FBI Director Deploys Straw Men While Calling For The End Of Straw Men Arguments In The Encryption War
from the let-he-who-is-without-straw... dept
The DOJ's anti-encryption summit went off without a hitch. And why wouldn't it? No one who had anything good to say about encryption was invited. The only speaker without a history of criticizing encryption was John Walsh of "America's Most Wanted," who detailed the kidnapping of his son -- an event that took place long before encryption was viewed as an impediment to law enforcement.
Using a bit of the FOSTA playbook, but skewing it younger to facilitate appeals to emotion, the "summit" attempted to discuss the "creation" of "lawless spaces" resulting from end-to-end encryption. Facebook was front and center as the recent recipient of a letter from Attorney General William Barr, asking it to ditch its plans to encrypt Messenger communications.
Barr (who's already made his feelings about encryption clear) was joined by Deputy AG Jeffrey Rosen, FBI Director Chris Wray, UK Home Secretary Priti Patel, and Australia's Minister of Home Affairs Peter Dutton. No one representing the tech industry was included. Nor were any encryption experts. This was a preach-to-the-converted type of event and the speakers all made the most of it.
FBI Director Chris Wray offered his unsurprising take on encrypted communications: he's against it. Not that his opinion should be considered in any way an "expert" opinion. He runs an agency that can't even correctly count the number of encrypted devices it has in its possession. And it's the same agency where officials did everything they could to avoid unlocking a seized phone in a mass shooting case in hopes of securing favorable court precedent. Wray frequently presents the hardest skew on the issue (at least at the federal level), and his comments at the summit were no exception.
[I]f we don’t confront these real-life horrors happening to real people, if we don’t take action and do something soon to address the lawful access problem, it will be too late and we’ll lose the ability to find those kids who need to be rescued. We’re going to lose the ability to find the bad guys who need to be arrested and stopped. And we’re going to lose the ability to keep the most vulnerable people we serve safe from harm. We just cannot let that happen.
Technology has made life much easier for the good guy—there’s no doubt. But it’s also made life much easier for a wide range of bad guys—including international and domestic terrorists, hackers, opioid traffickers, and child predators. Like other criminals, child predators routinely rely on encrypted phones and laptops to store explicit photographs and exchange illegal media, contact victims, and coordinate with co-conspirators over encrypted messaging platforms.
These devices and platforms have become spaces where vital rules—against soliciting child abuse, against trading in and feeding that abuse, against threatening abuse victims struggling to make a normal life—can no longer effectively be applied.
The key word here is "effectively." Wray wants immediate access in exchange for a warrant. While end-to-end encryption may make it harder to obtain the content of communications from service providers, it does not make it impossible. There are vendors offering tools that can bypass phone encryption to access communication contents. Suspects have been known to volunteer passwords. More than one court has found that the application of biometric features to unlock devices does not violate the Fifth Amendment. Any number of third parties hold data that can give investigators clues about message content and link suspects with conspirators.
Going directly through Facebook -- and Facebook is the unspoken target of this "summit", thanks to its announcement of end-to-end encryption for Messenger -- is just not going to be a very useful option. Wray believes encryption shouldn't be able to defeat a warrant. But that short-sighted view ignores the fact that not every warrant results in the securing of evidence… or enough evidence to secure a guilty verdict.
The issue here is Facebook's plans for Messenger. According to stats mentioned in Barr's letter (and comments delivered by others), 70% of Facebook's 16 million child exploitation tips came from this service. Once the encryption is applied, even Facebook won't be able to see the contents of these communications. That's what the FBI, DOJ, and overseas government officials are hoping to prevent.
It's a legitimate concern, but it's being discussed with a lot of illegitimate arguments. Wray tries to pretend it's everyone else being disingenuous while he boldly speaks truth to tech power. But even this assertion is contradicted by Wray's statements.
I’m well aware that encryption is a provocative subject for some. Although I will tell you, I get more than a little frustrated when people suggest that we’re trying to weaken encryption—or weaken cybersecurity more broadly. We’re doing no such thing. And dispensing with straw men would be a big step forward in this discussion. Cybersecurity is a central part of the FBI’s mission. It’s one part of the broader safety net we try to provide the American people: not only safe data, safe personal information, but also safe communities, safe schools.
We also have no interest in any “back door,” another straw man. We—the FBI, our state and local partners—we go through the front door. With a warrant, from a neutral judge, only after we’ve met the requirements of the Fourth Amendment. We’ve got to look at the concerns here more broadly, taking into account the American public’s interest in the security and safety of our society, and our way of life. That’s important because this is an issue that’s getting worse and worse all the time.
Actually, no. It's still really safe and secure in the United States. Our "way of life" is under no greater threat in an era of increased encryption use than it was before this became the FBI's pet issue. In fact, we're safer today in terms of crime rates and terrorist activity than we've been in more than two decades.
