Slashdot Mirror
Two Years After FBI vs Apple, Encryption Debate Remains (axios.com)
It's been two years since the FBI and Apple got into a giant fight over encryption following the San Bernardino shooting, when the government had the shooter's iPhone, but not the password needed to unlock it, so it asked Apple to create a way inside. What's most surprising is how little has changed since then. From a report: The encryption debate remains unsettled, with tech companies largely opposed and some law enforcement agencies still making the case to have a backdoor. The case for strong encryption: Those partial to the tech companies' arguments will note that cyberattacks and hacking incidents have become even more common, with encryption serving as a valuable way to protect individuals' personal information. The case for backdoors: Criminals are doing bad stuff and when devices are strongly encrypted they can do it in what amounts to the perfect dark alley, completely hidden from public view.
Fuck off. I donâ(TM)t want the government to keep me safe. I want the government to keep me free.
"I need to dip into your shit whenever I like. It's for your own... uhm, safety."
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
... for the technologically illiterate politicians who, at the same time, are too goddammed unable, for some reason, to LISTEN to the EXPERTS who tell them that "responsible encryption," encryption with backdoors, is vulnerable, and not really secure at all. Christ allmighty, what is with the stream of idiots in U.S, U.K, and Australian politics who speak on the matter, and don't try to understand it?
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
That's a lame argument. It implies a very narrow reading of "keeping people safe", a term that is wide open to interpretation. An opposing argument may equally cite keeping people safe as a reason for strong encryption.
I want the government to keep me free to keep MYSELF safe.
FTFY
Nowhere does it guarantee a right to privacy. The government needs to be able to keep people safe and they cannot do this unless they have to the correct tools.
You should read the Constitution more carefully. The ninth Amendment states, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." The Constitution is about what the federal government is allowed to do. It does not enshrine certain rights and exclude others.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
The problem is that there is no middle ground here. Putting any sort of back door into encryption effectively renders it useless. The cops can say whatever they want but that is an indisputable fact and isn't negotiable even if we wanted to. You can have good encryption or for all practical purposes no encryption. There is literally no middle ground.
Even if we trusted the cops (and history tells us we shouldn't) the cops aren't the only party in play here. If the cops have a back door then so do black hats, criminals, foreign nations, and anyone else. So we get lots of whining by politicians and cops who are either clueless or disingenuous or both.
If you implement backdoors in your software, you can as well close shop. Nobody, at least no company with at least a hint of self preservation, will buy your product. If I cannot trust my company trade secrets to be secret from espionage because your product is insecure (and yes, a backdoor makes a product insecure BY DEFINITION), I will not use your product.
No "government only" backdoor is "government only" for long. First of all, the mere existence of such a backdoor gets known at some point in time, as the past history of deliberate leaks or accidental blunders have shown. And no later than this, the company that actively and deliberately puts backdoors in its security software is done for, for the reasons aforementioned. Yes, even if they "fix" this immediately. Why should I trust you that you have no backdoors now? Fool me once and all that.
Second, a general key into the secrets of every company worldwide is prized. Not by hackers. By governments. And governments have WAY other options at their disposal as any basement dweller or even organized crime. You have seen what North Korea does with people that li'l Kim simply does not like? Now imagine what they do with people that could give them the key to the holy grail. You know the key? Well, you may be in for a decision who you love more, your country or your kids. Almost every person has a weak spot. There are very, very few people who cannot be at least blackmailed if they cannot be bribed. Your life, your freedom, your credit, your family... everyone breaks at some point.
And state actors, especially when acting for repressive regimes, don't mind cutting your unborn son out of your wife if that's what makes you hand over what you want.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Basically the argument is it is illegal to keep secrets from the government.
Enjoy your fascism!
So much for the 4th and 5th amendments. You no longer have any rights to such things.
The problem is that this is not the correct tool. You gain no safety because the criminals will simply move on while you eradicate the safety of your citizens by exposing them to hackers (both organized crime and foreign government sponsored) that get a hold of that backdoor.
"Government only backdoors" do not exist. If you create an entry point for a benign actor, you create an attack vector for a nefarious one.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
What we'd need today is a government protecting us from our government.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And that is the only reason we still hear about this. People uneducated about encryption think this is a political / legal issue, while those of us who understand it realize math has already stated in no uncertain terms that the uneducated cannot have their way.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
There’s some irony in an AC arguing that there’s no right to privacy.
I wonder, would you feel as comfortable stating your unpopular opinion if your account’s reputation was on the line?
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Nowhere does it guarantee a right to privacy.
The Constitution doesn't guarantee anything, numbnuts; it enumerates them... and anyhow, it it doesn't fucking need to; the right to privacy is implicit.
Why isn't this modded to 6??
Nowhere does it guarantee a right to privacy. The government needs to be able to keep people safe and they cannot do this unless they have to the correct tools.
I agree. Let's look at the Constitution, along with the Amendments we've made to it.
