The EARN IT bill is back, seeking to scan our messages and photos

A reminder that &quot;you have nothing to hide&quot; argument is a fallacy because people abuse their power:<p>Some first hits as reminders of places where their powers are abused<p>[1]: &quot;NSA staff used spy tools on spouses, ex-lovers: watchdog&quot; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;us-usa-surveillance-watchdog&#x2F;nsa-staff-used-spy-tools-on-spouses-ex-lovers-watchdog-idUSBRE98Q14G20130927" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;us-usa-surveillance-watchdog...</a><p>[2]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;reason.com&#x2F;2022&#x2F;07&#x2F;26&#x2F;police-can-access-your-ring-camera-footage-without-a-warrant&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;reason.com&#x2F;2022&#x2F;07&#x2F;26&#x2F;police-can-access-your-ring-ca...</a><p>[3]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;reason.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;04&#x2F;26&#x2F;warrantless-border-searches-draw-call-for-supreme-court-action&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;reason.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;04&#x2F;26&#x2F;warrantless-border-searches-dr...</a>

I’m reminded by a speech by Frederick Douglass [1] that<p>&gt;This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. <i>Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted</i> with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. (Emphasis mine)<p>1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.blackpast.org&#x2F;african-american-history&#x2F;1857-frederick-douglass-if-there-no-struggle-there-no-progress&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.blackpast.org&#x2F;african-american-history&#x2F;1857-fred...</a>

I&#x27;m so tired. I wish we didn&#x27;t have to keep going through constant attacks on our privacy. I know they&#x27;re hoping that people will give up after a point out of weariness, and I&#x27;m afraid when it comes to many people they&#x27;re right.

I&#x27;m tired of these cutesy backronyms that they try to come up with to influence the public&#x27;s perception of a law. &quot;EARN IT&quot;? What the fuck? It should be <i>outright illegal</i> to pass laws whose acronyms spell words.<p>But, of course, that&#x27;ll never happen, because who would willingly give up such a juicy tool for gaming the system?

Re “If you have nothing to hide” arguments. Pointing out abuses is one thing.<p>I say we go the other way. All travel by government employees&#x2F;officials is available to the public (can be historical to avoid security issues). Complete financial transparency by all government officials&#x2F;senior staff and their family members enforced at the bank level - you must list all your accounts, a cumulative amount of assets, list of specific assets &gt;10k in value. The financial institution is responsible for providing that directly to the IRS which then removed account numbers, institution names, round values to the nearest N to avoid identity theft, etc.<p>The entire political apparatus in the US seems to shy away from any real transparency yet want to foist it on everyone else not in power. That’s not really living your values.

Here’s the link to send an email to your local representative. It’s a pre-filled form and takes less than 60 seconds to complete:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;act.eff.org&#x2F;action&#x2F;the-earn-it-act-is-back-seeking-to-scan-us-all&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;act.eff.org&#x2F;action&#x2F;the-earn-it-act-is-back-seeking-t...</a>

4th amendment text:<p>&gt; The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.<p>Let’s name names, the senators who introduced this are Mr. GRAHAM, Mr. BLUMENTHAL, Mr. GRASSLEY, Mr. DURBIN, Mrs. HYDE-SMITH, Mrs. FEINSTEIN, Mr. HAWLEY, Ms. CORTEZ MASTO, Mr. TILLIS, Ms. HASSAN, Ms. ERNST, Mr. WARNER, Ms. MURKOWSKI, Mr. WHITEHOUSE, Ms. COLLINS, Ms. HIRONO, Mr. CRUZ, Mr. RUBIO, Mr. CORNYN, and Mr. KENNEDY.

They need to pass a &#x27;public official&#x27; bill that ties any and all public official records to whatever is expected of the general population, no exceptions.<p>This is the only true way to stop these type of bills.

<i>Mr. GRAHAM, Mr. BLUMENTHAL, Mr. GRASSLEY, Mr. DURBIN, Mrs. HYDE-SMITH, Mrs. FEINSTEIN, Mr. HAWLEY, Ms. CORTEZ MASTO, Mr. TILLIS, Ms. HASSAN, Ms. ERNST, Mr. WARNER, Ms. MURKOWSKI, Mr. WHITEHOUSE, Ms. COLLINS, Ms. HIRONO, Mr. CRUZ, Mr. RUBIO, Mr. CORNYN, and Mr. KENNEDY</i><p>Article understated things by calling it a &quot;group&quot; of senators. That&#x27;s a lot of senators already willing to get this thing off the ground.