Wray has built his anti-encryption side hustle on a pile of straw men. It's pretty rich to see him arguing no one else should have the privilege to argue their points as disingenuously as he has.
People want safety. People want security. These are inextricably intertwined, but Wray thinks it's possible to separate one from the other without a net loss in safety. And he can't even be honest about how he plans to do it. No one on this panel is willing to call the back doors they want "back doors." No, it's always something else. If the front door is the user's access to their communications, anyone coming in through another entrance is likely going to be viewed as using the back door. If the FBI prefers, we could just call it "using the bedroom window." It doesn't really matter what it's called when it's still access to encrypted communications that's achieved by going through anyone else but the end user.
Wray says everyone else -- everyone who doesn't immediately agree the security trade-off the FBI is pitching is worth it -- is wrong. We're allying ourselves with the most heinous criminals and actively thwarting law enforcement. We're all Wray's straw men now.
So to those out there who are resisting the need for lawful access, I would ask: What’s your solution? How do you propose to ensure that the hardworking men and women of law enforcement, sworn to protect you and your families, actually maintain lawful access to the information they need to do their jobs? What will you say to victims who are denied justice—or left unrescued—in the name of some incremental amount of additional data security?
Why limit your appeal to emotion when you can also appeal to authority? That's the rhetoric Wray is delivering to people who think he's right and will never push back against his oversimplifications, even as he decries the oversimplifications of others. What a train wreck.
It's not an "incremental amount." It's either secure or it isn't. It's not an incremental issue. I would say to the imagined crowd of "hardworking law enforcement" officers that demanding people relinquish their security just to make it easier for the government to access private communications is a bullshit deal. I'm sure Wray knows this. He just seems not to care.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: chris wray, doj, encryption, fbi, going dark
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
I propose you fuck off and figure it out.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
"We also have no interest in any “back door,” another straw man. We—the FBI, our state and local partners—we go through the front door. With a warrant, from a neutral judge, only after we’ve met the requirements of the Fourth Amendment......and a back door."
[ link to this | view in thread ]
whoah whoah whoah
We pretend logical fallacies don't exist at all so Google and the Media and the DNC can use them all the time, and pretend it's real logic. I'm not sure if this being honest about logical fallacies idea is going to be compatible with them.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
It was not that many years ago that the information they now want was not available because it was not recorded, yet the police still managed to do their jobs. Beside which, all official front doors will do in enable them to monitor law abiding citizens, while criminals continue to protect their communications using existing algorithms that do not include a front door or a back door.
This push for broken encryption has much more to do with the protection of the existing establishment, that in catching real criminals. Politicians have been known to classify any opposition to their plans, and especially organization of public protest as being low level terrorism.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Show us the way!
FBI Director Wray could show us all just how important, vital, and safe his plans are and immediately hand over every one of his passwords, PINs, security phrases, login IDs, and reminder hints for every account and system he has access to--public, personal, private, or official--to a "neutral third party" for escrow in case of any need of "lawful access" in the future.
They'll keep them safe, we swear, and try really hard to never, ever, ever let anyone access it without authorization. Promise!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
There is a ray of hope here. I personally think that the likelyhood of the doj, et al, is going to win on the encryption farce is far lower than than the likelyhood the clipper chip was going to be adopted at the time. We all know how that turned out.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Conflict exists between any society and the criminals who exist within it. It's been this way ever since humans built the first civilizations and created the first laws.
Society makes something illegal.
Criminals find a way to do/get that something.
Society finds a way to prevent criminals from doing that.
Criminals find a different way to do it.
..and so on.
Even if law enforcement had their perfect, good-guys-only encryption access method, criminals will just find a different way to do what they do.
This is just a power grab. Law enforcement doesn't like the idea that there's something that is inaccessible to them, so they trot out the old "but the children!" chestnut.
(Also, it's not completely inaccessible. Any code that can be created can be broken. The encrypted logs would still be obtainable via warrant, they'd just need to crack the code, which, admittedly, might take a while, but it's still possible.)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
WTF?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Ummm,.
You dont think it was installed??
It was. but not in all systems. Its installed into Corp systems to monitor employees. As if thats really needed on a closed Network.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
And the best Criminals tend to BE part of the system..
to create the backdoors, Exempt themselves, install frineds and cronies into place to DO the deeds.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Any code that can be created can be broken
Nope. If this were honestly true encryption wouldn't be an issue for these people.
Whether or not it's possible depends. Most modern encryption methods are basically impossible to crack. The "take a while" is literally measured in billions of years.
