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The New York Times reports that President Obama met yesterday with the nation’s top tech executives and company officials on a host of cybersecurity issues and the threats posed by increasingly sophisticated hackers amid a deepening estrangement between Silicon Valley and the government. “What has struck me is the enormous degree of hostility between Silicon Valley and the government,” says Herb Lin. “The relationship has been poisoned, and it’s not going to recover anytime soon.”
American firms are increasingly concerned about international competitiveness, and that means making a very public show of their efforts to defeat American intelligence-gathering by installing newer, harder-to-break encryption systems and demonstrating their distance from the United States government. “In some cases that is driving them to resistance to Washington,” says Obama’s cybersecurity coordinator, Michael Daniel. “But it’s not that simple. In other cases, with what’s going on in China,” where Beijing is insisting that companies turn over the software that is their lifeblood, “they are very interested in getting Washington’s help.”
Silicon Valley execs have also been fuming quietly over the government’s use of zero-day flaws. “The government is realizing they can’t just blow into town and let bygones be bygones,” says Eric Grosse, Google’s vice president of security and privacy. “Our business depends on trust. If you lose it, it takes years to regain.”
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Fauxlosopher on Sunday February 15 2015, @09:36AM
The above quoted statement from you, frojack, stands in direct conflict with the phrase you yourself quoted - a phrase which came from a court case that US Supreme Court justices recognized as valid by letting the case appealed to them stand.
The underlying assertion does radically challenge the standing mindset of the typical USian, but reading the English phrase for what it is reveals that an unconstitutional "law" is indeed not a law at all. I can agree that this does call for court involvement for laws that are not blatantly in conflict with the US federal government's founding law (that without, I might note, such government would not itself legally exist). For flagrant violations of law, however, such a law is void, no court decision needed; examples of flagrantly void "laws" include the 2012 NDAA's indefinite detainment of citizens without charge [aclu.org], NSA spying on citizens without probable cause [theguardian.com], illegal federal enforcement of a second Prohibition [wikipedia.org] without a Constitutional amendment to authorize it, and the Prohibition-related crimes of so-called civil forfeiture of property [aclu.org] where there is obvious "takings" going on without any sort of due process whatsoever.
There is almost certain to be great personal risk in treating such non-laws as what they are, should a person be accosted by law enforcement over such matters. However, that risk does not change the legally-recognized fact that such flagrantly unconstitutional non-laws are void, and therefore that attempted enforcement of such is outside the scope of law and thus is illegal. There are also a few interesting federal statues that in many circumstances criminalize such illegal behavior, notably 18 USC 241 [cornell.edu] and 18 USC 242 [cornell.edu].
(Score: 3) by hemocyanin on Sunday February 15 2015, @12:20PM
In a philosophical sense you are perfectly right -- an unconstitutional law is void. In a practical sense, this can be a huge gamble, as in a "your whole life and everything you own" gamble because in practice, you have to violate the law, get into a legal case, and get to the Supreme Court where you will find out if your interpretation is correct. Guess wrong on what turns out to be mostly a matter of opinion handed down by people hand picked for a political viewpoint, and you're fucked.
Secondly, if you look at how the Supreme Court has steadily and consistently eroded the privacy protections of the Bill of Rights over the last 40 years, it's a lousy gamble. People tend to have a lot of respect for the SC. I don't. It seems mostly to see its job as finding strained and convoluted interpretations to undermine citizens' protections from abusive government. Sure, there are always a few dissenters but the trick is to keep them a small enough group so they can never prevail -- like how a politician will be totally willing to support a bill popular with the people when he/she knows it can't pass, and in the backroom explain to those who hate the law and fund elections, that it's all just for appearance's sake and a smart play with dead issue. The SC dissenters are there specifically to serve as a distraction from the concerted wholesale destruction of any value embodied by the Constitution.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Fauxlosopher on Sunday February 15 2015, @12:51PM
Openly treating unconstitutional non-laws as the legally void entities that they are can indeed be very risky to private citizens. However, just that sort of thing is actively going on right now, today, in Conecticut [reason.com], New York [dcgazette.com], and in Washington [callmegav.com]. (It even occurred in Washington DC [youtube.com], though with the historically-expected results [washingtontimes.com].) Sometimes the results have been gobsmackingly unexpected [youtube.com], certainly considering the outcomes of somewhat similar past events [youtube.com].
You may note that in multiple of the above examples, courts' opinions are not being sought. Individuals are refusing to submit the question to courts, since the non-laws' attempted violations of the Constitution are so blatant. While it remains to be seen how this sort of paradigm shift plays out, there is indeed change afoot.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Sunday February 15 2015, @07:25PM
There is a pretty huge gap between the rights people think they have, and the rights the government thinks they have, and the sad part, because most people couldn't even afford a half day of Supreme Court representation while the government can afford all it wants on the tax payers' dimes, is that that fact isn't going to change.
I'm very liberal (*). I don't like seeing people loading a shotgun on a public street and I definitely question the wisdom of doing so as a way to make point (seems like a great way to get most people to not support your cause). However, the Bill of Rights is what it is and I accept it wholeheartedly, including the 2nd amendment. What so many lefties seem to miss (and rightists but on different amendments like the 1st, 4th, and 5th), is that if you enable the government to skirt one amendment, you enable it skirt them all. The only way gun control would be appropriate is through an amendment. All of these statutes/ordinances chipping away at it just provide precedent for destroying everything else -- freedom of the press, freedom of (and from) religion, due process, privacy, etc., etc. The Bill of Rights is not a smorgasboard and if treated as such by mere statute (as contrasted with a constitutional amendment), then the government is empowered gobbled it all up, and shit it out into a meaningless pile of words.
