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Justice Department: Default Encryption Has Created a 'Zone of Lawlessness'
Jason Koebler writes: Leslie Caldwell, an assistant attorney general at the Justice Department, said Tuesday that the department is "very concerned" by the Google's and Apple's decision to automatically encrypt all data on Android and iOS devices.
"We understand the value of encryption and the importance of security," she said. "But we're very concerned they not lead to the creation of what I would call a 'zone of lawlessness,' where there's evidence that we could have lawful access through a court order that we're prohibited from getting because of a company's technological choices.
"We understand the value of encryption and the importance of security," she said. "But we're very concerned they not lead to the creation of what I would call a 'zone of lawlessness,' where there's evidence that we could have lawful access through a court order that we're prohibited from getting because of a company's technological choices.
Just like that zone of lawlessness inside of peoples minds that the pesky 5th amendment creates, think of all the criminals going free because we can't force them to incriminate themselves! This is a situation that the DOJ and other alphabet agencies have brought upon themselves by thinking they are above the law in the first place.
This was in the context of the Iraq war, when the United States kicked over the anthill that was Saddam's government and suddenly all the factions started tearing each other and their civilization apart.
I do not normally agree with Donald Rumsfeld, and in the context of the Iraq war I definitely disagree with his decision to allow Iraq to destroy itself so thoroughly, but on the other hand if we're extending that freedom to people that we're actively in-confrontation with, then shouldn't we extend that freedom to ourselves?
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
they can no longer grab everything on everyone and actually have to go back to doing REAL police work. its so hard I tell ya, whatever did cops do about crime before smartphones???
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
OMG!!! The pedophiles and terrorists are going to run rampant!! It's not like they used encryption before or anything!
Gotta love the flailing FUD as of late about encryption, reporting police officers on Waze, etc. The police state is definitely in full swing at this point.
I am not so concerned about the lawful access (i.e. not a secret court warrant). It's the abuse of power that continues with the executive agencies (NSA, CIA, FBI, DEA, local police, etc...) that I am concerned about. Until they are willing to stop the abuses, I have no problem making their jobs harder. Don't blame the tech companies for making your jobs more difficult. If you do it the right way, an encrypted phone won't be a problem during an investigation. A phone should not be the start and end of your case and investigation - it should only be an additional tool.
"We understand the value of encryption and the importance of security,"
It is not just security, it is privacy. It is the freedom from governments and others snooping through my life.
That would be all the corporate boardrooms, capitol buildings, and city halls, right?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Guess what, the criminals you were trying to catch were already "flicking the switch" on the encryption before this became the "default" setting.
The default setting came about because of your constitutional terrorism, wielding your Weapons of Constitutional Destruction to the detriment of the common man.
You only have yourselves to blame for this effect.
Too Fucking Bad! Your entire administration and the one before it has demonstrated that you have absolutely no intent of defending the constitution especially where privacy and due process are concerned. To make this kind of statement while new stories of how you're tracking people's everyday movements even more you still complain that you don't get access because people and companies are defending themselves. Lawlessness? Fuck! Where have you been? There's already instances where evidence has been forged in cases to keep secrets of how information was obtained illegally and the DOJ has sanctioned it! Ms Cadwell, you're not the person who should be in the DOJ and you should resign immediately because you have your head right up your ass.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
They shot first, they eroded the trust to a point where people, not criminals or terrorists or pedophiles but ordinary law abiding people have stood up and said "we don't trust the government any more, nor the systems in place to protect our privacy, and so we have to take it into our own hands."
The proliferation of wide spread encryption is almost a direct result of actions by the NSA, FBI, and friends. They brought this on themselves. If they want people to once again accept them as partners in protecting their rights rather than adversaries, they need to regain the trust they've lost.
The notion that liberties could be misused and potentially give way to lawbreaking behavior is never a justification for the repeal of liberty.
