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But in that case, you could leave your private residence and whisper to your friend in a microphone-free park. If our goal is to ensure that terrorists have abs

by ewzimm 11y ago

But in that case, you could leave your private residence and whisper to your friend in a microphone-free park. If our goal is to ensure that terrorists have absolutely no means of private communication and we don't know who might be a terrorist, the only viable solution is to ensure that everyone carries their surveillance equipment with them wherever they go. Back-dooring Facebook and Twitter will only drive the terrorists to use services which don't log everything they write and give American corporations unlimited access to their secret plans, so it's either snoop on everyone's body or accept that people are going to find ways to communicate in secret if they really want to.

noir_lord 11y ago
This makes the big assumption that they actually give a shit about catching terroist's rather than using it as a massive powers land grab. We already have RIPA which allowed local councils to use anti-terror legislation to investigate parents for school catchment zones (oh and iirc investigations into bins).
- ewzimm 11y ago
  Either they want to catch terrorists and haven't thought through the consequences of what they're saying, that people should be denied the right to communicate privately, or they're just using fighting terrorism as a convenient excuse to deny people the right to privacy.
- DanBC 11y ago
  RIPA regulated those councils, and stopped that abuse of law from happening.
  - noir_lord 11y ago
    > Public bodies have sought to use the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) on nearly three million occasions in the past decade to snoop on people. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8868757/Councils-have-mounted-millions-of-snooping-operations-in-past-decade-finds-report.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8868757/Council... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Powers_Act_2000#Accusations_of_oppressive_use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Po...
xixixao 11y ago
There might be an argument that this assumes that the terrorists are in the same location, which often might not be the case.
- ewzimm 11y ago
  Let's say they're not in the same location. They can send encrypted email. It doesn't even have to be email. They can paint an encrypted message on the side of a fleet of commercial airliners and read it out loud during a football broadcast. As long as there's a way to encrypt a message, there's a way to send it to someone who has the decryption key. Demanding that no private communication is available to terrorists requires absolute surveillance. Of course, some people are going to get sloppy and reveal secrets over the phone or other unencrypted or under-encrypted channels, but that's not the subject at hand. The stated goal was to ensure that terrorists have no means of private communication, which has some pretty awful consequences.

by ewzimm 11y ago

noir_lord 11y ago

This makes the big assumption that they actually give a shit about catching terroist's rather than using it as a massive powers land grab. We already have RIPA which allowed local councils to use anti-terror legislation to investigate parents for school catchment zones (oh and iirc investigations into bins).

ewzimm 11y ago
Either they want to catch terrorists and haven't thought through the consequences of what they're saying, that people should be denied the right to communicate privately, or they're just using fighting terrorism as a convenient excuse to deny people the right to privacy.
DanBC 11y ago
RIPA regulated those councils, and stopped that abuse of law from happening.
- noir_lord 11y ago
  > Public bodies have sought to use the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) on nearly three million occasions in the past decade to snoop on people. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8868757/Councils-have-mounted-millions-of-snooping-operations-in-past-decade-finds-report.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8868757/Council... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Powers_Act_2000#Accusations_of_oppressive_use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Po...

xixixao 11y ago

There might be an argument that this assumes that the terrorists are in the same location, which often might not be the case.

ewzimm 11y ago
Let's say they're not in the same location. They can send encrypted email. It doesn't even have to be email. They can paint an encrypted message on the side of a fleet of commercial airliners and read it out loud during a football broadcast. As long as there's a way to encrypt a message, there's a way to send it to someone who has the decryption key. Demanding that no private communication is available to terrorists requires absolute surveillance. Of course, some people are going to get sloppy and reveal secrets over the phone or other unencrypted or under-encrypted channels, but that's not the subject at hand. The stated goal was to ensure that terrorists have no means of private communication, which has some pretty awful consequences.