But Newag's logic bombs would brick trains for *all kinds* of reasons - just keeping a train stationary for a few days would brick it. Installing third-party components in a locomotive would also trigger a bomb, bricking the train.

In their talk at last year's Chaos Communications Congress, the Dragon Sector folks describe how they have been legally terrorized by Newag, which has repeatedly sued them for violating its "IP" by revealing its sleazy, corrupt business practices.

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They also note that Newag *continues to sell lots of trains in Poland*, despite the widespread knowledge of its dirty business model, because public train operators are bound by procurement rules, and as long as Newag is the cheapest bidder, they get the contract:

https://media.ccc.de/v/38c3-we-ve-not-been-trained-for-this-life-after-the-newag-drm-disclosure

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The laws that let Newag make millions off a nakedly corrupt enterprise - and put the individuals who blew the whistle on it at risk of losing everything - were passed by Members of the European Parliament who were warned that this would happen, and they ignored those warnings, and now it's happening. Fuck those people, every one of 'em.

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It's not just European parliamentarians who ignored warnings and did the bidding of the US Trade Representative, enacting laws that banned tampering with digital locks. In 2010, two Canadian Conservative Party ministers in the Stephen Harper government brought forward similar legislation. These ministers, Tony Clement (now a disgraced sex-pest and PPE grifter) and James Moore (today, a sleazeball white-shoe corporate lawyer), held a consultation on this proposal.

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6, 138 people wrote in to say, "Don't do this, it will be hugely destructive." *54* respondents wrote in support of it. Clement and Moore threw out the 6,138 opposing comments. Moore explained why: these were the "babyish" responses of "radical extremists." The law passed in 2012.

Last year, the Canadian Parliament passed bills guaranteeing Canadians the Right to Repair and the right to interoperability.

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The last time an American president signed a consumer privacy law was 1988, when Reagan signed the Video Privacy Protection Act and ensured that Americans would never have to worry that video-store clerks where telling the newspapers what VHS cassettes they took home.

In the years since, Congress has enacted exactly *zero* consumer privacy laws. None. This has allowed the out-of-control, unregulated data broker sector to metastasize into a cancer on the American people.

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This is an industry that fuels stalkers, discriminatory financial and hiring algorithms, and an ad-tech sector that lets advertisers target categories like "teenagers with depression," "seniors with dementia" and "armed service personnel with gambling addictions."

When the people cry out for privacy protections, Congress - and the surveillance industry shills that fund them - say we don't need a privacy law. The market will solve this problem.

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People sell their privacy willingly, and it would be "undue interference in the market" if we took away your "freedom to contract" by barring companies from spying on you after you clicked the "I agree" button.

These people have been repeatedly warned about the severe dangers to the American public - as workers, as citizens, as community members, and as consumers - from the national privacy free-for-all, and have done nothing. Fuck them, every one:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/06/privacy-first/#but-not-just-privacy

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Now, even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and not every one of Bill Clinton's internet policies was terrible. He had exactly *one* great policy, and, ironically, that's the one there's the most energy for dismantling. That policy is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (a law that was otherwise such a dumpster fire that the courts struck it down). Chances are, you have been systematically misled about the history, use, and language of Section 230.

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Which is wild, because it's 26 words long and fits in a tweet:

> No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

Section 230 was passed because when companies were held liable for their users' speech, they "solved" this problem by just blocking every controversial thing a user said. Without Section 230, there would be no Black Lives Matter, no #metoo
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