[191946] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Legislative proposal sent to my Congressman
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Anne Mitchell)
Tue Oct 4 12:07:07 2016
X-Original-To: nanog@nanog.org
From: Anne Mitchell <amitchell@isipp.com>
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1.1475582401.9886.nanog@nanog.org>
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2016 10:07:01 -0600
To: nanog@nanog.org
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
(Interesting and inarguably well-intentioned, and possibly even sound, =
idea snipped, but noted.)
There are a handful of reasons that this will never happen (well, I'm =
98% certain it will never happen, nothing is every 100% sure when it =
comes to the law, and legislation)... among them the manufacturer's =
lobby is much more well-girded than is the 'home internet security' =
lobby; the cyber-security concerns of the Federal government are =
focussed on other things (whether they should be or not, they are); and =
for the most part legislators are still fairly unsavvy about tech in =
general, and these things make their eyes glaze over.
That said, there are already tort (negligence, etc.) laws and precedents =
under which such manufacturers can be sued, along with things like =
breach of contract between the manufacturer and consumer, and breach of =
implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose and breach of =
implied warranty of merchantability.
A couple of winning lawsuits against manufacturers under these laws and =
theories - which judges *already understand* - is, I think, not only a =
more likely, but a much faster, route to industry reform.
All that said, much of this faces the same issues that spam lawsuits =
faced - the people who care the most about it are not the ones who can =
afford to finance such lawsuits.
Anne
Anne P. Mitchell,=20
Attorney at Law
Legislative Consultant
CEO/President, Institute for Social Internet Public Policy
Member, Cal. Bar Cyberspace Law Committee
Member, Colorado Cyber Committee
Member, Asilomar Microcomputer Workshop Committee
Author: Section 6 of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (the Federal anti-spam =
law)
Ret. Professor of Law, Lincoln Law School of San Jose
Ret. Chair, Asilomar Microcomputer Workshop=
