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I don't think the "police have been solving crimes for centuries" argument is very persuasive. Back in 1996, we didn't have people walking around conducting hal

I don't think the "police have been solving crimes for centuries" argument is very persuasive. Back in 1996, we didn't have people walking around conducting half of all of their communication through a little box that they always carry with them. What used to entail walking across town and physically talking to someone is often now just a Facebook update or text message. Searching a cell phone now is probably about comparable to searching a home in 1996 in terms of how invasive it is, but we weren't making the argument two decades ago that the police shouldn't be able to get a search warrant for your home because it's too invasive. To continue following that logic out, neither phones in general nor surveillance existed in 1776. Does that mean the police shouldn't be able to get warrants to read someone's phone records or see surveillance footage because they could still gather evidence just fine before those existed?

AnthonyMouse 11y ago
> Back in 1996, we didn't have people walking around conducting half of all of their communication through a little box that they always carry with them. What used to entail walking across town and physically talking to someone is often now just a Facebook update or text message. Searching a cell phone now is probably about comparable to searching a home in 1996 in terms of how invasive it is, but we weren't making the argument two decades ago that the police shouldn't be able to get a search warrant for your home because it's too invasive. Searching a cell phone is much more than what they would get from searching a home. Twenty years ago if a suspect walked across town two weeks before the crime and had a conversation with someone, there would be no automatic record of it even happening, much less the content of the conversation being recorded indefinitely. Even for written correspondence, people rarely keep every letter they've ever received and even less often keep a copy of every letter they've ever sent. People have no obligation to carry around a tracking device that records everywhere they go and everything they say in a format understandable by the government. > To continue following that logic out, neither phones in general nor surveillance existed in 1776. Does that mean the police shouldn't be able to get warrants to read someone's phone records or see surveillance footage because they could still gather evidence just fine before those existed? You keep conflating the question of whether they can get a warrant with the utility of doing so. Encryption has existed longer than the United States. A warrant grants them the ability to look at your stuff, it doesn't imply that they'll be able to understand it, or even that you'll have kept any stuff worth looking at. For example, shouldn't you have the same objection to Snapchat as you have to encryption? The government's warrant gives them even less if the content no longer exists than if it exists encrypted. But the idea that people should be prohibited from automatically deleting old information is pretty clearly ridiculous.
- csandreasen 11y ago
  > Searching a cell phone is much more than what they would get from searching a home. What I was trying to get at was that we interact with other people in a very different manner than we did two decades ago. I don't see any reason that the means through which police gather evidence shouldn't reflect such a change. Is it your opinion that searching a cell phone is so invasive that we shouldn't allow it with a warrant? > Encryption has existed longer than the United States. A warrant grants them the ability to look at your stuff, it doesn't imply that they'll be able to understand it, or even that you'll have kept any stuff worth looking at. Back then, if I wanted to keep my correspondence secure I'd pull out my disappearing ink and Vigenere ciphers and actively go about protecting what I wrote. This isn't a case of people taking steps to protect their data, it's someone else (Apple) stepping in to encrypt their data, and changing the way that they were encrypting it so as to actively prevent cooperation with law enforcement. They were cooperating before with cases involving encrypted cell phones, now they are not. This isn't a decision that a criminal suspect made to protect their data - this is a decision that a tech company made on their behalf. I don't have a problem a problem with people actively encrypting their own data, I have a problem with a tech company making a purely political decision to change their encryption algorithm which has the potential to impact any criminal investigation that involves a new iPhone. > For example, shouldn't you have the same objection to Snapchat as you have to encryption? Was Snapchat assisting law enforcement with criminal investigations before?
  - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
    > What I was trying to get at was that we interact with other people in a very different manner than we did two decades ago. I don't see any reason that the means through which police gather evidence shouldn't reflect such a change. Is it your opinion that searching a cell phone is so invasive that we shouldn't allow it with a warrant? You're conflating whether they can get a warrant with whether the warrant produces anything again. > This isn't a decision that a criminal suspect made to protect their data - this is a decision that a tech company made on their behalf. What significance are you attributing to that distinction? Encryption on devices with the relevant hardware instructions is basically free; the user receives no practical benefit from not using it. What purpose is there in presenting the user with a choice that every rational user will make the same way? > I don't have a problem a problem with people actively encrypting their own data, I have a problem with a tech company making a purely political decision to change their encryption algorithm which has the potential to impact any criminal investigation that involves a new iPhone. What does it matter what they were doing before? You seem to be saying that whether Snapchat should be allowed should be based on whether or not the same company had a previous product that stored messages indefinitely. That makes no sense.