We are always and everywhere free to break the law. That our social contract with government grants government the ability to prosecute law breakers ex post facto, does not equate to a wholesale license to restrict a liberty prior to its potential abuse.
To jump to such a conclusion would equally justify a national curfew. After all, who knows what we might get up to after dark?
Liberty by definition, always carries with it the potential for individual abuse.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Because it's SUPPOSED to suck. If the Founders intended government to be able to rifle through our affairs AT WILL they wouldn't have put the 4th Amendment into the Bill of Rights would they?
Corporatism != Free Market
"We understand the value of door locks and the importance of home security," she said. "But we're very concerned they lead not to the creation of what I would call a 'zone of lawlessness.'"
Yes, you could get a warrant to enter a person's home, but in theory, only with probable cause--although law enforcement doesn't even bother with that anymore, under the guise of "national security" or "defending freedom" or "imminent terrorist danger" or some other vague excuse. Which is all the MORE reason why encryption is necessary, because unlike physical property, digital property deserves even greater protection from government intrusion, especially when the agents of that government--such as this lawyer--dare to openly speak the way they do. It proves the government is not trustworthy. Our private information is a record of our thoughts and actions in a way that physical property does not and cannot compare.
The fact is, I'd rather risk the vague possibility of a terrorist threat than be subjected to the certainty of a tyrannical government. The real terrorists are those who use fear and propaganda to advance oppressive tactics, repeal individual rights and freedoms, all in order to enshrine power and money for themselves. As I have said about law enforcement: if you don't like that your job is "hard" or "dangerous" or made more so as a consequence of technology, that's your problem. It doesn't mean that law-abiding citizens have any obligation to facilitate the rolling back of progress so that you can stay lazy and expend the absolute minimum amount of effort required.
I hear there are zones of lawlessness in people's homes and in various public spaces such as parks, parking lots, street corners and alleys, where people actually TALK to each other without being surveilled! And bad guys who talk in code so that even if they are being surveilled, it's as if their conversation is encrypted by their brains! Horrors, whatever shall we do! Think of the children!
"We are concerned that there are minuscule gaps in our nearly universal panopticon. Therefore we will require that all devices be accessible by duly appointed authorities. We promise that this power will never be abused."
The reason we are using encryption more widely is because the US government has been spying on US citizens without lawful court orders. That is, Leslie Caldwell should be concerned about the "Zone of Lawlessness" at the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and the Justice Department. Fix that, and then the American people might consider not using encryption anymore.
Encryption does not prevent lawful access to data. If law enforcement gets a court order they can always go the person and require them to decrypt something for search. What it does prevent is LEO going to 3rd parties and secretly getting unencrypted data, which is only 'lawful' because they have twisted things to do so. But search where the subject is aware and can examine the order? No change there.
All common encryption does is prevent law enforcement from creating all sorts of new abilities and powers it did not have before, which is a very different thing.
Your position seems reasonable enough from an ethical/moral standpoint. Unfortunately, in reality, a device or communication channel is either secure against a certain attack or it isn't. There is not and never can be a middle ground of being secure against a certain attack unless that attack has been lawfully authorised by a competent court.
In short, if the government wants access to your encrypted information, even with appropriate oversight, then it must require your information to be insecure and therefore vulnerable to other parties accessing it as well. If the government wants to encourage security in communications, then it must accept that covert interception of those communications will no longer be possible. You can't eat your cake and have it.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
There used to be a saying, something about it being better to let ten guilty men go free than to imprison one innocent one.
Tragically, in today's culture of politics dominated by fear, it almost seems like everyone is presumed to be guilty of something. That means the idea that it might be necessary to protect someone who might actually be innocent, or simply to leave them alone to live their lives without interference, is not given a lot of thought.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
In the BC (Before Computers) era, if one wanted perfect privacy, they would remember things and not write them down. They would talk to each other in their own homes with security from government eavesdropping about ideas, politics, anything they felt like. The fifth amendment gave them the right to keep such things from government "oversight."
