• throwaway81523 3 days ago

    The video tape law was created basically a reaction to someone finding out and revealing Robert Bork (then a SCOTUS nominee)'s video rentals. The rentals themselves were bland, featuring stuff like Disney films, but I guess Congress got scared. It passed by wide margins at the time. I wonder if they are still scared the same way.

    Background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Privacy_Protection_Act

    • deltoidmaximus 3 days ago

      Now they'd just pass a law providing only themselves privacy, like how chat control in the EU always has an exemption for those in power.

      • chmod775 3 days ago

        It's one of my favorite examples of those in power absolutely losing their shit when surveillance and violation of privacy happens to them.

      • j-bos 4 days ago

        Would be interesting if this gets through, though I imagine clickwrap agreements largely negate this anyway. Would be cool if informed consent required a snail mail agreement, might hurt adoption/growth metrics enough that big cos would stop being so greedy. Though that idea could backfire itself.

        • frogperson 3 days ago

          How will this benefit big business and punish everyone else?

          • nielsbot 3 days ago

            > How will this benefit big business

            I don't think it's too cynical to say (based on their voting record) that that's the exact question the Heritage Foundation alums on the court as asking themselves at this moment.

            • itopaloglu83 3 days ago

              This law was passed as a response to a business leaking the rental history of a political figure, not for protecting the privacy of individuals. So, as long as a business doesn’t leak a political figure’s private information, they can pretty much do whatever they want, the court case is just a reminder.

            • kristianp 3 days ago

              I know what POTUS is, but extending the "OTUS" to other people is a tad irritating. What's the SC stand for?

              • svpk 2 days ago

                A fun fact, SCOTUS as a term predates POTUS by over a decade. So actually -OTUS was extended to POTUS from SCOTUS, not the other way around. Though both are well over 100 years old at this point. I think POTUS is probably the more well used term today, but in any legal context SCOTUS gets used more or less constantly.

                https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/scotus-potus-flotus

                • valleyer 3 days ago

                  The first sentence of the article should make that clear. In any case, it's a pretty well-established abbreviation in US policy discussions.

                  • chmod775 3 days ago

                    I can highly recommend developing a habit of selecting words you don't understand, opening the context menu, and hitting search. Takes somewhere between 2 and 10 seconds to look up acronyms this way.

                    • doubletwoyou 3 days ago

                      supreme court

                      • kristianp 2 days ago

                        Thanks, I'm not a USA person.

                      • mindslight 3 days ago

                        [flagged]

                        • llbbdd 3 days ago

                          Supreme Court, not council. Are you sure you live here?

                          • gib444 3 days ago

                            Woosh

                            • llbbdd 3 days ago

                              My bad for assuming a good faith answer lol. I didn't realize we were just karma farming and virtue signaling, carry on

                              • mindslight 3 days ago

                                Sarcasm has nothing to do with bad faith. Posting comments in support of the Constitution costs karma half the time these days. And for virtue signalling, we sure had it pretty good. It would be nice if our society could go back to virtue signalling instead of vice signalling.

                                • llbbdd 3 days ago

                                  It's not plain sarcasm to purposefully misinform somebody asking a legitimate question. They asked for a definition, not your opinion. If you consider your parent comment "supporting the Constitution" maybe you should evaluate whether that was effectively communicated.

                                  • Larrikin 3 days ago

                                    A 2 second Google search, GPT2, or reading the article before commenting could have answered their question. It's rude to readers of this site to litter the board with lazy questions like that.

                                    • mindslight 3 days ago

                                      "Misinform" ? You do realize we're supposed to be like humans talking, and not robots exchanging PDUs, right?

                                      • llbbdd 3 days ago

                                        If that's your excuse to respond with a useless charged non-sequitor, whatever works for you.

                                        • mindslight 3 days ago

                                          Listen, nobody likes the whoosh but you'd do better treating it as an opportunity for growth.

                                          • llbbdd 3 days ago

                                            You're right, I'll leave the defense of the constitution to you. o7

                                            • mindslight 3 days ago

                                              Please don't.

                                            • 7bit 3 days ago

                                              What a toxic response.

                                          • 7bit 3 days ago

                                            There's nothing in the reply that suggests sarcasm. How do you expect people who don't already know the answer, to identify the response as sarcasm?

                                            • mindslight 3 days ago

                                              Context - the sibling comments, the things I said afterwards, and that the answer is easily searchable.

                                              IMO the toxicity here is from the other commenter insisting on taking what I said literally, and then digging in and fortifying that demand rather than just taking a step back.