Hopefully, none of this will be implemented and we can all forget Mike Pompeo exists in 6 months.

Hope is not a strategy. AFAICT, both parties basically support stronger state control and more surveillance.

It will be interesting to see how EU/China/Russia/USA spheres of influence will develop. With the pandemic, a lot of "unthinkable" things have happened (travel prohibition from US to EU etc), so I think the various factions are emboldened to double down on

- keeping their data in their sphere - improve surveillance of own citizenry

* China of course has been pretty much on this track for years.

* EU is using privacy as the good cause to sell this

* US is now doing the same with national security as excuse.

I don't see the big picture changing just because the president and administration change (if they do).

84 more days till election... fingers & toes crossed

Many municipalities have no-justification-needed absentee voting (vote-by-mail by any other name) which can be dropped off often weeks before in-person voting occurs. Likewise many places have early in-person voting.

1. Check your voter registration.

2. Register to vote if you need to and it's still open for registration in your state.

3. VOTE as soon as you can. If you're voting absentee then drop off your ballot early if possible. If you're voting in-person then look into early voting to avoid lines and keep everyone safe.

The key this year is to _personally drop off your ballot_ at an official drop point rather than mailing it in. USPS can and will deprioritize mail in ballots for the fall elections.

I do this anyways. Why would I pay postage to have something brought to a distribution center 20 miles away, wait a few days, then brought back to my town to get delivered to town hall when I can literally walk there and drop it off for free?

Because time is money? first class postage is only 55 cents, that's hard to beat from a dollars per hour spent perspective.

Time may be money to some, but my time is fresh air and not supporting wasteful transport systems if I can avoid it.

With everything coming out about how mail in ballots are being delayed and otherwise messed with and who knows what else is in store, what is the value of ensuring your vote gets counted relative to your time dropping it off personally?

That seems the more pertinent question.

In my state all voting is by mail. The postage is pre paid but you can drop off your ballot if you wish.

I drop mine off at the neighbor's house up the street too. It's a short walk, nice time to go outside and the times I go it's only one or two other people there.

I just prefer to be vote by mail so I can fill it out at home without being rushed.

This is an unsupported assertion. We have no specific data to suggest that this would happen.

I mean, I know that with less than 90 days before one of the largest absentee voting elections in the history of the nation that I would fire 23 USPS administrators on a Friday evening several days after admitting to congress to slowing down mail delivery. That seems reasonable. Right?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielcassady/2020/08/06/postma...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/07/postal-se...

Do administrators speed mail delivery?

Please don't argue in bad faith, and actually read the links provided.

The issue here is that the current Postmaster General fired the administrators who were pushing back against the "optimizations" he is making and wants to make to USPS policies. The final goal is to privatize USPS, which has been a Republican dream since the Reagan era.

Yes, I read all articles about the USPS the day they are published across a wide range of journals.

However, I'm simply looking for a direct, factual claim that supports that these firings were directly intended to slow down mail delivery so as to cause problems during the forthcoming election. So far all the claims I've seen are indirect; further, the PG has explicitly said they are prepared to handle mail-in votes during the upcoming election.

It's entirely unclear whether firing administrators (rather than mail carriers and postal office workers, etc) has a direct effect on mail delivery rates and accuracy in the short-term.

>However, I'm simply looking for a direct, factual claim that supports that these firings were directly intended to slow down mail delivery so as to cause problems during the forthcoming election. So far all the claims I've seen are indirect

You realize that this is an absolutely inane thing to ask right? The direct implication is that Trump is slowing down the USPS in order the guarantee his re-election - are you looking for a quote from Trump himself that he's doing this, because I doubt we will ever see one until it's too late.

No, but I would like to see a more compelling narrative and supporting evidence for what is actually a pretty huge claim.

Well, the man came out and said it himself

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/12/postal-se...

Sure, I agree that Trump appears to be signalling that he is attempting to prevent mail in ballots from being delivered but it's really hard to picture how this strategy helps him? IE, I'm struggling to put together some sort of specuative game theory about the election that leads to him being president again.

You're right in so far as there's no direct supporting evidence. However, let's put a few things together:

1: May 6th, Trump appointee Louis DeJoy confirmed as Postmaster General and CEO.

2: June 30, Trump suggests that mail-in voting is fraudulent and suggests delaying the election because of it https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/12888181603895582...

3: July 15, DeJoy starts cutting costs and overtime during one of the most trying times the USPS has ever seen, resulting in delays: https://apnews.com/59c25efd4d325c4895f8ba85517f9bfd

4: August 7, DeJoy fires or reassigns 23 top executives, dramatically changing the existing power structure and centralizing decision making at the top. https://www.fastcompany.com/90538378/whats-happening-with-th...

No, those executives don't deliver mail. They did make all the decisions about how mail is delivered, who does it, and when. By centralizing the power structure DeJoy has put himself in the position of being able to make arbitrary decisions about postal delivery with very little immediate oversight.

The USPS is playing an unusually large role in this election and Trump (and, let's not forget, state-level actors that continue to take active measures in US elections) has indicated that he's open to messing with mail delivery to win.

Trump's USPS' Postmaster General replacement fired 23 USPS executives. It's possible that vote-by-mail will be the easiest way for gerrymandering to occur.