They only have to pass it once but we have to fight it forever. This will be like the Patriot Act, it’ll never go away.

The EARN IT Act threatens the privacy of all internet users by allowing for suspicionless scans of online messages, photos, and hosted files.<p>This law creates an unelected government commission stacked with law enforcement personnel that can dictate &quot;best practices&quot; for internet websites and apps.<p>The EARN IT Act removes legal protections for users and website owners and allows state legislatures to encourage civil lawsuits and prosecutions against those who don’t follow the government’s “best practices.”<p>Websites and apps that use end-to-end encryption to protect user privacy will be pressured to remove or compromise the security of their services or face prosecutions and lawsuits.<p>This law falsely assumes that all internet users should be under suspicion for child abuse, treating us all like we&#x27;re in a permanent criminal lineup.<p>The available evidence shows that scanning software designed to detect Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) is far from perfect and often results in false accusations.<p>The EARN IT Act threatens to export these false accusations to vulnerable communities around the world, where they can be wielded by police forces with even less accountability than those in the United States.<p>The EARN IT Act leaves room for client-side scanning, violating user privacy by sending data to law enforcement straight from user devices.<p>Everyone has a right to privacy, even if they have nothing to hide. Just like we close the door when we use the bathroom, we should be able to keep our online conversations and information private. It is a fundamental right that allows individuals to have control over their personal information and to be free from unwarranted surveillance. Without privacy, people can be vulnerable to all sorts of abuse, including identity theft, stalking, and harassment.<p>The act then removes nearly 30-year-old legal protections for users and website owners. If EARN IT passes, we’re likely to see state lawmakers step in and mandate scanning of messages and other files.<p>The proposed law has been defeated twice before but needs digital rights supporters to speak up and stop it from passing again. We need to support a free, secure, and private internet.

To me what&#x27;s so maddening about these attacks on Internet privacy is that they&#x27;re extremely unpopular with actual voters across the political spectrum (it&#x27;s just that awareness of these measures is very low). No politician would ever dare to campaign on a policy like this because nobody wants it. These persistent attempts to pass anti-privacy measures really highlight the corruption of American &quot;democracy&quot; given that there is zero popular mandate to do this but politicians keep trying anyway.

I really appreciate that EFF has a convenient way to reach out to reps. If you’re a US citizen and reading this thread, I highly recommend using EFF’s tool to write to your reps. They have a pre written message and it takes 30 seconds to send it out.

&gt; The bill also makes specific allowances to allow the use of encryption to constitute evidence in court against service providers.<p>So if you enable iCloud advanced protection, that is &quot;evidence&quot;. We really really need a younger congress.

They keep trying to get rid of privacy.

Unless and until the security state and neocon&#x2F;neolib corporatist* power complex is ripped out of our government this will never stop and the People will lose this war.<p>It&#x27;s much harder to rescind a law than pass it, which means they only have to win once and we have to win every time. We are doomed by this asymmetry.

I think it is far more likely that the main impetus for this comes from those who can make the most money from it. Corporations and organizations who seek economic and political intelligence. Identifying employees who are considering other employment options, identifying employees who are considering joining unions, identifying employees political leaning, so that undesirables can be fired upfront and black balled.

Whenever a bill appears, disappears and reappears there’s a big chance it is a case of a “milker bill” or a “toll booth bill”. Basically go after an industry with money and propose some really inconvenient thing for them and say it will go away if you “donate to my campaign” usually through “lobbying efforts”<p>Big examples in the past were SOPA act for example<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;10&#x2F;22&#x2F;opinion&#x2F;politicians-extortion-racket.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;10&#x2F;22&#x2F;opinion&#x2F;politicians-extor...</a><p>EDIT: it seems to happen at all levels<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;abc11.com&#x2F;amp&#x2F;politics-durham-city-council-extortion-real-estate-developer&#x2F;13003620&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;abc11.com&#x2F;amp&#x2F;politics-durham-city-council-extortion...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;abc30.com&#x2F;amp&#x2F;nelson-esparza-charged-extortion-city-council-president&#x2F;12059065&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;abc30.com&#x2F;amp&#x2F;nelson-esparza-charged-extortion-city-...</a>

Gentle reminder: you can donate to the EFF to help them fight bills like this!

