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Omand Warns of "Ethically Worse" Spying If Unbreakable Encryption Is Allowed
Press2ToContinue writes In their attempts to kill off strong encryption once and for all, top officials of the intelligence services are coming out with increasingly hyperbolic statements about why this should be done. Now, a former head of GCHQ, Sir David Omand has said: "One of the results of Snowden is that companies are now heavily encrypting [communications] end to end. Intelligence agencies are not going to give up trying to get the bad guys. They will have to get closer to the bad guys. I predict we will see more close access work."
According to The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which reported his words from a talk he gave earlier this week, by this he meant things like physical observation, bugging rooms, and breaking into phones or computers.
"You can say that will be more targeted but in terms of intrusion into personal privacy — collateral intrusion into privacy — we are likely to end up in an ethically worse position than we were before."
That's remarkable for its implied threat: if you don't let us ban or backdoor strong encryption, we're going to start breaking into your homes.
The United States is not a democracy, it's a constitutional republic.
1. The article is about Britain, not America.
2. The US is not a direct democracy, but it is still a democracy.
Exactly.
The argument is essentially "if we can't do blanket surveillance of innocent people and bad guys we'll have to do targeted surveillance of bad guys".
Seems fair enough to me.
Which is a form of democracy...
The United States is definitely a democracy in that we constantly have elections and the franchise is open to most people.
If you wanna get technical and definitional, this thread is about the UK, and the UK is a Westminster-style parliamentary monarchy, which is an explicitly democratic order. But this definition extends to states that I think would be problematic, like Israel, which is a republic with a parliamentary democracy, except they don't let big swathes of the population vote. Also most Communist states are, constitutionally, democratic Council republics but in practice they are so corrupt that the franchise is meaningless.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Generally your home is your domain still. If you can make the case that you didn't know it was a cop then you can most likely get away with shooting one breaking into you home. This is why they yell "Police" and wear jackets with "Police" written on them with big bright letters before crashing the door. Best bet is don't offer any violence to them. That said, it's a dangerous thing breaking into someone's house because a lot of people, normal law abiding people, feel free to shoot anyone who invades their home.
Well it did happen in Minneapolis, MN. I believe that the guy who shot back even won his lawsuit even if it took a few years.
Time to offend someone
Right. The United States is a constitutional republic, which is a form of democracy, and the Soviet Union and Baathist Iraq were "constitutional republics" which we both put in quotes because they were fake democracies.
No-knock warrants are an anti-liberty product of the Drug War. Police know how to secure a building so the only way out is through them, but the suspects can easily dispose of "evidence" (illicit drugs) in the toilet. Since it was impractical to ban toilets, the courts decided to let them barge in and assault everyone they saw.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Anybody can yell "Police" or wear a jacket reading "Police". I recall reading about at least one home-invasion gang doing just that.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Something can be described in multiple ways simultaneously. You, for example, are an Anonymous Coward, but that doesn't mean you're not a human being. "The sun" is also "a star".
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Nancy Pelosi is a member of the House of Representatives, not the Senate. Perhaps you're thinking of Dianne Feinstein and her husband Richard Blum? It's my understanding that Mrs. Pelosi's husband was in no real need of connections himself.