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Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

jonathanmh.com

11–20 of 337 posts

Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#11
post #4

I think a lot of libertarians miss the fact that many of the communications monitoring aspects that the administration is proposing includes authorization by court order. It's not like your communications are being monitored by random government employees at will for no reason. There's a specific safeguard here for personal privacy, and that's through a court order. If government is monitoring your communications, th…

> If you don't trust judicial review, there's no hope left for you to function in a normal society

I would like to hear your definition of normal society. I personally feel that there are thousands of unique societies in the world.

Considering that technology knows no borders, I hope you and the "society filled with other people" have normal society figured out for us all.

Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#12
post #4

I think a lot of libertarians miss the fact that many of the communications monitoring aspects that the administration is proposing includes authorization by court order. It's not like your communications are being monitored by random government employees at will for no reason. There's a specific safeguard here for personal privacy, and that's through a court order. If government is monitoring your communications, th…

Communications are already being monitored by random government employees with no judicial review. The FISA court is already a rubber stamp. Encryption is one of the only ways to non-passively protest. Edit: Can't reply to my replies, likely because of the down votes on my parent's comment. Re: FISA, yes to both. That anecdote may be truth but I am still hung up on NSA employee looking up ex-girlfriends' emails the d…

Again, good luck building your own army. My army can beat your army.

As a citizen, you are expected to trust the FISA court.

Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#13
post #4

I think a lot of libertarians miss the fact that many of the communications monitoring aspects that the administration is proposing includes authorization by court order. It's not like your communications are being monitored by random government employees at will for no reason. There's a specific safeguard here for personal privacy, and that's through a court order. If government is monitoring your communications, th…

Communications are already being monitored by random government employees with no judicial review. The FISA court is already a rubber stamp. Encryption is one of the only ways to non-passively protest. Edit: Can't reply to my replies, likely because of the down votes on my parent's comment. Re: FISA, yes to both. That anecdote may be truth but I am still hung up on NSA employee looking up ex-girlfriends' emails the d…

I hear this a lot, what is the basis of considering the FISA court merely a rubber stamp?

Is it the approval rate? Is it the lack of transparency?

If it's the approval rate, in my experience the reason why court warrant approvals are so high is because intelligence / law enforcement are very risk adverse and will not submit requests that are likely to be rejected. Anecdotally, the officers I talked to considered it career poison to submit a request that got rejected by a court.

Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#14
post #8
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing is being missed other than the premise that you can only create a back door that just compromises your privacy and security to the FBI/NSA. A backdoor available to the US Govt, is a backdoor available for everyone.

This is more fundamental than any "back door". The question here is: do you place any trust in government? If not, then you really can't function in a normal society. Good luck building your own army. And my army can beat your army.

Way too sweeping a question.

I can have trust in a government, but not in some of the individuals that make up that government. And I would want necessary protection from said individuals.

Enter: encryption.

Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#15
post #9

This is incredibly naive bordering on puerile. To suggest that POTUS' view on this is without nuance is to miss his point. POTUS went on to cite existing warrant mechanisms and their underlying principle: "And we agree on that, because we recognize that just like all of our other rights ... that there are going to be some constraints we impose so we are safe, secure and can live in a civilized society." I'm not sugge…

but there is no "balance" when somethig is binary. You either have encryption or you don't.

Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#16
post #4

I think a lot of libertarians miss the fact that many of the communications monitoring aspects that the administration is proposing includes authorization by court order. It's not like your communications are being monitored by random government employees at will for no reason. There's a specific safeguard here for personal privacy, and that's through a court order. If government is monitoring your communications, th…

The U.S. government has already shown that it is willing to abuse the law and create loopholes. Maybe the FBI will need a court order, but once the back door exists, what's to stop the NSA, or North Korea, from using it and finding ways to exploit that vulnerability. Freedom has a cost and we need to accept that. There are no free lunches here.

Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#17
post #4

I think a lot of libertarians miss the fact that many of the communications monitoring aspects that the administration is proposing includes authorization by court order. It's not like your communications are being monitored by random government employees at will for no reason. There's a specific safeguard here for personal privacy, and that's through a court order. If government is monitoring your communications, th…

> If you don't trust judicial review, then there's no hope left for you to function in a normal society filled with other people.

This is an extreme statement and a false dichotomy. I think there's plenty of room between "completely trust government" and "unfit for society". If I'm uncomfortable with the potential for abuse of monitoring (which has already happened plenty of times), that means what exactly? I should remove myself from public discourse?

Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#18
post #10
post #4

I think a lot of libertarians miss the fact that many of the communications monitoring aspects that the administration is proposing includes authorization by court order. It's not like your communications are being monitored by random government employees at will for no reason. There's a specific safeguard here for personal privacy, and that's through a court order. If government is monitoring your communications, th…

> It's not like your communications are being monitored by random government employees at will for no reason. There's a specific safeguard here for personal privacy, and that's through a court order. That argument had weight pre-Snowden. It carries no water now.

You mean the Snowden revelations that show filters that filtered out communications of US citizens without a court order?

Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#20
post #9

This is incredibly naive bordering on puerile. To suggest that POTUS' view on this is without nuance is to miss his point. POTUS went on to cite existing warrant mechanisms and their underlying principle: "And we agree on that, because we recognize that just like all of our other rights ... that there are going to be some constraints we impose so we are safe, secure and can live in a civilized society." I'm not sugge…

but there is no "balance" when somethig is binary. You either have encryption or you don't.

So Apple either designs their phones such that they themselves can't hack them, or they have to comply with government court orders.
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