11 ms·

Unless we pass an amendment to the constitution guaranteeing the right for private individuals communicate over encrypted channels, which won’t happen. And we

by davkan 3y ago

Unless we pass an amendment to the constitution guaranteeing the right for private individuals communicate over encrypted channels, which won’t happen. And we have to win every single time one of these bills come up. They only have to win once.

flagrant_taco 3y ago
If we're really at a point where all rights must be constitutional protected the game is already lost. Rights and freedoms are meant to default to the citizen, meaning anything is legal unless it specifically violates a law on the books. I.e. Laws and rights are meant to be subtractive rather than addative. You can remove my rights by law, short of that I can do whatever I want.
- smabie 3y ago
  This is exactly what they're doing tho? Removing rights by laws
  - flagrant_taco 3y ago
    Sure, they're trying to. We're supposed to have a say in laws that get passed and who is passing them though. I was only pushing back on the idea that we need new amendments to carve out our rights when we shiuld be able to simply block laws we disagree with and replace the people trying to trample on our rights. With regards to privacy specifically, we could go a long way with the existing rights protecting us from illegal search and seizure. That should really cover any overstepping by the government and police, leaving only the need to limit what private companies can and can't do (though this should be done with laws and not amendments).
- solidsnack9000 3y ago
  I don't think this is the right way to look at it. Without the 1st Amendment, where would be today? Many people on this site are not fans of the 2nd Amendment, but I think they would have to acknowledge that, without it, the situation of the armed citizenry today, while not really comparable to that of colonial times, would be much shabbier than it is -- we would have lost as much of the right to bear arms as the British have, or the Canadians. One important function of laws is to delimit and codify the exercise of rights and freedoms. Another is to explicitly limit the government. We should probably be amending the Constitution to accomplish this more often, actually.
  - pksebben 3y ago
    Amending hasn’t really cut it though, has it? I’m convinced we need a page 1 rewrite. Assumptions don’t age well (earth is flat and the center of the universe, diseases are caused by the humors, a weapon only marginally increases the harm a human can do, etc etc). All laws (the constitution included) are created upon assumptions and they should go through a controlled burn once in a while or else we get end-of-empire wildfires. I’m also wondering what good to see in an armed citizenry being “not shabby” - and before you say something to the effect that it “keeps our government in line” try to remember they have stratospheric death robots that think your ar-15 is just adorable.
    - nverno 3y ago
      Which assumptions from the constitution do you think need to be rewritten? They seem to have aged astonishingly well to me, although I think they should be extended in many cases, eg. limiting government ability to mess with encrypted communications. Rewritting them in this day and age would surely limit our rights further.
      - pksebben 3y ago
        Article 1 Section 1 is a good place to start. The system of checks and balances and the concept for the structure and format of representative government has proven itself incapable of being effective in the modern era. We get nothing done, and what we do get done is exclusively to the benefit of those that can afford to finance campaigns. Our legislative branch is an absolute joke (life terms, like, really?) and the whole idea behind the senate is meaningless in a world where we can fly from one end of the country to the other in a day, and have instantaneous communication. Our systems of voting are similarly backwards, designed in a time when you had to send a dude on a horse to communicate. Seriously, page 1 rewrite. The whole damn thing.
    - flagrant_taco 3y ago
      What would you like to see added or removed from the constitution? Personally I'd love an amendment declaring our right to privacy, though we really just need to better enforce illegal search and seizure. > I’m also wondering what good to see in an armed citizenry being “not shabby” - and before you say something to the effect that it “keeps our government in line” try to remember they have stratospheric death robots that think your ar-15 is just adorable. So are you saying we shouldn't have the right to arm ourselves because we're already so outmatched by our own government? And to clarify here, the goal of an armed citizenry and armed militias was extremely important when we didn't have a standing military. The original goal was much less about actually making sure citizens come uld overthrow their own government, that's a modern view usually held by those who don't realize how terrible a civil war would actually be. I'm of the opinion that we should get rid of this farce that we must have a permanent, massive standing army rather than attempting to disarm all our citizens. Our military needs something to do as long as it's there, we're always going to be looking for a fight to prove why they exist.
AmericanChopper 3y ago
> Unless we pass an amendment to the constitution guaranteeing the right for private individuals communicate over encrypted channels, which won’t happen. The USA already has this. The first amendment…
- tonyarkles 3y ago
  I’m not an American, and I’m definitely not an American constitutional law scholar, but from having a read of the text of the amendment it does appear to primarily be referring to public speech? I’m likely misinterpreting this, but nothing about the First Amendment appears to me about communicating in private and ensuring the privacy of that communication.
  - alistairSH 3y ago
