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Last week FBI Director James Comey at the Boston College conference on cybersecurity stated:
While that quote in the article is taken out of context, it is even more disturbing when taken in context. The included video puts the quote in context where Comey is arguing against widespread access to strong encryption with the public. There are other quotes included as well that are just as disturbing, such as:
Even our communications with our spouses, with our clergy members, with our attorneys are not absolutely private in America... ...In appropriate circumstances, a judge can compel any one of us to testify in court about those very private communications.
Is this the "adult conversation" on encryption he was getting ready for last year?
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FBI Director James Comey: "There is No Such Thing as Absolute Privacy in America"
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Fascinating is a word I use for the unexpected.
-- Spock, "The Squire of Gothos", stardate 2124.5
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Thursday March 16 2017, @09:47PM (18 children)
You have always and forever been, under penalty of perjury or obstruction of justice, able to be forced to submit evidence or testimony to a court of law with a signed warrant, though case law gradually addressed edge cases, it's never been the case that you could legally refuse to allow warranted searches and seizures.
What's changed in the last 30 years that has people outraged:
*The set of things that law enforcement has access to without a warrant. The difference between typing a query into a database of "metadata" on a whim and a fishing expedition against someone you don't like is blurry, to say the least.
*The ease with which warrants can be issued in the absence of probable cause. We have courts that can issue pre-emptive, non-specific warrants not even knowing the suspect's identity. We have retroactive warrants than can apply to data captured days in advance.
*We have infrastructure in place to make spying trivial.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 16 2017, @10:10PM (3 children)
I don't know if it's still done but... Cops here used to carry signed blank warrants in their patrol cars.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 17 2017, @02:24AM (2 children)
You know - I've heard that many times. But, I've never heard or seen a reliable source for that common accusation. I'm not disputing that it happened, or even that it still happens. I'd just like to see some evidence that it's true. Photographs of half a dozen signed blank warrants in a cop's patrol car would help. A court case that establishes the practice as fact. Something. Basically, all I've ever seen or heard are anecdotes from questionably reliable sources.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @04:15AM (1 child)
Yeah. I'll go with that.
Aren't judges required to log what warrants they issue and what those are for?
Even a Notary Public has to record what it is that he's notarizing.
This sounds like a good way for a judge to get censured, disbarred, and/or imprisoned.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @07:33PM
Even a Notary Public has to record what it is that he's notarizing.
Not in Illinois. A notary log is not required. I keep one, but not because I must by law. The lack of such requirement is actually written into the Illinois Notary Public Law. (Then again, Notaries in this state don't certify copies, either. You have to make a sworn statement that you made a faithful copy and that oath can be administered.)
I imagine there are other states that are similar. By and large a Notary only needs to ensure that he/she follows good and consistent practices that if called to attest to their own signature and stamp they can identify your practices.
About courts and logging documents.... That sounds right. But first clarify notary law across the fifty states. Then you can investigate what some district jugde in American Samoa can and can't do with warrants.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mhajicek on Thursday March 16 2017, @10:17PM (7 children)
I believe it's self evident that panopticon is inevitable; the only question is the matter of who will have access to it. Since information is power, if the government has access but the people don't we will be subjected. If everyone can know everything about everyone, including those in the government, then power will be balanced.
Bearing that in mind, I think that the TLA's are aware of this, and are attempting to stay ahead of the curve by collecting more data on us than we can on them. This will likely be unsustainable.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday March 16 2017, @10:19PM
*Subjugated*
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Friday March 17 2017, @12:01AM (3 children)
I believe it's self evident that panopticon is inevitable
With that attitude, maybe. But all this equipment requires massive amounts of money, and The People could put a stop to it if they really wanted to.
If everyone can know everything about everyone, including those in the government, then power will be balanced.
A society with no or little privacy isn't one worth living in. Let's not embrace such nonsense.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday March 17 2017, @02:55AM (1 child)
What do you suggest? If this goes too far and gets too integrated, stopping it will require essentially committing electronic suicide, blowing out huge swathes of the electric grid with homemade EMP weapons.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @08:13AM
But does anyone actually have EMP weapons that will destroy rather than disable sufficient quantities of electronic devices to render digital society crippled?
The majority of permanent EMP disruption I have read about required it to be absorbed into the power grid and cause a voltage surge through equipment assuming 110-220V without fuses or current limiting devices.
This means most wireless devices would be safe. Any unplugged devices would be safe, any devices running on solar, generator or other off-grid power systems would be fine (not enough wire to inductively couple and cause a sufficient surge to disrupted/destroy.)
