5 ms·
If we want to fix this problem, the first step is eliminating Third Party Doctrine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/
by caseysoftware 7y ago
If we want to fix this problem, the first step is eliminating Third Party Doctrine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine
Basically, it says as soon as you involve a third party - in your example, a messaging app - you can't expect privacy and therefore law enforcement doesn't need a warrant.
If law enforcement had to get warrants for all of this information from services, providers, and vendors, they'd be forced to a) be more selective and b) move slower for judicial review. Both constraints would significantly improve the situation.
- yason 7y agoIf I mail you a letter doesn't that remain private and protected unless law enforcement has a warrant to explicitly intercept my mail?
- vokep 7y agoNot if its over a private carrier. If its over USPS, I think yes they would need a warrant.
- jhart99 7y agoThey don't need a warrant for anything on the outside of the envelope. They collect this metadata of to/from for every piece of mail sent. https://www.newsweek.com/postal-service-photographs-every-piece-mail-us-shares-agencies-request-it-280614 https://www.newsweek.com/postal-service-photographs-every-pi...
- colechristensen 7y agoI don't know if it needs to be completely abolished. But my phone is my voice, my memory, an extension of my mind in many ways. What is "me" and not a third party extends to the actions I take with my phone. If we can just say my encryption key with a password in my brain is "me" and not a third party's (which can be true with tech setup correctly) then everything is fine. What I give to the third party is not "private" but acquirable without a warrant. But what I give to that third party is cyphertext. You can read my encrypted messages all you want... in their encrypted state. The decryption keys are private parts of my person and the person I am sending the message to.
- mikekchar 7y agoInteresting. How does this work for the telephone company? I was under the impression you needed a warrant to get a "soft" wire tap. Once digital switching was implemented, there was code that could record voice conversations. Law enforcement agents could request that the recording be turned on. Source: I implemented this on telephone equipment that most people here are likely to have used ;-). Surely this would be the same. Now that I think of it, the idea of end to end privacy never really was a thing before we had ubiquitous encryption. Involving a third party always meant that you were vulnerable at that third party. So, I suppose that you could implement laws that dissallow E2E encryption, but still allows encryption from the client to the service -- allowing the service to record the data if presented with a warrant. Now that I think about it, the "wire tapping" code in the telephone switches were literally a legal requirement for selling the equipment otherwise they would never have convinced me to write the code! Now that I'm older and wiser, I'd never do it again... but I kind of understand the symmetries....
- bradknowles 7y agoCALEA is a new thing.
- dchichkov 7y agoI'm surprised you've put that ;-) smiley face in your message. Instead of a sad one. You say you are older, wiser, would never do it again. Maybe, when there is an autocratic regime in your country, you'd put that sad face there.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]