We can start with the Government looking at it, and then reviewing all of the blatantly illegal processes and procedures they employ, under the guise of protecting us.
Forget a full review. We probably won't even get past the 4th Amendment.
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Over 250 years old and yet it still rings true today.
Remember, this is the SAME FBI/DOJ that abused FISA warrants to spy on a political campaign during an election lying about the information given the judge.
I think the debate is over at this point. The FBI has shown it is willing to break laws, lie to get warrants, and attempt to affect an election to go the way they want it to. I'm not even sure why most of the top FBI officials are still in their jobs and not in jail. We haven't had a single one of them charged for what they did. Comey has lied at least 8 times under oath attempting to cover up the things he did, and he is still going around telling us WE are the problem?
Debate is off if the FBI and DOJ are unwilling to admit to their lawbreaking ways, which we learned from Congress, and are still unwilling to punish those who did abuse their positions.
The lame MSM, who need the sheeple to believe that there are two actual sides to every story in order for their clickbait model to keep the the business swirling as high as possible around the toilet bowl for just a few more years, cannot possibly classify any fringe viewpoint as anything other than normal, because that would decimate their business.
Unless, of course, a viewpoint is abnormal enough that the clicks will happen automagically because of morbid curiosity, c.f. flat-earth rocketman.
4th amendment, motherfucker.
Don't you have some boots you need to be licking?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Given hacking into things and spying on people and companies, most notably giant state and state-sponsored actors like China and Russia has had actual effects on the maintenance of power by thugocracies, I'd say prosaic criminal detection vanishes as an importance.
Exactly like the Founding Fathers observed always happened, and tried to prevent against with the core principle of the design of the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
Every backdoor for government "crime" so an FBI agent can get another notch in his belt means billions around the world sink a little deeper into "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever." - George Orwell
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
And after two years, has anything in the debate changed on Slashdot? Perhaps a hardening of positions, but I doubt that anyone's mind here has been changed. Can anyone chime in: has your position on this been modified? What persuaded you?
I've noticed something deeply unsettling about this entire debate, as touched on by a previous /. post by someone else.
Periodically, there's a mass shooting or some terrorist attack or something. And immediately afterward, the government tries to take more of our rights, ostensibly "for our safety."
Well, to anyone thinking, like many comments posted earlier, they're not actually interested in your safety or your freedom. They just want excuses to keep pounding the rock until it erodes away.
Fuck off. I donâ(TM)t want the government to keep me safe. I want the government to keep me free.
...he said, from the safety of his walled garden prison.
I'll gladly take a back door in all my hardware and software if every politican going forward discloses exactly where every cent of their super PAC and other anonymous funding comes from, disclose every single meeting and conversation they have with all lobbiests and colleagues, all sexual relations, make available 24hr/day audio recordings of thier activities in addition to video of them at all times in public workplaces, the complete finnancial breakdown of everything they own, all business contacts, and most importantly, if a law is passed making it a felony with a 5 year minimum sentence to receive and accept anything over 50 dollars per human donor (cannot come from a company) as a politican without it being exchanged for a fair market value - even indirectly. I think if we could hold them to that I'd do it.
Nowhere does it guarantee a right to privacy. The government needs to be able to keep people safe and they cannot do this unless they have to the correct tools.
You should read the Constitution more carefully. The ninth Amendment states, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." The Constitution is about what the federal government is allowed to do. It does not enshrine certain rights and exclude others.
No need to reach for the catchall 9th in this case. The 4th amendment clearly guarantees a right to privacy. Emphasis mine, obviously.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
The Bill of Rights doesn't give anything to citizens. What it does is limit the power of the Federal Government.
Amendment 10: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Nowhere in the Bill of Rights is the federal government granted the power to spy on its citizens for "safety".
Hardly. Iâ(TM)m armed.
Sir, I'll just drop my pants and bend over so you dip into my shit!
The argument for backdoors is:
1. We can stop bad guys better.
2. It doesn't "really" hurt the US public for us to spy on everybody's shit if they don't know.
The counter argument is:
1. Are you sure you can stop bad guys?
2. It DOES HURT untold millions of innocent US citizens.
The problem is, the cat is out of the bag. Everybody knows spying is the norm, and that screws with people, good people, in a bad way.
Is it as lethal as getting shot by a criminal? No. Is it as bad as having a mean boss looking over your shoulder questioning everything you do to the point that you are afraid to sneeze? Yes, for some people the resounding answer is yes.
Over reaching LEO started this issue.
If Law Enforcement hadn't started sucking up data without warrants for everyone, we wouldn't be nearly as protective about our personal data.
Stingrays don't differentiate.
NSA doesn't differentiate.
License plate readers and traffic cameras don't differentiate.
So, since I can't legally hide my face (there's a law preventing that in my state) and I can't legally hide my license plate, even when parked on private property (there's a law against that in my state), I will take as much care to protect other parts of my privacy as I deem necessary.
