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from the Why-doesn't-the-US-just-implement-the-GDPR? dept.
U.S. Unveils First Step Toward New Online Privacy Rules
The US administration called Tuesday for public comments on a "new approach to consumer data privacy" that could trigger fresh regulations of internet companies.
The Commerce Department said the announcement is part of an effort to "modernize US data privacy policy for the 21st century."
The move follows the implementation this year of ramped up data protection rules imposed by the European Union, and a new privacy law enacted in California.
Both measures will impact internet firms whose websites can be accessed around the globe.
Privacy and data protection have come into greater focus in response to these new laws, and also because of growing concerns on how private data is handled following revelations on the hijacking of millions of Facebook user profiles by a political consultancy ahead of the 2016 election.
"The United States has a long history of protecting individual privacy, but our challenges are growing as technology becomes more complex, interconnected and integrated into our daily lives," said David Redl, who heads the agency's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 01 2018, @02:56AM
"ban all forms of mass surveillance"
A lot of this stuff is already a crime. What we've got is one acquisance to cognative dissonance stacked on top of another evolving in parallel to the technology. Eventually you get the point where calling it anything other than a crime is no longer plausible. Each company looking around and saying "hell if everybody is doing it, we'll take it a step further." And after a decade, it is just straight up crime.
The only thing that makes anything litigable is whether you can make a reasonable argument before a judge that you have standing. And to do that, you have to be able to demonstrate a loss. The thing is, that the 4th codifies an inherent value to privacy. Being deprived of it without informed consent, is by constitutional definition, a loss. For why would they have encoded it, if it wasn't valuable? So standing _should_ be trivial to prove.
There are wiretapping laws. The distinction between analog and digital is a straw man. Really anybody who understands much of the technology can clearly demostrate that before a jury. So the question isn't "What laws need be passed?" But rather: "Why hasn't anybody brought the appropriate charges yet?"
The question is not legislative, but punative. The crimes exist. Congress will endeavor to create carveouts, mostly just to sandbag any future litigation. But for the moment, they are still just crimes.
Part of the issue here is the lack of math in the judiciary. After Wikipedia v. NSA, math doesn't seem to actually be a thing to the judiciary. So do you now have to actually have access to the switches being used to do this shit, and maybe print out the logs or whatever, on a dot matric tractor feed, or one of those old typewriter ball printers from the 70's. Or maybe unbolt the fucking thing from the rack and bring it in and drop it on the floor?
IOW, the more you look into this, the more you realize that there is some question, whether we are even a nation of laws anymore. Whether the boneheaded out of touch judiciary is even able to understand value in the digital age is in question. And congress will respond in the same way congress always responds. With graft, corruption and ineptitude. And SCOTUS will respond by passing batshit activist benchlaw on subjects they clearly don't understand, instead of kicking the can back to congress, who are more than happy to let SCOTUS take the responsiblity. To reinterate, are we even a nation of laws anymore?