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DOJ Launches New Cybercrime Unit, Claims Privacy Top Priority
msm1267 writes: Leslie Caldwell, assistant attorney general in the criminal division of the Department of Justice, announced on Thursday the creation of a new Cybercrime Unit, tasked with enhancing public-private security efforts. A large part of the Cybersecurity Unit's mission will be to quell the growing distrust many Americans have toward law enforcement's high-tech investigative techniques. (Even if that lack of trust, as Caldwell claimed, is based largely on misinformation about the technical abilities of the law enforcement tools and the manners in which they are used.) "In fact, almost every decision we make during an investigation requires us to weigh the effect on privacy and civil liberties, and we take that responsibility seriously," Caldwell said. "Privacy concerns are not just tacked onto our investigations, they are baked in."
You stop throwing the 'T' word around at companies/people for doing things like encrypting our handheld devices.
--- Mercutio was right.
If you read carefully, you'll see that nowhere does Caldwell mention increasing privacy. Just that it counts as a top priority.
"Privacy concerns are not just tacked onto our investigations, they are baked in" makes perfect sense, and doesn't at all contradict the idea that the FBI wants backdoors into everything, or that the NSA already has them. The fact that they want backdoors is a valid privacy concern: How can they most efficiently strip the public of it.
Amazing what you can say without lying, when you carefully pick your choice of words.
Whats so funny? Of course Privacy is their top priority.... they always want to seek out and destroy it wherever they find it. Its enemy #1
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
"In fact, almost every decision we make during an investigation requires us to weigh the effect on privacy and civil liberties, and we take that responsibility seriously,"
That's nice, but your statement highlights the real problem here... which is that federal agencies seem to think that they get to weigh the value of our civil liberties against the value of our safety. That's not the case, these agencies do not get to make a judgment about just how much of our privacy and/or civil liberties they're allowed to violate. They're not allowed to violate them... AT ALL... without a warrant or conviction. It doesn't matter how careful they are. It doesn't matter what the consequences of respecting my civil liberties are.
I invite all who read this to familiarize themselves with the first passage of the decleration of independance, the document upon which this country was founded:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Specifically, our rights are unalienable They cannot be disregarded for some greater good. They can only be removed by God. And the government is not our God... the government is our creation, our tool. It works in our interest. And above all, above even security, or justice, our interest is our constitutional rights.
"Give me Liberty or give me death" was clear... Remaining safe and alive but wrapped in chains isn't being alive at all.
Reagan famously reminded Gorbachev of the old Russian proverb, "Trust but verify." Here's a corollary for the modern age: "Trust but encrypt."
what's so funny?
they will totally protect the privacy of the people that are part of this 'cybercrime' unit. everyone else's, not so much.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!