The first step in this debate is to find what each side deems "reasonable" within the current legal limits.
For example, retaining license plate data forever is legal for state and federal organizations. I'd say if there was a 6 month (or 14 day) requirement to wipe all that data if there isn't an active, open, investigation would go a long way.
LEO needs to earn our trust back.
because bone headed politicians are still arguing about it. By 'bone headed' I do not mean so stupid that they do not understand that you cannot have secret back-doors (although there are undoubtably some that are that stupid), but 'bone headed' in the sense that they continue to want to get their way irrespective of the practical impossibility and regardless of the damage that it will cause.
I suspect that some of them are playing a more subtle game, they secretly accept that it cannot be done but keep on pushing because they hope that the Tech companies will give way on something else that is more valuable to the politicians as a 'compromise' deal. Whatever this something else turns out to be I can guarantee that it will not be to your or my benefit.
Posturing like this also makes them sound good to Joe Sixpack who does not understand, but like politicians who talk hard against terrorists, etc - ie good for votes.
In this context "unsettled" means FBI lost.
While I agree mostly with your comment I don't agree with governments being indirectly considered as benign actors. I wouldn't even call my government benign - let alone that of say China, North Korea, or say Syria.
All experts agree, deliberately weakening encryption or building in back doors is stupid. So the debate is over. All that is left are people who choose to ignore the consensus that the experts have reached. Typically these are people with questionable motives and/or questionable allegiances.
It is the exact same thing as the global warming "debate" and the creationism vs evolution "debate". There is no debate, only special interest posturing.
If you want to live in a country with the 2nd ammendment, where guns are sold liberaly "bicuzz there must be the right to, you know, eventually, maybe, defend ourselves against a tyrant democratic government, who happens to have access to nukes and bioweapons", then you also accept to live in a country where the bad guys that are not government also get that right.
Now, if you want to live in a country where the government can access most information about your life and your choices and your opinions, because most of that data is now available digitally, maybe you should, like for guns, not forfeit the the right to make that information private.
At least don't have double standards is all I'm saying. Hypocrisy is much more structural than gun or privacy rights - it's what makes people kill each other sociopathycally, and what makes governments use law to screw the small folk.
We worry about China's government misbehaving but apparently "it takes one to know one."
http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/14/technology/huawei-intelligence-chiefs/index.html
Not saying that there aren't American terrorists with encrypted phones, not saying China isn't dishonorable in its behavior (it's terrible, in fact).... I'm just saying that we don't need the U.S. government, which is technically incompetent and ethically unworthy, into our private spaces.
That's like the "more guns" solution offered by the NRA to control massacres. "We need to be able to hack more and more easily!"
You can create that every two years. You have the government that most people want. So don't blame the "government" for doing what is asked of it. If you want to know what's wrong with your government, you need to ask who your neighbors voted for and maybe why. Only there will you find your answers.
It's very fit for the purpose, just not your purposes.
It's all just masterbate... We just need to develop the tech regardless what any authority wants. You do it anonymously if necessary. But let's not waste time debating about it. We just do it and that's that. The philosophizing dictators can just go fuck off!
You should have stopped at the 4th. It can be argued that a right to privacy is explicitly stated there. The 9th just seals it, but only for the feds. State governments were free to do whatever.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
When you realize that some of those uneducated have the power to put you in jail for pretty much your whole life, you will learn to do math another way.
"If you create an entry point, even if it was for a benign actor, you create an attack vector for a nefarious one."
Better?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You should have stopped at the 4th. It can be argued that a right to privacy is explicitly stated there. The 9th just seals it, but only for the feds. State governments were free to do whatever.
Not without violating the 4th, according to Article VI, clause 2.
Oh great! It's Constitutional Interpretation Wars!!! More popcorn!
Get a court order, and give the iPhone to Apple to unlock. You get the data without exposing Apple's secret sauce. Problem solved.
The problem is that this is not the correct tool. You gain no safety because the criminals will simply move on while you eradicate the safety of your citizens by exposing them to hackers (both organized crime and foreign government sponsored) that get a hold of that backdoor.
"Government only backdoors" do not exist. If you create an entry point for a benign actor, you create an attack vector for a nefarious one.
Since when is the Government a Benign Actor?
There’s some irony in an AC arguing that there’s no right to privacy.
I wonder, would you feel as comfortable stating your unpopular opinion if your account’s reputation was on the line?
Especially since that AC is likely a Russian Troll...
Actually, usually you have the second worst government because people were afraid that the even worse one could become it if they don't vote for him.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
nowhere it guarantee the right to go to the bathroom either
As usual, the Devil is in the details: essential liberty? Who gets to define that? Let's try that out on abortion. A woman should have the essential liberty to chose. A fetus should have the essential liberty to choose. Oh, gee, it gets complicated.
