Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/01/31/the-cyber-is-hard.html
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I want to know: How is it overtly Fascist?
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I think that the short description of the draft here sounds reasonable, but if the goal of the EO is to “prove” that Russia wasn’t involved in the hacks there will be issues. Things like who is going to carry out the reviews is important. For instance, I wouldn’t trust Jason Chaffetz with the job.
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I’m waiting for the bit where RFC 3514 is invoked and all malicious packets must set the evil bit.
[edit - someone had to make this old joke so I have taken the burden on myself.]
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This seems surprisingly not insane. I was expecting the one where he mandates the death penalty for capital crimes even in states where it has been eliminated.
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Access to information. Back door keys. No information under American control or reach to be put beyond the grasp of the executive agencies.
It will be subtle.
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This reads like propaganda. Both the BB article, and the one from Reuters. I want to see the text.
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I don’t get the whole executive order thing. His party controls both chambers, why not just do “regular laws” or however that works over there.
Assuming he’s not just a dictatorial egotist who’s not actually interesed in the day-to-day processes of politics (wink wink).
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One of the first things dictators do is to reduce the legislature to an advisory body. The second is to decapitate it. So the use of executive orders to find out if agencies will obey them regardless of what judges say is basically dictator SOP.
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Because he doesn’t need to, because EOs are quicker, and because he gets to look impressive and presidential signing them.
IANAL, but if I understand correctly, EOs are in theory only binding on federal employees (including the armed forces).
How far that theory can be stretched is probably best illustrated by Korematsu v. United States.
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I am far from a legal experts, but that was my understanding as well. So it heartens me to see folks like Sally Yeats standing up and saying “This doesn’t seem legal, I won’t defend it.” Of course, he fired her shortly later, which I fully expected, but still…
I’m with what someone above said. The subtle truth underlying this EO is to either A) “prove” Putin wasn’t involved with the hacks, despite what all the security agencies who are the experts in these things say; and/or B) find ways of controlling the data and trying to backdoor the information stream to open up private communications to his regime’s eyes.
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It is an old joke until someone actually mandates it. Yes, for you pedants, no-one is actually proposing a ‘naughty bit’. However, the idea that some authority could and should look at all your data, so they can catch robbers and paedos and spies (oh my!) is almost as simpilistic as this.
Laugh it up, folks. While you can.
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IANAL either, but aren’t EOs easier to take back by future presidents (which was a problem with Obama once Dems lost both chambers). But again, that would require a president wo actually wants to govern, and not one who just wants a good photo-op with his signature and his band of thugs behind him.
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You’re assuming there’ll be future presidents </joke></maybe>.
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</laugh></uncontrollablesobbing>
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Laugh in the face of doom. If there’s nothing left, laughing is better than crying.
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‘I wouldn’t trust Jason Chaffetz with the job.’
If I might make a very slight correction?
I wouldn’t trust Jason Chaffetz with any job.
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Oh there will be but after the dust has cleared from the atmosphere they’ll be called Bundeskanzler rather than Fuehrer.
…I have always wondered whether the British system of a powerless figurehead as Head of State so that no party politician could ever have the role, was better than the US system of a powerful elected Head of State. Events of the last seven months suggest it may be. We made a stupid decision - to leave the EU - and the politicians who supported it are now in the mire, fighting one another as democracy re-asserts itself, with the Supreme Court telling the government that it cannot escape democratic scrutiny. The US made a stupid mistake - but because the Head of State has executive power, it is being used without scrutiny and he can fire his attorney general at a whim.
There are many virtues of the US system, but if you look around the world, presidents ruling by diktat have been uniformly a bad thing, and Trump is just an orange version of Putin, Duterte, and Erdogan. We know that the Queen isn’t about to start issuing orders, and that her likely successor is going to use any influence he has to support renewable energy, religious tolerance and sustainable communities.
[edit - for clarity, based on comments below, I’m aware that British governments (pond scum like Jack Straw for instance) have abused Royal prerogative. But it is easier to get rid of a minister - or even a government - than a sitting President. It isn’t possible for sensible Republicans to get together with sensible Democrats to de-elect Trump. I’m not, however, suggesting that overall one system is superior, just that the specific case of entrusting hard to remove presidents with emergency powers is a rather unsafe thing.]
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Hah, now I know where you’re from, frequent co-commenter 
I’m mostly familiar with the Austrian, German and Finnish systems (long story). Austria is super weird because the president is the head of state with tons of powers, but he (still all male) has never, ever, used them. Like, he can fire the government, the parliament and install whomever he wants (even me). But it’s a “high noon” situation, in which parliament can fire him first, and the supreme court can do whatever it wants. Would be a good movie, I guess. In .de, he is mostly powerless I think. Finland is also weird, in that the President, prime minister and foreign minister want to have equal rights on any international treaties.
So, in summary, political systems are weird, man.
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The Office of President in the USA always reminded me of some sort of wanna-be as-if monarch (the old kind, not todays powerless type) - all the special doo-dads, powers, every fart a new tradition, special seals, Airforce One, role of the first lady (king needs a queen right?), they even created new “noble” dynasties (Kennedy, Bush, Clinton). As if the collective psyche needed something similar to those powers back home to legitimize itself as a new nation.
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