This is actually Standard Operating Procedure for Congress. You have a bunch of non-technically literate people in theory delegating the responsibility for educating them to an agency who is responsible for either rounding-up/hiring experts to educate Congress or to collate whatever required reading is necessary.
I have difficulty understanding why this type of research isn't done by Congressional research assets though, which are free of the bias towards making operating easier which the Executive isn't.
Congress has subpoena power and budget for research staff for a reason. They should use it.
Congress used to do its own research via the Office of Technology Assessment but because the results often contradicted the positions of lobbyists it was eliminated under Gingrich in the mid 1990s.
The drug side of the FDA used to have its own research labs but they were eliminated by the same congress because their results constrained and informed the scientific demands they placed on drug development trials.
It's not solely the current government that has its (or maybe somebody else's) fingers in its ears.
How is the legislature supposed to actually hold the Executive and special interests in check then? It sounds like the entire federal government has been neutered in terms of being able to actually do it's own footwork to guard against encroaching agendas..
This actually explains a lot, now that I think about it.
I think the key point is the lack of clarification. VPN's that spy on their users gives credence to outright ban all VPN's, which would be of obvious benefit to the US government.
It should also be pointed out that, as a consumer, you can't prove that your VPN service isn't spying on you. Ideally, you should set up a VPN on your own server using secure defaults. Then let your less techie friends/family use it when they're on public WiFi.
The senators were pretty clear in their letter and in the quotes that they are concerned about VPNs that spy on their users or have exit nodes in unfriendly countries:
The title is also misleading. The "VPN threat" they're concerned about is not the about VPN's per se, but VPN's that spy on their users. Such things are real, as was recently made clear when Apple revoked Facebook's enterprise certificate over one.
if you're an analyst, and someone voluntarily lets you into their house knowing you're there to collect information about their house, are you spying? doesn't spying require some element of attempted secrecy?
Burying the spying disclosure in the TOS, and obfuscating the language used to describe that spying, is attempted secrecy. Also, it’s irrelevant, because disclosure of potentially illegal acts doesn’t make them any more legal (“but I told them I was going to steal their money, and they put it in my safe anyway” is not a legal defense).
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[ 1.7 ms ] story [ 65.6 ms ] threadI have difficulty understanding why this type of research isn't done by Congressional research assets though, which are free of the bias towards making operating easier which the Executive isn't.
Congress has subpoena power and budget for research staff for a reason. They should use it.
The drug side of the FDA used to have its own research labs but they were eliminated by the same congress because their results constrained and informed the scientific demands they placed on drug development trials.
It's not solely the current government that has its (or maybe somebody else's) fingers in its ears.
How is the legislature supposed to actually hold the Executive and special interests in check then? It sounds like the entire federal government has been neutered in terms of being able to actually do it's own footwork to guard against encroaching agendas..
This actually explains a lot, now that I think about it.
What kind of VPNs are you talking about? The VPNs that protect their users' traffic from spying, or the VPNs that spy on their users themselves?
It should also be pointed out that, as a consumer, you can't prove that your VPN service isn't spying on you. Ideally, you should set up a VPN on your own server using secure defaults. Then let your less techie friends/family use it when they're on public WiFi.
https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/020719%20Wyden%20...
The title is also misleading. The "VPN threat" they're concerned about is not the about VPN's per se, but VPN's that spy on their users. Such things are real, as was recently made clear when Apple revoked Facebook's enterprise certificate over one.