    Speech has been broadly interpreted to include many "outputs" from human action/work/communication. It extends beyond literal speech/talking. For example, decorating a cake is considered speech, and a baker can refuse to decorate a cake for customers they don't like, because the government cannot compel speech. I've seen arguments that the encryption algorithm itself is speech and should be protected, similar to the cake decoration. In addition to protections on speech, the Constitution also has protections on privacy (albeit not literal - that protection has been interpreted by courts over the years - the Griswold case being the most recent/important interpretation of that right [google: "Griswold penumbra"], and now Dobbs could see some of that protection walked back).
    - tonyarkles 3y ago
      > I've seen arguments that the encryption algorithm itself is speech and should be protected Yeah, that's an interesting distinction for sure. I mean, this has gone back to PGP and the encryption wars in the 90s where it was illegal to export an electronic version of PGP from the US under... ITAR, I believe (secure encryption was considered a munition and thus export-restricted?). And it was worked around by publishing the source code in a book, which could be exported just fine. Where it gets a bit more complicated is publication-restriction vs. use-restriction though; I'm sure I could readily find bomb plans on and possess the plans freely, but the moment I follow the directions in those plans I am committing a criminal act (in Canada at least it'd be "possession of a prohibited device"). The Griswold and Dobbs thing is a really unfortunate situation :(. Up here in Canada, we've got a kind of interesting situation that really favours E2E and I wish I had a citation handy... basically, law enforcement cannot search your cellphone for evidence without a warrant, as expected, and also can't get a wiretap without a warrant. The situation that arose, though, was that one of the major telecommunication companies was keeping short-term SMS logs for ostensibly system debugging and law enforcement realized they could request those logs warrant-free. Because it was voluntary third-party disclosure, no one was "compelled" to disclose these logs and there was no protection in place for either party of the communication.
antiloper 3y ago
The 4th amendment already exists and is ignored by the federal government (e.g. the border search exception [1]). Passing another amendment will accomplish nothing, it will get ignored just like the 4th one. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception
- p-e-w 3y ago
  Indeed. It's astonishing how many people seem to believe that passing law X would accomplish X. We have no shortage of laws already. Including many laws that (on paper) protect individual rights. All of those laws are routinely being ignored. They don't mean anything. The constitution is meaningless. The bill of rights is meaningless. International human rights treaties are meaningless. All that matters is what happens in practice. If individual rights exist in a country, it's because of how society and the government operate – not because somewhere, there's a piece of paper that says so. A democracy can turn into a dictatorship without a single law having to change.
  - cubefox 3y ago
    The judiciary is supposed to have enough power to ensure that laws are actually followed by the executive. Of course, if judges are in bed with the executive this assumption is violated. A strong separation of power is the best insurance against such things.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
pif 3y ago
> an amendment to the constitution guaranteeing the right for private individuals communicate over encrypted channels I understand here on HN it looks so obvious, but if you stop and think for a moment it is no natural at all. The only natural way of having a private conversation is directly from mouth to ear. Private remote communication never existed until recent technology made it possible during the last decades. We are in the same situation as cars, where people have been walking for millions of years but little more than a century ago we got the ability to move freely along longer distances at previously unimaginable speeds. I'm not against private communication, as I'm not against cars, but it's just normal that new things get regulated in a society. All countries are OK with driving being regulated (get a licence, always show a readable registration plate...), so why are we shocked every time someone proposes to regulate remote conversations? I also understand the point that encryption is either breakable by nobody or by everyone (thus the thing about only authorities being able to eavesdrop is moot), but please stop assigning to a pinnacle of modern technology the same status as a natural human right.
- pera 3y ago
  "normal" changes over time: a hundred years ago it wasn't normal to talk with literally all of your friends and family remotely all the time, nowadays it is. Countries signatories of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights should respect Article 12: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
  - pif 3y ago
    > No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his ... correspondence Still, nobody was ever shocked that a judge could order letters to be open or telephones to be tapped. And yet, as soon as someone asks whether we should consider something similar for electronic encryption, HN reacts as if this was something never heard of, nor imaginable.
    - pera 3y ago

by davkan 3y ago

flagrant_taco 3y ago

If we're really at a point where all rights must be constitutional protected the game is already lost. Rights and freedoms are meant to default to the citizen, meaning anything is legal unless it specifically violates a law on the books. I.e. Laws and rights are meant to be subtractive rather than addative. You can remove my rights by law, short of that I can do whatever I want.