"Lawmakers Demand Removal of Postmaster General DeJoy Over 'Nefarious' Efforts to Destroy the Postal Service and 'Aid Trump Reelection'" - https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/i71z41/lawmakers_....

The DNC has criticised Trump for not being tough enough on China. I don't think anything is going to change soon.

The election may already be "decided" through fraudulent means with the USPS being captured.

Trump's USPS' Postmaster General replacement, along with who recently fired 23 USPS executives:

"Lawmakers Demand Removal of Postmaster General DeJoy Over 'Nefarious' Efforts to Destroy the Postal Service and 'Aid Trump Reelection'" - https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/i71z41/lawmakers_...

This shouldn't be downvoted - it's relevant to hackers here because the executive branch found an effective way to hack the electoral process. Socio-political engineering at its finest!

I concur, I just wish we weren't living in it.

Judging by your politics the other party will do the same citing Russian interference, you will always be slaves to your two party system abs continue fighting with each other.

how will Chinese internet "swing back" if Pompeo stops existing. Chinese invented their great firewall for trump, that your logic?

It won't, but it's already not part of what we typically consider "the internet". One country pretty much always being isolated from it is somewhat different than further ripping the currently-connected bits apart.

> Chinese invented their great firewall for trump, that your logic?

That's a completely needless swipe.

> That's a completely needless swipe.

gp edited his/her comment after mine

This admin is making it worse (see: article). Perhaps a new admin can make it better.

it swings back when we invent new protocols - which is to say it never swings back. From traditional publishing to radio to tv to the internet to gentrification once the bastards get control you gotta make the next thing.

Power naturally consolidates. If you have a little more power than the next person, the first thing you do is use it to get a little more power. Let that feedback loop run for several thousand iterations and you end up with the massive inequality that has been a hallmark of human civilization since the agricultural revolution.

The only force I know of that has been able to moderate that feedback loop is organization. By very definition, what the elite few who consolidate power don't have is numbers. They are massively outnumbered, which is why they are constantly sowing discord (like fomenting racism). Because they know the only thing keeping them in power is the disorganization of the masses.

This isn't just protocols, though.

At least to me it sounds like an announcement that they plan to "cut the lines" to countries that don't adhere to the standards of the current American administration.

A new protocol won't allow you to communicate with people in the United States if you're on a "blacklisted" comms company's network.

Well that's not how the Internet works. Perhaps they can blacklist prefixes from being accepted by American ISPs, but as long as ISPs peer with any ISPs from outside of the country, those advertisements will be coming in.

It sounds to me that this document is outlining their plan to change how the (read: "how their") internet works. No "path" that connects to any hardware that the US can arbitrarily deem as being in bed with the CCP.

It sounds like "clean" American ISP's won't be allowed to peer with arbitrarily "unclean" service providers of any kind or else risk losing their "cleanliness" designation.

There are new protocols being invented; namely the decentralized web protocols (IPFS, web3, dat (Breaker), etc. ). Whether you think cryptocurrencies are useful or not, there is a push to build a new open decentralized internet using these protocols and IPFS + ENS domains and the web3 protocol stack on Ethereum.

Your encrypted and decentralized protocols mean nothing if there is no hardware route.

>Hopefully the pendulum will swing back in the other direction soon

Narrator: "It didn't."

>Narrator: "It didn't."

Yuck. I read HN to avoid these kind of low effort canned responses.

China already has their own internet.

The whole point is for the US to be a leader, not a follower. If China wants their own internet, let them suffer.

in fact the best thing to do to fight the Great Firewall of China is to make it easier for the Chinese people to access the internet-at-large including sites hosted in the US. This program will do the opposite.

This is 100% the answer, and one thing I've never understood about many, many aspects of American life.

If you want people to act a certain way, you incentivize that thing, not punish the opposite of the thing.

You want people to stop doing drugs? Make programs designed to support them during the withdrawal process, provide counseling and other necessary supports, and make it free. You want people off of welfare? Provide career training and education, and assistance in the job search process, and make it free.

Punishment doesn't give you what you want, it gives you the appearance of getting what you want, while the people you punish spend their time trying to figure out how to lie their way around you.

> If you want people to act a certain way, you incentivize that thing, not punish the opposite of the thing.

In seriousness, you do both.

Most people aren't philosophers or social scientists, and their understanding of criminal science is based on their personal experiences with crime and punishment or their casual suppositions. This is why a trusted and high quality education is essential for a strong democracy.

Some disagree about that:

> Generally the better educated are more prone to irrational political opinions and political hysteria than the worse educated far from power. Why? In the field of political opinion they are more driven by fashion, a gang mentality, and the desire to pose about moral and political questions all of which exacerbate cognitive biases, encourage groupthink, and reduce accuracy. Those on average incomes are less likely to express political views to send signals; political views are much less important for signalling to one’s immediate in-group when you are on 20k a year.

https://dominiccummings.com/2017/01/09/on-the-referendum-21-...

I'm not necessarily referring to people having a high level of education -- a PhD in mathematics doesn't give anyone a higher understanding of criminal justice or other civics issues.

What is important is a well-rounded secondary education and/or liberal arts post-secondary education.

Punishment does let them imprison people, disproportionately black men, who they can then use for slave labor.

Yea, i'd rather not follow suit.

Hopefully that would end the monopoly of US tech Giants.