"completely hidden from public view"
The argument for backdoors in the article is BS on its face. No criminal activity can take place completely in an individuals encrypted device. You have to do something in the real world, hand over the drugs/money, start shooting, penetrate a network, steal something. At most SOME of the evidence might sit on a device owned by the perpetrator but that still leaves plenty of other evidence (cameras, witnesses, forensics, network logs, cash trails, etc). The push for backdoors being a necessity to lay charges usually centers around either lazy people who don't want to do the boot work or fishing expeditions where law enforcement doesn't really have anything but hopes that dredging through someones life results in some kind of charges.
Criminals are doing bad stuff WITH POINTED STICKS and they can do it in what amounts to the perfect dark alley, completely hidden from public view
Criminals are doing bad stuff {insert object here} and they can do it in what amounts to the perfect dark alley, completely hidden from public view
Let's just ban everything, since anything can, potentially, be used to commit a crime. You could use a STICK OF BUTTER to commit a crime, for fuck's sake. So let's ban EVERYTHING, we'll go back to being stark naked 24/7/365, living outdoors, and anyone picking up a stick or a rock is killed because they might be a criminal.
Think the above sounds stupid? It's not as stupid as LEOs and politicians not listening to the people whose business it is to devise encryption algorithms, who keep telling them over and over again ad infinitum that you CANNOT HAVE BACKDOORS IN ENCRYPTION WITHOUT MAKING IT INHERENTLY INSECURE!
FBI and dumb politicians can go fuck themselves sideways with a rusty chainsaw. Things are already bad enough, there's new hacks and new data breaches practically every gods-be-damned day, I'm avoiding using plastic because I don't trust payment systems to not get breached (there is plenty of prior breaches of payment systems to warrant this), and they want to make things overall worse for everyone by making it easier for criminals to hack into whatever they want? The hell with that.
Everyone has the right to protect their information through encryption and no one has the right to a back door, this isn't a two sided argument,.
If you oppose encryption or data security, place all your sensitive information online, un-encrypted and see what happens, you'll quickly change your mind about encryption and data security.
The government is ran by corporations. The government has no transparency. The government can kill Americans without trial. The government can prosecute Americans without trial. The word criminal has lost meaning insofar as representing someone who has gone against the judicial system as the judicial system and the constitution are no longer representing citizens of the United States.
As usual, the Devil is in the details: essential liberty? Who gets to define that? Let's try that out on abortion. A woman should have the essential liberty to chose. A fetus should have the essential liberty to choose. Oh, gee, it gets complicated.
Yes, it gets complicated quickly, but we're talking about the considerable abuses of citizens and privacy here, so let's not stray too far off topic here, and focus on the 4th Amendment and below for now.
Besides, the Rights of a fetus and abortion are clouded even further with religious beliefs, making those discussions even more difficult to have.
The Feds want/trying to buy an invisible, pink, undetectable, flying unicorn. None have to use their supplied/dictated backdoored encryption technology even if made a legal requirement. A trivial do-it-yourself one-time pad (XOR the message with a given random bit string) is unbreakable. There is inconvenience in distributing this encryption/decryption key (random bit-stream), but looking at the 64GB micro SD card now siting on my thumb, it's not that big a deal. (The encrypted message contains an entry point into the key bit-stream so you only have to distribute one key to send many messages.) Sorry Jackbooters, your wet dream is only a fantasy.
The only problem is that the public needs to be EDUCATED as to why back doors are not feasible and the police need to be told once and for all time that if they are too lazy to do actual police work then they should find other employment. The police, the only group of employees able to get politicians to make their job easier for them.
Also Slashdot here is part of the problem by brining this up YET AGAIN. Come on now, anyone who argues for back-doors is nothing more than a shill for law enforcement and is technologically illiterate like the rest of the general public.
PS this debate was settled with the clipper chip, Its only the idiots who wont let it die.
People, this is Slashdot. Why is anyone talking about reasons against weakening computer security? What's next, you're going to go to a dentists' convention and try to sell people on the idea of brushing their teeth? Maybe after that, you can try to persuade some firefighters that they shouldn't soak rags in linseed oil and leave them in a pile in their hot garage. I wonder if I could convince the Pope that mysticism might make a nice bundle with social organization. Maybe you can convince the president that the only hooker you can be sure will remain quiet forever, is a dead one. And if you're a real Master Debater, try to explain to some librarians that the first amendment is a good idea.
Let's challenge ourselves. Can anyone think of any reason why backdoors might NOT be a stupid idea?
Well that's interesting. The only thing the government wants from you is that you keep paying taxes. They don't care about free, or even whether you are happy.
Classic. Attack the person and not the argument. It's irrelevant whether the poster is AC or not. The ideas are what matter.
If you have a backdoor, you're fucked.
I stand corrected. Thanks for that one. So, interestingly enough, that brings me to the second, which based on that reading essentially says that any law denying guns is unconstitutional, Supreme Court common sense rulings be damned. Perhaps it's time to pass an amendment clarifying the second for today's world. We no longer have the same needs, worries, nor civil issues from back in the 1700s, and perhaps it is time to amend the second to allow reasonable controls.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Why do people argue over the meaning of the Constitution, instead of what the law should be? If the Constitution is wrong, we have this way of changing it... I'll never understand why people treat it like a religious document.