smabie 3y ago
This is exactly what they're doing tho? Removing rights by laws
- flagrant_taco 3y ago
  Sure, they're trying to. We're supposed to have a say in laws that get passed and who is passing them though. I was only pushing back on the idea that we need new amendments to carve out our rights when we shiuld be able to simply block laws we disagree with and replace the people trying to trample on our rights. With regards to privacy specifically, we could go a long way with the existing rights protecting us from illegal search and seizure. That should really cover any overstepping by the government and police, leaving only the need to limit what private companies can and can't do (though this should be done with laws and not amendments).
solidsnack9000 3y ago
I don't think this is the right way to look at it. Without the 1st Amendment, where would be today? Many people on this site are not fans of the 2nd Amendment, but I think they would have to acknowledge that, without it, the situation of the armed citizenry today, while not really comparable to that of colonial times, would be much shabbier than it is -- we would have lost as much of the right to bear arms as the British have, or the Canadians. One important function of laws is to delimit and codify the exercise of rights and freedoms. Another is to explicitly limit the government. We should probably be amending the Constitution to accomplish this more often, actually.
- pksebben 3y ago
  Amending hasn’t really cut it though, has it? I’m convinced we need a page 1 rewrite. Assumptions don’t age well (earth is flat and the center of the universe, diseases are caused by the humors, a weapon only marginally increases the harm a human can do, etc etc). All laws (the constitution included) are created upon assumptions and they should go through a controlled burn once in a while or else we get end-of-empire wildfires. I’m also wondering what good to see in an armed citizenry being “not shabby” - and before you say something to the effect that it “keeps our government in line” try to remember they have stratospheric death robots that think your ar-15 is just adorable.
  - nverno 3y ago
    Which assumptions from the constitution do you think need to be rewritten? They seem to have aged astonishingly well to me, although I think they should be extended in many cases, eg. limiting government ability to mess with encrypted communications. Rewritting them in this day and age would surely limit our rights further.
    - pksebben 3y ago
      Article 1 Section 1 is a good place to start. The system of checks and balances and the concept for the structure and format of representative government has proven itself incapable of being effective in the modern era. We get nothing done, and what we do get done is exclusively to the benefit of those that can afford to finance campaigns. Our legislative branch is an absolute joke (life terms, like, really?) and the whole idea behind the senate is meaningless in a world where we can fly from one end of the country to the other in a day, and have instantaneous communication. Our systems of voting are similarly backwards, designed in a time when you had to send a dude on a horse to communicate. Seriously, page 1 rewrite. The whole damn thing.
  - flagrant_taco 3y ago
    What would you like to see added or removed from the constitution? Personally I'd love an amendment declaring our right to privacy, though we really just need to better enforce illegal search and seizure. > I’m also wondering what good to see in an armed citizenry being “not shabby” - and before you say something to the effect that it “keeps our government in line” try to remember they have stratospheric death robots that think your ar-15 is just adorable. So are you saying we shouldn't have the right to arm ourselves because we're already so outmatched by our own government? And to clarify here, the goal of an armed citizenry and armed militias was extremely important when we didn't have a standing military. The original goal was much less about actually making sure citizens come uld overthrow their own government, that's a modern view usually held by those who don't realize how terrible a civil war would actually be. I'm of the opinion that we should get rid of this farce that we must have a permanent, massive standing army rather than attempting to disarm all our citizens. Our military needs something to do as long as it's there, we're always going to be looking for a fight to prove why they exist.

