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Justice Department To Be More Aggressive In Seeking Encrypted Data From Tech Companies (wsj.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Wall Street Journal (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source): The Justice Department signaled Tuesday it intends to take a more aggressive posture in seeking access to encrypted information from technology companies, setting the stage for another round of clashes in the tug of war between privacy and public safety. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein issued the warning in a speech in Annapolis, Md., saying that negotiating with technology companies hasn't worked. "Warrant-proof encryption is not just a law enforcement problem," Mr. Rosenstein said at a conference at the U.S. Naval Academy. "The public bears the cost. When our investigations of violent criminal organizations come to a halt because we cannot access a phone, even with a court order, lives may be lost." Mr. Rosenstein didn't say what precise steps the Justice Department or Trump administration would take. Measures could include seeking court orders to compel companies to cooperate or a push for legislation. A Justice Department official said no specific plans were in the works and Mr. Rosenstein's speech was intended to spur public awareness and discussion of the issue because companies "have no incentive to address this on their own."
"Violent criminal organizations" are the last thing on their minds when making these arguments. They want to go after dissent, after whistleblowers. They want to stalk their exes, commit industrial espionage and blackmail. They want to track the best moments to rape and murder, or to be able to plant evidence without alibis making their so-called discoveries as obviously fake as they can be.
These powers would not and will never be used to make citizens or the country safer in any way, even if it could be used in this fashion. If there were any chance they could, they would never pursue them.
I wonder if they recognize the hypocrisy in this statement when numerous administrations also encrypt or destroy email archives prior to leaving office.
...you have to break a few eggs. A few lives lost every year due to "terrists" are a small price to pay for freedom.
I am willing to risk the ridiculously small chance that my family and I will die in a terrorist incident in order to preserve our freedoms, despite continued government attempts to erode them (Patriot Act, etc.). I'd like to think that anyone sufficiently educated in mathematics and history would logically come to a similar conclusion.
This is the same pile of bovine excrement used in any attempt to destroy, um I mean "regulate" freedoms. They "may" have a slim shred of justification if there was concrete and irrefutable evidence of the imminent commission of a homicide, but we all know better.
Secure encryption increases public safety. If the government can't break into everybodies data criminals can't either.
When our investigations of violent criminal organizations come to a halt because we cannot access a phone, even with a court order, lives may be lost.
Lives may be lost, but liberty will be preserved.
Let's put the cards on the table, shall we? This has little or nothing to do with saving lives, and everything about garnering power through the acquisition of data...lots and lots of data. While those who seek this power wouldn't word it quite this way, it's about a nation subjugating its citizenry.
Next step, aerosolized chemical agents to keep people calm and docile. You want Reavers? Cause that's how you get Reavers.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
....the stage for another round of clashes in the tug of war between privacy and public safety.
No, there is a clash between privacy and dragnet operations by lazy and corrupt law enforcement.
They collect all this data for our "security" and yet, some cranky old guy gets 23 guns and shoots up Las Vegas under their noses. Or two punk ass kids blow up a Boston marathon.
If you have to rely on personal data in order to get the person under investigation to basically incriminate themselves, then there is something horribly lacking in their investigation. You would have to be one brilliant criminal mastermind to have the only evidence against you be on your electronic device - actually an idiot savant - brilliant enough not to have any way of proving your crimes but stupid enough to keep a record on your personal device.
It bothers me how his argument is almost entirely a plea to emotion. It might as well be, "think about the children." Even if he is correct, that some violent criminals are getting away with crimes because we can't prosecute due to strong encryption, how many of those incidents are we willing to pay for more secure devices? It pains me to say it, but if we had to trade 10 murders for a few billion dollars of economic damage due to preventable cyber crime, I think there are very few people who would choose the second option. We know human lives have a price in this country or else we would have universal health care by now...
Another aggravating point in his speech is that he says, "we [the DoJ] are in the business of preventing crime and saving lives." That is not true. He is in the business of prosecuting crime and getting convictions. There are actually very few incentives for him to reduce crime. If removing encryption let him convict more criminals, and then had the side-effect of increasing cyber crime, leading to more criminal convictions, that is a win/win for him.
It sounds like they want encryption with a backdoor for law enforcement to get into with a warrant. Even putting aside the abuse of power that would happen (e.g. government getting a rubber stamped warrant to look at someone's phone because they don't like his political views), this is worrying. There is no such thing as "a backdoor only for law enforcement." If you make a backdoor, hackers and other governments WILL find it and WILL exploit it. Unlike a normal vulnerability, which can be patched when found, if this backdoor gets out it won't be able to be patched. The government agencies will demand that it remains open for them even while other entities abuse it.
"Law enforcement only" backdoors will just make security much weaker for everyone while not really improving much in the way of security on the law enforcement side.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Then stop abusing your power. As it is now, the likelihood of someone being damaged by you HAVING access to data is higher than if you don't.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
First, to hear the Justice department tell it, they must have been unable to solve crimes back before networks existed. Which is clearly BS.
Second, if their argument is to be taken seriously, then we also need to have laws preventing people from owning safes unless they give a copy of the key/combo to the government.