More than 70 countries signed the landmark U.N. Convention against Cybercrime in Hanoi this weekend, a significant step in the yearslong effort to create a global mechanism to counteract digital crime.
The U.K. and European Union joined China, Russia, Brazil, Nigeria and dozens of other nations in signing the convention, which lays out new mechanisms for governments to coordinate, build capacity and track those who use technology to commit crimes.
“The United States continues to review the treaty,” a State Department spokesperson said in a brief statement.
I mean, the US already has a big surveillance apparatus so I’m not sure if not joining this really is good news. It’s still bad given the state of affairs.
Good decision by the US. The one thing good about the treaty is that it would finally give countries the tools needed to take down criminal groups committing fraud, extortion, ransomware, etc. in other countries, while keeping their data in a third country. However, it’s just not worth the downsides.
It probably will not happen, but if they narrowed the scope of the treaty and put some decent privacy protections in place, they’d probably have much better luck getting some of these other countries to sign it.
I also believe that sharing evidence with some of the countries involved in this treaty is a bad idea. Russia & China for example, I’m sure would love to get a heads up when the US, Britain, etc. have a particular ransomware group in their sights that are based in China or Russia because my money says that this type crime is probably government sanctioned.
Only difference is that the CIA and MI5 aren’t interested in holding a few windows users to ransom, they prefer to set their sights on bigger targets like overthrowing governments and organising coups with it.
Reading 20th century history would have told you this long ago. Wish more people growing up actually read more to educate themselves of the world they inhabit.
It is no less contradictory than any other Western Democracy. The only difference is the scale of the U.S. means its missteps have outsized impact on others.
I’m wondering if you can answer me, or if someone else here who is politically knowledgeable can.
Suppose the US did sign this treaty. Would that somehow limit or affect in some way the people’s ability to change the US policies? I am not at all familiar with this stuff.
What I’m imagining from your statement is this: It’s good that the US didn’t sign this despite their “big surveillance apparatus” because that apparatus is subject to change by citizens. But by signing it, the surveillance apparatus would become subject to change only by other countries, not by citizens.
Something along those lines. How does this all work, anyway?
You are on the right track. When a treaty is ratified in the United States it has the full force of domestic law. So if the U.S. ratified this treaty it would have to follow its rules as determined by the courts.
To become ratified a treaty has to be first signed by the President (that’s the step we are talking about in the OP) and then the Senate must vote with a two-thirds majority in favor of ratification.
So even if the President signed it, the chances of 66 Senators supporting it in the current environment are slim.
Presidents signing treaties and then never getting ratified by the Senate has happened multiple times. Which often leads to confusion by both the public and the foreign press.
It needs to be remembered that the US has made a multibillion $$$ industry out of the shonky software that creates the opportunities for these nefarious operators to profit from. They then have the audacity to create another multibillion $$$ industry that offers the solutions needed to provide protection from hackers to the countries that require them.
Signing any treaties that could benefit users in foreign countries could only be described as counterproductive to US interests.
Everything else you’ve said notwithstanding, I hope you realize that US also has a lot of interests overseas in foreign lands. So, there will always be something that US is a part of that also happens to benefit other countries to maintain allies and national interests internationally.
It’s not all for the US all the time no matter what under all circumstances 100% of the time.
Right now the rest of the world, loosely speaking Asia, Africa, and South America, are isolating the west whilst seeing a brighter future by siding with China, India and Russia. Meanwhile almost every single western country is bankrupt with national debt levels approaching and in some cases exceeding GDP. If the subsidies the west has enjoyed from pursuing neocolonistic practices comes to an end then the party is truly over. Hence all the turmoil and aggressive posturing we are seeing in the geopolitical world at the moment.
So I take the point you made in your previous post, whilst at the same time positing that times are changing and the ‘free lunch’ westerners have enjoyed post WW II one way or the other is about to come to an end.
We can only hope that in the end cool heads prevail and diplomacy rather than confrontation is the preferred option.
Well, cool heads prevail when political will is to do the right things for the entire populous, not the ones that get the politicians in power. The incentive system is so fucked.
But being outside North America now and speaking with people here after leaving North America, it also feels like the world is just tired and waiting the current admin out. So much global uncertainty and damage by incompetency and domestic US issues too is what’s making the world react as you’ve described too. It’s never just the one thing. From what I gather, people want normalcy back but fast tech, policy, and political changes in many parts of the world are making everyone be on edge which is not at all condusive to cooler heads prevailing.