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If someone is going to Congress and lobbying against end-to-end encryption of private communications, how are they an ally?

JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> If someone is going to Congress and lobbying against end-to-end encryption of private communications, how are they an ally? Because they're also lobbying for other things you care about. And those things are more likely to be passed into law than the E2E encryption pieces. Taking a puritanical view on an issue is a high-risk high-reward gambit. Nine out of ten times, it ejects you from the room. One out of ten times, you will organize sufficiently to make it a wedge issue (e.g. the NRA on guns, NIMBYs, et cetera).
- CamperBob2 5y ago
  There's a gambler's fallacy at work here, though. Our Fourth Amendment right to encrypted private communications is so important that if we lose it (or give it up), any future wins in areas like corporate transparency, monopoly regulation, and net neutrality won't ultimately matter. We won't have the freedom needed to benefit from them. To the extent Haugen disagrees, she's not on "our side."
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - torstenvl 5y ago
    Sorry, what clause in the Fourth Amendment talks about encryption? Thanks in advance.
    - CamperBob2 5y ago
      The plain text reads, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." It's not reasonable to outlaw the tools needed to exercise a fundamental right. Not OK for the 1st, not OK for the 2nd, and not OK for the 4th. Encryption was already an old technology at the time of the Constitution's authorship. If they had wanted to regulate or outlaw it, they were free to say so. They didn't.
      - torstenvl 5y ago
        > Encryption was already an old technology at the time of the Constitution's authorship... ...so if they had wanted to guarantee a right to it, they were free to say so. But they didn't. Despite clearly contemplating privacy.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago

> If someone is going to Congress and lobbying against end-to-end encryption of private communications, how are they an ally? Because they're also lobbying for other things you care about. And those things are more likely to be passed into law than the E2E encryption pieces. Taking a puritanical view on an issue is a high-risk high-reward gambit. Nine out of ten times, it ejects you from the room. One out of ten times, you will organize sufficiently to make it a wedge issue (e.g. the NRA on guns, NIMBYs, et cetera).

CamperBob2 5y ago
There's a gambler's fallacy at work here, though. Our Fourth Amendment right to encrypted private communications is so important that if we lose it (or give it up), any future wins in areas like corporate transparency, monopoly regulation, and net neutrality won't ultimately matter. We won't have the freedom needed to benefit from them. To the extent Haugen disagrees, she's not on "our side."
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- torstenvl 5y ago
  Sorry, what clause in the Fourth Amendment talks about encryption? Thanks in advance.
  - CamperBob2 5y ago
    The plain text reads, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." It's not reasonable to outlaw the tools needed to exercise a fundamental right. Not OK for the 1st, not OK for the 2nd, and not OK for the 4th. Encryption was already an old technology at the time of the Constitution's authorship. If they had wanted to regulate or outlaw it, they were free to say so. They didn't.
    - torstenvl 5y ago
      > Encryption was already an old technology at the time of the Constitution's authorship... ...so if they had wanted to guarantee a right to it, they were free to say so. But they didn't. Despite clearly contemplating privacy.