From the article:
(emphasis added)
Er, he isn’t exactly helping his case with an implicit admission that, ah, sometimes they happen to have a valid search warrant, sometimes not, eh, whatevs.
You got a problem with profit? Sounds un-American to me! Better keep closer tabs on you, comrade…
You already voluntarily divulge that information to for-profit corporations day in and day out. Why do you care if the government knows, and why do you think the government cares?
This is all circular; the argument boils down to “I don’t want the government in my business because the government shouldn’t be in my business, and they shouldn’t be in my business because I don’t want them in my business.”
Precisely. It boils down to irrefutable facts:
Electronic communication and commerce are essential to modern civilization.
Electronic communication and commerce needs strong security (considerably better than it has now) to prevent it from being crippled by cybercrooks.
The level of security required is incompatible with the routine mass surveillance upon which the Feds have become indolently dependent.
Q. E.D.
You insist on calling me names as if name-calling suffices for an argument. Do you think I’ll be so shamed by a dirty name that I’ll concede to being wrong?
If I’m not doing anything illegal, then the government has no reason to care what I’m doing in the first place, and they won’t bother with me. If I’m doing something illegal, then I have no right to hide it from the government, and I deserve to be captured and punished for it.
I don’t know. Can you?
I’m not.
Some do. Some opt out. I expect one of the following in your next post:
A link to the NSA, CIA, and FBI “opt-out” links.
An admission that you made a fool of yourself (again).
Which is correct. I assert my rights for any reason, or no reason.
I’m sure none of us expects you to be shamed under any circumstances whatsoever.
Say, were you that guy yelling “They’re in the attic!” at that performance of The Diary of Anne Frank?
Good luck opting out of having a bank account, being filmed by convenience store security cameras, or using the internet. I practically guarantee Walmart knows more about your vaunted and sacred “private” information than the government does.
So it’s less a matter of any actual harm or need for protection, than it is a matter of being the entitled jackass shouting at the cashier about how I PAY YOUR SALARY and THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT.
Well, I wish it had been my question (thanks).
Upthread, an allusion was made to case law about such situations. Can you help, please, Bricker, esq.
My opinion, as uninformed as it is, is that of course a warrant should compel a person to disclose his password (as well as to surrender the phone that uses it). If not, the warrant is a powerless tool and I will presume that would be unacceptable to legislators and the courts.
Regarding the specific defence of ‘self incrimination’, such a tactic obviously won’t work to deny law enforcement entrance into your home if they had a warrant to search it. “Officers, don’t come in because what you find here may incriminate me”? How are smartphones different?
Then what are you worried about?
I now realize that the only thing that counts is whether it’s unacceptable to the Constitution.
Bolding mine
Fifth Amendment be damned!
This isn’t about mass surveillance, it’s about the police not being able to execute a legitimate warrant. Questions about whether a private individual can put a camera in your bedroom - or even whether the FBI can without a warrant - are irrelevant.
The question that matters is, should technology be sold that, by default, acts in a manner that is solely designed to hide things from searches even when those searches are legitimate? It has nothing to do with spying or cybercrime, as no-one is suggesting banning encryption, only ensuring that manufacturer-provided encryption can be broken by the manufacturer should they receive a warrant.
It’s not a privacy issue, as you don’t have a right to privacy in the face of a search warrant.
Also note his use of the word “easily.” Which suggests they could maybe still get the data- it would just be harder.
Recent events have taught most of us that we can expect the government to go through our data even without a warrant.
It is a privacy issue and it is not “solely designed to hide things from searches.” It is designed to protect customers from illegal searches. If the government wants to search a phone, they can present a warrant to the phone’s owner/user just like they present a warrant to the owner or occupant of a house rather than the builder of the house.
Do you feel the same way about computers? There has been nary a peep of complaint that full disk encryption has become easy and available for laptops for years. Most businesses use full disk encryption for both privacy and to protect trade secrets, including on phones. If there is a back door for the government, it can also be leveraged by adversaries.
That the cops would prevent me from buying a piece of software or downloading an app that would allow me to secure my stuff from unsavory types, just so they can get at somebody else’s unsavory stuff.
This isn’t just about protection from overweening government agents. A bunch of famous people have just had some of their private pictures leaked all over the Internet. If The Company (whichever company it is) has a “backdoor” to my data, that is not only something that can be used by the government (either legitimately, acting upon a warrant issued upon probable cause and particularly describing the object of the search…or maybe not so legitimately), it is also potentially something that some busy little hacker could find out about and exploit.
If there’s been a rash of home invasion robberies in my neighborhood, I have a right to install stronger doors and put burglar bars on my windows. That this might also inconvenience some hypothetical SWAT team is just too darned bad.
Because there’s a fundamental human right to privacy which needs to be respected and is an inherent part of the natural value of human beings?
More pragmatically, because I do not trust my government unconditionally? Because it is not some vast, monolithic entity with the sole purpose of doing good (this is almost exactly the same spiel I give conservatives who blame “big government” for everything wrong with the world) but rather is made up of people. And people can be vindictive, shitty, and all-around unpleasant. The fact that I very much enjoy Twixie shipping involving particularly violent and vindictive sex is entirely legal. But would I want the cop who has pulled me over to know that I’m into that shit? Do you think it would increase his odds of being unfair to me if he saw those pictures on my phone? Or hell, just a simpler example - a closeted gay teacher in the south.
It’s not circular, it’s axiomatic. “They shouldn’t be in my business because the right to privacy is a fundamental human right”.
Well, yes. There’s a necessary trade off between total privacy or security and allowing the police to do their job. It seems to me that a reasonable compromise is allowing someone to make an active choice to encrypt, but not having it done by default. Along with making it a serious crime not to decrypt a drive when faced with a warrant, with no allowance for not remembering the password. That would reduce the need for back doors.
How about something like the following.
Company has decrypt key. Government has a different one. Heck, maybe make a third party who’s only job is to have yet another key and keep it safe until needed. All two/three needed to get the job done.
Allows warrants to be executed, but nefarious hacking attempts would be a bitch to pull off.