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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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In the Halls of Justice the only justice is in the halls.
-- Lenny Bruce
(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.