Marcus Raskin&#x27;s 1976 paper &quot;Democracy Versus the National Security State&quot; [0] is a good backgrounder on how we&#x27;ve gotten to this state of affairs. If politicians want to continue with their careers in Congress, they&#x27;ll either serve the national security state or have to pretend to their constituents that it doesn&#x27;t exist.<p>&quot;The national security state emerges from war, from fear of revolution and change, from the economic instability of capitalism, and from nuclear weapons and military technology.It has been the actualizing mechanism of ruling elites to implement their imperial schemes and misplaced ideals. In practical terms its emergence is linked to the rise of a bureaucracy that administered things and people in interchangeable fashion without concern for ends or assumptions. This state formation matured during a period in which the office of the President be- came supremely powerful as a broker and legitimating instrument of national security activity.&quot;<p>&quot;...The society is at a turning point. And in this regard so is the legal profession. Either we will surrender representative democracy, embracing instead different forms of corporate fascism and bureaucratic control (military, police, and social) which cannot be halted through citizen action and democratic pro- cesses, or we (including the legal profession) will begin the difficult task of dismantling the national security apparatus. It does not seem likely to me that those who struggled in the sixties to develop a new meaning of democracy will settle for bureaucratic or corporate fascism. And those who are neutral on the question will be less likely to acquiesce in fascist or bonapartist deformations once it is clear that they are inefficient, and that they provide only insecurity, unemployment, imperial wars, a deepening arms race, and a pro- cess of repressive exclusion which reduces politics to an empty game.&quot;<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;scholarship.law.duke.edu&#x2F;lcp&#x2F;vol40&#x2F;iss3&#x2F;7&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;scholarship.law.duke.edu&#x2F;lcp&#x2F;vol40&#x2F;iss3&#x2F;7&#x2F;</a><p>Plain text at:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.org&#x2F;stream&#x2F;democracy-versus-the-national-security-state&#x2F;Democracy%20Versus%20the%20National%20Security%20State%281%29_djvu.txt" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.org&#x2F;stream&#x2F;democracy-versus-the-national-sec...</a>

I find myself consistently disappointed when reading blog posts like this. I generally agree with the principles that the EFF advocates for, but it&#x27;s hard to see this post as anything other than rage-bait. I can&#x27;t trust it to be an accurate source of information on what this bill actually does.<p>For example, I&#x27;ve repeatedly seen claims that this bill would effectively outlaw end-to-end encryption, but the bill explicitly protects companies that offer encryption from liability.<p>&gt;None of the following actions or circumstances shall serve as an independent basis for liability of a provider of an interactive computer service for a claim or charge described in that paragraph:<p>&gt;(i) The provider utilizes full end-to-end encrypted messaging services, device encryption, or other encryption services.<p>&gt;(ii) The provider does not possess the information necessary to decrypt a communication.<p>&gt;(iii) The provider fails to take an action that would otherwise undermine the ability of the provider to offer full end-to-end encrypted messaging services, device encryption, or other encryption services&quot;<p>When I look to the EFF for an explanation about why this language isn&#x27;t sufficient, I get this:<p>&gt;The bill clearly leaves room to impose forms of &quot;client-side scanning&quot;<p>Going back to the bill, the phrase &quot;client-side scanning&quot; doesn&#x27;t appear anywhere in the text despite the EFF implying that they&#x27;re quoting from the bill. If they&#x27;re not quoting from the bill then what exactly are they quoting from? This is the kind of thing that makes me unable to trust them to be accurate, which makes posts like this effectively useless to me since I feel the need to independently verify all of their claims.

Because most “democratic” countries are not really democratic. Elected representatives can and will act against the interests of the public they represent.<p>While here in Switzerland we have direct democracy, where such decisions have to be confirmed by national referendums (we have several each year), and most certainly this one would not be approved.

Some days, I would like a law that applies to digital things the same thing we already have protected by the constitution; the Fourth Amendment should apply to our digital stores but it doesn&#x27;t.<p>&gt; The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.<p>I personally believe &quot;papers, and effects&quot; apply to digital things.

The increasing rate of technological progress worries me sometimes. One upside is the hope that malicious policy just won&#x27;t be able to keep up with the rate of change.<p>It seems futile to fight these kinds of things, especially since if something isn&#x27;t legal, it&#x27;ll likely get done via some shady method (eg. mass surveillance).<p>I wonder what an emerging information system would look like where these kinds of policies just wouldn&#x27;t be relevant. P2P? Turning away from online tech in general?<p>When the bully comes to the playground, it seems like a good idea to just go play elsewhere.

