in other contexts. Molly, weed, crack, etc.
They could have AI examine the context of the conversation, but it's not a perfect technology and prone to mistakes. They'd likely still need to send it to a human for a final review before reporting someone to the government for having a dead drug dealer sister named Molly, or people role playing Breaking Bad. So there would still be a lot of work for human workers. And that's just for what's caught. It's almost guaranteed that something will slip through the cracks.
And that's before you get into potential HIPAA violations. And the fact that the internet consists of more users than JUST Americans, people from countries with totally different privacy laws, and also different laws on drugs. Several countries have decriminalized drugs like heroin or cocaine so addicts can safely seek help without fear of being jailed for it. Facebook and Google in particular are global companies. Should they report every discussion of drugs between people in Portugal to American?
This bill just feels totally infeasible at its most basic premise.
I generally agree with the rest of what you're saying, but this specifically... from what we've seen in the past, the US doesn't care about laws in other countries.
Also, besides everything you've mentioned, street criminals are starting to practice basic digital hygiene anyways so its only going to get harder to use this info.
How about a bill that would ban social media sites that run all kinds of markets from selling pharmaceuticals and impose hefty fees and other penalties for every incident when they are caught. Then have DEA monitor those networks by pretending to be regular users and report every incident to DOJ?
I mean there are other illegal things to sell that way not just drugs, what about guns, assassination attempts, there bunch of chemicals that are regulated etc. Why drugs are special?
This validates my decision to use a VPN and end-to-end encrypted email service.
Twilio and TMobile already spy on their clients and will boot your from their platform or block your number if they suspect any cannabis related messages.
This is funny, because I noticed that my tmobile filters text messages "tildes.net".
It is worse than any drug...
With decent baseline information it's super easy to correlate the anonymized data they can just straight up buy from tech companies.
Quick operation and bam, they can track your location, spending, and so much more.
As you said, doesn't require a warrant.