Slashdot Mirror
James Comey: the Man Who Wants To Outlaw Encryption
Patrick O'Neill writes: "There has not been a tradeoff between liberty and security in our response to terrorism in this country and in our efforts to offer security to the people of the United States," said James Comey, now the director of the FBI. Comey was the number two man in the Department of Justice during the Bush years when NSA and law enforcement surveillance of Americans grew to unprecedented heights. Now he's pushing to stop encryption by default on Apple and Android devices.
A good passage...
“The FBI makes this proposal to look like they’re looking for a simple law to add a simple feature,” says Robert Graham, CEO at Errata Security. “But when you look into it, what they’re really asking for is dramatic, it’s a huge thing. They’d need to outlaw certain kinds of code. Possessing crypto code would become illegal.”
Ask hackers and other cybersecurity experts, and they'll tell you that the entire idea of a “backdoor” is a bureaucratic fantasy with little basis in technical reality.
“You can't build a backdoor that only the good guys can walk through,” cryptographer and author Bruce Schneier explained. “Encryption protects against cybercriminals, industrial competitors, the Chinese secret police, and the FBI. You're either vulnerable to eavesdropping by any of them, or you're secure from eavesdropping from all of them.”
The two shooters in Texas were "on the FBI's radar" yet they managed to drive all the way to Texas and attempt to carry-out their plot. I guess the FBI will claim they needed more massive surveillance to prevent this incident. Bastard liars all.
What's even better is one of those was a previously convicted terrorist, been jailed and released, and was actively tweeting/posting on *public* social media his intentions, and still "they managed to drive all the way to Texas and attempt to carry-out their plot." Exactly what in excess of what the FBI/NSA/CIA had do they need to "prevent terrorism"? I'd say this points out to the complete and utter uselessness of the entire concept of mass surveillance to prevent terrorism, so let's start there with dismantling this democracy killing concept.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
It wasn't for unpaid taxes. He was grazing on public lands and then refused to pay the grazing fees. He was basically being a mooch and the right only jumped to his defense because they could make up this story about he was a victim of government overreach.