Maybe my understanding is wrong, but pretty much everything I've read has stated the sort of movie-esque 'everything goes offline thanks to an EMP' actions shown, even from an airburst nuke, would not cause the level of disruption spread in the media made off 50s era assumptions about electronics.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday March 17 2017, @06:35AM
As technology progresses, surveillance only becomes cheaper and easier. Also, it's not up to me what the TLA's spend my money on.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @02:02AM (1 child)
I wanted trump to win because I thought he was most likely to be overthrown, I still hope that is true.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @04:19AM
Then what? Mike Pence?
Sure that's what you want? [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 16 2017, @10:58PM
No warrants should be respected. Encryption, anonymity, and the global internet make that feasible in some cases.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by edIII on Thursday March 16 2017, @11:15PM
That was my first reaction as well
Absolute is a pretty big statement. The whole thing is reasonable though. What Comey here is admitting though, admittedly implied, is JUDICIAL REACH MEANS DUE FUCKING PROCESS. The FBI, CIA, NSA, TSA, etc. are not the judicial branch, but the executive if my memory of civics serves.
I'll agree with him in principal, but expand on it. We the people, in the interests of our security, can and will violate the privacy of other citizens but under the judicial branch, with a jury of their peers, being convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the privacy must be violated in our order to provide justice and security to our nation and our citizenry.
Of course, a priest, spouse, or attorney would disagree and perform civil disobedience. He is still however technically correct, but once again falls under the Judicial branch and the Constitution of the United States Of America. Which is to say we aren't sending priests to prison for refusing to divulge what happens in the confessional. A judge will not attempt to compel them that far unless there are serious national security matters.
The term absolute messes it up a little because he is limiting the scope of the arguments to the extreme edge cases where national security is on the line. Note that was national security, not national security theater. Which is why I would only agree that we would not have privacy in absolute terms from each other, but only with at least 12 other citizens agreeing with the judge.
Even then, technology can provide absolute privacy, and nearly perfect anonymity with proper implementations, and currently, there does exist very strong encryption not trivially bypassed. For Comey to attack that, is to attack Pandora's Box which can only result in censorship, illegality of information, and criminalizing possession of specific 1's and 0's. Has the dumb fucker even heard of the Elastic Clause? It's the pressure valve for fascist stupidity like this that is supposed to make us step back and realize that it cannot be controlled because it's all of us.
He's still going to burn in hell for his conspiracy to violate our privacy. Fucking fascist.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 17 2017, @02:39AM (2 children)
Your mind is outside of judicial reach, outside of any method of search and seizure. Government cannot forcibly extract information from your head. Yet, at least. You can keep secrets, even in court. The judge may believe that you are being less than honest, but unless he can prove it, he has no authority to punish you.
Many politicians have given you the example. "I don't remember" "I don't recall" "My memory fails me" "I was under doctor's care for a blood clot" - the list goes on and on.
I view a computer as an extension of your mind. A locked computer is pretty nearly sacrosanct, unless you're dumb enough to use sloppy security.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @03:36PM (1 child)
2 things:
- being offered immunity "takes away" (as in "renders moot") your reasons for taking the fifth
- contempt of court is a real thing that can land you in a real prison
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 17 2017, @03:47PM
Well, being offered immunity doesn't grant the judge the power to read my mind. The cops don't become mind reading super heroes. What is in my mind, stays there, unless I decide to share it. That contempt stuff can be a good thing, and it can also be abused, like any other law.
Let's suppose that I were involved in something, for which I am charged at the local level. I'm offered immunity at the local level, but if I tell all, I know that the whole thing will be taken out of the local court, and prosecuted on the federal level. Think I'm going to cooperate?
It's all well and good to throw yourself on the mercy of the court, at local and state levels. The feds have no mercy. It may be better to sit in a county jail for a year, than to give the evidence that the local want. State prison might be better for a couple of years, than having one of the alphabets haul you off.
I'll stick with "my thoughts are my own", and use them however I deem best. If that means figuratively telling a judge to fuck off and die, then I live with the consequences.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Kromagv0 on Friday March 17 2017, @12:30PM
My issue is not with the appropriate due process where individuals can be compelled to testify, or the legal granting of warrants for search and seizure but instead with his blanket statement that appears to exclude attorney–client privilege [wikipedia.org], spousal privilege [wikipedia.org], or 5th Amendment rights [wikipedia.org]. The fact that he holds encryption out as something that has broken that legal balance and in the video all of his previous statements are used to make people who use encryption to protect their privacy out to be people who are there to circumvent the law is what I find disturbing. This is because he starts out with the false premise that the government can always get at the communication data they want when clearly this is not and never had been the case.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone