The Moral Failure of Computer Scientists

1. Create accountability mechanisms a la GAO working alongside these organizations ensuring they follow the law and imprison offenders.

2. Create a court that approves most of what they do, never imprisons offenders, and operates in secret.

America went with No 2. Further, most of those caught red-handed didn't do time. Americans also didn't push hard for reform with their votes. Intelligence and oversight fought back and forth but effective immunity let their corruption and power expand over time. It went into overdrive post-9/11 where people not only didn't do crap: they encouraged giving secrecy, vast power, and criminal immunity to the very groups that failed pre-9/11.

So, this didn't happen in a vacuum and isn't today. American's apathy and frankly ignorance is what gave scumbags a series of blank checks with immunity. Americans didn't do anything learning about Iraq WMD's, 2008 frauds, Snowden leaks, and so on. Largely nothing but griping. Meanwhile, in Iceland, they straight up overthrew their dirty government after 2008 abuses and passed new laws protecting their citizens. Exactly what Americans have to do.

Let's say they don't. Then, Congress continues passing police state style legislation, secret agencies bribe our ISP's/whoever, fabs eventually get compromised, dissidents are harassed via many means, opponents with dirt are jailed via parallel construction, patent system will be used against tech companies trying to solve it, and so on. Damn near pointless to try to technologically solve a problem that a country's citizens and politicians are creating and expanding with laws that can attack users of the tech.

All this shit is Americans' fought. Their common sense should've told them giving God-like knowledge and power to already-dirty groups was stupid. Doing it with secrecy and immunity was stupider. Not doing anything post abuses was foolish. My money is on them still being fools aiding surveillance state 5 years from now. They have to wise up and remove the internal threats' legal authority before technical solutions have a chance.

So should developers, and entrepreneurs, and politicians, and the common citizen that thinks AES is some foreign sports conference or IND-CCA is a new trade agreement.

I'm growing tired of watching journos try to point the fingers of "encryption is good, says cryptographers" and "encryption is bad, says this guy in a federal law enforcement position" and completely miss the greater point that unless everyone takes on the surveillance state, everyone will lose. The intelligence community is made up of humans. Some of them are there idealistically; others are there solely for power, just like in any megapolitical organization.

Should take on the surveillance state is a shit clickbait title. It can always be reduced to:

Should you take on the surveillance state?

If you care at all about a semblance of privacy and the expression of individual ideas, the answer is always yes. Of course, there's a whole lot less to write about there to generate ad revenue.

Any approach in which a single subculture, whether it is thought leaders or soccer moms, tries to enact meaningful change in a system that at least pretends to be a representative democracy, will not be enough to reach a critical mass to actually do something. Cultures correct negative behavior through consistent reinforcement of a norm. Until people want privacy as a norm, and fight for privacy as a norm, the flames fueling a surveillance state are simply being retarded, not extinguished.

Without just a little bit of evidence, they are like saying the NSA will shoot your dog.

My naive, facile reading suggests that systems like Signal, Pond and Tor tend to be more effective at actually securing communications, so it would be especially interesting to hear about the jackboots kicking them.

What's all this talk about America? We've been talking about China the whole time. You're seriously blaming the Chinese people for their heavy-handed government? By focusing their work in directions that harm freedom, computer scientists and developers make it easier for the Chinese government to use surveillance to hold onto power.

100% agree. The overall solution will combine technological methods and legal reforms. We continue developing and implementing what technical solutions we can for privacy and security in general. Just have to never fool ourselves on what it will take to stop the huge internal threat.