Quote from: topside on March 31, 2017, 06:39:42 AM
I wasn't trying to be critical of you - your habits of research are better than mine and I'd like to understand what sources you use / trust most. I haven't read the bill yet either (embarrassing) but I'm not sure how to find it (yet). Your thoroughness is part of why I highly value your opinion. We all fall for the MSM once in awhile - but Cruz's silence on this topic is disconcerting - I hope someone asks him to make a statement on it.

None! 
Honestly, the question should be what I trust the least and go from there.
Problem with news today, is everyone has an obvious bias, so it's incumbent upon the reader to research rather than take all news at face value. (Alphabet networks being the worst of the worst)
Even Redstate, Rightscoop Drudge, Breitbart come loaded with bias that we all need to be leery of.

Cruz is on the subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet.


H.J.Res. 86: Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the ...

... rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission relating to "Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunications Services".

S.J.Res. 34 (identical)

Passed House & Senate
Last Action: Mar 28, 2017


Here is a summary of the bill: 

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hjres86/summary

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hjres86

Quote from: Ms.Independence on March 31, 2017, 07:49:35 AM
Cruz is on the subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet.


H.J.Res. 86: Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the ...

... rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission relating to "Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunications Services".

S.J.Res. 34 (identical)

Passed House & Senate
Last Action: Mar 28, 2017


Here is a summary of the bill: 

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hjres86/summary

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hjres86

Thanks for posting this - and for introducing me to this site.

I also linked over to the original "Rule":

https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-12-02/pdf/2016-28006.pdf#page=1

Help me understand something. There was a bill that was voted in by the Dims when BO was on his way out. And the Bill must have referenced this Rule somehow? I don't understand how the Rule is related to a Bill?

Anyway, I assume that this Rule is now part of Federal law that the US is obligated to enforce. It's 73 pages of small, three column text. I'm going to scan it, but it just smells of government over-reach; something that would be very difficult to enforce consistently. Who knows what nuanced intentions were buried in all those pages. I'm not sure if it's about protecting me or more about the government making fake jobs and getting a piece of the online advertising revenue to further fund their spending habits.

Quote from: topside on March 31, 2017, 08:26:07 AM
Thanks for posting this - and for introducing me to this site.

I also linked over to the original "Rule":

https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-12-02/pdf/2016-28006.pdf#page=1

Help me understand something. There was a bill that was voted in by the Dims when BO was on his way out. And the Bill must have referenced this Rule somehow? I don't understand how the Rule is related to a Bill?

Anyway, I assume that this Rule is now part of Federal law that the US is obligated to enforce. It's 73 pages of small, three column text. I'm going to scan it, but it just smells of government over-reach; something that would be very difficult to enforce consistently. Who knows what nuanced intentions were buried in all those pages. I'm not sure if it's about protecting me or more about the government making fake jobs and getting a piece of the online advertising revenue to further fund their spending habits.

Quote from: Solar on March 31, 2017, 05:21:58 AM
Did anyone bother to even read the Bill beyond an NBC BS Headline?

The Senate took the first step Thursday toward blocking rules that would restrict how some big tech companies share and sell your personal data, a prospect that digital activists said would be a huge loss for online privacy.

On a party-line vote of 50-48, the Senate passed a joint resolution that would bar the Federal Communications Commission from enforcing rules it approved last year — when it was under Democratic control — that sought to ban internet service providers like cable and cellphone companies from selling

They passed it just three months ago. That's why I took offense at the NBC Bull Shit headline, they knew exactly what they were doing.

Quote from: Solar on March 31, 2017, 08:38:25 AM
They passed it just three months ago. That's why I took offense at the NBC Bull Shit headline, they knew exactly what they were doing.

Right - as you identify, very fishy but a typical Dim move. Just the fact it was put in at as the clock ran out is a tell that something is amiss.

1. Pick's winners and losers - ISPs are the loser and Google, Facebook, ... are winners. Why would the Dims be biased against ISPs? Maybe it isn't that as much diminishing ISP involvement as paying off Google and Facebook as they seems to be in bed with the libs and offers the dominant control over the millinneals.

2. The length also makes it seem fishy - things buried that let them rack up some fines and staff more government control jobs.

