Absolutely Disgusting: Eric Holder Implies That Mobile Encryption Will Lead To Dead & Abused Kids
from the shameful dept
Well, you knew it was coming. First, law enforcement trotted out random low level "law enforcement officials" to freak out about Apple and Google's announced plans to make encryption the default on mobile phones. Then it got taken up a notch when FBI boss James Comey lashed out at the idea, bizarrely arguing that merely encrypting your data made individuals "above the law" (none of that is accurate). And, now, Comey's boss, Attorney General Eric Holder has stepped up to issue a similar warning. However, Holder has cynically chosen to do so at the Biannual Global Alliance Conference Against Child Sexual Abuse Online.At this point, it's all too predictable that when anyone in power is getting ready to take away your rights, they'll figure out a way to claim that it's "for the children!" The statements over the past week by law enforcement, Comey and now Holder are clearly a coordinated attack -- the start of the new crypto wars (a repeat of what we went through a decade and a half ago), designed to pass some laws that effectively cripple encryption and put backdoors in place. Holder's take on this is to cynically pull on heartstrings about "protecting the children" despite this having nothing, whatsoever, to do with that.
When a child is in danger, law enforcement needs to be able to take every legally available step to quickly find and protect the child and to stop those that abuse children. It is worrisome to see companies thwarting our ability to do so.Again, as stated last week, the same argument could be made about walls and doors and locks.
It is fully possible to permit law enforcement to do its job while still adequately protecting personal privacy.The key issue here is "adequately" and forgive many of us for saying so, but the public no longer trusts the DOJ/NSA/FBI to handle these things appropriately. And, just as importantly, we have little faith that the backdoors that the DOJ is pushing for here aren't open to abuse by others with malicious intent. Protecting personal privacy is about protecting personal privacy -- and the way you do that is with encryption. Not backdoors.
But Holder used this opportunity to cynically pile on about criminals using encryption, rather than noting any of the important benefits towards privacy they provide:
Recent technological advances have the potential to greatly embolden online criminals, providing new methods for abusers to avoid detection. In some cases, perpetrators are using cloud storage to cheaply and easily store tens of thousands of images and videos outside of any home or business – and to access those files from anywhere in the world. Many take advantage of encryption and anonymizing technology to conceal contraband materials and disguise their locations.The DOJ has long wanted to restart the crypto wars that it lost (very badly) last time around (even though that "loss" helped enable parts of the internet to thrive by making it more secure). For years it's been looking to do things like reopen wiretapping statutes like CALEA and mandate wiretap backdoors into all sorts of technology. Now it's cynically jumping on this bit of news about Apple and Google making it just slightly easier to protect your privacy to try to re-open those battles and shove through new laws that will emphatically decrease your privacy.
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Filed Under: children, encryption, eric holder, fud, hype, mobile
Reader Comments
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The way to curb psychopaths is to keep them out of the phones of your children. Because it gives them power to wield over your children.
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That's just crazy. Hmm... we better get you in to treatment.
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Agreed. That is such a miniscule problem, it would not be worth the expense or invasion of privacy.
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Dangers exist. You may die of a plane falling in your head right now. Or lightning. Or the ground collapsing under you. Or a mugging. Or some schizophrenic deciding to stab you. Or some SWAT raid gone wrong. What are you gonna do? Isolate yourself in a bubble? Why not just live your life while mitigating the risks without being paranoid?
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Too late. He's already fallen into the hands of Eric Holder.
Sad to say, this psychopath is not fictional.
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Silver lining
It's pretty obvious they're panicking, doing everything they can to undermine the rollout of increase encryption and slip in backdoors for what's there, and they'd only do so if said encryption was giving them problems, and since the more problems they have the better, the shrillness of their claims is actually a good thing I'd argue, as it suggests that they're getting desperate.
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Re: Silver lining
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Re: Re: Silver lining
Let me provide the last 2 presidents as proof of how tolerant people are of their worthless leaders.
Bush started the DHS with the blessings of the left, and now that the left are in charge they are thoroughly enjoying the power laying around extensively. Bet they scream like girls if a Repuke makes it to office.
