Jeb Bush Comes Out Against Encryption

An anonymous reader writes: Presidential candidate Jeb Bush has called on tech companies to form a more "cooperative" arrangement with intelligence agencies. During a speech in South Carolina, Bush made clear his opinion on encryption: "If you create encryption, it makes it harder for the American government to do its job — while protecting civil liberties — to make sure that evildoers aren't in our midst." He also indicated he felt the recent scaling back of the Patriot Act went too far. Bush says he hasn't seen any indication the bulk collection of phone metadata violated anyone's civil liberties.

Comments

buh, bye

[harvey the nerd]

That's ok, most people are against Jeb Bush. Encryption makes it harder for the Stasi to do its job?

Jeb was already on his way to irrelevant, just another nail in his political coffin.

Re: buh, bye

[Opportunist]

They still exist? I was under the impression all that's left from the Republicans I once knew is the religious nutjobs, the neocon assholes and the redneck hicks who vote for anyone that lets them keep their rocket launchers.

I really miss my Reps. I really do. It used to be such a great party. Now it's just a hodgepodge of lunatics and assholes.

Re: buh, bye

[lgw]

The only "Scotsmen" here are in DC (or their lobbyists are) - the big money donors and the politicians they own.

There's a huge gap right now between the conservative base and GOP politicians in DC. Trump get his entertaining time in the spotlight purely because of his anger: the conservative base is really angry with the GOP establishment right now, to the point where they don't even care that Trump is not conservative! He's angry, and that emotional connection is enough for now.

Jeb is the establishment candidate. I've never seen him praised in the comments of any of the conservative blogs I read. He's seen as a horrifying combination of RINO and "could even lose to Hillary". But he has all the money, as he has the love of the exact people the base is angry with.

My strongest hope in the primaries is that we get no candidates names "Bush" or "Clinton". Enough with the legacies already! Bernie seems honest (for all I think he's a fool), I like Walker, Carson seems unobjectionable. Lets have an election where there's a difference between the candidates, for once!

Re: buh, bye

[H0p313ss]

I love how by your admission the extreme right are the people who are clearly trying to make the world a worse place, and the extreme left are the ones who are trying, perhaps too hard, to make the world a better place.

Re: buh, bye

[Firethorn]

Well, I figure that those are very good reasons that ShanghaiBill put scare quotes around "libertarian".

IE he's the most libertarian of the bunch, doesn't mean that he's actually one of us.

Then again - Defense budget: It says right in the article that he's doing it as a compromise/appeasement to the 'war hawks'. He balances that with other cuts that we'd generally approve of (though I'd drastically reform the EPA, not cripple it via fund cutting).

On Gas exports - REMOVING government obstacles against businesses is libertarian. Note that he didn't say 'subsidize' gas exports. So REMOVING the need for permits and such would be ' government involvement in the market on a scale never before attempted'?

Remember, speeches are limited, it's very difficult to shove every shade of meaning into them.

Re:buh, bye

[RabidReindeer]

Primaries have become a curse upon the nation. The people most likely to vote in them are the extremists, who then dump extreme-leaning candidates on the general election who then have to scramble to appear centrist since the country as a whole has a significant gap between Left and Right, regardless of how far Right the Left is considered by Europeans.

So we have primary winners who are at best panderers to our worse natures and at worst aligned with them, whose credibility is suspect - they either have to "flip flop" or they're seen as unwilling to accommodate the other side. Anyone halfway sane or centrist cannot make it to the general election where they're needed most.

Ashley Madison poll

[geggam]

Ask those folks in Ashley Madison dump how they feel about encryption

ADOLPH HITLER NOW!!

[Foobar of Borg]

Just skip straight to the election to get rid of Hindenberg and Schleicher all at once. Hell, the economy is so bad, and the Mark so worthless, I'll take ANYONE over those two clowns!

Harder To Do Its Job

[Jason Levine]

"If you create encryption, it makes it harder for the American government to do its job — while protecting civil liberties — to make sure that evildoers aren't in our midst."

I see the same appeal to laziness from the RIAA/MPAA when it comes to anti-piracy programs and law enforcement when it comes to actual anti-terrorism procedures.

RIAA/MPAA: "Playing by the rules is too HARD! First you need to gather evidence. Then you need to file a John Doe lawsuit. Then you need to convince a judge that your evidence is good enough to get the person's name. Then you need to file a lawsuit against that person. Then you need to fight that lawsuit. Why can't we just say 'X did this wrong so destroy his computer'?!!!"