Quote from: topside on March 31, 2017, 08:57:20 AM
Right - as you identify, very fishy but a typical Dim move. Just the fact it was put in at as the clock ran out is a tell that something is amiss.

1. Pick's winners and losers - ISPs are the loser and Google, Facebook, ... are winners. Why would the Dims be biased against ISPs? Maybe it isn't that as much diminishing ISP involvement as paying off Google and Facebook as they seems to be in bed with the libs and offers the dominant control over the millinneals.

2. The length also makes it seem fishy - things buried that let them rack up some fines and staff more government control jobs.

Yeah, they had 8 years to do this and waited until the last second, then the Dims alerted the media with talking points on how to release this info.
It's crap like this that pisses me off about the Pubs. They knew this was a setup and did nothing to cut them off at the knees ahead of time.
They let the media run with it and still, not a word from the GOP.
I still say the Freedom Caucus needs a PR firm in a huge way.

A few snippets from the Rule: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-12-02/pdf/2016-28006.pdf#page=1

Yes - we want privacy. But this is set of Rules is over-reaching.

You can read all the quotes if you want, but I've tried to factor out a few entertaining aspects of the posted quotes.

QuoteThe rules require carriers to provide privacy notices that clearly and accurately inform customers; obtain opt-
in or opt-out customer approval to use and share sensitive or non-sensitive customer proprietary information,
respectively; take reasonable measures to secure customer proprietary information; provide notification to
customers, the Commission, and law enforcement in the event of data breaches that could result in harm; not
condition provision of service on the surrender of privacy rights; and provide heightened notice and obtain affirmative
consent when offering financial incentives in exchange for the right to use a customer's confidential information.

So far, so good except such rules don't apply to other entities, e.g., Google, so its a market bias.

QuotePrivacy rights are fundamental because they protect important personal interests—freedom
from identity theft, financial loss, or other economic harms, as well as concerns that intimate, personal details
could become the grist for the mills of public embarrassment or harassment or the basis for opaque, but harmful
judgments, including discrimination.

There's a lot of snowflake in that line. Define "public embarassment" for me and tell me who decides to enforce that?

QuoteThrough this Order, we therefore adopt rules that give broadband customers the tools they need to make informed
choices about the use and sharing of their confidential information by their broadband providers, and we adopt
clear, flexible, and enforceable data security and data breach notification requirements.

Again, over-reaching - a lot of government control here to "give them the tools".

Quote7. We next adopt rules protecting consumer privacy using the three foundations of privacy—transparency, choice, and security:

Yes - assume that you can't have any of my information then ask me before you release it anywhere. This should apply across the board. And don't tell me that you keep it secure - we've all seen how that goes. Commmercial entities are just playing you when they say they will keep my data secure.

Quote34. The record also indicates that truly pervasive encryption on the Internet is still a long way off, and that
many sites still do not encrypt. We observe that several commenters rely on projections that 70 percent of Internet
traffic will be encrypted by the end of 2016. However, a significant amount of this encrypted data is video traffic from
Netflix, which, according to commenters, accounts for 35 percent of North American Internet traffic.
Moreover, ''raw packets make for a misleading metric.'' As further explained by one commenter ''watching
the full Ultra HD stream of The Amazing Spider-Man could generate more than 40GB of traffic, while retrieving the
WebMD page for 'pancreatic cancer' generates less than 2MB.''

I doubt the prediction about encrypted traffic but it's good to know how much data the Amazing Spiderman takes. Really, this is in a Federal Law?

Quote38. In adopting rules to protect the privacy of customers of BIAS and other telecommunications services, we must
begin by specifying the entities and information at issue. We look to the language of the statute to determine the
appropriate scope of our implementing rules. As discussed above, section 222(a) specifies that
telecommunications carriers have a duty to protect the confidentiality of proprietary information of and relating
to their customers, while section 222(c) provides direction about protections to be accorded ''customer proprietary
network information.'' We therefore first adopt rules identifying the set of ''telecommunications carriers'' that are
subject to our rules and define the ''customers'' these rules protect. Next we define ''customer proprietary
information'' and include within that definition ''individually identifiable customer proprietary network
information,'' ''personally identifiable information,'' and content of communications.

