3 ms·

In part because they have full access to the classified info about the threats that are being disrupted regularly

by kingkawn 4y ago

barbazoo 4y ago
I find this much more likely than others' explanation that they're evil, that it's just about power, that there is a conspiracy among world leaders, etc.
justinclift 4y ago
That's the excuse they use. Unfortunately, they've often been shown to also be lying bastards in other matters, so why would we believe them for this situation?
- kingkawn 4y ago
  I didn't say anything about believing them Or their other behavior Just that its easy to imagine being in that role, being privy to some insane shit that barely gets stopped, and never again thinking twice about violating all these rules just to prevent that kind of thing. Doesn't mean what they're advocating for isn't messed up. But its not hard to think through how they get there.
  - justinclift 3y ago
    > privy to some insane shit that barely gets stopped Hmmm, sounds more like fantasy thinking (to me). :/
Zak 4y ago
If they're trying to influence public opinion and there really are a bunch of successes from surveillance programs that can be defeated with consumer-grade encryption, they could find ways to declassify statistics. I suppose there's the concern that a statement like "we prosecuted 2387 child molesters based on surveillance of unencrypted chat" would cause future offenders to stop using unencrypted chat, but I think that's a red herring. Any reasonably clever criminal would not be sending felonious content unencrypted today.
- kingkawn 4y ago
  This is one of those classic problems where if they didn't violate civil rights and something terrible happen the public backlash clamoring for civil rights violations would push them 10x further into outright oppressive practices (i.e. after Sept 11th in the US) than if they'd just broken the rules in the first place.

3 ms·

In part because they have full access to the classified info about the threats that are being disrupted regularly

by kingkawn 4y ago

In part because they have full access to the classified info about the threats that are being disrupted regularly

barbazoo 4y ago
I find this much more likely than others' explanation that they're evil, that it's just about power, that there is a conspiracy among world leaders, etc.
justinclift 4y ago
That's the excuse they use. Unfortunately, they've often been shown to also be lying bastards in other matters, so why would we believe them for this situation?
- kingkawn 4y ago
  I didn't say anything about believing them Or their other behavior Just that its easy to imagine being in that role, being privy to some insane shit that barely gets stopped, and never again thinking twice about violating all these rules just to prevent that kind of thing. Doesn't mean what they're advocating for isn't messed up. But its not hard to think through how they get there.
  - justinclift 3y ago
    > privy to some insane shit that barely gets stopped Hmmm, sounds more like fantasy thinking (to me). :/
Zak 4y ago
If they're trying to influence public opinion and there really are a bunch of successes from surveillance programs that can be defeated with consumer-grade encryption, they could find ways to declassify statistics. I suppose there's the concern that a statement like "we prosecuted 2387 child molesters based on surveillance of unencrypted chat" would cause future offenders to stop using unencrypted chat, but I think that's a red herring. Any reasonably clever criminal would not be sending felonious content unencrypted today.
- kingkawn 4y ago
  This is one of those classic problems where if they didn't violate civil rights and something terrible happen the public backlash clamoring for civil rights violations would push them 10x further into outright oppressive practices (i.e. after Sept 11th in the US) than if they'd just broken the rules in the first place.