Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

MN Legislature Introduces Amendment to Protect Electronic Communication

posted by janrinok on Wednesday February 18 2015, @09:48PM   Printer-friendly
from the one-state-at-a-time dept.

Kromagv0 writes:

The Minnesota legislature has introduced an amendment to the MN Constitution to enshrine the protections afforded by the 4th amendment to electronic communication and data as well. It appears that this amendment has broad diverse support in the state house but leadership in the state senate is only lukewarm on it. In the senate Ron Latz (DFL) Chairman of the Judiciary Committee had blocked the amendment stating that he feels it is redundant. Additionally Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk (DFL) opposes the amendment because it is an amendment to the MN constitution. If passed, Minnesota would become only the second state to enact such a change — Missouri enacted its amendment last year with 75% of the popular vote.

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
MN Legislature Introduces Amendment to Protect Electronic Communication | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 23 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 18 2015, @10:02PM

    by c0lo (156) on Wednesday February 18 2015, @10:02PM (#146725) Journal

    For securing my electronic communications, what I trust the most is:

    1. encryption
    2. the constitution or other acts of legal nature
    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   2  

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by vux984 on Wednesday February 18 2015, @11:01PM

    by vux984 (5045) on Wednesday February 18 2015, @11:01PM (#146747)

    You need both.

    Obviously legal protections alone will not keep your data secure.

    But:

    Encryption is not worth much if the government is allowed to have firmware in your hard drive, NIC, router, etc that will open back doors and report your keys back to them
    Encryption is not worth much if you are legally obligated to reveal anything you have encrypted
    Encryption is not worth much if the government is allowed to arrest you and imprison you merely for using it, or using a form of it they don't have keys to unlock; or any measure that would defeat their ability to obtain your keys

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday February 19 2015, @12:10AM

      by c0lo (156) on Thursday February 19 2015, @12:10AM (#146768) Journal

      I agree, having both is better

      Encryption is not worth much if the government is allowed to have firmware in your hard drive, NIC, router, etc that will open back doors and report your keys back to them

      But if I'd have to give up one and have only the other, I'd drop the law.
      E.g. make all you communication originate and be routed through a "redundant array of inexpensive Raspberry Pi-es" [likemagicappears.com] - use flash USB RAID [instructables.com] for storage and source them directly from different suppliers [aliexpress.com].
      Moving your communication into darknets [wikipedia.org] may help alleviate (but not quash) the rest of your concerns

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0