I think we need to think clearly about what is illegal:
"The case for backdoors: Criminals are doing bad stuff and when devices are strongly encrypted they can do it in what amounts to the perfect dark alley, completely hidden from public view."
Most of our private moments are conducted in what should be a "dark alley, completely hidden from public view". I'm fine with that.
Suppose we look at it like this.
Can you think of one other thing, any other thing, that the Three Letter Agencies wanted and didn't get? Money? People? Vast new powers? The ability to torture? The ability to silence internal critics? A word powerful enough to frighten the citizens and chain of command into doing anything ("terrorist")?
My point is this. If it had been possible to give them a backdoor without fatally compromising security, it would have happened by now. The TLAs hit the jackpot in 9/11 and got their dream scenario for the bureaucracy. If you can dream it, we can spy on that dream!
So they keep asking for a three-headed unicorn with sprinkles but those don't exist. That's our responsibility how, exactly? "But I want it!" is a viable argument for a 3 year old, not an adult.
If you support the FBI you're a freedom hating cocksucker. No debate required, and fuck you fascist cockguzzlers.
Math doesn't work that way. If a force is evil and powerful enough maybe they can get people to stop doing math, but they're not going to manage to change how it works.
essential liberty? Who gets to define that?
History.
Done.
Oh, and if you want to know what History did decide, you can start by adding SCOTUSblog to your daily reading. Then come back in 10 years, and we can talk about it.
Stephan
The Declaration of Independence covered that:
So do you think the goverment hasn't gotten the information off this phone?
> You gain no safety because the criminals will simply move on while you eradicate the safety of your citizens by exposing them to hackers (both organized crime and foreign government sponsored) that get a hold of that backdoor.
If (for example), apps without recoverable crypto were deemed illegal, then neither Apple nor Google could allow them in their app stores. How then does a criminal get their app on an iPhone?
For a long time most of the web was http and the world did not collapse nor did criminals (aside from the NSA), exploit this.
I can see teaching US History and understanding of the Constitution has failed in modern culture.
The Constitution is not an exhaustive list of rights the government allows the people. It's a list of permissions the People have given the government. That the right of the government to invade our privacy is NOT in the Constitution means the government doesn't have the right to invade it. In fact, just to make it extra clear, the 4th Amendment outlines the rules the government must follow to get into my stuff, and re-iterated in the 10th outlining that any permissions not granted the Federal Government are reserved to the States and the People.
Not protect us - they couldn't do that in the Florida shooting with warning and a real name ahead of time - not exactly encryption that held them back. But man, if anyone serious starts organizing some real dissent, they need to know stat so they can nip it in the bud before people notice what's going on. As long as it goes like "well, Earl was always a little off" when they carry the dissenter away, they keep power.
These are, after all, the actions of a government that's afraid of its people for all the wrong reasons - they know what they did and are scared to death of what we might do when we know for sure ourselves.
If they were afraid FOR us, they'd be acting a lot differently. Even the mainstream media would pick up the dramatic change in tone and transparency about actions and motivations.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
When you realize that some of those uneducated have the power to put you in jail for pretty much your whole life, you will learn to do math another way.
The world has a funny way of dumping all over those that think that way. For instance, Indiana once declared PI to be 3. And in turn the world decided that technology and industry wouldn't exist in Indiana; fast forward 50 years and Indiana has the worst economy in the midwest.
Math (and Physics) just is, it doesn't care about you or what you want or think. Resisting those ideas is like not believing in gravity, gravity doesn't care, it will just slam you into that ground. Its like trying to argue with the wind and just as useful.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
I stand corrected. Thanks for that one. So, interestingly enough, that brings me to the second, which based on that reading essentially says that any law denying guns is unconstitutional, Supreme Court common sense rulings be damned. Perhaps it's time to pass an amendment clarifying the second for today's world. We no longer have the same needs, worries, nor civil issues from back in the 1700s, and perhaps it is time to amend the second to allow reasonable controls.
No, it isn't.
The problem lies in the weasel-word "reasonable". That is EXACTLY the type of language that "slippery-slopes" are paved-with!!!
As ambiguous as the wording of the 2nd Amendment is, it still has the all-important phrase "shall not be infringed."
Anything else invites a police-state.
And the Courts have hammered out the rest of the ambiguities, and taken the mantle of "interpreting" the Founders' language as it applies to "modern" times. And they have also ceded much governmental restraint afforded by 2nd Amendment to the States and Municipalities, anyway; so you almost have what you want already.
Such and such a state wants to ban "concealed carry". The courts say that's fine.
