FBI Slammed On Capitol Hill For "Stupid" Ideas About Encryption

blottsie writes: At a hearing in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, the FBI endured outright hostility as both technical experts and members of Congress from both parties roundly criticized the law enforcement agency's desire to place so-called back doors into encryption technology. "Creating a technological backdoor just for good guys is technologically stupid," said Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), a Stanford University computer science graduate. "That's just stupid. Our founders understood that an Orwellian overreaching government is one of the most dangerous things this world could have," Lieu said.

Comments

Ted Lieu

[jcomeau_ictx]

... who never saw a gun control bill he didn't like. the dystopia envisioned by Orwell cannot happen without first disarming the people.

Obama 100x worse, not even a little better

[SuperKendall]

When Bush left office, the Middle East was pretty safe, and had a functional democracy in Iraq.

The economy of the U.S. was on an upswing, and the U.S. had vastly less debt.

Now the middle east is blowing up all over, soon very literally when Iran achieves nuclear weapons. The economy is tanking again, the national debt is monstrously high, there are not infrequent waves of rioting and looting in many major cities. Race relations are at an all time low, in part because so many criticisms these days are countered with "you only disagree with me because I am black", an argument that trickles down to the population at large. It makes it impossible to talk about real instances of racism when so many things that are not, are labeled as such.

Civilians in other countries certainly don't feel much safer since instead of discriminating troops locking down an area or fighting other troops, we have vastly increased drone strikes that often harm innocents.

I'm not sure in what way you can possibly justify saying Obama is even a little better than Bush in terms of safety and hope, since there is now so much less of both than when Bush left office.

So much so, that a common sight now is posters of Bush smiling with the words "Miss me yet?" emblazoned underneath...