Dangerous "Cloud Act" passes as part of huge spending bill in the US

The Cloud Act ( Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act) was a last minute addition to the $1.3 trillion federal spending bill. The bill will allow the U.S. government more access to data on Americans for law enforcement purposes.

The bill also allows foreign governments access to U.S. companies for data on their own citizens.

Cloud Act hidden in Omnibus spending bill.

The Cloud Act was added to the Omnibus spending bill on Wednesday evening ahead of the voting that took place on Thursday.

The inclusion ensures there is no separate discussion or voting on the bill. The Omnibus bill passed by 256-167 In the House and 65-23 in the Senate.

Cloud Act criticized by rights groups

Privacy advocates such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) were critical of the bill. After the bill passed the EFF said that "this final, tacked-on piece of legislation will erode privacy protections around the globe".

On March 22, the day of the vote, Senator Rand Paul tweeted: “Congress should reject the CLOUD Act because it fails to protect human rights or Americans’ privacy...gives up their constitutional role, and gives far too much power to the attorney general, the secretary of state, the president and foreign governments." He then noted that Congress could not reject the Act because without any legislative action or review it got placed into the Omnibus bill.

The ACLU's objections

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) posted a letter on the act on March 12. The letter said that in the opinion of the ACLU the bill “undermines privacy and other human rights, as well as important democratic safeguards,” because it bypassed Congress and the existing stored information procedure and placed authority in the executive branch.

The act also does not exclude the US making deals with governments that have human rights abuses. It also allows foreign governments to directly contact US companies for data requests without any judicial review. In other words the bill has much less oversight that might detect violations of privacy rights.

Part of the ACLU letter reads: "The CLOUD Act undermines the rights of individuals both inside and outside the U.S. The legislation would, among other things: (1) allow foreign governments to wiretap on U.S. soil under standards that do not comply with U.S. law; (2) give the executive branch the power to enter into foreign agreements without Congressional approval, including in cases where countries have a concerning human rights record; (3) allow foreign governments to obtain information that could pertain to individuals in the U.S. without meeting constitutional standards; and (4) possibly facilitate foreign government access to information that is used to commit human rights abuses, like torture."

Big tech firms are big supporters of the bill.

In spite of the fact that in actuality the CLOUD bill detracts from privacy protection a number of big tech companies wrote a joint letter supporting it.

A letter on February 6th written jointly by Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Oath said: “Our companies have long advocated for international agreements and global solutions to protect our customers and Internet users around the world. We have always stressed that dialogue and legislation - not litigation - is the best approach. If enacted, the CLOUD Act would be notable progress to protect consumers’ rights and would reduce conflicts of law.”

Microsoft again posted a letter supporting the bill on March 21, stating that the Cloud Act claiming that the bill: “Creates a modern legal framework for how law enforcement agencies can access data across borders. It’s a strong statute and a good compromise that reflects recent bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress, as well as support from the Department of Justice, the White House, the National Association of Attorneys General and a broad cross section of technology companies [...] it gives tech companies like Microsoft the ability to stand up for the privacy rights of our customers around the world. .."

If the bill has all these virtues, why was it not examined by any committee in either House or Senate? It received no hearing.

Behind closed doors, Congressional leaders decided to tack this bill onto a 2,237 page bill that was meant solely to appropriate money for government spending. Legislators were handed the bill at 8:00 p.m. the evening before a morning vote. One can imagine how thoroughly the contents were examined.

No doubt there was considerable lobbying by Big Tech and others to have this happen, to ensure that there was no debate on a separate bill. The way that this bill was passed shows how little the U.S. Congress and Big Tech care about discussing privacy issues. Congress is moved by the interests of big corporations and acts so as to avoid any discussion of the Cloud Act so it can pass without any criticism.

Previously published in Digital Journal

Electronic Frontier Foundation criticizes decision to revoke services to the extreme right The Daily Stormer

Electronic Frontier Foundation(EFF) has reacted strongly against the decision by GoDaddy, Google, and Cloudfare to revoke services to the extreme right The Daily Stormer.

