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Playing devil's advocate here, I'm not sure why encryption would be the forcing factor there and not, for instance, CCTV, blanket data retention or preflight pa

Playing devil's advocate here, I'm not sure why encryption would be the forcing factor there and not, for instance, CCTV, blanket data retention or preflight passenger screening? If presumption of innocence necessarily had to mean immunity from precautionary, non-discriminating security measures, then none of the things I listed should be happening (NB: I'm not saying they're OK, I'm just saying the ship sailed on your argument long ago). And there's nothing rhetorical about my comment, so far as I can see. As for the UK, the discretion of the sovereign hasn't been absolute for many many centuries.

motohagiography 4y ago
And fair arguments. The "nobody has privacy, get over it," argument from the CEO of Sun years ago as well. I called it rhetorical because encryption policy has very concrete consequences because you have to actively implement the compromises in code, and there is no natural base state where authorities have access to your communications. Even the American "papers and effects," doctrine is using their 4A framework is a weaker argument than presumption of innocence question stated above. Regarding non-discriminating security measures at airports, oppressing and degrading everyone doesn't make it justified or fair, and on this forum we all know what "random" means, but the way random is applied in airports is really just covert, it is not random. The only legitimate random search I would concievably accept would be if the officer chose a number, and I rolled my own 20-sided dice and if the number came up, I would consider submitting to a random search - but anything else is demonstrable bullshit. How do the authorities trust my dice? They pick a random number. In the UK, the sovereign is the crown and its agents, and indeed, the Queen doesn't have discretion, but without a constitution with inaliable rights, agents acting with the authority of the crown do have unlimited discretion. Canada has a "notwithstanding" clause in its charter and a bunch of mealy mouthed language about reasonableness elsewhere that has produced some astonishingly derisible results. It is a power you give them, and if you don't give it to them, they are taking it, and my argument is that this is a question of whether compelling people to sabotage algorithms as a means to surveil them a legitimate allocation of powers. In a state with inaliable rights, it's not, but in these other places, we should just call it what it is.

motohagiography 4y ago

And fair arguments. The "nobody has privacy, get over it," argument from the CEO of Sun years ago as well. I called it rhetorical because encryption policy has very concrete consequences because you have to actively implement the compromises in code, and there is no natural base state where authorities have access to your communications. Even the American "papers and effects," doctrine is using their 4A framework is a weaker argument than presumption of innocence question stated above. Regarding non-discriminating security measures at airports, oppressing and degrading everyone doesn't make it justified or fair, and on this forum we all know what "random" means, but the way random is applied in airports is really just covert, it is not random. The only legitimate random search I would concievably accept would be if the officer chose a number, and I rolled my own 20-sided dice and if the number came up, I would consider submitting to a random search - but anything else is demonstrable bullshit. How do the authorities trust my dice? They pick a random number. In the UK, the sovereign is the crown and its agents, and indeed, the Queen doesn't have discretion, but without a constitution with inaliable rights, agents acting with the authority of the crown do have unlimited discretion. Canada has a "notwithstanding" clause in its charter and a bunch of mealy mouthed language about reasonableness elsewhere that has produced some astonishingly derisible results. It is a power you give them, and if you don't give it to them, they are taking it, and my argument is that this is a question of whether compelling people to sabotage algorithms as a means to surveil them a legitimate allocation of powers. In a state with inaliable rights, it's not, but in these other places, we should just call it what it is.