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Comment by breakfastduck | Hacker News Reader

Makes no sense at all.

Even further, if you're not doing anything that would break the new law then why the need to oppose it?

I tend to default to believing bad faith from the ISPs given their monopolistic power in many many places around the US. However, I disagree with this argument in a broad sense because:

1. Law enforcement itself has costs.

2. The US has so many random laws and the power given to the president and AG to selectively enforce said laws that it translates to "Whoever is in power at the executive level gets to attack whoever they want at their convenience".

3. I see a very clear line between this argument and "If you don't have anything to hide, why do you need privacy?" argument.

The conclusion of your first two points is to get rid of laws, not stop making new ones. I have no idea where you're going with your third point.

Edit: I hope that didn't come across as aggressive. I am genuinely curious about what you were demonstrating with your third point.

I took the conclusion of his/her first two points to be, "think carefully whether cost outweighs benefit when making new laws or keeping old laws," not "get rid of all the laws! anarchy!"

I can understand that. I think, if you think carefully, this is 100% necessary. I was talking to the other commenter, but telecoms, and really capitalistic businesses as a whole, have demonstrated the will disregard morality in the name of an extra buck. (They'll also disregard laws for the same reason but at least we can pretend to do something about it.)

I think the point of the first two laws isn't just "get rid of laws" but rather, only create and keep around laws that serve an immediate purpose. Essentially in opposition to the make a law because it might solve a problem later on.

I agree with enforcing this laws against ISPs now as I think internet connectivity and accessibility protections are problems that need solved now.

I think their third point is likely just pointing out that many of the users of this site are probably opposed to the "If you don't have anything to hide then why do you need privacy argument", yet are taking what the author sees as a similar argument against the ISPs. It could be viewed as hypocritical and indicates that there needs to be more argument for why someone would want these enforced ASAP other than "If you aren't doing anything bad now then why do you want to block the law".

That is a good point on the first part. What I was trying to demonstrate with my point and only recently was able to put into words is that not making new laws doesn't solve the problem they were worried about. I would also say history has shown that unchecked power leads to abuse and that only solving problems in time has led to terrible outcomes.

Towards your point on their third argument, the arguments aren't similar. You don't want to keep only illegal things private. You can have a bank account, but I would expect you wouldn't want to share your account number with just anyone. The argument is disingenuous because everyone does have something to hide.

Going to the latter portion of your third point, regarding the timeliness of your "bad" behavior, that sounds like a terrible way to come up with rules. I wouldn't wait for the first murder to decide that maybe people killing each other isn't the best way for society to function. Of course, I do have hindsight of history to aid me in this, but if that is what is required, I would point you towards my first point about unchecked power. Depending on the specificity your argument requires, I think it applies. I think this also applies a little bit to your first argument around keeping around only immediately purposeful laws.

I think the real solution is to only keep around sensible laws and eliminate those that aren't. And I would say in this argument, these laws do serve an immediate purpose as these telecoms have demonstrated time and time again that they are willing to abuse their customers in ways that are totally legal.

Even assuming they don't plan to engage in the kind of conduct that the law was intended to stop, they could still be adversely impacted by the law as written. For example, consider a peering dispute which leads to the connection between two networks becoming overloaded. A resolution where one party paid to fix the issue could be interpreted as paying for prioritization.

Because duplicity is an ethical norm for the entire Legal sector.

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