The EFF said that the tactics used to silence the Daily Stormer's hate speech could be used against other groups ultimately such as civil rights groups. The EFF wrote in a blog post: "All fair-minded people must stand against the hateful violence and aggression that seems to be growing across our country. But we must also recognize that on the Internet, any tactic used now to silence neo-Nazis will soon be used against others, including people whose opinions we agree with." Matthew Prince the CEO of Cloudfare said in an email that the EFF concerns were justified:"We wholeheartedly agree with the concerns outlined by the EFF. They reflect the same risks we outlined in our blog." However, Cloudfare revoked services to the Daily Stormer. Google said that it revoked the Daily Stormer registration since it violated its terms of reference. There was a concern that the site was inciting violence. The revocation of its registration came after the Stormer had published an offensive article about Heather Heyer who was run over deliberately and killed by a car as she was protesting against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Stormer can now not be found by search engines but is visible to users of the Tor browser through an address on the dark web. The Tor browser allows users to browse anonymously but also hosts sites anonymously as well.

Other technology companies also reacted to events in Charlottesville. Twitter suspended accounts related to The Stormer. Discord, a chat service used by gamers, also shut down several servers that white supremacists were using to communicate. Apple and Paypal disabled services to merchants who glorified white nationalism or racism. Reddit and Facebook banned groups they regarded as dedicated to hate speech.

Prince, whose firm Cloudfare protected Storm Trooper sites from denial of service attacks, criticized his own decision: “Literally, I woke up in a bad mood and decided someone shouldn't be allowed on the Internet. No one should have that power.” Firms do have that power. EFF agrees that all fair-minded people should stand against hateful speech, violence and aggression. However, they argue that the same tactic now being used to silence neo-Nazis and white supremacists could soon be used against others. For example, there are some who are calling for Black Lives Matter to be characterized as a hate group. What if Trump decides that much of the criticism against him is a form of hate speech? There are a number of countries that make it a crime to be critical of the ruler. The EFF notes that we believe that neither government nor commercial enterprises should decide whose speech should be heard and whose should not.

Daily Stormer moved their domain to Google's domain management service. Google not only refused Daily Stormer as a customer, it also placed daiystormer.com on "Client Hold" which means that the owner of the Daily Stormer not only cannot activate the domain or use it but that also it cannot be moved to another site. Whether this is for a limited time or whether Google has effectively taken over ownership of the domain is not clear. I find it surprising that Google has the power to do this.

EFF defended the right of companies to choose what content they allow on their online platforms. Nevertheless what GoDaddy, Google, and Cloudfare did they consider dangerous. Internet intermediaries, the EFF notes, already control much online speech and their acts have far reaching consequences. In this regard, search engines also filter out speech. There is an entire Wikipedia article on Google censorship. The World Socialist Website has accused Google of manipulating search results so that less people are accessing their website..

The Daily Stormer's Russian domain became defunct when Cloudfare withdrew its protection services. CEO Prince said that the last straw came when the team behind the Stormer said that Cloudfare was "one of us". Before this Cloudfare had stuck with the Daily Stormer. Prince said: “I realized there was no way we were going to have that conversation with people calling us Nazis. The Daily Stormer site was bragging on their bulletin boards about how Cloudflare was one of them and that is the opposite of everything we believe. That was the tipping point for me.” Owners of the Stormer tried to set up the Chinese domain www.dailystormer.wang and the Russian www.dailystormer.ru but they were both shut down just hours after being created.

The reaction to Charlottesville has been so strong that even the ACLU is under fire for defending the neo-Nazis right to free speech. ACLU executive director wrote that hateful, bigoted speech must be allowed saying: "Racism and bigotry will not be eradicated if we merely force them underground. Equality and justice will only be achieved if society looks such bigotry squarely in the eyes and renounces it." There was some resentment against the ACLU because it had represented Jason Kessler organizer of Unite the Right when Charlottesville tried to revoke its permit to gather in a downtown Charlottesville park. Kessler's permit was upheld by US District Court Judge Glen Conrad, who noted that the city had left in place permits for counter-protesters to gather near the park.

The censoring of speech means not only that people are being told that they cannot say certain things but also that others cannot hear what they have to say either. Surely any speech which we consider hateful should be heard so that we can argue against it. Censorship of this sort shows a lack of faith in the ability of the people who hear the speech not to be taken in by it. The result of such censorship is to drive groups that peddle such hate speech underground. If gives them further evidence that their ideas are right because the established order does everything in its power to stop those ideas even from being heard. It may even help enlist more people extremely dissatisfied with the status quo.