By: Philip | 03-24-2018 | News
Photo credit: WCCFtech.com

So Long 4th Amendment, Probable Cause And Privacy: Cloud Act Passes

What is the Cloud Act? It's just the latest assault on internet freedom and as of March 23 with the signing of the $1.3 trillion Omnibus bill, it's now a law.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Now more than ever, do not bareback any website, especially US-based ones as of March 23, 2018. The <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CLOUDAct?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CLOUDAct</a> was added to the 2,232-page spending bill seemingly no one bothered to read and signed into law.<a href="https://t.co/dSejc66CTx">https://t.co/dSejc66CTx</a><br><br>Use VPNs, proxies and/or Tor.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DeleteFacebook?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#DeleteFacebook</a> <a href="https://t.co/QVxdgDNTId">pic.twitter.com/QVxdgDNTId</a></p>&mdash; 8chan (8ch.net) (@infinitechan) <a href="https://twitter.com/infinitechan/status/977460936427544576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 24, 2018</a></blockquote>

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Initially, the Omnibus bill was meant to be no more than appropriations, but when you've got a 2,232 page bit of legislation it's bound to have some trojan horses snuck in between the fine print. What's frightening is that the bill expands the powers of digital snooping globally and unilaterally. In February, <a href="https://www.accessnow.org/new-u-s-cloud-act-threat-global-privacy/">Access Now warned us</a> of what was to come, what now is:

<blockquote> The bill would allow U.S. law enforcement to access data stored abroad by increasing the reach of the law that federal law enforcement uses to access data, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), without the cooperation of foreign governments (that cooperation is now standard). Under the newly created standard, law enforcement could order companies to provide data regardless of the location of the data or data subject. This would mean that U.S. courts would claim global authority.

Secondly, the bill would enable agreements between the U.S. and other governments whose law enforcement would be permitted to directly request data from U.S. companies without adequate protections for user privacy. When this idea was previously proposed, we addressed some of the problems with it. For one, it would extend the reach of law enforcement in places like the U.K., whose surveillance standards were recently ruled unlawful. </blockquote>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Well lookie here on page 2,212 of the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/omnibus?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#omnibus</a>. Text of the CLOUD Act, which allows foreign gov’ts to demand data from US companies. Added to the omni without hearings, markups or amendments. <a href="https://t.co/xOnaryRH7F">pic.twitter.com/xOnaryRH7F</a></p>&mdash; Rachel Bovard (@rachelbovard) <a href="https://twitter.com/rachelbovard/status/976644303870156800?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 22, 2018</a></blockquote>

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The CLOUD Act was evidently never even reviewed or marked up by any committee within the House or Senate, but I guess that's just the point we've come to where privacy is such a non-issue that the idea of "deleting" the 4th amendment seems like something we should do without a second act. The bill was not only unrelated to spending but had been entirely un-vetted and in the tech and privacy community, there's really nobody who is all that pleased.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The CLOUD Act passed. It destroys privacy globally, so it had to be snuck into the $1.3 trillion omnibus without debate. <br><br>Encrypt. Encrypt. Encrypt. Go Dark.<br><br> When privacy is criminalized, only criminals have privacy. We got sold out, again. <a href="https://t.co/Ms5bm1opBo">pic.twitter.com/Ms5bm1opBo</a></p>&mdash; Andreas M. Antonopoulos (@aantonop) <a href="https://twitter.com/aantonop/status/977249709839458304?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 23, 2018</a></blockquote>

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So now U.S. and foreign LEOs and LEAs have expanded powers and means to sniff your data packets, filter through your messages, sneak into your emails and "slide into your DMs" to use a bit of Twitter slang. Your digital life is now an open book and there's no need for a warrant and very little restriction on what data can be gathered or what is done with it afterward.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has long been a digital privacy watchdog and as such, they've been railing against the potential for the CLOUD to become reality for a while:

<blockquote>As we wrote before, the CLOUD Act is a far-reaching, privacy-upending piece of legislation that will:

Enable foreign police to collect and wiretap people's communications from U.S. companies, without obtaining a U.S. warrant.

Allow foreign nations to demand personal data stored in the United States, without prior review by a judge.

Allow the U.S. president to enter "executive agreements" that empower police in foreign nations that have weaker privacy laws than the United States to seize data in the United States while ignoring U.S. privacy laws.

Allow foreign police to collect someone's data without notifying them about it.

Empower U.S. police to grab any data, regardless if it's a U.S. person's or not, no matter where it is stored.</blockquote>

So long probable cause, but hey, to be fair, habeas corpus (which also had its roots in the Magna Carta of 1215) was suspended around the time of the Patriot Act, so I guess you could at least say we had a good run there.

Source:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/responsibility-deflected-cloud-act-passes

Twitter: #omnibus #CLOUDact #privacy

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Thoughts on the above story? Comment below!
5 Comment/s
Anonymous No. 21375 2018-03-24 : 16:05

Trump has me so pissed off I might stop voting altogether, our countries only hope I thought but I was soo wrong. He's out to out prez everyone before him. Signed a bill he even acknowledged no one read. Now if I give all my board members a business change proposal because a few of us want to take the company in a totally different direction but it's many pages and was delivered an hour before we were scheduled to vote and all the board members had trips planned cause like grade school we get shutdown multiple times a year for breaks. If any of my board voted on it without reading it they would be "FIRED" no one would start their break till it was read or the vote would be postponed.

Trump should have shut down the gov as he should know better than to sign something that was presented by a bunch of people that want him to fail. Anyone in charge at one of trumps businesses that signed a contract without reading it first would be out on their asses. This shit was supposed to stop with trumps election. I sure hope we get a decent conservative candidate in 2020 cause I doubt I'll vote for the trump puppet again.

Don't even get me started on that little weasel Paul Cryin Ryan!

Anonymous No. 21376 2018-03-24 : 16:08

I miss the old Trump. I feel like I just lost a good buddy

Anonymous No. 21392 2018-03-24 : 19:45

WHY IS THIS A THING?

TRUMP IS FRAUD.

>i heard he has all the makings of an impeachable president.

>signing the bill is a form of black mail compliments of the global powers

Anonymous No. 21409 2018-03-25 : 03:01

But i thought the 4th amendment was already killed by the Patriot Act

ana No. 21419 2018-03-25 : 06:17

He said he was a snake–don't people remember the poem?? Apparently people assumed one thing when he meant another

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