AnthonyMouse 11y ago

> Back in 1996, we didn't have people walking around conducting half of all of their communication through a little box that they always carry with them. What used to entail walking across town and physically talking to someone is often now just a Facebook update or text message. Searching a cell phone now is probably about comparable to searching a home in 1996 in terms of how invasive it is, but we weren't making the argument two decades ago that the police shouldn't be able to get a search warrant for your home because it's too invasive. Searching a cell phone is much more than what they would get from searching a home. Twenty years ago if a suspect walked across town two weeks before the crime and had a conversation with someone, there would be no automatic record of it even happening, much less the content of the conversation being recorded indefinitely. Even for written correspondence, people rarely keep every letter they've ever received and even less often keep a copy of every letter they've ever sent. People have no obligation to carry around a tracking device that records everywhere they go and everything they say in a format understandable by the government. > To continue following that logic out, neither phones in general nor surveillance existed in 1776. Does that mean the police shouldn't be able to get warrants to read someone's phone records or see surveillance footage because they could still gather evidence just fine before those existed? You keep conflating the question of whether they can get a warrant with the utility of doing so. Encryption has existed longer than the United States. A warrant grants them the ability to look at your stuff, it doesn't imply that they'll be able to understand it, or even that you'll have kept any stuff worth looking at. For example, shouldn't you have the same objection to Snapchat as you have to encryption? The government's warrant gives them even less if the content no longer exists than if it exists encrypted. But the idea that people should be prohibited from automatically deleting old information is pretty clearly ridiculous.

csandreasen 11y ago
> Searching a cell phone is much more than what they would get from searching a home. What I was trying to get at was that we interact with other people in a very different manner than we did two decades ago. I don't see any reason that the means through which police gather evidence shouldn't reflect such a change. Is it your opinion that searching a cell phone is so invasive that we shouldn't allow it with a warrant? > Encryption has existed longer than the United States. A warrant grants them the ability to look at your stuff, it doesn't imply that they'll be able to understand it, or even that you'll have kept any stuff worth looking at. Back then, if I wanted to keep my correspondence secure I'd pull out my disappearing ink and Vigenere ciphers and actively go about protecting what I wrote. This isn't a case of people taking steps to protect their data, it's someone else (Apple) stepping in to encrypt their data, and changing the way that they were encrypting it so as to actively prevent cooperation with law enforcement. They were cooperating before with cases involving encrypted cell phones, now they are not. This isn't a decision that a criminal suspect made to protect their data - this is a decision that a tech company made on their behalf. I don't have a problem a problem with people actively encrypting their own data, I have a problem with a tech company making a purely political decision to change their encryption algorithm which has the potential to impact any criminal investigation that involves a new iPhone. > For example, shouldn't you have the same objection to Snapchat as you have to encryption? Was Snapchat assisting law enforcement with criminal investigations before?
- AnthonyMouse 11y ago
  > What I was trying to get at was that we interact with other people in a very different manner than we did two decades ago. I don't see any reason that the means through which police gather evidence shouldn't reflect such a change. Is it your opinion that searching a cell phone is so invasive that we shouldn't allow it with a warrant? You're conflating whether they can get a warrant with whether the warrant produces anything again. > This isn't a decision that a criminal suspect made to protect their data - this is a decision that a tech company made on their behalf. What significance are you attributing to that distinction? Encryption on devices with the relevant hardware instructions is basically free; the user receives no practical benefit from not using it. What purpose is there in presenting the user with a choice that every rational user will make the same way? > I don't have a problem a problem with people actively encrypting their own data, I have a problem with a tech company making a purely political decision to change their encryption algorithm which has the potential to impact any criminal investigation that involves a new iPhone. What does it matter what they were doing before? You seem to be saying that whether Snapchat should be allowed should be based on whether or not the same company had a previous product that stored messages indefinitely. That makes no sense.