DHS Opening Office In Silicon Valley To More Efficiently Complain To Tech Companies About Encryption
from the we-have-no-solutions-but-we-do-have-plenty-of-talking-points! dept
If only the endlessly-escalating West Coast cost of living could have prevented this:
Today I am pleased to announce that the Department of Homeland Security is also finalizing plans to open up a satellite office in Silicon Valley, to serve as another point of contact with our friends here. We want to strengthen critical relationships in Silicon Valley and ensure that the government and the private sector benefit from each other’s research and development.That's Jeh Johnson addressing the crowd at the RSA Conference. Of all the news no one wanted to hear, this has to be close to the top of the list. Three-lettered government agencies are pretty much NIMBY as far as the tech world is concerned, especially after Snowden's revelations have seriously and swiftly eroded trust in the government.
No one wants a next-door neighbor who's going to constantly be dropping by for a cup of decryption."Let me be clear: I understand the importance of what doors bring to privacy. But, imagine the problems if, well after humanity moved out of caves, the warrant authority of the government to investigate crime had only extended to dwellings without doors."
The current course we are on, toward deeper and deeper encryption in response to the demands of the marketplace, is one that presents real challenges for those in law enforcement and national security.
Let me be clear: I understand the importance of what encryption brings to privacy. But, imagine the problems if, well after the advent of the telephone, the warrant authority of the government to investigate crime had extended only to the U.S. mail.
Our inability to access encrypted information poses public safety challenges. In fact, encryption is making it harder for your government to find criminal activity, and potential terrorist activity.
We in government know that a solution to this dilemma must take full account of the privacy rights and expectations of the American public, the state of the technology, and the cybersecurity of American businesses.
We need your help to find the solution.
Bullshit. The DHS, along with other law enforcement agencies -- is seeking is the path of least resistance. It can get warrants to search encrypted devices. It just may not be able to immediately crack them open and feast on the innards. It may also get court orders to compel decryption. This is far less assured and risks dragging the Fifth Amendment down to the Fourth's level, but it's still an option.
Then there's the option of subpoenaing third parties, like cloud storage services, to find the content that can't be accessed on the phone. So, it's not as though it's locked out forever. This may happen occasionally but it won't suddenly turn law enforcement into a wholly futile pursuit.
Silicon Valley isn't going to help the DHS "find a solution." There isn't one. The DHS may as well get some legislation going and force companies to provide a stupid "good guys only" backdoor because the tech world already knows you can't keep bad guys out with broken encryption. This should be painfully obvious and yet, the "good guy" agencies seem to think tech companies are just holding out on them.
From there, Johnson switches to his most disingenuous rhetorical device: the assertion that Americans are clamoring for an unrealistic level of safety.
I tell audiences that I can build you a perfectly safe city on a hill, but it will constitute a prison.Who the fuck is asking you to do that? The only people pushing for "perfectly safe" are government agencies who like big budgets and increased power and the private companies that profit from this sort of fearmongering. Most Americans are far more pragmatic and they'd rather keep what's left of their privacy and civil liberties, even if it means the safety of the country is slightly less assured.
And this makes me want to vomit with contempt:
In the name of homeland security, we can build more walls, erect more screening devices, interrogate more people, and make everybody suspicious of each other, but we should not do this at the cost of who we are as a nation of people who cherish privacy and freedom to travel, celebrate our diversity, and who are not afraid.THAT IS LITERALLY ALL YOU HAVE DONE SINCE 2001.
In the name of "homeland security," we have TSA agents groping people, breaking their luggage, humiliating people with medical issues and stealing personal belongings -- all without ever having prevented a single attempted hijacking or bombing. In the name of "national security," we have indulged every nosy do-gooder with numerous hotlines to report their neighbors' ownership of luggage or cameras or pressure cookers. In the name of the "war on terror," we have a 100-mile buffer zone around the nation's borders that nearly completely eliminates every Constitutional protection.
Jeh Johnson hasn't been in the position long, but he's already descended into inadvertent self-parody. This speech was apparently delivered with complete sincerity, which means Johnson has no idea how his agency is perceived. There are very few people who believe the DHS is some sort of civil liberties champion. Jeh Johnson is obviously one of them.
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Filed Under: dhs, encryption, homeland security, jeh johnson, silicon valley
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Their Current Batch
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Hail hitler!!!
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So the vehicle is driving down the freeway, and the officers are trucking right along with it, searching away... do they use skateboards to keep up with it, or something? Rocket-propelled hover-skateboards, I suppose.
'Cause, you know, a stop would be a seizure.