Law Enforcement: "Playing by the rules is too HARD! First you need to gather evidence. Then you need to convince a judge that your evidence is good enough to get a warrant. Then you need to use that warrant to get more information. Then you need to arrest that person. Then you need to present that evidence in a court of law. Why can't we just say 'X did this wrong so we're tossing him in jail'?!!!"

Re:He lost my vote

[pla]

I would vote for Donald Trump before voting for Jeb based on this issue.

I would vote for Don before Jeb for a lot of reasons. In fact, of the current Republican slate, I'd pretty much vote for Trump over all of them, because I consider him "mostly harmless" by comparison. I'd like to say I prefer Rand, but Rand has that whole "religiot" angle going that I just can't tolerate.

Sadly enough, as a fiscal conservative (and social liberal), I'd actually call Sanders my candidate of choice so far. Yep - The self-proclaimed socialist shows more fiscal responsibility than all 38 GOPpers running.

And they wonder why people don't show more interest in our elections...

That was before the tea party

[Cafe Alpha]

The Republican party is never going back to being sane, the threat of being primaried is worse than that of killing their constituents. They will prefer to refuse Medicaid, lower taxes on the rich till the government looks like Greece and starve Medicare etc.

The Democrats move back to the right after being elected. The Republicans scream and shift blame and deadlock but they won't ever be able to govern responsibly ever again.

Re:how many people on the left

[TheGratefulNet]

you fell for the trick-question.

there isn't a single serious politician in the US who is leftist. that died well over 20 years ago, perhaps even 30+.

we have ultra right and middle right. that's about it.

Re:I appreciate his honesty

[Nidi62]

What that said, it's pretty hard to get any politician not named Donald to truly speak his mind. Thanks, Gov...

You think Trump is speaking his mind? He's not. He's telling people exactly what they want to hear and they are eating it up. He is tapping into the frustration against the establishment. He tried it with the birther movement the last time but that "controversy" was so ridiculous and contrived that there was no way he could ride it. But now he's found something with much broader appeal.

Typical Republican....

[tekrat]

Can anyone who's a member of the GOP *explain* why the party of "Smaller Government" always wants to expand government when it comes to spying on US citizens and expanding the military?

Why does it always come down to "cut social programs because we're broke", but "no spending limit for bombs/aircraft carriers"?

And while we're at it, can someone explain why "every life is precious" when it comes to abortion, but then have no problem thowing away lives on useless wars, and expanding the death penalty to include petty theft?

Why will they spend every dollar to force an unwed mother to bring her child to birth and then refuse to support it in any way once it's out of her womb?

And why are these questions NEVER ASKED at a "debate"?

Re:He lost my vote

[meglon]

http://mic.com/articles/119630...

Considering the growth we had during the late 40's and 50's, that 90% top marginal tax rate certainly didn't hurt then, and in fact, helped to pay down a lot of debt we had from WWII.

What is fiscally irresponsible is bottoming out taxes while exploding the national debt, like Reagan and Bush II did. People like to bring up the whole "balanced budget" thing on occasion, and in a sense i agree with it... but those people that do are being disingenuous at best. We could balance the budget in two years with a simple constitutional amendment that says "we WILL bring in the revenue to pay for ALL of governments expenses, or the rates will automatically be adjusted to do that. Period, no exceptions." The problem we have is a whole generation who are selfish, greedy, anti-American piss-ants who prefer to act like petulant children instead of living up to the social contract of continuing to invest in future generations, and those people have been leeching everything ever generation before them invested since the 1980's.

Then again, by the way you wrote that... leaving out the "top marginal rate" part... i have to assume you either do not understand history, or what Sanders said.... or that you're just being deceptive to get people to agree with you.

Re:He lost my vote

[pla]

Advocating a 90% tax rate is fiscally responsible?

First of all, you need to learn the difference between marginal and average tax rates.

Second - Yes. Not spending more than you make counts as rule #1 of fiscal responsibility. I disapprove of the vast majority of government spending and would far prefer we balance the budget through cuts; but as long as neither the Republicans nor the Democrats can refrain from writing rubber checks, we'd damned well better back them with something other than green ink.

That said - We last saw a top marginal rate of 91% from 1946 through 1963. Y'know, the post-WWII era, the "baby boom", one of the most prosperous eras in US history for the lower and middle classes? I don't normally go for rose-tinted glasses, but tough to see much but pink about that (unless you can't see anything through all the green).


Hmmm. Ok, you go first.

As soon as I make over $1,766,000 per year (the inflation adjusted 90% bracket floor in 1946), yes, I will gladly pay 90% of anything over that.