The much more important point here is that this is ok. We need to accept that not all bad things will be punished or stopped because the consequences of trying to get to that extreme destroy any reasons we could possibly have to care about punishing bad things. What does it matter if we're all effectively in prison our entire lives anyway?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: whoah whoah whoah
Behold, a logical fallacy!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Don't ask questions if you don't want the answers
So to those out there who are resisting the need for lawful access, I would ask: What’s your solution?
Telling you to do your gorram jobs, which has never included 'access to any and all information desired'.
How do you propose to ensure that the hardworking men and women of law enforcement, sworn to protect you and your families, actually maintain lawful access to the information they need to do their jobs?
I don't, you've never had that level of access and yet somehow you've managed to catch criminals before. Mandating broken encryption just to make your job slightly easier, while also making hundreds of millions of people less safe and secure is a trade-off you are not getting.
What will you say to victims who are denied justice—or left unrescued—in the name of some incremental amount of additional data security?
Well first I'd find out if that 'additional data security' was actually to blame for a bad guy going uncaught, a victim unfound, or if it was because of laziness, dishonesty and/or incompetence on your part, because let's be honest, you lot don't exactly have the best record for honesty on that front.
Assuming it actually was, then I'd explain that while I sympathize with their loss putting everyone at risk for the potential to catch a few of the dumber criminals would merely leave even more people in their position, and ask them to keep strong in the face of the lies of those that would undermine their security.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Back door vs. front door
Wray: "We also have no interest in any “back door,” another straw man. We—the FBI, our state and local partners—we go through the front door."
Wray's "front door" is identical to everyone else's use of the term "back door". Memo to Wray: if you want to bullshit people effectively, do so more cleverly than this.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Smartass
“What’s your solution?”
Don’t let a temp who works for a guy who can’t hide his own secrets look after the safety of anyone else’s? Lol
[ link to this | view in thread ]
BEFORE SMART PHONES
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Screen door
Ah, so the screen door they want to install on the submarine is the front door, not the back door? How reassuring.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
"lawless spaces"
If you are interested in such places, I suggest one look at Wall Street, K street, Madison Ave, Congress, and Pennsylvania Ave.
You should find lots of lawlessness going on in those places.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: BEFORE SMART PHONES
[ link to this | view in thread ]
I mean really...what...what do you keep needing?
You got a world class arsenal of military grade weaponry assigned to civilian officers these days.
You got crime labs labs that recreate shots and wounds.
You can find a 1000 year old dead guy with his tooth...
But for some reason...you need this.
Do your job you Lazy assholes...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
But have you ever watched any of those old (pre-1990s) cop movies? They look so tedious! Who wants to do all-night stakeouts anymore, just to find out some trivial piece of information like two people talked to each other? Email records tell you that in 10 seconds, with the full content of that conversation and every past conversation.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Speaking of straw men and whataboutism....
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Back door vs. front door
Kinda like how some people claim that "I'm just really concerned about the possible side effects" isn't "Anti-Vax"?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
It's even easier if you do away with trials and let the prosecutors determine the sentence for the accused, as in plea bargaining. That becomes even easier if the prosecutor has every message a suspect has ever sent or received.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
All this...
From a group that cant Prove the Corps are hiding their money..
Corps are Totally screwing the public..
CorpsAre totally monopolistic..
Cant get the corps to pay taxes..
Built mega server systems to monitor things..
Cant get Smart people to Work for them, without Firing them for BEING to smart..
OH! did you hear about the translator Problem they have. They dont trust them.. Even when they use 2-3 to translate 1 thing and they all say the same...They dont trust them.(CIA has same problem)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: whoah whoah whoah someone dropped a zof in the toilet
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Dear FBI
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: whoah whoah whoah
...and a completely incoherent one at that!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
That's a strawman. Clipper was intended to be the key escrowed encryption for the masses and it didn't take hold, despite considerable push from the government and even some cryptographers. (Dorothy Deming comes to mind.)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
As a real world example of how law enforcement access will be useless against actual criminals, I give you ... El Chapo. His encrypted phone network was not a corporate product. It was created by his own organization (which obviously put it beyond any sort of law enforcement access) and it was only broken because the engineer who built it rolled over. If you're going to break laws, breaking one more against using non-backdoored encryption will not slow anyone down. All you'll get is a new class of "criminals" who are otherwise ordinary people who want to have a truly private conversation.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Why waste time with a plea deal just go full judge dred every time and save the government money.
Its so much easier if you just assume people are guilty.
:(
[ link to this | view in thread ]
WRT “back doors” v. “front doors”, not only is that arguing semantics, it confuses what is meant by a “back door”, which is simply any access outside of the sender and intended receiver, or without the end user’s knowledge or prior consent. You can still get legitimate, legal access through a manner that is intended by the programmers through the back door, even if everyone knows the back door exists.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Back door vs. front door
IANAD but vaccines should not be given to children still breast feeding, the very elderly, people with an autoimmune disease that weakens the immune system (these can be genetic conditions, the results of chemotherapy or similar for cancer, or a disease such as AIDS).