Now, there is more to remember and machines to help us do so. Should these modern aids help the individual or make the jobs of surveillance agencies easier?
Put another way, would anyone want their careless/drunk/drugged/lusty words used against them in a courtroom?
Pot meet kettle!
What's happened is the government has changed lawful access to mean secret courts with secret warrants, mass hacking and surveillance of systems we use every day for commerce etc with zero or token oversight. This is the real zone of lawlessness.
These systems can then be used for cyberstalking some ex, data sold to an investigator for profit, used politically to smear opponents etc, and result in innocent people blocked from flying, subject to extraordinary rendition, special measures interrogation techniques (ie, torture) etc without due process. If this happened in another country we'd call it extra-judicial lawlessness and condemn it.
I think many people are supportive of lawful access. This means due process, within the court system, etc etc. Suspected of x, probable cause, warrant issued but briefly sealed, warrant executed and unsealed, ability to contest basis for warrant, knowledge of its execution and existence etc, etc. This system of due process exists for a reason - and is well articulated and well developed going back to our constitution and subsequent amendments etc.
Our economy and society wins if we can rely on these systems to handle our searches for medical conditions, our emails to loved ones, confidential business information etc etc without massive invasions of privacy. Our economy and society win if we can count on the rule of law.
Small wonder Google and Apple are resisting the secret "National Security Letter" no due process system the government has invented, or the direct hacking of their systems.
The goal, if you had missed it, is to pass enough laws you're guilty of *something*. Then, if you get to be a problem, there's sure to be *something* to nail you to the wall with.
Slashdot Patriotism: We Support our Dupes!
TiggertheMad, a nobody from the Internet, said Tuesday that the he is "very concerned" by the most of the Internet's decision to not automatically encrypt all data. "We understand the value of legal discovery and the importance of enforcing laws," he said. "But we're very concerned they not lead to the creation of what I would call a 'zone of lawlessness,' where the government violates some of our most basic principles in some quixotic hunt to ferret out terrorists and other boogie men. They might actually have to do some actual police work, you know like they did for the last few centuries."
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Has anyone considered looking at this from a Second amendment perspective? If we are not to pass laws prohibiting the right to bear arms in order to establish a proper militia, has it not been considered that the command and control of said militia would also be as equally important? If so, then would it not be fair to assume that military grade encryption standards (read: non-exportable encryption) would by nature also be protected weapons systems? Granted, I know that arms exports has a litany of laws and the average Joe American can't just walk down the street buy an over the shoulder rocket launcher, but one would think that the ability to communicate securely for defensive purposes would in and of itself constitute protection under the Second Amendment? Or am I just reaching here?
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Interesting story. One of the things I find most reassuring about the police service* in the UK is that they have long maintained, great consistency and at almost any rank, that good community relations are the heart of good policing. Officers who go out on patrol** have consistently and overwhelmingly said they do not want to routinely carry firearms, because that goes against the basic principle of policing by consent, and instead they tend to assume that the solution to local problems often starts with trying to improve those relations if they are failing. Concerns are also raised often by the police themselves about the balance between having officers patrolling in vehicles for rapid response and having officers literally walking the beat and actually making contact with the public. I get the feeling that police officers in certain other parts of the world have a very, very different attitude to their relationship with the public.
*I remember well that when the local police schools liaison officer visited us, he made a point of saying he didn't like the term "police force" because it had the wrong connotations before you even started to look at what the police did.
**It's curious how often police officers and politicians in some places refer to officers "on the front line", this being about as overt a military metaphor as I can think of (short of being "on the front line in the war against $ABSTRACT_NOUN" I suppose).
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I can see that you have never read the US constitution or passed a government and civics class. Do they even have those in high school any more?
I graduated in 2009 from a public school in New Jersey. To answer your question, no. There were no civics classes. Not even available as an elective. We were however required to take a mandatory class on Microsoft Office. Our priorities are completely screwed up, aren't they?