Another state wants to ban handgun (remember when they were called "pistols"?) sales to ADULTS under the age of 21. Supremes agree that is a STATE right (in DIRECT derogation with the 2nd Amendment )
The next state wants to ban ammunition magazines larger than 8 rounds. Supreme Court says the States have the "power to regulate firearms". How does THAT square with the Supremacy Clause, as applies to the 2nd Amendment (which, BTW, is actually EXPLICITLY ADOPTED into most, if not ALL STATE Constitutions as wel!!! HOW DOES THAT WORK!?!
It doesn't work. The government is fucking retarded and corrupt. There is no legal way to restrict people's rights to keep or bear arms in this country without first amending the constitution. Yet they shit on our rights all the time.
I neither attacked a person nor an idea. I was merely observing that his ability to post as an AC is only possible thanks to the very thing he is attacking. If you viewed those idle observations as an attack, that might suggest something about your own biases.
But if an attack is what you're looking for, I'm happy to oblige.
1) The AC incorrectly believes that the Constitution "guarantees" our rights. It doesn't. Nor does it grant us our rights. Rather, it provides a non-exhaustive enumeration of rights that we already have. As such, if an additional right is necessary to exercise the ones that are enumerated, then that additional right must necessarily be one that we already have as well.
2) The AC is correct in suggesting that the Constitution and its amendments do not explicitly enumerate a right to privacy, but they nonetheless make it clear that we have one anyway because without one it is impossible to exercise rights that are explicitly enumerated.
3) Specifically, the Supreme Court has routinely disagreed with the AC's interpretation of the Constitution and has made it clear that the right to privacy can be found in multiple places in the Constitution, including the First Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, the Ninth Amendment, and the Fourteenth Amendment, or some combination thereof.
4) Furthermore, the AC is attempting to argue what ought to be—a topic of morality—by bringing up Constitutionality—a topic of legality. That's like bringing a knife to a gunfight. Our laws exist to serve us, not the other way around, so inasmuch as they come up short of what they ought to be, they should be amended. If we value the ability to post anonymously and believe that it is something we ought to have, not just on Slashdot, but in wider social circles as we engage in discourse that may be unpopular, that would suggest that we should have the right to privacy, regardless of its current Constitutionality.
5) The very act of posting as AC to voice an unpopular opinion is an argument in support of the moral necessity for the right to privacy.
See here
Http://zsmith.co/iOverwrite.html
"they can do it in what amounts to the perfect dark alley"
And? Are dark alleys illegal? Do you get to peruse every personal document in my home because you saw me in a dark alley? I'm sorry, but there is no sound argument for destroying all encryption because a fraction of a percent of people use it in a bad way. The benefits of encryption far outweigh the drawbacks. For the bad car analogy enthusiasts, that's like banning personal vehicles because they cause more injuries than public transportation.
As more and more of our lives are linked to our digital fingerprints (with or without our knowledge or participation) encryption is only going to get more important. No person should have their entire life recorded and brought up at a moments notice. Not even for murder cases. Innocent until proven guilty. You don't get to treat the entire populace as potential suspects at all times. Individual rights are important, and should not be forcibly removed to provide a fraction of a percent of public safety.
How about work on mental health care and start from the ground up with good intentions instead of trying to force this draconian shit down from the top?
I am 10000x more worried about governments abusing power and criminals hacking into insecure systems than I am about people, even criminals, having secure communications.
There are just some people that insist on continuing to be stupid. As they are high-level government employees, that is not surprising.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Everything must be accessible to the government, nothing can be private. There is a term for people like that: It is "Fascist".
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I do not think the want to give you that choice.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Actually, it is completely valid and convincing. You just need to see what they actually mean: They want to keep you safe from yourself, by being able to lock you up or kill you whenever you have an unauthorized thought. That makes everybody safe that does not have such thoughts, and the rest are obviously "criminals". This is a fundamentally fascist idea and it is on the raise again. Like the last fascist catastrophes did not happen.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
As even the NSA had it's malware stolen, we have solid proof that secrets cannot be kept reliably. So yes. If they do this, it will have catastrophic effects. Of course, the proponents of doing so have not enough actual understanding (and extreme egos in addition) to be able to understand that. They must be stopped nonetheless or they will destroy society.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Using the logic of this article, dark alleys and private residences need to be banned too.
Why do people always assume that ACs have accounts? I've never seen the appeal other than mod points. (I'm a different AC, btw.)
So the FBI forces Apple to put a gaping back door in so they can pry into the private lives of all and sundry. Lets say I'm a bad guy and I know about the deal AppleCorp made with Fed. So I encrypt the message before sending it to my thiefdom. The message on my phone is encrypted twice, once by me, and once by the phone. The Fed looks at the phone, sees the message through their back door, but they don't know what it is. Apple isn't to blame, they didn't do the first encryption, I did. So if you are honest, the Fed can look down your pants. If you are dishonest, the Fed are as stuck as they are now (and my thiefdom continues on like before).
It doesn't work. The government is fucking retarded and corrupt. There is no legal way to restrict people's rights to keep or bear arms in this country without first amending the constitution. Yet they shit on our rights all the time.
