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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.
From TFA: Comey said in an Oct. 2014 speech "Justice may be denied because of a locked phone or an encrypted hard drive." I can somewhat understand that from an investigator's perspective.
But my take is that lots of people are constantly attacking my devices, from the petty skript kiddies to corporations wanting secrets to the NSA who wants everything. Most of the attacks never see justice, they are never prosecuted. There is no justice in most cases, only criminals who break in.
If my devices are properly hardened in advance, I don't need to wait for the government to apply "justice".
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
When it's your job to catch bad guys, everyone starts looking like a bad guy. And then after a while you think that only bad guys use encryption, because good people don't have anything to hide. Soon you think it's okay to read everyone's personal communications without a warrant "for the greater good."
He probably also thinks the evil bit is an excellent idea.
A law that will affect innocent citizens and dumb criminals. The criminals the FBI is after will probably be aware of it and manually turn on encryption.
Lol, are you drunk? Most people are not going to pick up their guns an revolt against the government unless one thing happens: The government comes into THEIR town, and tries to take THEIR house/car/money/loved ones. Nobody is going to grab an AK-47 and march on Washington because the feds are reading their e-mail to grandma.
And the feds probably know it too, or else they wouldn't be doing it....
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
In order to trade off some of A to get some of B, you have to actually get some of B. In this case, we've given a lot of A and gotten nothing for it
I have read many comments here and what you have said is so very true I just need to add to what you have written
I came from China
I left China back in the early 1970's, way back when the entire Chinese society was in a turmoil, where nobody can live in peace because the social contract between the government and the people had broken down
A political struggle at the top echelon resulted in a power-struggle at every level, and power grab was everywhere ... the so-called 'Red Guard' was a by-product of power-grabbing exercises, mostly at the local level
Anyway, people at large in China had no say --- they kept on losing their liberty, their livelihood, even their lives, --- with some driven into madness and many simply committed suicide since they couldn't take it anymore
To put it in simple terms, to the average Chinese citizens, what they had gone through in between the late 1950's and the early 1970's was that everything they had was taken away, just like that ... yep, without any tradeoff
Now that I am an American, I am alarmed at the current development within the United States of America
The people in the USA will be facing the same thing the people in China faced, if nothing is being done to stop TPTB
What happened back in China was that there was no one who could stop Mao. Zhou En Lai tried his best to slow Mao's incessant hunger for power but he just couldn't muster enough strength to halt Mao in his track. All Zhou could do was to do patchworks here and there
Even Zhou suffered greatly during the social turmoil. His own daughter was brutally slaughtered by Jiang Qin, that feisty wife of Mao, and even with his own daughter slaughtered, Zhou couldn't do anything
The experience from China should be a lesson to the Americans ... that is, even if you have someone who has conscience INSIDE the power structure, it is still NOT ENOUGH when TPTB turns ugly
And if the Americans don't do something now --- frankly, even now, it may be too late --- they and their children will eventually be facing a similar fate the Chinese faced some 50 years ago
I certainly don't wish that to America, my adopted country, but I am afraid that too many of the Americans are way too brainwashed to be able to comprehend what is going on and what is going to come
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I have an idea. How about instead of wiping his ass with the Constitution, burning it, then shitting on the ashes for good measure, maybe this Stalinist assclown could try to protect us from some real threats to the American people.
Terrorism? Fucking idiot. Terrorism isn't a threat. Heart disease is a threat. Obesity and complications related to obesity are a threat. Car accidents are a threat. Cancer is a threat.
In fact, just about everything in life is more of a threat to the average American than terrorism, from accidentally dropping an electrical appliance in the tub while you're in it to falling down the fucking stairs. Even getting struck by lightning is more of a fucking threat.
Terrorism? This guy needs to get some fucking perspective.Terrorism is an excuse. It's a cash cow. It's a blunt object to club over the collective head of the populace. The fear of terrorism is doing more to destroy this country than any terrorist or terrorist organization could ever hope to accomplish on their own. In fact, if terrorists really want to bring down America all they need to do is open cheap shops of deep fried donut wrapped sausages and watch us die by the millions from strokes and heart attacks. They can laugh their asses off watching us drop like flies while we chant "protect us from the terrorists!".
Sad.
~X~