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On the other hand, if the government comes to Amazon with a valid sealed court order, are you willing to bet they'll stand up rather than start streaming audio
by ethbro 8y ago
On the other hand, if the government comes to Amazon with a valid sealed court order, are you willing to bet they'll stand up rather than start streaming audio recordings home?
Amazon winning DoD cloud business is actually the smartest thing the US government could do to align interests.
- peteretep 8y ago> a valid sealed court order If the government show up with a valid court order, generally they can do what the hell they want? That's how justice works in a democracy?
- danso 8y agoI mean, yes? The need for a valid court order is so that the executive branch (e.g. law enforcement) can’t unilaterally surveil and detain people. The court makes this decision by looking at the laws, which are passed by the legislative branch. If the elected legislature passes a law that vastly lowers the barrier for govt intrusion, well, it’s not a great situation, but it is possible under democratic principles.
- peteretep 8y agoMy comment was unclear, and I agree that this is how it's meant to work.
- aleksei 8y agoDemocracy has nothing to do with it. But yes, it's how most if not all governments operate.
- rtpg 8y agoWhat would even be the legal basis for such a court order?
- ethbro 8y agoTerrorism related investigations. It's not a legal stretch to extend CALEA wiretaps to IoT devices. And if the device manufacturer cooperates (in the same way ATT does), then the hurdles shrink drastically.
- michaelmrose 8y agoYou don't see any distinction between A) Giving the government access to communications that provider already has legal access to. B) Collecting additional data from inside homes by exploiting current legal access to the software?
- ethbro 8y agoWhen the only difference is Amazon making a silent firmware push, or endangering $10B+ of business? No.
- salawat 8y agoWhat does their business situation have anything to do with it? If I hosted 10 billion dollars worth of unrelated business functionality, then told you to provide me with access for widespread surveillance purposes in an unrelated vertical of your business, you would think that is justifiable? I beg your pardon, but what color is the sky where you are? Business doesn't work that way. Neither does ethics or morality. Profit does not whitewash societal harm. It may create other business opportunities to remedy negative externalities, but there is no guarantee that the nature of the harm inflicted has a profitable capitalism compatible remediation. This is one of those cases.
- ethbro 8y agoWho said anything about widespread surveillance? The "government wants to listen to every Echo user" idea is paranoid fantasy. The "government would really like to listen to these individuals, but doesn't want to go through full court proceedings" is less fanciful and not without precedent. It's not just profit. It's the morass of backroom bargains to stave off regulation, honest desire to "do good", future contracts, and political goodwill. There's a rich history of US technology companies enabling the government / military for all of the above reasons.