Sheldon Whitehouse Freaks Out, Blames 'Pro-Botnet Lobby' For Rejecting His Terrible CFAA Amendment

from the the-pro-botnet-lobby-is-here dept

As we mentioned yesterday, one of the (many) bad things involved in the new Senate attempt to push the CISA "cybersecurity" bill forward was that they were including a bad amendment added by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse that would expand the terrible Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a law that should actually be significantly cut back. Senator Ron Wyden protested this amendment specifically in his speech against CISA. And, for whatever reason, Whitehouse's amendment has been pulled from consideration and Whitehouse is seriously pissed off about it.

He went on the Senate floor to directly whine about it, even sarcastically calling out the "hidden pro-botnet, pro-foreign cyber criminal caucus" that somehow fought against the bill. Except it wasn't a "pro-botnet" anyone who killed the amendment. It was a lot of people who were quite reasonably concerned about what the amendment would do to the CFAA. And while it's true that Whitehouse improved the amendment from its originally really terrible state, it still was a bad amendment. Whitehouse goes on and on in has rant about who could possibly be "against" shutting down botnets or raising penalties for hacking into critical infrastructure, citing that "law enforcement" supports the bill. But, of course, that leaves out the other side entirely. And that's not the "pro-botnet, pro-foreign cyber criminal" caucus, but rather people who are well aware of how the CFAA has regularly been abused by law enforcement to bring charges against non-criminals, or to pile on charges on those committing minor offenses. Expanding all of that without stopping the potential for abuse only means the bill will be abused further.

Whitehouse continues to make a name for himself as one of the most technologically illiterate members of the Senate. Late last year he went on a rant about a totally made up Google search (the results did not show what he claimed they showed) and an equally made up Pirate Bay whose actual site did not show what Whitehouse pretended it showed. He also was strongly in favor of backdooring encryption, arguing that if Apple doesn't backdoor encryption, perhaps it will be opening itself up to a lawsuit when the FBI can't track down a kidnapper (ignoring all the times that such encryption would actually protect people). This push to expand the CFAA and then whining about pushback on the Senate floor is only adding to his reputation as one of the most anti-tech industry Senators out there.

And, of course, for all the show on the floor, it's not like the Amendment is dead anyway. As Marcey Wheeler notes in her post (linked above), there's still a good chance that his CFAA amendment will be brought back into the bill when the House and Senate conference to resolve differences in the bills across houses.
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Filed Under: botnet caucus, botnets, cfaa, cisa, cybersecurity, hacking, sheldon whitehouse


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  • icon
    That Anonymous Coward (profile), 21 Oct 2015 @ 4:02pm

    Old man stands in a room screaming at a cloud.

    Would we let someone who looked at WebMD once, do surgery?
    Why do we allow those who obviously don't (and willfully refuse to) have any clue about technology make decisions about it?

    We can not expect them to know the details of all technologies, but we sure as hell are paying them enough to have staff who can keep them correctly informed. Demanding amendments that make things worse for those they allegedly represent, while screaming it is some secret plot... if he didn't have all of that money we'd be discussing why the mental health system let him roam around unsupervised. (This shows the sad state of healthcare in the country when those with the best plans are allowed to have severe mental defects without treatment.)

    When those who are supposed to represent our best interests can't be bothered, perhaps it is time we find new people to represent us.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 23 Oct 2015 @ 9:21am

      Re:

      "Old man stands in a room screaming at a cloud."

      Heh, I remember this one.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 21 Oct 2015 @ 4:12pm

    Senator Sheldon Whitehouse's password is "12345"

    and he's pissed because someone's already guessed it.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 21 Oct 2015 @ 9:23pm

      Re: Senator Sheldon Whitehouse's password is "12345"

      I thought his password was iheartrainbows44.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 22 Oct 2015 @ 6:00am

      Re: Senator Sheldon Whitehouse's password is "12345"

      That's the stupidest combination I ever heard in my life! That's the kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 21 Oct 2015 @ 5:56pm

    My terrible plan didn't succeed only because of fud extremists!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 21 Oct 2015 @ 6:09pm

    He was also a consponsor of COICA and PIPA, in the Senate, years ago.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 21 Oct 2015 @ 10:31pm

    "When those who are supposed to represent our best interests can't be bothered, perhaps it is time we find new people to represent us."

    The last person to do that was JFK and look what happened to him? For shit sake, 90% of the policies passed in the last 30 years have been to no benefit to public. I mean could it be that representative democracy is not an actual democracy but an oligarchy in sheeps clothing?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 21 Oct 2015 @ 11:18pm

    God damn Big Botnet and their powerful lobbying!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 21 Oct 2015 @ 11:18pm

    > Whitehouse continues to make a name for himself as one of the most technologically illiterate members of the Senate.

    You know, for a foreigner, that sentence can be pretty confusing!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 22 Oct 2015 @ 12:42am

    Okay, new rule, this "Whitehouse" guy has to change his name. Like, now.
    I can't deal with "Senator Whitehouse" any more than I would be able to deal with "Congressman President" or any other such nonsense.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      nasch (profile), 22 Oct 2015 @ 8:57am

      Re:

      I can't deal with "Senator Whitehouse" any more than I would be able to deal with "Congressman President" or any other such nonsense.

      John Representative for President!

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 22 Oct 2015 @ 11:13am

      Re:

      Here in RI we call him Senator Shitehouse. Seems more fitting.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    icarusthecow (profile), 22 Oct 2015 @ 6:29am

    His arguments are hilarious....
    "its bipartisan, we worked reeeaaallly hard on this, and the DOJ like it... waaahhhhh the legislature didn't consider my ideas!"

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 22 Oct 2015 @ 6:41am

    Translation: "I know more about the technologies I am trying to legislate against than the majority of IT professionals, so sure it has to be the work of [insert technological buzzwords - group] that would be at odds with my views".

    Dude is a joke.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 22 Oct 2015 @ 8:43am

    "citing that "law enforcement" supports the bill."

    Of course law enforcement supports the bill. They support anything that adds penalties or paperwork for people that aren't law enforcement. You could propose a bill outlawing consensual, unprotected sex in the missionary position, between a man and a woman married in the Catholic Church, both of whom remained virgins until they were married, and want to have kids; and law enforcement would support it as long as there was a clause saying "except if one of them is a member of law enforcement."

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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