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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: 3, Insightful) by mendax on Monday July 23 2018, @12:50AM (6 children)
When will these law enforcement fucks ever understand that the genie is out of the bottle, that strong encryption is here to stay and that it's not going away, even if it is made illegal. Furthermore, there is something else that these dumb fucks need to understand: In the United States, anonymous communications is a First Amendment right. These cock suckers be able to somehow make an encrypted phone illegal (even though it will only mean the bad guys will have the encrypted phones), but they will never be able to effectively legislate away the right to anonymous communications.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @12:52AM
Let's see if you feel the same way when they apply 120 volts to your testicles, terrorist scumbag.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday July 23 2018, @01:25AM (4 children)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/10/31/a-setback-for-first-amendment-protection-for-anonymous-speech/ [washingtonpost.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Anonymous_speech [wikipedia.org]
The text doesn't explicitly mention anonymity. All it takes is a few Supreme Court decisions to erase that "right". Have all the free speech you want, as long as we can identify you!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by mendax on Monday July 23 2018, @05:59AM (1 child)
Okay, granted that its not explicitly engrained in the First Amendment, but Talley v. California and McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission (both mentioned in the Wikipedia article you mentioned) are the settled precedents. I suspect it is unlikely for even a conservative Supreme Court to overturn those.
The case cited in that Washington Post article deals with Illinois law. A similar law was tossed [eff.org] by the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday July 23 2018, @11:57AM
Wishful thinking.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @08:57AM (1 child)
Nor does it need to, since it's logically implied. Restricting anonymous speech necessarily restricts speech, via chilling effects and because the anonymity is actually part of the speech.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday July 23 2018, @12:05PM
Here's the new logic. You are free to speak whatever you want, but you aren't free to hide your identity. Your identity has nothing to do with the contents of your speech/writing. Better yet, your requests (metadata) to and from your ISP and web servers have nothing to do with your speech.
The Constitution means whatever the Supreme Court decides it means in the latest case. Precedents can and will be crushed by the Supreme Court.
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