No, it isn't. That is, it isn't something that "should be", it's the actual rule U.S. courts are bound to follow.

And elsewhere in this topic I've posted the actual language of the bill. These alarmist scenarios I have seen under this topic today have pretty much nothing to do with what the bill actually says. It's pretty darned "reasonable".

Where do you get the idea it changes nothing?

The current proposed rulemaking by the EPA, regarding CO2 emissions, is based on claimed "science" which ISN'T:

(A) identified AT ALL, much less specifically,

(B) "publicly available"

(C) available AT ALL for independent analysis, much less attempts to reproduce.

There is an actual reason the bill is titled "secret science". Because that's what EPA has been doing. And which does, in reality, have to stop. This bill is a direct reaction to EPA's unilateral actions which it is not able or willing to show are based on ANY actual science.

I have a feeling I'm going to have to repeat this several times to different people:

Elsewhere in this topic I've posted the actual language of the bill. Given what it really says, these scenarios are completely unrealistic stretches of the imagination.

Following is the relevant text of the actual bill:

=======
The Administrator shall not propose, finalize,
or disseminate a covered action unless all scientific and
technical information relied on to support such covered ac-
tion is--
(A) specifically identified; and
(B) publicly available online in a manner that
is sufficient for independent analysis and substantial
reproduction of research results.
(2) Nothing in the subsection shall be construed as
requiring the public dissemination of information the dis-
closure of which is prohibited by law.
=======

It does not say personal or medical details. It says "sufficient for independent analysis and substantial reproduction".

There is NOTHING sinister or unreasonable about this, except apparently in the imagination of alarmists.

That isn't in the bill itself. That's what one person said in response to Morganstein's stated opinion about the bill.

The law is not subject either to Morganstein's interpretation, or what a single Representative said about it. That idea has been solidly settled by the Supreme Court.

400-year-old Common Law, still in effect in this country, says that the meaning of the law rests on one thing: what a reasonable person would conclude Congress intended when passing the law. That's why, for example, they have debates about bills in Congress.

I hardly think a reasonable person would conclude that study subjects could not be anonymous. That's an extreme interpretation, not a reasonable one.

And also as I stated up above: that's why the Court challenge to Obamacare is not about "4 words". It's about what Congress intended when passing the bill. There is A LOT more evidence of Congress' actual intent than just those 4 words.

Only if you completely missed my point.

Yep. Bullshit, and bullshit.

The law must be enforced as read by reasonable people. That is a principle that goes back over 400 years in our legal history. No reasonable person would interpret the law that way. You can't read it any which bizarre way you see fit and say that's what the law means.

As for Obamacare, that's pure propaganda. It isn't "just 4 words". It's what Congress INTENDED in writing the law (just as I wrote above) which rules the day. And there are far, far more than 4 words about this in the Congressional record. It is very clear that the sponsors of the bill, and the debate surrounding the bill, intended any subsidies to be distributed ONLY via State exchanges.

If you read the debates and the emails, it's more like 4000 words, and they all say the same thing.

I read Morganstein's letter. I will repeat what I wrote above: what the bill calls for to be publicly available is the science (i.e. the methodology) and the data. Personal details are not part of the data!!! Those are administrative details.

Just as Morganstein says, simply stripping names is not always enough to de-personalize data. But other methods are easily available.

This is a non-issue.

Please show us exactly where it says this.

In a medical study, your SSN, DOB, and (non-anonymized) medical information are not data. In fact they are mostly irrelevant to the actual DATA of the study. Your approximate DOB may be important, and your medical history (and I very highly doubt they would require a complete medical history) might be relevant, but your name or SSN? Fucking hardly.

This is really reaching, by anybody's standards. I read the article, and Morganstein's letter.

The language of the bill calls for "publicly available science". It does not say that the subjects of any studies cannot be kept confidential. That's just malarkey.

As I wrote above: such studies or surveys, by their very nature, are presumed to be repeatable. The idea is that anyone else who conducted such a study, with a similar but separate sample of individuals, would come up with the same results. After all: that's what the studies are for.

To the best of my knowledge, it doesn't anywhere say that study subjects cannot be anonymous. The only thing that can't be anonymous or secret are the authors and their methodologies.

I don't mind honest debate about the issue, but the idea that the statement "publicly available" could reasonably apply to study subjects is a pretty long and thin stretch of the imagination.

What's also not common sense is that this would keep EPA from using health studies from confidential sources. By their very nature, such studies are presumed to be repeatable; if not, then the researcher(s) are using questionable statistical methods at best. Like biased sampling methods, for example.

There is nothing in there that would preclude using decent studies which used non-controversial methodology. Whether the subjects of the studies remain confidential, or not.

The language of the bill is very clear. It is intended to do what it says: make sure our regulatory bodies (employees of The People) are making their decisions based on publicly available, sound science.

Why should they be able to keep their "science" secret, as they have? That's obviously a non-starter. Especially when they're attempting to shove the most expensive regulations in history off on the public.

And when did I imply any such thing? I'm think you read more into my comment than I actually wrote.

What I did write, was that there are obviously fewer comments on YouTube as a result of that action.

My point was that IF they were being used to dazzle IR cameras, they're pointless because IR cameras wouldn't see your face behind the glasses anyway. They might recognize A face, but not YOUR face.

Also, not mentioned earlier but just as cogent: IR blasters wouldn't work on most halfway decent cameras anyway, because they have IR filters on them... precisely because IR messes up the exposure.

Contrary to what was reported from many sources, he DID go to them first, before publishing the exploit. The fault for not fixing it immediately rests on them, not him.

What he did was normal curiosity. Hell, I've done it. In fact I don't know of any web or security professionals who haven't. Got an ID in the URL? Increment it by one, see what happens. We all do it.

Granted, we don't normally explore it to the degree he did. But what he did was ridiculously simple, and hardly even deserves the term "hacking" at all. What THEY did was akin to leaving the back gate open and putting out a sign that says "Come on in!", then complaining about it when someone did.

Anyway, I'll repeat what I said about my own experience: I didn't need to go "fishing" for information in that case. It was being sent TO ME, just in a non-obvious way. I stumbled across it, I didn't go looking for it or trying to exploit it. I sure could have, though.