We are truly living up to the warning George Washington warned us of if we keep this party/identity bullshit going!
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Re: Re: Re: Silver lining
This is why Dems should be crying foul right now with all the abuses of the current administration. I am sure many think it is funny that the IRS targeted the right, but what are they goign to say if the right targets the left? Freedom and liberty can only be maintained when all sides are free from abuse from the other sides.
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207758391128b98297a12270b54eed29
Have a nice day.
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Their threats
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Re: Their threats
They will counter that you are an adult who may choose that philosophy but that you do not have the right to decide that for a child (IOW, you're not thinking OF THE CHILDREN, tsk, tsk)
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Re: Re: Their threats
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Encryption Protects Children
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Think of the children
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What drives me crazy!
So what is this big media push about? At the end of the day, the issue doesn't have anything to do with phone encryption (which has been offered in the popular mobile OSs for years). What we're hearing, is that the issue regards the minor change of making the already-existing encryption feature turned on as the default setting. Think about that for a moment.
The PR push is basically saying: if the already-existing encryption feature is enabled by default, children will be raped.
This doesn't make any sense to me. The people who gain security from having the encryption enabled by default are the people who don't care to encrypt their phones in the first place because THEY'RE NOT RAPING CHILDREN.
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Re: What drives me crazy!
I could be mistaken, but I think it's more than that. I think it's about who has the keys. Before, Apple had encryption keys. The government could go to Apple and they had the capability to decrypt a user's files. With this new system, Apple doesn't have the keys, only the user has them. So even if the government threatens to kill their children, Apple literally cannot decrypt the files, because they don't have the key needed to do so.
What the government is screaming about is that they're losing the ability to lean on a few big compliant corporations to decrypt stuff, and will now have to get warrants against a larger number of individuals, many of whom will be much less cooperative.
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Not Just Paedos
Just look at how many DOJ investigations that have failed to produce prosec- oh, +$@@;@!
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Re: Not Just Paedos
Actually, this isn't true. The SEC already requires open access to all email, SMS, etc., of all those in the financial community.
So Holder can't blame his misfeasance on encrypted financial community communications.
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Re: Re: Not Just Paedos
So Holder can't blame his misfeasance on encrypted financial community communications.
Unless they have multiple hard drive failures by key people. wink,wink,nudge,nudge
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Re: Not Just Paedos
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How many abducted children are still alive when the alarm is raised, except when they have a report of a kid being bundled into a vehicle?
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Who else will have the key?
If anyone doubts this, remember:
1. The walker spy ring, which sold USA's most secure Navy codes to the Soviets (for mere pennies, BTW).
2. The Robert Hanssen case, where the FBI's top counterintelligence officer was a Soviet Spy.
3. All the ones who haven't been caught yet (Hanssen got away with it for 22 years).
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Re: Who else will have the key?
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Re: Re: Who else will have the key?
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Re: Who else will have the key?
Perhaps you're not seeing it in the comments because it was already covered in the article: "And, just as importantly, we have little faith that the backdoors that the DOJ is pushing for here aren't open to abuse by others with malicious intent."
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Re: Who else will have the key?
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You forced their hand...
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Re: You forced their hand...
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Re: You forced their hand...
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Think of the children!
Seriously, yes, the children are our future, but protecting them from the world means they are not learning from anything and the world will just go down in flames.
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Re: Think of the children!
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Why bother fighting encryption?
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But encryption protects children?
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Re: But encryption protects children?
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However, right now, today, how much harm is being done due to lack of encryption? Harm and abuse, and not just by government agencies that think they're above the law?
And not just children, think of the adults, think of the businesses.
Identity theft, release of private photos & email to the press. Harm to businesses by foreign countries. Stolen R&D, technology.
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Safe - misnomer?
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We need a super-upvote for Applesauce!!!
I do wonder if law enforcement had issues with lock technology as it became more sophisticated and less expensive. When house locks started to appear, did police worry about criminals being able to lock officers out of a building?