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The people stop. But the car keeps driving down the road.
I feel like an idiot now. Why didn't I see that before? It makes so much sense. The car keeps driving down the road. Along with all the belongings inside. Only the people stop.
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From the shear bulk of traffic you don't have to guess that no one decided to get a warrant for each and every vehicle that passed through.
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Let me change my wording again, so your trollish pedantry can not get in the way of my question. Has the go ahead to search a vehicle within 100 miles of the border to determine the presence, or lack thereof, of aliens been interpreted to allow the collection of possessions, papers, and/or electronic devices unrelated to the presence, or lack thereof, of aliens? By interpreted I mean has this been attempted by border patrol. I am asking because after much investigation into previous tech dirt posts on this topic, I can't find the case where these two rulings have actually been conflated to create the hypotetical 100-mile constitution free zone.
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Why don't you try reading the ACLU's explanation of the problem.
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In essence, he's attempting to draw a distinction closely related to the one that the California Supreme Court attempted in Breindlin (2007). In that case, California argued that stopping a car doesn't amount to seizing the passengers. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, the California Supremes felt that— The California Supremes, of course, were reversed on that.
This poster's argument seems to be that when the U.S. Supreme Court authorized the operation of fixed checkpoints in Martinez-Fuerte (1976), the Supreme Court did not authorize any meaningful interference with possessory interests in personal property. That is, a checkpoint which stops a car doesn't actually require the car to change its trajectory.
In short, he supposes that seizing a person doesn't amount to a seizure of the clothes that the person's wearing.
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So how did the American citizen live without a computer that didn't open their lives up to minute inspection in the past? It is strongly evident that law enforcement today doesn't mind ignoring the US Constitution. Passing laws, especially secret laws, does not make them legal, any more than the local politician with a case of the ass against, baggy trousers making a law against them not because they are some sort of dress code violation but because they are baggy.
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Warrants are Fine
Warrants are fine. No one has a problem with them. But here's what the warrant process looks like: an investigator goes to a judge and gets approval, and then serves the warrant for the single device or account in question directly to the owner of that device or account being investigated.
What the government is asking for here goes well beyond warrants, and makes Americans question whether or not we really are still "secure in our ... papers and effects."
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Re: Warrants are Fine
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But we are clamoring for safety
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Useless conversation
That is the world we live in.
The conversation between Silicon Valley fighting for the fourth ammendment and the government fighting for backdoors is a waste of time in the world we live in today.
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Re: Useless conversation
Not a fact. Many if not most people do not have that kind of ability ability and security should not be limited to those who do.
Try again.
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Most of them will be either branches of traditional "beltway bandits", and small companies that are quickly bought up by the same. The only innovation will be in how creatively the proposals are written.
Because dealing with the government requires a specialized approach. One that doesn't put progress above correctly submitting paperwork and fulfilling contract requirements precisely.
What they won't get is easy access to the largest companies -- the ones they want to influence. It's fine for a company like RSA to get a bad reputation for putting backdoors into their products. It would be a disaster for Google, Facebook, Apple, Yahoo!, etc.
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collect it all, let God sort it out
With the overseas wars winding down, the military-industrial-security complex will be desperate to find a new gravy train, and that gravy train will be domestic security. As with the NSA, private for-profit corporations will be granted lucrative contracts to assist the DHS in its domestic spy operations, and will naturally be lobbying hard to make sure that this "war on terror" never ends.
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The government is supposed to respond to the will of the people, not control the people by exerting it's own will upon us.
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...who needs enemies?
Creepy. As. Fuck.
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Re: ...who needs enemies?
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We're watching you
Watch your step
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We're not just a percieved pressence, we're a visual/actual pressence, im waving at you through the window presence
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There goes the neighborhood. :-P
They can even get a gag order on said third parties to keep you from finding out that you're being spied upon. Feature!
I can think of one good thing wrt the DHS opening an office in CA. It could create a new enjoyable hobby for Californians. "Hey everybody, I'm going dumpster diving at the new DHS office. Anyone want to join me?"
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Silicon valley is our friend, and friends let each other look into their development and production environment.
Or else we wouldn't be friends anymore, and that would be sad...for you.
Everybody could build fully encrypted systems, until those get made illegal and possessing one or knowing how to build one is forbidden.
Nobody should have encryption, except your lovely authorities and their friends who absolutely pose no threat or risk to anyone.
100 mile constitution free zone, does this only include land borders? I mean the coast can be a border too. Even if you include border to international waters.
And the internet is the border to the digital age.
So hand over your servers for customs inspections.
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