AmericanChopper 3y ago

> Unless we pass an amendment to the constitution guaranteeing the right for private individuals communicate over encrypted channels, which won’t happen. The USA already has this. The first amendment…

tonyarkles 3y ago
I’m not an American, and I’m definitely not an American constitutional law scholar, but from having a read of the text of the amendment it does appear to primarily be referring to public speech? I’m likely misinterpreting this, but nothing about the First Amendment appears to me about communicating in private and ensuring the privacy of that communication.
- alistairSH 3y ago
  Speech has been broadly interpreted to include many "outputs" from human action/work/communication. It extends beyond literal speech/talking. For example, decorating a cake is considered speech, and a baker can refuse to decorate a cake for customers they don't like, because the government cannot compel speech. I've seen arguments that the encryption algorithm itself is speech and should be protected, similar to the cake decoration. In addition to protections on speech, the Constitution also has protections on privacy (albeit not literal - that protection has been interpreted by courts over the years - the Griswold case being the most recent/important interpretation of that right [google: "Griswold penumbra"], and now Dobbs could see some of that protection walked back).
  - tonyarkles 3y ago
    > I've seen arguments that the encryption algorithm itself is speech and should be protected Yeah, that's an interesting distinction for sure. I mean, this has gone back to PGP and the encryption wars in the 90s where it was illegal to export an electronic version of PGP from the US under... ITAR, I believe (secure encryption was considered a munition and thus export-restricted?). And it was worked around by publishing the source code in a book, which could be exported just fine. Where it gets a bit more complicated is publication-restriction vs. use-restriction though; I'm sure I could readily find bomb plans on and possess the plans freely, but the moment I follow the directions in those plans I am committing a criminal act (in Canada at least it'd be "possession of a prohibited device"). The Griswold and Dobbs thing is a really unfortunate situation :(. Up here in Canada, we've got a kind of interesting situation that really favours E2E and I wish I had a citation handy... basically, law enforcement cannot search your cellphone for evidence without a warrant, as expected, and also can't get a wiretap without a warrant. The situation that arose, though, was that one of the major telecommunication companies was keeping short-term SMS logs for ostensibly system debugging and law enforcement realized they could request those logs warrant-free. Because it was voluntary third-party disclosure, no one was "compelled" to disclose these logs and there was no protection in place for either party of the communication.

antiloper 3y ago

The 4th amendment already exists and is ignored by the federal government (e.g. the border search exception [1]). Passing another amendment will accomplish nothing, it will get ignored just like the 4th one. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception

p-e-w 3y ago
Indeed. It's astonishing how many people seem to believe that passing law X would accomplish X. We have no shortage of laws already. Including many laws that (on paper) protect individual rights. All of those laws are routinely being ignored. They don't mean anything. The constitution is meaningless. The bill of rights is meaningless. International human rights treaties are meaningless. All that matters is what happens in practice. If individual rights exist in a country, it's because of how society and the government operate – not because somewhere, there's a piece of paper that says so. A democracy can turn into a dictatorship without a single law having to change.
- cubefox 3y ago
  The judiciary is supposed to have enough power to ensure that laws are actually followed by the executive. Of course, if judges are in bed with the executive this assumption is violated. A strong separation of power is the best insurance against such things.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

pif 3y ago

> an amendment to the constitution guaranteeing the right for private individuals communicate over encrypted channels I understand here on HN it looks so obvious, but if you stop and think for a moment it is no natural at all. The only natural way of having a private conversation is directly from mouth to ear. Private remote communication never existed until recent technology made it possible during the last decades. We are in the same situation as cars, where people have been walking for millions of years but little more than a century ago we got the ability to move freely along longer distances at previously unimaginable speeds. I'm not against private communication, as I'm not against cars, but it's just normal that new things get regulated in a society. All countries are OK with driving being regulated (get a licence, always show a readable registration plate...), so why are we shocked every time someone proposes to regulate remote conversations? I also understand the point that encryption is either breakable by nobody or by everyone (thus the thing about only authorities being able to eavesdrop is moot), but please stop assigning to a pinnacle of modern technology the same status as a natural human right.

pera 3y ago
"normal" changes over time: a hundred years ago it wasn't normal to talk with literally all of your friends and family remotely all the time, nowadays it is. Countries signatories of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights should respect Article 12: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
- pif 3y ago
  > No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his ... correspondence Still, nobody was ever shocked that a judge could order letters to be open or telephones to be tapped. And yet, as soon as someone asks whether we should consider something similar for electronic encryption, HN reacts as if this was something never heard of, nor imaginable.
  - pera 3y ago