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The new FBI Director Christopher Wray has been repeating the broken rhetoric of the Crypto Wars:
In recent testimony before Congress, the director of the FBI has again highlighted what the government sees as the problem of easy-to-use, on-by-default, strong encryption.
In prepared remarks from last Thursday, FBI Director Christopher Wray said that encryption presents a "significant challenge to conducting lawful court-ordered access," he said, again using the longstanding government moniker "Going Dark."
The statement was just one portion of his testimony about the agency's priorities for the coming year.
The FBI and its parent agency, the Department of Justice, have recently stepped up public rhetoric about the so-called dangers of "Going Dark." In recent months, both Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein have given numerous public statements about this issue.
Remember to use encryption irresponsibly, and stay salty, my FBI friends.
Previously: FBI Chief Calls for National Talk Over Encryption vs. Safety
Federal Court Rules That the FBI Does Not Have to Disclose Name of iPhone Hacking Vendor
PureVPN Logs Helped FBI Net Alleged Cyberstalker
FBI Failed to Access 7,000 Encrypted Mobile Devices
Great, Now There's "Responsible Encryption"
FBI Bemoans Phone Encryption After Texas Shooting, but Refuses Apple's Help
DOJ: Strong Encryption That We Don't Have Access to is "Unreasonable"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 12 2017, @08:52PM (2 children)
Civil disobedience has a place anywhere it is called for. Unjust laws should be pushed back. The price of such disobedience is always some form of punishment, and it is up to the rest of society to either agree that your punishment is justified or not. None of this has a bearing on Democracy. Go ahead, disobey the IRS, we will see how much support you get for it.
I understand your viewpoint entirely. I find it incredibly naive. I would say "stupid" but it is obvious you are capable, so I'll stick to naive about how the human society works. All I can figure is that you operate on some very basic principles that you think would magically work our for the best. I also presume understanding human social behavior is not your strong point.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday December 12 2017, @09:31PM (1 child)
Pretty mealy mouthed way to say that civil disobedience you don't agree with should be punished. The rest of society is not always going to be on your side. And it has quite the bearing on democracy because protest, even of the law-breaking sort, is a key way to communicate and generate support for your beliefs.
The problem here is that in democracies, people and do have different opinions on how things should work. Naive or not, their ideas aren't discredited merely because you disagree with them.
What is there to understand here? The state cracked down on a guy for protesting by not paying taxes. There's no social behavior complexity in that.
My story starts with the pathetic rationalization for that action:
This is one of the classic way abuses of the state are rationalized: we raised you, we own you. Maybe this particular guy's protest was complete bullshit, but the logic applies to all tax protests, not merely the bullshit ones. I bet this most tax protesters would disagree on the efficacy of government spending on their childhoods.
A final remark is the complete absence of any consideration in this thread for why there are tax protests: maybe the protesters don't want to pay for corporate welfare, maybe they don't want to pay for wars, maybe they don't want to pay because other people can't get their shit together. It's remarkable how blithely people speak of the good of taxation while ignoring the grievance problems of it.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday December 13 2017, @02:22PM
Have you ever participated in any civil disobedience? Going to jail is often an integral part of the strategy. And that doesn't work if you go to jail and nobody cares -- it really only works if the general public think it's unjust that you're going to jail for it, and are prompted to take action as a result. So yeah, he's correct on that, democracy is majority rule, and if the majority doesn't back you then your civil disobedience is just a crime. There's a difference between civil disobedience and regular protest -- if it's not illegal, it's not disobedience.