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They used to be able to record phone calls with a warrant. They used to be able to read letters with a warrant, IIUC. With E2E encryption now widely available
by NateEag 6y ago
They used to be able to record phone calls with a warrant.
They used to be able to read letters with a warrant, IIUC.
With E2E encryption now widely available, no sane criminal will use any non-encrypted channel.
So, a lot of methods law enforcement used to find very helpful effectively no longer exist.
The steelman principle says that this is what you need to argue isn't a problem.
Disclaimer: I lean towards the EFF's position on this one, but I can see there are some debatable issues here.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago> So, a lot of methods law enforcement used to find very helpful effectively no longer exist. Exactly, this is a big practical problem and what these laws try to address (in a good or bad way...). IMHO, this is a legitimate worry and opponents should indeed come up with practical alternative solutions. I think the EFF and others do not take a pragmatic approach but rather camp on ideological positions that will get them nowhere.
- danaris 6y agoPerhaps what we need to be doing is not finding new and creative ways for law enforcement to read people's correspondence, but finding new and creative ways to eliminate the underlying factors that cause people to turn to crime in the first place.
- dane-pgp 6y agoBut if the government stopped the factors that lead to crime, then how could it justify its massive spending on a surveillance and selective enforcement regime that it can use against its political enemies (e.g. voters in the wrong demographics)?
- mulmen 6y agoI don't think the cops ever needed widespread surveillance capability. They can park a van across the street from my house or office. They don't need access to the telco infrastructure to do their jobs. The lack of foresight in previous generations is not an excuse to perpetuate their mistakes.
- NateEag 6y agoI'm not talking about widespread surveillance. Decades ago, if they had evidence you were involved in crime, they could apply for a warrant to tap your phone, search your house, or read your mail. That's focused surveillance, not mass, and it's under the oversight of a judge. In a world of end-to-end encryption, they can't realistically find useful evidence by doing those things any more. Parking their van outside doesn't help as much, either - you can conspire to commit crimes quite easily without ever leaving your house or having confederates come there, thanks to encrypted video chats.
- mulmen 6y agoI don't think they ever needed the ability to tap phones or read mail. Capabilities that were repeatedly abused, just like internet surveillance. Where will I commit this crime? Somewhere in meatspace or it doesn't matter. Cops can work backward from there.
- NateEag 6y agoI'm pretty confident you can commit crimes that matter without physical presence. Most people don't approve of making millions from insider trading, for example. Or of cryptolocking beloved photo collections and holding them ransom for bitcoin.
- mulmen 6y agoYou don't need to tap phones to catch and prosecute insider trading. You can't stop cryptolocking by tapping a phone or by banning encryption.