FBI official: It’s America’s choice whether we want to be spied on
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
> FBI Director James Comey told a congressional panel last month that the Obama administration won't ask Congress for legislation requiring the tech sector to install backdoors that let authorities access encrypted data. However, Comey said the administration will lobby private companies to create such backdoors.
If the administration asks Congress to legislate on the issue, then they are asking the people to weigh in (through their representatives.)
Private lobbying by the executive branch is not the people deciding.
Although we elect the president, unilateral executive actions (executive orders, private lobbying) are in the darker-grey areas of representation. Important tool for efficiency's sake, but, used in highly controversial areas, feel to me more like side-stepping sensitive issues.
Similarly, his later comments contradict how government surveillance is traditionally implemented:
> At the most fundamental level, it really is about the relationship between the people and the government, in particular... when it relates to surveillance by the government of the people and under what set of circumstances do the people want that to happen. What do you want us to do and what risks are you willing to take on all sides of the equation?
If the people don't know what means of surveillance are being implemented, they have no way of determining under what circumstances they want surveillance to happen.
In the best case scenario, it's up the management of the company to refuse to create such backdoors. There's no America's choice here.
"Baker said today that it’s important to balance all the different concerns. "
This is bad phrasing. Do we decide if it's important to balance all different concerns between a robber and a victim? Police to Robber: "Don't take everything. You only need $200, so take only $100 as a compromise and leave the wallet."
The constitution presupposed a very limited and disciplined Federal Government. The Federal Government which now exists is a wide-ranging administrative state that ignores the 10th Amendment, does not limit itself to enumerated powers, and employs discretionary enforcement of almost all of its regulations and many criminal laws. We should also remember that 3rd party doctrine was much less powerful in the era before the internet, and I cannot imagine that the founders would have endorsed it.
In the face of this situation, it seems that no citizen would be foolish enough to ignore or deny even a request from any agent of the Federal Government.
"4. Can Postal Inspectors open mail if they feel it may contain something illegal? First-Class letters and parcels are protected against search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, and, as such, cannot be opened without a search warrant. If there is probable cause to believe the contents of a First-Class letter or parcel violate federal law, Postal Inspectors can obtain a search warrant to open the mailpiece. Other classes of mail do not contain private correspondence, and therefore may be opened without a warrant."
Personally I would not have come up with that rule, but they follow it.
Anyway, what you are saying might be relevant if the government were reading things being transmitted, but they're not. The government can use third party doctrine to open your inbox, or your cloud document accounts. The government is not intercepting e-mails like they might intercept a postcard; they are going in to your house to read the postcard after delivery.
As to reading email after the fact, they actually do intercept some email. The point is you can't call a CB radio conversation private after the fact.
Just like if the police has a warrant for your neighbour's house they can't compel you to do the breaking and entering. They can either get the suspect to open the door, or do it themselves. If they don't have a big enough ram or strong enough explosives, that's their problem, they can't compel you to lend your tools in the garage.
It's our choice. If you don't feel that "our choice" matches your own wishes (it certainly doesn't match mine) then that's just because you're in the minority, or at best you're in a majority with very slim margins.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_election_recount#Post-...
How can you say that when the source you cite specifically points to a study that shows Gore winning by any criteria in a statewide recount in Florida; e.g., that its quite likely that not only did Gore have more votes cast for him than Bush, but also more votes in States that combined had a majority of electoral votes.
In addition to that, Gore would not have won on an full recount based on the conventional standards for a vote (two corners of the chad punched), as is made clear later in the article, by papers like the New York Times.
First, that the voter is largely disenfranchised. He is presented with two options and repeatedly told that a vote for any other option is throwing his vote away. Because other voters largely heed this advice the evidence shows that it is correct, even though in other voting systems that would definitely not be the case.
Second, even where the voter succeeds in getting his candidate elected, that candidate seldom fulfills the promises made. Or if those promises are fulfilled it is because they are largely unimportant in the grand scheme of things or are comprimised into oblivion. Meanwhile technical and often highly obfuscated decisions and laws are made behind the scenes and would have been made regardless of which of the two candidates was elected for office.
