US Gov Orders Internet To Rat Out Its [Innocent] Users

[dan at geer.org]

 | The Senate Intelligence Committee secretly voted on June 24 in favor
 | of legislation requiring e-mail providers and social media sites to
 | report suspected terrorist activities. The legislation, approved 15-0
 | in a closed-door hearing, remains "classified." The relevant text is
 | contained in the 2016 intelligence authorization...


In a court of logic, this makes sense.  These firms' entire business
is in content inspection of one form or another plus traffic analysis
of one form or another and making decisions on what they find in
content or in relationships and so forth and so on, so making them
incrementally responsible for what they find or could find is logical
and directly so to lawmakers.  Harvard Law professor Jonathan
Zittrain famously noted that if you use online services that are
free, "You are not the customer, you are the product."  Why?  Because
what is observable is observed, what is observed is sold, and users
are always observable, even when they are anonymous.  If I were a
lawmaker, I'd follow that logic just as they have.

No, I don't like it, either.

--dan