The sad reality though, is that the destruction of the BOR is a fait acompli at this point. Even so, my (worthless) opinion is that it should have been protected as a whole because as we can see today, when it isn't, everything goes by the wayside. I'd like to see a return to a respect for the BOR which is why, as a granola eating sandal and socks lefty, I support the 2nd Amendment.
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(*) I view Democrats as the "New GOP", and such war happy, wall street loving, surveillance enthralled neo-cons that if Nixon could have done half what the DNC now supports, he'd have been debilitated with an unending 24/7 orgasm.
(Score: 1) by Fauxlosopher on Monday February 16 2015, @04:22AM
We are likely to be much more in agreement than otherwise, and find that our disagreements ultimately rest on mere personal preferences that others have no standing to object to.
Rights, freedoms, laws, and all the rest appear to rest upon one out of two conditions: governments rule over individuals either by sheer force, or by the delegated consent and authority of the individual. Slavery absolutely existed, and still exists today in both defacto and dejure form. If people living in the USA, like me, are either defacto or dejure slaves, then none of this noise over the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, or anything else matters beyond a simple means to obtain enough force to fight and win against the current masters.
However... if the USA is a nation with a government put in place by the delegated authority of the individual, ah, now THAT has some interesting and massive consequences. This would mean that government has limits, and that those limits cannot - even at worst - exceed the authority of a single, lone individual. In otherwords, should this be the case, government cannot do anything that a single individual cannot also do. This might initially sound outlandish. I've written two short papers attempting to concisely detail this claim, posted to my journal, if they are of interest. The first is in regards to authority [soylentnews.org], and the second pertains to its limitations [soylentnews.org].
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Tuesday February 17 2015, @12:41PM
I cannot support either part of your argument because it requires religious belief to extend beyond an individual. This is contradictory in addition to being an appeal to authority. This is a shame because I hoped it would provide sound reasoning for equal footing under law in addition to supporting https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=6118&cid=145349 [soylentnews.org]
A more concise formulation would be that under absolute monarchy, nothing is permissible unless specifically enumerated and that in a free land, everything is permissible unless specifically enumerated. Students of computer science will recognize this as whitelisting and blacklisting respectively and understand the limitations of each technique.
Indeed, "whitelisting" got us to the Industrial Revolution and "blacklisting" got us to the Computer Revolution but with the increasing number of existential threats, perhaps another stint of "whitelisting" should be considered even if it is not desirable.
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(Score: 1) by Fauxlosopher on Sunday March 08 2015, @01:45PM
Oops, I didn't see your reply until just now. While my writing shows that I obviously believe there to be a Creator of the universe who sets the standards of morality, I do not believe the reasoning of my assertions require the existence of a Creator.
John Locke wrote about the "state of nature", a situation where humans exist without an established or recognizable government, and used reason to form the assertion that, in essence, no one human has legitimate authority to exercise his/her power in a manner that conflicts with a different human's authority. Much of the reasoning centers around ownership of property, to specifically ask and answer the question of who owns a given human's body. The primary writing on this is, as I recall, contained in his Second Treatise of Government [constitution.org].
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Tuesday February 17 2015, @10:15AM
Sandals aren't my style but I've been described as being to the left of Richard Stallman and I support the Second Amendment for the same reasons. Some people may think that the Second Amendment is quaint or dangerous but it is one axiom of a good foundation.
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(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Sunday February 15 2015, @07:27PM
You may note that in multiple of the above examples, courts' opinions are not being sought. Individuals are refusing to submit the question to courts, since the non-laws' attempted violations of the Constitution are so blatant. While it remains to be seen how this sort of paradigm shift plays out, there is indeed change afoot.
While it is nice to think the people have won a victory, it is more likely that this is just something else that will be used against particular individuals should they run afoul of the law.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday February 15 2015, @04:03PM
That's a tradition that's at least 118 years old - Plessy vs. Ferguson.
However, I think your 2nd paragraph nails it perfectly.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday February 15 2015, @07:16PM
The above quoted statement from you, frojack, stands in direct conflict with the phrase you yourself quoted - a phrase which came from a court case that US Supreme Court justices recognized as valid by letting the case appealed to them stand.
So in letting the appealed case stand, the Supreme Court agreed WITH ME, and not with you. The law was declared unconstitutional by a lower court, and the Supreme Court agreed, and let that decision stand.
A court had ruled. The law then, and only then became unconstitutional.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by Fauxlosopher on Monday February 16 2015, @03:10AM
If you sit down and read the Norton vs Shelby County [findlaw.com] case, it is made clear that the judges were stating that the unConstitutional law in question never was law. It wasn't valid law for the duration spanning its passage and the first (or final) court appeal and then afterwards was suddenly made illegal and void by the decision of the court. The court's core argument was that the offices established by the unConstitutional law in question never had legal force of law. The court wasn't taking action to cause a law to be rendered illegal, but merely made an observation of a pre-existing fact.
Here's another paragraph from the case to support my point:
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Tuesday February 17 2015, @12:32PM
While it is reasonable for someone to be righted for illegal seizure or illegal imprisonment, an unconstitutional law which creates office is more contentious because it creates a situation where a person may be retrospectively found to be impersonating a public official and/or embezzling public funds. I suppose anyone taking office should do due diligence and read the law. However, the burden is quite high if an individual and the Supreme Court have differing interpretation.
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