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Mr. Holder, the only worrisome thing here is your decision to use such a venue to denounce encryption. Perhaps you'd like to pursue other venues such as a children's hospital and tell them they're all there because of encryption. Your actions are shockingly disgusting and will only serve to alienate.
Those companies thwarting this "ability" you claim are merely responding to YOUR government's actions with personal privacy. You should accept that as the consequence of spying on everyone.
And anyone who uses "greatly embolden" in this line of dialogue & context (such as yourself), is flat out lying and/or has no idea of what they're talking about.
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Has crying wolf on terrorism lost its ability to sway the population, is that why you are now resorting to the big gun of fear statements, "For the Children".
I for one cringe every time I hear the words "to protect you from (insert flavor of the day threat here)" or "for the children". History shows, each time these phrases are used, you are attempting to reduce peoples rights.
I am sure that most people, would prefer children live under the threat of abduction, rather than the totalitarian, 1984 style surveillance state, the US federal government seems intent on creating.
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No loss with him gone
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I also agree his statement is poorly worded. Mr. Holder, do you and Comey have the same writer?
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Shouldn't that read "embiggen online criminals"? It appears that this comment is perfectly cromulent.
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adequately
I believe that the only person who can decide whether my privacy is "adequately" protected is me, not the government.
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Statistics
I look forward to the day when the people of the world outside the USA decide that to save the world, they must invade the US and force them all to learn about statistics, with mandatory refresher classes every so many years or whenever one of them says something like what I quoted above.
Someone once joked that all the molecules in a glass of beer might all line up through Brownian Motion and decide to leap out of the glass. Yes, the potential is there but how likely is it? Not very. Vanishingly small, in fact.
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I have an idea!
What's that, Mr. Holder? I can't have them because it's private information? Well, why should you get my information then?
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I would be loving this right now, except the country is going down the tubes
I know, I know, you are going to say that Dems/Repubs are 2 sides of the same coin and you are absolutely right. But many here, before seeing Obama and his chronies destroying this country, were crowing big time. Now that we see that the liberal lies are in fact lies, the crows are silent. Of course they have their old standby cries of racism, war on women, this phobia and that phobia. They don't seem to have slowed down there. But the economic, domestic and foreign policies have been shown to be the failures that they are.
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Once Investigators narrow down a list of suspects, they will then switch over to the more fine grain GPS logs to track a potential suspect's movements throughout the day in question.
Holder is totally misrepresenting how a child abduction investigation actually operates. The last stage of the investigation involves confronting the suspect, searching their cellphone for pictures and most importantly. Checking the suspect's car, clothing, and pecker for DNA evidence.
In no way did disk encryption impede the most crucial early stages of the investigation. Using service provider logs to narrow down the list of suspects who were in the vicinity where the crime occurred.
There's also street cameras, store cameras, and automated license plate readers keeping a record of any vehicles or personnel in the area. Not to mention witness statements.
If the DOJ can't solve a crime using all these investigative avenues, then disk encryption on phones is the least of their concern.
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Every time the DOJ brings up child abuse, it's as a straw man to promote their political agenda.
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I did.
Who'd want to bring children into this authoritarian dictatorship?
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I guess we better prepare for the next Crypto War.
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How ironic
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TLA knee jerk
It's like the knee reflex: They can't see anything that isn't already "theirs," without throwing a tantrum, "I Want it!!! I want it!!! I want it!!!"
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The real terrorists!
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So what you are trying to say is...
Now I understand it so much better Holden.
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Let's stop for a moment and reflect on this statement. I wholeheartedly agree that law enforcement must take every “legally available step” to find and protect children from abusers. This means, going to a judge in a publicly accessible court system with probable cause and obtaining a search warrant, which is required to over-ride the individual's “right to privacy.” It's been the law of the land for over 200 years.
This right to privacy is what gives citizens the ability to purchase products that allow them to secure that right to privacy. For example, doors, locks, curtains, safes, etc, all give the user at least a semblance of privacy in their residence. Yet, none of the companies selling these items are considered to be thwarting the government's ability to stop child abusers. WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE? OMG, business' that construct buildings are preventing law enforcement from seeing the abuse! They must be stopped because..........
….....think of the children!
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