Unfortunately, you are correct.
No, it isn't.
The problem lies in the weasel-word "reasonable". That is EXACTLY the type of language that "slippery-slopes" are paved-with!!! As ambiguous as the wording of the 2nd Amendment is, it still has the all-important phrase "shall not be infringed."
So you agree with my core premise - that all gun regulations are unconstitutional according to that interpretation?
Anything else invites a police-state....
So you're 100% for giving every convict on release a loaded M-16A, a grenade launcher and a Colt 45? If not, why not?
If you said no, then do you oppose letting them buy one? What if they're a convicted murderer? A multiple murderer?
How about if they're batshit insane but kept "ok" and ready for release thanks to modern medications? (I ask this because these particular folks tend to not like how the drugs make them feel and tend to stop taking them on occasion)
Short story IMNSHO - guns need strong regulation, at least to the level we allow people to drive cars, and should likely be registered yearly plus inspections just like cars, with a yearly fee to cover registration. On top of that, I'd propose that you have to be 21 or even 25 to purchase a gun, all fall under the guise of a well-regulated militia, which was the justification for the 2nd. Technically, with the second taken as a whole, that doesn't even go against the second, it falls under the well-regulated militia portion of the clause. As for the age of majority, 21 is that age and those under it are not part of the "people" under the Constitution for legal purposes (aren't lawyers fun?) so an outright ban for under 21s also does not fall afoul of the 2nd and that can be done at the federal level. Note that none of what I proposed prevents any one wanting a gun for hunting or sport that is not a convict or mentally unstable, both cases which have special rules regarding rights. It does impose regulations, which is not an infringement as implied by the 2nd. I specifically left out defense, because the 2nd implies that is the onus of the well-regulated militia, not individuals. In today's world in the US, if you need a weapon for defense there's a bigger problem that your weapon isn't going to help with unless you happen to be that very very tiny 0.000001% of the population that lives essentially in wilderness areas where wildlife is actually a threat.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
No, it isn't.
The problem lies in the weasel-word "reasonable". That is EXACTLY the type of language that "slippery-slopes" are paved-with!!! As ambiguous as the wording of the 2nd Amendment is, it still has the all-important phrase "shall not be infringed."
So you agree with my core premise - that all gun regulations are unconstitutional according to that interpretation?
Anything else invites a police-state....
So you're 100% for giving every convict on release a loaded M-16A, a grenade launcher and a Colt 45? If not, why not?
If you said no, then do you oppose letting them buy one? What if they're a convicted murderer? A multiple murderer?
How about if they're batshit insane but kept "ok" and ready for release thanks to modern medications? (I ask this because these particular folks tend to not like how the drugs make them feel and tend to stop taking them on occasion)
Short story IMNSHO - guns need strong regulation, at least to the level we allow people to drive cars, and should likely be registered yearly plus inspections just like cars, with a yearly fee to cover registration. On top of that, I'd propose that you have to be 21 or even 25 to purchase a gun, all fall under the guise of a well-regulated militia, which was the justification for the 2nd. Technically, with the second taken as a whole, that doesn't even go against the second, it falls under the well-regulated militia portion of the clause. As for the age of majority, 21 is that age and those under it are not part of the "people" under the Constitution for legal purposes (aren't lawyers fun?) so an outright ban for under 21s also does not fall afoul of the 2nd and that can be done at the federal level. Note that none of what I proposed prevents any one wanting a gun for hunting or sport that is not a convict or mentally unstable, both cases which have special rules regarding rights. It does impose regulations, which is not an infringement as implied by the 2nd. I specifically left out defense, because the 2nd implies that is the onus of the well-regulated militia, not individuals. In today's world in the US, if you need a weapon for defense there's a bigger problem that your weapon isn't going to help with unless you happen to be that very very tiny 0.000001% of the population that lives essentially in wilderness areas where wildlife is actually a threat.
Not so humble opinion, INDEED!
I was trying to have a civil discourse with you; but then you just started spewing nonsense.
1. The "age of majority" is 18. Has been ajudicated that since people bitched about being able to be drafted and die at 18, but not able to vote.
2. The Supremes have decided that the term "Militia" originally applied to "all males between the ages of 18 and 45", and therefore, the second amendment is an INDIVIDUAL right, not a power (governments don.'t have rights) of the government.
3. You don't have to be living in the wilds of Alaska to be in an area where "the police" are simply too far away to be of ANY practical protection/help. There are a LOT of people that live far enough out of town that calling 911 isn't going to bring a response in any reasonable amount of time. I used to live in such an area. It was about 15 minutes BEST CASE by car from the nearest town with ANY Police. A LOT can happen in 15 minutes!!! I can assure you, EVERYONE in that area had a gun for protection, and slept much better for it. But even in an urban area (I now live about four blocks from a police station), and if an intruder was standing in my bedroom doorway, "Stop or I'll DIAL!" would NOT have the same positive effect as making the door jamb disappear next to his head...
