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NSA Director Wants Legal Right To Snoop On Encrypted Data
jfruh writes: This may not come as a huge shock, but the director of the NSA doesn't believe that you have the right to encrypt your data in a way that the government can't access it. At a cybersecurity policy event, Michael Rogers said that the U.S. should be able to craft a policy that allows the NSA and law enforcement agencies to read encrypted data when they need to.
they'll be moving to places with more sensible security policies
...did having the legal right matter to the NSA? Or recent governments, for that matter...
--- Pork is not a verb.
You seem to forget these people are part of the Obama Administration and take their direction from him.
He's either oblivious and doesn't give a shit, or he's on board with it.
Pick one and then say "Dear Rodeo Clown, Go Fuck Yourself."
I mean, there are going to be some areas where we’re going to have different perspectives. That doesn’t bother me at all. One of the reasons why, quite frankly, I believe in doing things like this is that when I do that, I say, “Look, there are no restrictions on questions. You can ask me anything.”
Welcome to the new Amerika. Your possessions and money may be seized at any time via civil asset forfeiture, your communications are under constant surveillance, and now they want to make sure absolutely nothing can be kept private.
But, hey, so long as we're having "dialogue" (you'll do what you want anyways) and we have your permission to ask questions then it's all good.
Who really won the cold war?
It's called a subpoena.
What you want is a system that allows it, and if you have a backdoor, they have it too. Snowden's leaks didn't convince me that you were the all powerful octopus, it convinced me that you were the Keystone Cops of the Information Superhighway. I don't distrust you because of your bad intent. I don't trust you because of your incompetence.
Get a warrant and demand the keys. Or brute force it. Same as a locked box. I know the legal system is such a pain in the ass for making you do your God damned jobs the proper way.
Ok, lets assume they are right and the government **should** be allowed to access encrypted data (not that I agree with this).
Its going to be an absolutely impossible for them to implement technically it without significantly increasing the risk an unauthorized 3rd party can.
The non-technical way (give me your password) has constitutional issues.
This falls into two categories.
1.) Lawful investigation (warrant and all). In this case, encryption has been regarded as a 'locked box' they can seize and search your gun safe but they can not ask you to give up the combination. If they get past that, there are other legal hurdles....The Government cannot compel you to incriminate yourself (give up the key) (5th Amendment).....If that doesn't work, who says you can recall the password or didn't lose the key--This could be fun and I don't know the law.....
2.) We will call it "Creative Surveillance". Well, thats a whole can of 4th amendment.
The rest of the world don't want products with official US backdoors though. So you'll have a very hard time selling anything US made abroad and you'd have to ban foreign imports that don't comply with your backdoor policy. Probably also all second hand private imports like eBay. And open source. If the NSA didn't cost the US enough money already, it will after that. I remember a time when you had to fight to get non-crippled crypto out of the US, only 40 bits for us schmucks. I guess now you'll have to fight to get non-crippled crypto back in...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Back in the cold war era so many of our American leaders criticized the totalitarianism and lack of human rights in China and the Soviet bloc nations. Now fifty some years later we are gradually becoming just like them.
If I thought it was OK for them to read my messages, I wouldn't fucking encrypt them.
The problem is secret courts and that they have been caught spying on everyone multiple times already.
If he was arguing that they should be able to get a court order at a NORMAL court not the FISA one and with probably cause have the right to decrypt the data and only the data covered by the search warrant then I would support him.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
Abuse: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism Who gets labelled a terrorist and why? It's not just about who commits violence. It's about who is a threat to the existing power-structure. Terrorist is the new communist.
It's hilarious. For a moment I wondered if the transcript is even real. This makes Eliza look sophisticated.
He seems to believe, "I think we can work through this" is an acceptable answer to a simple yes/no question. The guy doesn't even have a coherent answer to one of the most basic and obvious questions he could possibly be asked. I thought Comey did a poor job of explaining his position but this takes it to a whole other level.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The encryption drive was caused by the NSA and others not obeying due process when they went after information. They used little legal loopholes or just broke the law outright as it suited them. And of course that being known people are going to take steps to protect themselves.
The damage the NSA has done will take a generation to repair and that would be a generation with the NSA not actively doing damage the entire time. Absent that, we're not going back to the way things were... possibly ever.
And that means the NSA should get used to running into encrypted brick walls. They had all the trust. Companies would openly brag that their security had been vetted by the NSA. Now, no one says that because there is always the fear that the NSA saw a flaw and intentionally kept it secret so they could exploit it or worse they might have even injected a backdoor in themselves.
The trust is gone and they have only themselves to blame.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Better phrased:
"The fourth amendment of the Constitution, the highest law in the land, says 'Go fuck yourself.'"
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
In theory you are right. The problem is that laws change and I cannot predict in what fashion.
What you do today and what is perfectly legal may well be illegal tomorrow. Take, say, smoking. Maybe you're smoking. Now let's imagine smoking gets banned. Well, tobacco is addictive. And if you're known to be a smoker, maybe you should be monitored whether you heed that ban or whether you engage in some illegal activity now that your addictive substance is banned.
And should you have dared to criticize the government in a way that has caused enough waves, this just might serve as the excuse needed to make you disappear behind some bars where you cannot reach those that like to listen to you. And hopefully soon you'll be forgotten and life will go on.
There are some countries, and I'm far from talking third world dictatorships, that are on the verge of heavy unrest. I don't want to say civil war, we're far from that, but there's a LOT of very unhappy and very disillusioned people in many countries that we'd consider first world countries.
