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Barr’s Encryption Push Is Decades in the Making

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Re: Barr’s Encryption Push Is Decades in the Making

#161

Post by jeffdavis »

roywiggins wrote: post #141
jeffdavis wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 2nd Amendment specifically refers to "the people", therefore the power to infringe on the right to keep and bear arms is "prohibited by it [the Constitution] to the States", and therefore the right to keep and bear arms is reserved to the people.

Even Antonin Scalia's opinion in Heller allowed that gun regulation was not entirely forbidden by the 2nd amendment. Exactly how much is allowed was left pretty unclear. But insofar as some is allowed, the ability of the States to do it is specified in the 10th.

...and to the extent that a law does violate the 2nd Amendment, it is forbidden for the states to enforce such a law (and the 10th Amendment doesn't change that).

I don't see the relevance of the 10th Amendment to this particular discussion.

EDIT: I see. The person to whom you replied seemed to be looking for the power somewhere, and you are just saying that the states powers are not enumerated (as the federal powers are).

Re: Barr’s Encryption Push Is Decades in the Making

#162

Post by robomartin »

ptcampbell wrote: post #112
robomartin wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No argument there. I never understood the obsession with AR-15's when their contribution to crime, over, say, the last 20 years, is basically a rounding error. The only answer is: politics taking advantage of emotion for political gains. The best example of just how stupid the whole "assault ban gun" idea is found in Chicago, where the weekly carnage has not relented in years and the weapon of choice is nearly 100% h…

Yes I agree. To focus on the AR-15 is peculiar. All semi-automatics should be banned.

> All semi-automatics should be banned

My guess is this would not pass the constitutional test.

Without being an attorney, I would think the question would be one of an interpretation of the second amendment in the context of the argument. That's where I am having trouble. What is the argument being made in the context of restricting a right?

I know the intent or idea: If you can't fire at a rapid rate you can't hurt as many people per unit time. I get it. And this might be a solid argument. Yet I can see it having lots of holes when applied.

An obvious one has to do with whether or not we can restrict criminals. The answer is obviously "no". This is where a lot of these things fall apart.

If you can guarantee a society without weapons then everyone is comfortable not having any. Introduce asymmetry and the arms race begins.

The other argument is one about unfairly punishing law-abiding citizens.

I have presented this hypothetical in many conversations and nobody ever answers the question. It goes something like this:

Suppose I have you a couple of handguns and assault rifles, all the ammunition you want and trained you in their use at a high level of proficiency.

How long would it be until you take those weapons and shoot a bunch of innocent people?

How long would it be if I threaten to harm your loved ones unless you do it?

How long if I abduct a member of your family and threaten to harm them unless you do it?

If the answers to these questions are "never", how is restricting access to any hardware make us safer?

It does not.

This is a software problem. Brains. Not hardware. If it were a matter of hardware you'd eventually become a mass murderer simply because I gave you firearms and trained you. Not the case. Which means focusing on the hardware is the wrong path.

This is also the wrong path for a very different reason. Again, suppose I gave you all those guns, ammo and training. And 30 years later you haven't harmed anyone and never intend to. And then someone knocks on your door and says: You are a potential criminal because you own guns and therefore I am going to take some of your rights away. Anyone faced with such an accusation would think it is crazy, unfair, unjustified and plain wrong.

Focusing on the hardware is seen by gun owners as that very scenario. They are being told they are criminals. They know they are not and never will be. This strikes a deep nerve that has nothing to do with firearms. It's like telling someone they are criminals just because they own a ski mask. Honest people don't like to be characterized that way. And, as a result, they will defend their right to not be deemed guilty for doing nothing.

That's how the conversation stops and we never fix a thing.

If everyone got on the same boat and we talked about dealing with the real root causes of violence and crime everyone would join in. Call half the country "criminals" and you get nowhere.

Re: Barr’s Encryption Push Is Decades in the Making

#163

Post by javajosh »

mtgx wrote: post #115
javajosh wrote: post #19

Go through each of the Bill of Rights, and for each produce a scenario where that right would be used by a criminal to protect him or her from planning, executing, and avoiding detection of a crime. All individual rights are carved out from the default government, which is the one that takes absolute authority over all within its domain. North Korea is closest to this ideal today, but most vanilla monarchies were lik…

Yeah, but if you read closely their speeches, they're trying to paint this as if we shouldn't benefit from "warrantproof encryption" or be able to "resist a warrant". Leaving the technical details aside such as the fact that it's not possible to have a "secure backdoor" that won't ultimately be used by the (other) "bad guys", this is important because they make it seem as if this is the only way they'd ever use this…

In fairness, I think we want a panopticon. We just want to intentionally blind it when it comes to us; however, if there is evidence of a crime, I'm okay with accessing normally forbidden parts of the panopticon to find the wrong-doer. But yeah, they reach for too much power almost reflexively. IMHO every time law enforcement asks for more power, the people should be reflexively skeptical, even derisive. Tell me, are local police so bad at their job that they need these superpowers? This level of surveillance is akin to a WMD. They just don't need it and shouldn't get it, and should get punished (e.g. fired) for asking for it.

Re: Barr’s Encryption Push Is Decades in the Making

#164

Post by ptcampbell »

jeffdavis wrote: post #137
ptcampbell wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I agree. To focus on the AR-15 is peculiar. All semi-automatics should be banned.

Given that rifles are involved in such a small number of murders, why go to all the effort of including rifles in the ban? Seems like a big logistical challenge and you'd make a lot of your fellow citizens unhappy. If your proposal is to ban all semi-auto pistols (including from police) but allow all semi-auto rifles (without allowing state/local restrictions), you might get some traction. Such a plan would be better…

I'm not naive enough to think any ban would be easy, but the logistics aren't insurmountable. There has been a ban on assault weapons before. Eventually, there must be legislation to reduce access to military-style assault rifles such as those used in mass shootings.