4. School shootings can be effectively brought to zero with a few changes:
a. Stop prescribing SSRIs to people under the age of 30.
b. Have at least TWO armed and trained guards at each and every school, and encourage and allow
Oh how I wish more people understood this basic fact!
Not so humble opinion, INDEED!
I was trying to have a civil discourse with you; but then you just started spewing nonsense.
1. The "age of majority" is 18. Has been ajudicated that since people bitched about being able to be drafted and die at 18, but not able to vote.
And yet they can't drink, but here, smoke a cigarette.
2. The Supremes have decided that the term "Militia" originally applied to "all males between the ages of 18 and 45", and therefore, the second amendment is an INDIVIDUAL right, not a power (governments don.'t have rights) of the government.
And they have been wrong and can be reversed.
3. You don't have to be living in the wilds of Alaska to be in an area where "the police" are simply too far away to be of ANY practical protection/help. There are a LOT of people that live far enough out of town that calling 911 isn't going to bring a response in any reasonable amount of time. I used to live in such an area. It was about 15 minutes BEST CASE by car from the nearest town with ANY Police. A LOT can happen in 15 minutes!!! I can assure you, EVERYONE in that area had a gun for protection, and slept much better for it. But even in an urban area (I now live about four blocks from a police station), and if an intruder was standing in my bedroom doorway, "Stop or I'll DIAL!" would NOT have the same positive effect as making the door jamb disappear next to his head...
In a perfect world, what you say is true. In the real world, that almost never happens. I wonder why?
4. School shootings can be effectively brought to zero with a few changes:
a. Stop prescribing SSRIs to people under the age of 30.
b. Have at least TWO armed and trained guards at each and every school, and encourage and allow teachers to train for, and carry , a firearm at all times when working.
Have you kept up with some of those awesome teachers? They might actually be a mass shooter waiting to happen. And I guess you'd rather have more suicides? Although I can agree that doctors today overprescribe medication: "splinter in your pinkie? Here's 30 days of oxycontin." There's a simple answer to that one but that's a whole different topic.
There. Done. Don't try to regulate it from the supply-side; that simply doesn't work (e.g War on Drugs, Online Gambling, etc.); instead, make the opportunity go away. The first couple of times that some special snowflake who thinks they are gonna start a shoot'em-up in school gets kneecapped by a security guard that can respond in 30 seconds, not 30 MINUTES, so they are still alive to stand trial, "school shootings" will go back to their former "once in 25 year" level, and even then, there will be like ONE victim, instead of one DOZEN victims...
Actually, if no one has guns, it's impossible to have mass shootings. That's a pretty straightforward logic problem. Yet somehow there's a middle road, and other countries have taken it, with legal gun ownership and no mass shootings. I'd say we take a good look at how they do it because it's quite apparent all the various approaches we've taken are abject failures.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
ut I can imagine a far less threatening scenario that would address the situation that law enforcement mostly talks about, which is the inability to break into a locked phone.
I regard that as just too bad for them. I'm not about to give up my rights just because it makes their job harder. I firmly believe that we should allow 1,000 guilty men to go free rather than convict a single innocent man. We have the 5th amendment for a reason and I see no reason why we should allow it to be trampled on just to placate some lazy cops.
Put a hardware access method on the phone that lets the phone be decrypted at the cost of destroying the phone, and while I still think it is not worth doing, it wouldn't be nearly as bad as intentionally weakened software.
That is one of the dumbest ideas I've read in a while. Do you have any idea how fast some bored teenager or bad actor would start destroying phones intentionally?
If the cops have to get a warrant to break into my phone, need the physical phone to do it, and can't tracelessly root it and return it to me with me being none the wiser, my level of concern goes way down.
That is just another riff on the "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" argument. If I have something encrypted and the cops can't get it without my help then that is just too darn bad for them. They'll have to find other ways to build their case. If they can't build a case then that is the system working the way it is supposed to. Law enforcement is by and large a bigger danger to me than criminals or terrorists and that is the reason we have constitutional protections against abuse.
Think about it this way: while it hard to solve a crime, it is even harder to prevent a crime.
It is almost always easier to prevent a crime than to solve one after the fact. A lot less costly too. If it were not easier to prevent crimes then there would be a lot more crimes committed than there are. Take shoplifting for instance. Companies spend a lot of resources preventing shoplifting because it is FAR more effective, cheaper, and easier than just trying to catch and punish the criminals. A manager of a store I once worked with said that the most effective tactics are really aimed to keep honest people honest.
On top of that it is much easier to track and measure "crimes solved" versus "crimes prevented"...
Sometimes this is true but only for specific cases and it's not actually true as a general proposition. It's actually pretty easy to figure out how effective a crime prevention tactic is by simply measuring the before and after results. Shoplifting was X% of sales before implementing a tactic and Y% afterwards. Voila you have measured crimes prevented.
old fashion monkey trap
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”