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FBI Director Continues His Campaign Against Encryption
apexcp writes Following the announcements that Apple and Google would make full disk encryption the default option on their smartphones, FBI director James Comey has made encryption a key issue of his tenure. His blitz continues today with a speech that says encryption will hurt public safety.
Please think of the children!
The issue is the balance between public safety and personal privacy. Denying the citizen of any democracy the right to encryption of their personal communication is not an appropriate response to the perceived threat to public safety that same encryption would bring.
More like help protect us from the prying eyes of big brother.
just that simple, Director.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
You don't deserve privacy because criminals don't deserve privacy.
Anyone wanna bet that they have no trouble breaking this encryption, or they have secret backdoors? This is just a big advertising campaign to get people to think they can't break it.
I suspect, he is right — it will hurt public safety.
But it will improve individual privacy and America has always valued the cantankerous Individual above the glorious Collective, that other cultures prefer...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
It would help his position if the FBI were to go after Federal agencies (e.g. the NSA) for their illegal violation of citizen's privacy rights, and make it perfectly clear that the only searches of cell phones the FBI is interested in would be supported by probable cause and warrants from legitimate courts.
But I somehow think his reasoning is more on par with "we don't like people protecting their rights, because it makes it harder for us to violate them."
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Choice #1: my smartphone isn't encrypted, the FBI "protects" my safety
Choice #2: my smartphone is encrypted, the FBI can't get to my data.
I choose #2 thank you very much.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
It is not our job to make his job easier or effortless.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Our phones and computers are the modern day equivalent of "papers and effects".
Encryption affords us the security promised by this amendment.
Does this make the collection of data by various "letter agency" and police law enforcement departments tougher? YEP!
Does it raise the possibility of criminals "slipping through the system"? YEP!
I, for one, REFUSE to be pre-criminalized , simply because I don't choose to automatically drop trou whenever someone demands to see "ze papers". The only appropriate answer for this sort of thing is "Fuck you. Get a warrant."
I also refuse to abrogate my rights and privileges due to an idiotic appeal to emotion (think of the CHILDREN!)
*I* am not victimizing children. But, the way law enforcement wants to set things up, EVERYONE gets lumped in as would-be rapists, molesters and murderers.
Jim Comey needs to be told to shut the hell up, do his job *RIGHT* and be a good little soldier.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
No, the modern day equivalent of "papers and effects" are... your papers and effects. If you want protection to be applied to technology that didn't exist in the Founding Father's time, then do the honest thing and press for e.g. a constitutional amendment. Trying to stretch the Founding Fathers' words of over two centuries ago to your pet cause in 2014 is a can of worms that no one should want to open.
It's like you don't understand what "effects" are.
Our phones and computers are the modern day equivalent of "papers and effects".
No, the modern day equivalent of "papers and effects" are... your papers and effects. If you want protection to be applied to technology that didn't exist in the Founding Father's time, then do the honest thing and press for e.g. a constitutional amendment. Trying to stretch the Founding Fathers' words of over two centuries ago to your pet cause in 2014 is a can of worms that no one should want to open.
"papers and effects"
Your personal effects include your smartphone. If the government wants to peek at it or seize it, they need to get a warrant.
Also, they want people to NOT use encryption at the same time that they're warning companies of the attacks by Chinese cyber-hackers. Someone needs to tell this guy "You can't have it both ways, dude."
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
FBI / NSA: Dude, you're becoming a monster.
Citizen: You made me this way...
All encryption does is protect the individual from self incrimination and prevent them from using illegally captured traffic and metadata to do parallel construction a.k.a. lying about the source of evidence.
Things on your person can be searched based upon probable cause without the need for a warrant.
I guess you're not aware of this year's Supreme Court decision, Riley vs. California, in which they determined that police require a warrant to search your phone. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06...
Why?
Papers... and effects. Do you know what "effects" are? Here's a quick google search that turns up an answer right in the search results, no further linking needed. And it's right there, under noun, definition 3. That's the one the constitution meant. It says:
So a phone or computer is quite literally (and I mean "literally" in the literal sense) an effect.
Warrant or GTFO.
Also, why are we so hung up on "papers"? I'm pretty sure our founding fathers didn't care about dead tree pulp and were more concerned about protecting the information on the paper. In that light, why would it matter what medium the information is contained on? Be it chiseled stone, carved wood, or a cellphone?
I'd like to know how Jim Comey reconciles his position on encryption with the requirements set for in the CJIS Security Policy
Because he isn't saying people can't encrypt, he is saying the keys must be available such that the government can get in if needed, even if the owner would like to block the access. The CJIS Policy allows for escrow as well.
What he doesn't seem to get (though I bet he actually does), and where some of the arguments here are missing the mark, is that if someone else holds a key that will grant access, even if the holder is the government, that provides a path for a bad guy to abuse the ability to access. The bad guy(s) can be hackers/attackers from down the street, on the other side of the planet, employees of our government, etc.
And the issue regarding the 4th amendment is somewhat misleading because he is saying a REASONABLE search is what is being prevented, namely one where conditions like a valid warrant exist or an imminent physical threat is present (I am not going to argue the problem here about anything can be claimed as an imminent threat). So the question is does the Constitution allow a person to use technical means to prevent the government access to data even when a valid warrant is presented? Many here obviously believe the answer is yes, mostly for reasons like those I gave above, but understand that this doesn't appear to be a protected right under the 4th since the 4th only says you and your effects are secure until a warrant is issued, not after.
Why not "Obama Admin Continues Its Campaign Against Encryption"? If the Obama admin was against it, they'd fire him. Obama or Bush, the result is the same, the government does not want encryption.