Third, many extremely important decisions are made by fiat. That the decision-making body is ultimately elected is largely meaningless. The elected are beholden to special interests (often corporate) and repay those interests by appointing particular people to those decision-making bodies. The voter is often many-times-removed from some of the most important decisions being made and there are little to no consequences for going against the wishes of the voter in those cases.
Fourth, an individual vote is statistically insignificant. The value I have gotten from individually voting is far outweighed by even the price of gasoline I've spent getting to a polling location. This is even more true if you tend to be a minority voter.
So even if, by vote, it is 75/25 against (which will be fought against by both parties and the media), it won't stop immediately, because the population is largely apathetic as they've been told to be by a system that works against them.
I don't know what a solution would be.
How do you get consensus from the electorate? You need to advertise and get media coverage. But the media is owned and operated by powerful people with a stake in the status quo. Especially in the US every issue is instantly polarized by the media. That way they can maintain a 2 party system, where nobody else has a chance to get a foot in. It's "Us vs. Them" all the way down.
This means that in order to get traction, you need to convince one of the 2 parties to back your idea. Otherwise the media is just going to portray you as some kind of tin foil hat wearing moron.
Even if you have popular support for your ideas, for example if you won a presidential campaign by saying, "Yes we can!" -- words that echoed throughout the world and won you a nobel peace prize... You really can't [1]. This link is from yesterday.
I'm not American. I'm not Republican or Democrat. I don't have a say in this or any other issue. But I think you are being very naive if you think that either of the parties will sit back and allow anyone to gather enough support to do what you suggest. And even if you were able to do so, by some miracle, the odds would be seriously stacked against you.
It is true that the electorate chooses. It is also true that the people in power decide what the electorate will choose.
[1] http://edition.cnn.com/2015/11/04/politics/guantanamo-bay-ex...
In discussions in the tech community, I almost always see overreaching surveillance portrayed as the government going rogue and acting against the will of the people. The problem is that they don't listen, and the solution is to force them to actually do what the people want them to do.
This is vastly different from a situation where the people actually do want the government to do this stuff. That's true even if that desire is manipulated.
The situation informs the solution. The opinions of the American public are often manipulated and artificial. Fighting that is worthy and useful. But if you skip over all that and simply try to get the government to stop doing its own thing and start listening to what people want, you'll accomplish nothing.
Tyranny of the majority is the problem, not "our" choice.
The protection against tyranny of the majority is not, as you seem to think, getting the majority to change "our choice."
The protection against tyranny of the majority is basic respect, among those in power in institutions like the FBI, for rights like those in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Tyranny of the majority is indeed a major problem here, but it's not how I see it discussed. The tech community seems to mostly believe that government surveillance is a case of the government acting against the wishes of the people. As far as I can tell, this is because the tech community believes that their opinions are representative, but they aren't really.
The distinction is important, because it informs the solution. If you believe that most people don't want surveillance and you focus your efforts on getting the government to do what the people want, then you'll accomplish nothing if it turns out that most people want it. If the problem is a tyranny of the majority, then your approach will be different.
> Baker said the issue must ultimately be decided by the American people.
Which is why they absolutely love Stringrays and have tried so desperately to a) not require warrants to use them and b) shield their usage of it from the public.
By 'going dark' on their exploitation of this technology they've managed to restrict public knowledge and ability to debate the fact they are flying Cesnas, containing Stingrays, in non-stop circles around most major American cities. Going as far as buying/registering the planes via shell companies and withholding they're use as evidence in trials.
You could pay someone to store and manage your data, and have contracts with them to prevent them from sharing the data. But you better be sure that data is stored at the 3rd party encrypted where you hold the keys, otherwise those contracts are meaningless to the government who can demand access to your data in secret if they choose.
The way forward I can see is for us all to host servers run from one's own home and with replicas stored at trusted friend's and family's houses in case of disaster. New protocols would need to be invented to replace things like email though, it would require quite an upheaval.
It feels a little bit like they got too lazy and relying on those telegraph messages used relatively widely - contrary to letter contents - will always be available to them. Now, a couple century later, they're suddenly at the state when that's not always the case - but they did they work relying on that for so long they can't do that otherwise...
Wonder what other means to catch criminals could be available?
Aka Skipjack/"Clipper Chip". They are reusing 20 year old plans.
Agreed! Now how are we going to fix the certificate authorities?
That says it all right there, I think.
That's the logic of fascism.