Re: Barr’s Encryption Push Is Decades in the Making

#165

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

robomartin wrote: post #156
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, it isn’t, in a country of laws these things have weight and meaning. What is your point? Even if noone cares about what that piece of paper says, it still has "weight and meaning"? Or are you just repeating what I said using slightly different words, i.e., in a country where people care about what that piece of paper says, what that piece of paper says has weight and meaning? > If, on the other hand, we are tal…

I don't really understand what you are trying to say. In the US the Bill of Rights is taken very seriously by everyone, from citizens to the heights of government. That's just the way it is. Forgive me, I just don't know what you are trying to communicate.

The point is that your original statement that these rights don't require government in order to exist ist just false. These rights require that they are taken seriously by everyone, from citizens to the heights of government in order to exist in any meaningful sense. It may well be that having them written down in such a clear form as the Bill of Rights helps in forming that consensus, but in the end, the consensus is what determines whether those rights exist or not, not whether these rights are written down or which exact words were used.

And the further point is that there are plenty of people working to undermine those rights, and they don't need to change those words to be successful, they can also change how they are interpreted and how seriously they are taken in order to achieve their goal of undermining those rights, and that is what they usually do.

Re: Barr’s Encryption Push Is Decades in the Making

#166

Post by ptcampbell »

robomartin wrote: post #162
ptcampbell wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I agree. To focus on the AR-15 is peculiar. All semi-automatics should be banned.

> All semi-automatics should be banned My guess is this would not pass the constitutional test. Without being an attorney, I would think the question would be one of an interpretation of the second amendment in the context of the argument. That's where I am having trouble. What is the argument being made in the context of restricting a right? I know the intent or idea: If you can't fire at a rapid rate you can't hurt…

> If you can guarantee a society without weapons then everyone is comfortable not having any. Introduce asymmetry and the arms race begins.

I haven't seen any evidence of an arms race in Australia or NZ, for example.

> This is a software problem. Brains. Not hardware.

So it's the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument performed in staccato with additional tedious rhetoric. Could it be that no one has satisfactorily answered your hypothetical questions because despite you obviously thinking that you've cornered someone with your brilliant socratic method, that you've actually just thrown up a few straw men that are not worth delving into?

Re: Barr’s Encryption Push Is Decades in the Making

#167

Post by microcolonel »

robomartin wrote: post #34
javajosh wrote: post #19

Go through each of the Bill of Rights, and for each produce a scenario where that right would be used by a criminal to protect him or her from planning, executing, and avoiding detection of a crime. All individual rights are carved out from the default government, which is the one that takes absolute authority over all within its domain. North Korea is closest to this ideal today, but most vanilla monarchies were lik…

> All individual rights are carved out from the default government Not sure this is how you meant it. If you mean to say that rights come from governments that is not quite correct, at least not in the US. Rights, in the US, are not GRANTED by government, they are RECOGNIZED by the US Constitution to exist OUTSIDE OF GOVERNMENT (upper case is for emphasis only). In other words, these rights don't require government i…

> Not sure this is how you meant it. If you mean to say that rights come from governments that is not quite correct, at least not in the US.

I think the point he was making is that the default government is an ethical state of absolute tyranny: all of your natural rights are subservient to the state. In this sense, the rights are carved out of the government, even if they are natural rights.

Re: Barr’s Encryption Push Is Decades in the Making

#169

Post by BLKNSLVR »

robomartin wrote: post #149
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't often hear folks from the US complain about being stereotyped. Fair enough though, so long as it's applied consistently.

My opinion of this is that it has to come from movies and perhaps that portion of our mass media that is seen outside of the US. I remember watching CNN in my hotel room in Munich the first time I traveled to Europe a few decades back. I was absolutely horrified. Seriously. I used to watch CNN almost exclusively here in the US. In case someone wants to come back with a Fox News comment, know that at the time FNN did…

Thank you for your detailed reply, and I'm totally on board with how "American" is basically a meaningless term that means nothing except for, roughly, the citizenship status of an individual.

> And so, stereotyping Americans is, well, at the end of the day, fairly ignorant.

Any stereotyping is ignorant, and I'm sure you'd agree with that. Muslim, Christian, Catholic, Eastern European, Italian, Indian, Syrian, Computer Nerd, Musician, Redhead, Hipster, Bogan, Redneck, Boomer. No single word can encapsulate anything but one immediate descriptor of any individual.

This appears to be something that's been lost, and is only moving further away, in political discourse around the world, pandering to fear of stereotyped groups. And politicians only use it because it works. Sadly.

Re: Barr’s Encryption Push Is Decades in the Making

#170

Post by robomartin »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #169
robomartin wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My opinion of this is that it has to come from movies and perhaps that portion of our mass media that is seen outside of the US. I remember watching CNN in my hotel room in Munich the first time I traveled to Europe a few decades back. I was absolutely horrified. Seriously. I used to watch CNN almost exclusively here in the US. In case someone wants to come back with a Fox News comment, know that at the time FNN did…

Thank you for your detailed reply, and I'm totally on board with how "American" is basically a meaningless term that means nothing except for, roughly, the citizenship status of an individual. > And so, stereotyping Americans is, well, at the end of the day, fairly ignorant. Any stereotyping is ignorant, and I'm sure you'd agree with that. Muslim, Christian, Catholic, Eastern European, Italian, Indian, Syrian, Comput…

Yup. Outrage and emotion coupled with ignorance seems to be the modern formula to get votes. Add to that the weaponization of social media and we have awesome election-winning technology.
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