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Turkey Arrests Journalists For Using Encryption
An anonymous reader sends news that three employees of Vice News were arrested in Turkey because one of them used an encryption system on his personal computer. That particular type of encryption has been used by the terrorist organization known as the Islamic State, so the men were charged with "engaging in terrorist activity." The head of a local lawyers association said, "I find it ridiculous that they were taken into custody. I don't believe there is any accuracy to what they are charged for. To me, it seems like an attempt by the government to get international journalists away from the area of conflict." The Turkish government denied these claims: "This is an unpleasant incident, but the judiciary is moving forward with the investigation independently and, contrary to claims, the government has no role in the proceedings."
A bunch of turkeys.
Well, generally it's a good thing that we have an independent judiciary. It ensures that they don't get caught up in the mob's favorite punching bag of the moment.
The problem here is that a judiciary is only supposed to hear cases of controversy: That means there has to be two sides, and the case can't go on if there's no one to prosecute.
In other words, if what they are saying is true, this means the Turkish courts are effectively judge AND prosecutor.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
Not that surprising for anyone that follows Turkish politics. Erdogan isn't as bad as ISIS but he inch-by-inch is taking Turkey down the theocratic road of countries like Afghanistan. He practically had to be coerced into fighting ISIS. Very plausible he would have joined forces with ISIS to fight Kurds if it hadn't been for foreign pressure)
Most Turks you meet are super nice in person but for some unfathomable reason this crpto-fascist jerk keeps winning elections. If he keeps winning elections, Turkey is going to devolve into a theocracy like most of the rest of the middle east. Secular Atatürk was rational (especially for his era). Erdogan things he's an Ottoman sultan. Populist moron.
Wow, so now to get arrested for terrorism, all you have to do is use the same kind of thing that a terrorist has used?
I sure hope none of them wear Nikes.
"the Casio F-91W digital watch was declared to be 'the sign of al-Qaeda' and a contributing factor to continued detention of prisoners by the analysts stationed at GuantÃnamo Bay." from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
Isn't an encrypted population like an armed population? Computers capable of powerful of enough encryption which once classified as munitions and their export banned. So having encryption is kind of like having the right to defend yourself. Which I do not see as bad, nor should the republicans who believe in the right to bear arms.
Society use your Sciences
So their judiciary isn't part of the government?
The original statement was in Turkish, not English. So saying "government" rather than "administration" was likely just a bad translation by a journalist.
In Western law that's the reason there's a jury - to ensure independence and oversight (theoretically). That is why there is prosecution as a State representative. A judge is meant to be both impartial and, somehow, understanding at the same time - understanding does not mean lenient. It is a separate branch of the government for a reason and one has a right to a trial by their peers for that reason. The term independent judiciary is a bit of a misnomer but calling it a quasi-independent judiciary is a bit wordy.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
What encryption system I wonder. Isn't https an encryption system that is used by Islamic State?
That's the British sense of the word "government", not the US sense of the word. Turkey, like many nations, has a parliamentary system.
It goes something like this. The people elect parliament, who make laws much like the US Congress. The parliament then elects or nominates two heads. One handles foreign affairs. That's the head of state. In the US, the president is head of state. The other top person forms "a government" which handles internal affairs. The US is weird in that then president is both head of state and head of government. In parliamentary systems like Turkey and the UK, they are two seperate positions. (Though sometimes the head of state now has only nominal power, if the head of government and the parliament have slowly taken more and more power).
Seperate from "the government" and parliament is the judiciary. The head of government can't fire judges.
In this type of system, as in the early US system, the head of government doesn't have nearly as much power as the US president does. Other branches can and do act independently.
My Republican and my Democrat associates all seem inclined to believe in the need to have the freedom to encrypt our documents.
I don't tend to hang around with extremists and idiots
danger! danger! contradiction alert!
Turkey has a member of NATO since 1952. They joined before (West) Germany did.
Turkey is in both Asia and Europe. It can control entry to the Black Sea (which contains the Crimea).
NATO called the *North Atlantic* Treaty Organisation because the North Atlantic is what lies between Europe and North America.
Really, if you did too many 'shrooms at school, you can find out all this stuff now with about 10 minutes on Wikipedia.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
And I'm still waiting on the coffee to brew. I think I'm doing pretty well.
(And I did my share of psychoactive imagineering back in the day, but it's been at least 20 years since I've messed with anything on that level.)
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
You wanted functional encryption to be made illegal. Turkey has just taken a bold step towards this brave stance. How does it taste to you? I bet the EU spokeswoman's comments made the pill even more delicious, since she mentioned human rights, which is something the UK government also wants to shred.
Funny enough, I bought an F-91W because of this press. I was starting to realize that most of the time I was taking my phone out of my pocket, it was to check the time. Every time I did that, I was taking myself away from what I was doing for way too long, and it was one more chance to drop an expensive phone.
So: I went looking for a cheap watch. I first hunted down the F-91W because of the terrorist association press, and the Amazon reviews are awesome. It's also a common watch sold at US military PXs, so I'm surprised that it would also be a watch that could get you picked up in Afghanistan. While looking at that one, I noticed that Casio actually makes a bunch of fairly decent looking analog watches for under $15 (MQ24-1E and MQ-24-1BLK are nice). They last about two years before the battery goes out, at which point you can replace the battery or the watch, and I had bought one of each over the past several years, before settling with the F-91W.
It's a tank. I wear it during martial arts, swimming, showering... nothing seems to phase it.
Technically, the government is secular (women working in government offices are even forbidden to wear head scarves, for example), but Erdogan has been doing everything possible to uproot that. As in many countries, the cities tend to back full separation of church/temple/mosque and state, while the rural areas tend to want religion integrated into government.
As you say, for a long time the military was a strong force for secular liberalism and the standard-bearer for Ataturk's secularist reforms and even led several coups to restore secular and democratic rule. Erdogan, though, made sure early on in his administration to gut their capacity to affect policy, let alone lead a coup.
I don't think that Turkey's capacity to be a mix of Muslim culture and secular government is entirely gone, but it's certainly diminishing. If it had a stronger and more diverse economy, Tunisia might be in a position to do so, but poverty (which often breeds Islamism, just like it does Christianism) and terrorism have virtually ruled out that possibility.