As a non-american (and from far-far-away) I still sympathise with people who stand against it. Because it&#x27;s fairly clear to me: if it starts there, it spreads everywhere. That&#x27;s more of a WEF thing.

If I were American, I might respond to their, &quot;Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies&quot; Act, with the &quot;Mitigating Overreach Limiting Obstruction Nullifying Lamentability And Benefiting Everyone&quot; Act.<p>If by EARN IT, they mean Americans should earn their freedom - which this government is using its own crimes[1] as a pretext for taking from them - that seems really just unwise.<p>[1] EDKH

The fundamental instinctive understanding that everyone has socially as to why gossip is bad is why privacy is important.

If so, then every member of parliament, senator, judge, minister and other public officers should upload all their data and conversations for the public to see and regularly update it. After all it&#x27;s for the &quot;good of the society&quot; right?

Here is a link to send to politicians: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;everyoneneedsencryption.gavinhoward.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;everyoneneedsencryption.gavinhoward.com&#x2F;</a> .<p>Feedback welcome. I want it as short and as punchy as possible.

what can we do?<p>this is already happening in a lot of cases, we need to make sure this legal grey zone is closed and ruled in favor of privacy. as government powers are derived from the people, and I don&#x27;t have any right to walk into your house and ask for your mail, the government has no right to invade our privacy. there are better ways to keep us safe. lots of private software does this already and has lots of problems. I see no reason to assume the government would be any better. I could maybe get behind less privacy for government programs interfacing with the American public and for corporations

Isn&#x27;t there a way to permanently stop lawmakers from proposing to take away freedoms and rights using terrorism or child abuse as excuses? We can&#x27;t keep fighting this kind of bullshit every few years.

this has been done before:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.history.com&#x2F;topics&#x2F;colonial-america&#x2F;salem-witch-trials" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.history.com&#x2F;topics&#x2F;colonial-america&#x2F;salem-witch-...</a>

And this time they’ll probably get it passed. Seeing as what they have already done in Europe and California and Utah and…<p>There is something We the People can do, as an industry, it is described at the bottom of this link. First it describes the massive extent of the problem, then links to the solution:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;community.qbix.com&#x2F;t&#x2F;the-coming-war-on-end-to-end-encryption&#x2F;214" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;community.qbix.com&#x2F;t&#x2F;the-coming-war-on-end-to-end-en...</a><p>If you are thinking “why should I bother clicking on that random link?” It starts out by linking to all the stuff the US government has <i>already done</i>, including defeating the EFF’s challenges recently in court — that’s defeating the same guys who published this new piece.

Yet another reminder that if you are a US citizen, your safety and your freedom are far more threatened by those in DC than anyone in a foreign country.

Surely someone here will be encouraged to run for office

I&#x27;m willing to wager that client side scanning violates the third amendment of the us constitution.

Those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear. But what sort of sad bastard has nothing to hide?

Privacy is a human right, LEARN IT.

Naturally this bill designed to strip our privacy is named after the song from Fifty Shades of Grey.

How does this stuff keep happening? Like no one wants it in the public why is it still coming up?

Just an reminder: ChatGPT does a great job of rephrasing things to make them unique.

Here&#x27;s the bill on govscent (with topics extracted by openai, UI is very much still early days...)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;govscent.org&#x2F;bill&#x2F;USA&#x2F;118s686is" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;govscent.org&#x2F;bill&#x2F;USA&#x2F;118s686is</a><p>We also have the topics and summaries by section, but I have yet to build the UI for it.

Unpopular legal factoid: The right to privacy was overturned with Roe vs. Wade.

Soon they will ask to scan your car computer so they can ticket you for speeding.

They are going to keep trying until it passes, aren’t they.

Will these people ever stop?

As I&#x27;ve said before, complaining about privacy will only take you so far because the issues are too abstract for many people. While right-wing attacks on abortion and contraception may seem irrelevant to tech issues, they also attack the legal basis for privacy, which is not explicitly written into the US constitution. It&#x27;d be wise to focus a little less on individual bills and a little more on the broader strategic picture.<p>That should include a privacy-friendly counter-proposal for dealing with the trade in CSAM, which is a real problem no matter how much the tech community tries to wish it away by saying &#x27;it&#x27;s already illegal&#x27;. It&#x27;s disingenuous to look at one issue and say &#x27;scope creep, this will threaten our freedoms&#x27; while looking at another issue and saying &#x27;we already passed a law, therefore the problem doesn&#x27;t exist&#x27;.