Bottom line - they make all these classifications and write rules for each class ... which is why the document is 77 pages long.

Quoteprovider acquires the information as a product of the relationship and not through an independent means.

An interesting distinction from Google or Facebook - the ISPs have access that they don't and it's use is restricted under this Rule. So it keeps the ISPs completely from competing.

Quote(a) Background—Components of an Internet Protocol Packet ...

They actually try to define the Internet technology in this Rule over a few pages to define the terms. It's a fairly technical description - I'm an engineer with experience with implementing some IP protocols and can see that it's a very weak explanation at best. I'm not sure whey they bothered in attempting this strange approach.

The rule goes on and on defining what Customer Provided Network Information is and is not. It's a veritable maze of terms. It would take me a year to try and make any sense of all the terms, much less put in action to make sure I protected it all to the extent this law requires.

QuoteSurveys reflect that 74 percent of Americans believe it is ''very important'' to be in control over their
own information; as a Pew study found, ''f the traditional American view of privacy is the 'right to be left alone,' the
21st-century refinement of that idea is the right to control their identity and information.'' We agree with the Center
for Democracy & Technology that ''[e]xcluding PII from the proposed rules would be contrary to decades of U.S.
privacy regulation and public policy.''

This section justifies why they think they need to make the ISPs control the personal information in such detail. So much regulation though - unmanageable. If you managed your kids this way they would grow up being neurotic at best. They probably wouldn't grow up at all because they would be afraid to move while they kept all your rules.

This reminds me of my third child - when she finally got her own room. She made a list of rules. One was "no smoking". No one in our house smoked.

Another thought - I don't know how much this long Rule would impact police action. Would it restrict evidence that police need to catch perverts, drug dealers, terrorists that post on the internet? Would all the information be considered private so that any new-grad lawyer could jam up an investigation? Protection can go both ways. Would they need to get a warrant to pick up a cell phone and look through it's contents?

Ok ... I got to about page 22 and was zoning out. I hope this helps see into the Rule a bit. I wonder what the Bill said - simple incorporation of this Rule?

After laboring through this Rule, it dawned on me ... I could have saved the Dims a bunch of time writing this Rule.

"If any ISPs release Personal Information we might decide to fine the crap out of you. We'll let you know what PI is when we see it in an audit. "

That about covers it.

This Rule / Law was EXACTLY what Trump stood against in his campaign - turning back regulations that hog-tie businesses. It's in line with all the housing and financial regs that's buried the lending market and company financial operations.

What would be better? Here's the first thought that crossed my mind. Some information is obviously personal ... name, social security number, home address, email address, banking codes. Entities have historically sucked at protecting such information. Would you ever trust an external entity anyway?

It should be up to the users to protect their information - some kinds of tools that users configure that only shows personal information if they provide access to a user over some period of time. Maybe funds could be invested at creating resources to coordinate protection of information with all external entities (e.g, ISPs, Google, etc.) - a good product for the US economy under competition. Rather than just throwing ill-defined rules and subjective enforcement out into the market. It's kind of what has been done to combat computer virus threats - isn't perfect, but did accomplish a lot without so many regulations and added government employees to audit / enforce the laws. This approach seems backward to me - lazy on the governments part. The government could encourage this economy by putting some energy on evaluating the tools, putting great minds into assessing the tools, and rewarding the best.

It would be interesting to compare the construction of an BO-era "Rule" to a GW-era "Rule" and see if there is much difference in the details they meddle with.

Comparing the total government regulations, BO issued 25x of GWs according to:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/who-issued-more-regulations--obama-or-bush/2012/03/22/gIQAVvGYWS_blog.html?utm_term=.9311961575ef

... and that was reported in 2012. It had to be even more imbalanced overall in a head-to-head, 8 year comparison. Bill Clinton issued 8x more regulations that Bush.

Speaking of internet service providers...

Time Warner has changed its name to Spectrum.

Could that be because Time Warner's treatment of their customers
have left them fed up with the company?

Anyway, one of Time Warner/Spectrum's competitors (Cincinnati Bell)
is now running this ad on radio:

"We're easy to remember, because we never change our name!"