All it takes is someone to gather behind. And that's to be avoided at all cost if you're a government, interested in preserving the status quo as long as you can.
So anything to get rid of such people is a good excuse. And having access to data is one way to find something. In case you ever wondered what purpose all those unexectuable laws we're seeing popping up could possibly serve, this pretty much is it. But if you need to construct dirt about someone, you need to have access to his documents.
Everyone breaks the law. Daily. Multiple times. All it takes is access to the proof.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
> ... to illegally access everyone's communications, especially that of their own citizens to solidify power, or serve corporate/elite/shadowy overlords ...
But this is what is happening, no ? And this is what people in power positions are requesting access for - ability to read ANYONE's communications. Snowden revelations clearly listed massive dragnet surveillance on own US citizens.
They don't whine that they can't read Iran's / North Korea's communications, or even Germany's or France's. They whine that they can't read EVERYBODY's communications, including those of political opponents (remember Nixon ? or own NSA's lack of legislative/judicial oversight ?).
So what's shocking is not that they were reading's US enemy's communications - that was expected; not even that they recorded US citizens on US soil, although you were labeled a conspiratard if you voiced your opinion.
What's shocking is that they are reading and archiving EVERYBODY's communication, because they may be useful in the future. And then they come and say, when caught, not that they are sorry and destroy the archives, but that we have to actually bend over, spread the cheeks and say thank you.
The older I get, the more I see the wisdom in the saying, "It is very hard to get someone to understand something when their paycheck depends on them not understanding it." The truth is a bit more complicated and nuanced than this. It is not just paycheck, but power, prestige, fame, honor, and overall dominance that make a person's profession breed intellectual dishonesty. So, it is relevant. But you won't convince daveschroeder of this. It may be true that other people's profession affected their objectivity, but not daveschroder's! OMG, logical fallacy!
Join the IParty!
come on already - neither party actually makes the decisions, it's all coming from above. they're just there to polarise and divide us from unifying against them ;)
you take a look at the likes of Canada and Australia and you can see there is a common directive in regards to putting everyone under surveillance, gutting environmental protection and putting in place laws that allow corporations to sue the government in regard to laws that may affect their profit margins.
I really wish some whistleblower somewhere amongst the power elite was able to get us the evidence of who's calling the shots - just like NSA spying on us, there were hints of it happening out there and a lot of IT professionals suspected it - but suspicion isn't enough to make people pay attention.
Once a back door exists, all power hungry countries will find the keys.
Sadly, the American public went back to their reality TV shows and all-you-can-eat buffets shortly after the Snowden leaks. They just don't have the attention span to pay attention for more than a couple of weeks at most. A little distraction on social issues in the mean time and when it comes time to vote, they dutifully line up to vote for the very politicians who are bending them over.
wow, I haven't seen so many shills in one place in quite a while. the reason you are being called out isn't because of your position but because you conveniently leave out details which completely invalidate your arguments.
1. secret courts - yes, the original intention was to make sure there was probable cause before the court was to issue a warrant. In reality, even statements by the court indicate that it has been not much more than a rubber stamp. Less that one percent of requests for warrants have actually been denied. The court is not protecting any citizens. It is protecting the impression of process and procedures so that the government cannot be sued for breaking fourth amendment protections.
2. Spying on everyone. - yes, we all know that the NSA director perjured himself when he said that only metadata was being collected. Within weeks, the rest of us learned about prism which collects not only metadata but content itself. The fact that you leave this out means to me that you know your argument is flawed and that you are trying to discount and minimize facts and evidence that has already been publicly disseminated.
blah blah blah. more bullshit about things being legal that in fact were not legal until unconstitutional laws were instituted to make them less illegal. Lets not even get into the fact that when these laws were passed, the senate intelligence committee did not even know about prism and other programs which were meant to "collect all data".
As for phone record metadata, this is the type of information that government and investigators used to need a warrant to get and they needed to request it from the phone company. Now you are implying that a warrant isn't needed because it's public information and therefore there is no expectation of privacy. FUCK YOU! If there is a reason to suspect someone of a crime, then there is cause to get a warrant. If there isn't, then you have no claim to that or any other information.
Blah blah blah. About the NSA and breaking laws. Laws have been created to make what the NSA is doing "legal". That does not in any way mean that it is constitutional. These things are not at all equivalent to how things were in 1979 or even before the patriot act. You are disingenuous to imply that these things are even remotely equivalent. In 1979, the intelligence infrastructure was even remotely set up to monitor the activities of normal American citizens.
Blah blah blah. terrorists use the same networks and such. You know there was a time when the intelligence services needed to actually do real investigative work. They didn't just get to treat everyone like a criminal until one committed a crime.
Freedom isn't free. It's difficult and expensive. Attempting to take away peoples privacy and autonomy to make the jobs at the NSA easier doesn't make us more free. It makes us less free. Being free without the freedom part of it is actually not being free. Even if some government officials are lying to you about how much freedom you actually have.
ANYbody who believes that either party has the best interests of the AMERICAN PEOPLE at heart, is living in a fantasy world.. Until about midway thru BushJr's second term, I was a Republican.. Then I began to realize that BOTH parties were out for NOTHING but their own power.. The ONLY thing they pay attention to is the big-bucks donations that keep them in office.. America is SCREWED...
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
Does it matter? Do violations become more palatable depending on who started it, or whether it is condoned by your party?
If Joe is a villain, it doesn't imply that Jack is a saint.
Stop blaming. Do something. Shout loud and clear "No more".