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FBI Director Christopher Wray said Wednesday that unless the U.S. government and private industry are able to come to a compromise on the issue of default encryption on consumer devices, legislation may be how the debate is ultimately decided.
"I think there should be [room for compromise]," Wray said Wednesday night at a national security conference in Aspen, Colorado. "I don't want to characterize private conversations we're having with people in the industry. We're not there yet for sure. And if we can't get there, there may be other remedies, like legislation, that would have to come to bear."
Wray described the issue of “Going Dark” because of encryption as a "significant" and "growing" problem for federal, state and local law enforcement as well as foreign law enforcement and intelligence agencies. He claims strong encryption on mobile phones keeps law enforcement from gaining access to key evidence as it relates to active criminal investigations.
Source: FBI director: Without compromise on encryption, legislation may be the 'remedy'
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @08:36PM (5 children)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @11:45AM (3 children)
To be fair, they didn't. They lied to judges, picked up bribes from the local gangs and made up evidence when it suited them. Best example and proof is how when DNA evidences were introduced, civil rights groups reviewed capital punishment convictions only to discover the vast majority of them were wrong and went on to overturn them in the courts. That is, police officers would routinely beat up people to get confessions and testimonies to such a measure that the vast majority of inmates weren't lying when they were saying "I didn't do it".
What's changed is public awareness and technology. People are aware they can't trust people to provide eye witness testimonies on their behalf when the cops are willing to flat out lie and say otherwise so they record everything. And the tech companies are signing and encrypting all those records so cops deleting or modifying them will get caught. So, now when a judge and jury notices "misplaced" evidences, they immediately mistrial. The jury since they stopped trusting the cops. The judge since they don't want to risk their careers by involving themselves with a potential scandal.
However, all this is simply the background. The problem right now is organizational: The career path for a police officer aiming for an administrative position like a Department Chief typically goes through the detective ranks since normal police work is just not enough to get noticed and gain merits. And this is a huge problem since if a detective does his real work then their solve rates are abysmal. Like, 90% unsolved crimes. The real way criminals get caught is when a pawn shop broker calls the cops telling them someone keeps dropping off household items every weekend or when neighbors complain about the noise of the local chop shop stripping parts. The well networked detectives will have their buddies tip them off and their Chief assign them those cases so they'll build up their resumes. But the people that actually do their jobs and investigate stuff properly and legally that isn't cherry picked don't get promoted. Eventually, everyone at the top are either bootlickers politicos or serial evidence fabricators.
So, realizing the problem, we face an daunting realization: Cops shouldn't be promoted on merit but on seniority. Sure, some competence is required. But introducing competitiveness to an occupation that basically relies on procedural "ask questions, collect evidence, fill report and hope for the best" is the recipe for the corrupt police state we're living in.
p.s. And I didn't even get to talk about how officers and departments actively sabotage each other by deliberately submitting lacking reports and misplacing evidences...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @05:11PM (2 children)
Really?, let's look for some citations.
From the ACLU, https://www.aclu.org/other/dna-testing-and-death-penalty/ [aclu.org], 273 cases have been overturned duo to DNA evidence, 17 of them death row inmates. It would be great if 273 people were the vast majority of inmates in the US or that 17 people were the vast majority of death row inmates. But I'm afraid that kind of ridiculous exaggeration makes me distrust the vast majority of your post.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @05:25PM (1 child)
Just to add (apparently your post hit a button on me this moring, go figure), according to wikipedia there are 2,706 death row inmates in the US. That's 0.6% (do not confuse with 60%, this is .006) of all death row inmates were overturned. While still disturbing, the phrase tiny, tiny minority seems to be a much better fit.
Hmm according to wiki again, in 2013, 2,220,300 were incarcerated, 273/2,220,300 ~ .0001, .01%, one percent of one percent, heh. While also disturbing, I'm not even sure that phrase tiny, tiny minority would be a good fit here.
I think the vast majority of your vision may be clouded by bias.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @06:20PM
Citation also needed for:
Pretty sure everyone from the judges, prosecutors, to the juries places a lot of faith in what cops have to say, even if they are lying through their teeth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @06:29PM
In all fairness, mobile phones and computers also increase the ability for criminals to communicate and store info. The Police did hove phone taps before. They were able to get warrants for searching/reading paper documents before (opening safes, etc.). They were able to bug person to person conversations before. Encryption does affect the police's ability to phone tap and access documents (although, to a lesser extent, mobile phones do make it easier to bug person to person conversations).
I'm not sure what the right answer is, but encryption is a change for the police.