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- Hacker News
- edited title for lengthby firefax
- They are disgusting pigs and the sooner the public sends them to political hell the betterby kingkawn
- Friends don't let friends use SMS/MMS
- Most countries are on the path to curtail privacy in the name of security and profit. The US, however, is really good at being at the forefront of the movement while pretending to be otherwise. It’s extremely obvious to outsiders how blissfully ignorant the average american is.by yatopifo
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/19/150919 USC 1509 – dealing with customs importsby java-man- I like 2D, that one's nice. So in total it reads (ellipses for brevity):
"In any investigation or inquiry conducted for the purpose of ascertaining the correctness of any entry, for determining the liability of any person for duty, fees and taxes due or duties, fees and taxes which may be due the United States, for determining liability for fines and penalties, or for insuring compliance with the laws of the United States administered by the United States Customs Service, the Secretary (but no delegate of the Secretary below the rank of district director or special agent in charge) may ... summon, upon reasonable notice ... any other person he may deem proper".
And of course, one could argue that it's important to just double check and determine (note it doesn't say suspect, just determine) if someone has entered the country legally, ever, and paid all import taxes, ever. In order to do that, you'd need to see a lot of records. And of course the result can be "nope, they're all good". You don't need to have a good-faith suspicion of these things, just that you have a need to determine these things.
How many laws like this are on the books? In the same way that LLMs are fantastic at finding bugs, what other bugs are in the U.S. Code or similar that LLMs could find? We've been living in a world for a long time where things like this wouldn't be exploited, or maybe even noticed, but now it feels like these vulns are being hoarded and used like software exploits.
by edot - ah, but the boot is off of a16z’s neck, so it’s all worth it!by wolfcola
- Joke’s on them, Andreesen has no neck.by antonvs
- This is like UAE and North Korea behavior.
If you have to spy on these particular groups then you know you’re doing something wrong.
by iJohnDoe - The government isn't big brother, they just let mega corps do all of the spying via "ads" and then just buy your data from a data broker to whom you let have all of your personal information for game on your phone that gives you a little dopamine hit.
We somehow let corporations just take the data that we all create every day and then sell it and make billions in profit.
I want that to change. I want to own any and all data I create interacting with anything anywhere, to be copyright by me, in an enforcable way. I should get paid for the data I generate. The problem is that as long as we, collectively, allow ads that spy on us in exchange for really nothing other than amusement and that pursuit of the next dopamine hit we get. I can't enforce agency and ownership of the data I create unless we, collecively, change the rules. We have the power to do that by voting for the candidates that speaks to the issues you care about. We also need to tell politicians what we want, because if we do not, nothing will change. I think the data we create should be automatically copyright of the person generating it, so I can make money from my data if I choose, or not to, if I don't.
Don't you want to own and make money from the data you create every single day?
by spl757 - Note that the DHS budget ($100bn) is sufficient to provide healthcare to every uninsured child, and about half (EDIT: a third) of what it would cost to provide universal healthcare to every American under 18 at the CMS average rate.
At the end of the day this sort of wastefulness eventually attracts attention.
- Medicare alone costs $1.21 Trillion, I find that extremely hard to believe.by some_random
- I hope it attracts attention. Everything bad that rational people predicted about the DHS when it was created has come true, but people seem to have become comfortable with their civil liberties taken away.by DrHungers
- “It’s outrageous conduct on so many levels. It’s hard to know where to begin,”
Do they not get that we live under an authoritarian regime? The regime doesn't care about the law. They have been installing their own people at every level of government for years, taking over parts of the government, and granting themselves new powers. When eventually every powerful person in government is part of the regime, it won't matter what the law says. This isn't hyperbole, this is how they have been operating for 1.5 years.
This is what the beginning looks like. The end looks like Germany 1942.
by 0xbadcafebee - Remember when Republicans ran on small government, don't tread on me, Tea Party libertarians fighting the surveillance state? That was less than 20 years ago. Probably it was always a fraud.by tootie
- Apparently in this case, T-Mobile caved and Google didn't:
> The DHS also sought and obtained six months of phone records for Fort from T-Mobile, which included records for more than 10,000 calls and text messages. Fort was not notified the government was seeking the records until mid-July, when government lawyers produced them to her lawyers. Fort’s lawyers wrote in a filing this week they were “stunned” to see the government had unilaterally been able to obtain a log of her communications after a judge had warned them about obtaining records about a journalist.
...
> In Fort’s case, Google did not comply with the summons for any of the accounts. The company responded to the DHS by saying it had not offered evidence of how it was related to a customs investigation.
> A Google spokesperson said the company reviews each request for data it gets to ensure it is legal and pushes back when it is too broad or doesn’t follow the correct process.
by skybrian - > In several cases, the DHS has withdrawn a 1509 summons after it was challenged in court and before a judge could rule on its legality. That may be a deliberate strategy to avoid having a judge rule on the legality of the summons.
They have a toy, they’re increasingly abusing it, then trying to dodge from it being taken away.
The thing is nobody has to comply with 1509 summons, DHS has to go to court to enforce it. A lot of the fault is on a company that complies without just ignoring it.
by softwaredoug - > They have a toy, they’re increasingly abusing it, then trying to dodge from it being taken away.
This isn't uncommon - this is how NY deals with any compelling case involving their infringing gun control statutes. If a defendant has money and no other meaningful charges, they tend to just dismiss and moot the issue rather than risk a finding of unconstitutionality.
by 15155 - > The thing is nobody has to comply with 1509 summons, DHS has to go to court to enforce it.
You're not wrong, but companies such as Google make business decisions, not moral decisions. It's far easier and cheaper for them to comply, while there is basically no incentive for them to fight the summons. Especially given the current administration's proven record of taking retaliation against anyone who stands in their way.
If you want companies to behave in the interest of the general public, you need to create an incentive structure that supports that.
by hackyhacky