For these people vaccines are dangerous or noneffective depending upon whether it is a live or dead vaccine. This population is a small minority of most of humanity but there are people who should not have vaccines due to weak/abnormal immune systems.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Back door vs. front door
Looks like you need a vaccine again coughing up strawmen.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Back door vs. front door
Seriously how the fuck have the measles not kicked your ass yet?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
FBI Director Wrong Wray on Encryption
Wray says everyone else -- everyone who doesn't immediately agree the security trade-off the FBI is pitching is worth it -- is wrong. We're allying ourselves with the most heinous criminals and actively thwarting law enforcement. We're all Wray's straw men now.
Let FBI Director Wrong Wray lead by example.
Wrong Wray and his pals can use the allying ourselves with the most heinous criminals and actively thwarting law enforcement trope for every occasion.
https://stanford.edu/~jmayer/law696/week8/Going%20Dark%20or%20Golden%20Age.pdf
How does the director of the nations so-called premier law enforcement agency FBI make such a bogus uninformed misleading statement?
Because he cares not one iota about the public (he thinks we're ignorant) and only seeks more power for himself, FBI and the US government (and its client states).
In the golden age of surveillance governments worldwide (especially 5 eyes members) have untold amounts of data at their finger tips.
Anyone remember Edward Snowden and XKEYSCORE?
https://theintercept.com/2015/07/01/nsas-google-worlds-private-communications/
Surveillance in the US is so prevalent that the government continually circumvents the Constitution daily with the use of NSA/CIA/FBI/DEA surveillance intercepts to create what are known as parallel investigations where the criminals in government illegally surveil a person(s) then surreptitiously pass the information to local law enforcement to create a bogus investigation in order to conceal from the people and courts the vile origins of said investigation.
Nice government.
https://theintercept.com/2018/01/09/dark-side-fbi-dea-illegal-searches-secret-evidence/
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Back door vs. front door
Strawmen isn't the right word here...
Their argument is actually extremely valid, especially the part about those with some form autoimmune disease. Though admittedly with babies in general, from what I found most vaccines are given starting at 2 months or 6 months (the exception being the Hepatitis B vaccine dose given up to 12 hours after birth.)
The CDC's Recommended Immunization Schedule for minors
Even then, Babies, the elderly, and people with autoimmune diseases, are dependent on others taking their own vaccines. They need the herd immunity because even a cold could spiral into something fatal for them. This is something that they(parents included in the case of babies) are well aware of.
So really, the groups of people that were outlined are usually pro-vax cause they know that the health of those around them could affect their own.
As for the rest... yea, strawmen.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Protect Us?
When they aren't trying to manipulate us into giving up more of our rights there is no "we". There is no "us". We are "them". When we dare to request, or excercise our rights we are the enemy. We are the terrorists. We are the criminals by simply existing. They have made this clear so many times.
Now we have William Barr. The most honest Attorney General ever. He doesn't hide the fact that the law only applies to the little people and that rights exist to protect the privileged like him and Trump. It usually extends to the many police state agencies when they don't step out of line. The privileged class and those protecting them usually pretend the law is enforced fairly and equitably but not William Barr. He has no shame. He doesn't care if the whole world knows the truth.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Liars. They do everything possible to avoid having to do anything by the same book they so easily throw at us.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Dear FBI
They invent their own terrorists. They create an elaborate terrorist plot. Then they recruit and entrap a mentally ill, paranoid schizophrenic by threatening to harm him and his family members if he doesn't comply.
I'm sure they'll have an easier time once they have access to your devices. They can plant the evidence they need to create their own crime organizations with you (or a patsy of their choosing) at the helm.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
This is the same excuse used to justify torture by law enforcement. I mean, what if "the information they need to do their job" is in someone's head? Simple. You just torture it out of them. Hey, it's for "law enforcement", so it must be good, right? Especially if it's "for the children". And anyone who objects is probably a pervy child molester!
Yeah, I see how that all works.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Back door vs. front door
"Because God told me vaccines are bad" somehow doesn't quite equate to "My (non-quack) doctor has sworn, under penalty of perjury, that my child will DIE if injected."
There are medical exemptions. They are legit. But most people who seek exemptions do so because of ignorance, not need.
Quack doctors writing blanket exemptions to anyone that asks should have their license revoked. (And possibly injected with multiple live samples of contagious diseases to make a point. (JK (Not)).
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
I would bet my life savings that the el chapo example is a case of parallel construction where they got in, then found the designer of the encryption after inside, and finally claimed to have only got in by flipping the engineer so they don't have to reveal their original exploit.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Back door vs. front door
Agree with you there, twas what I was getting at with the "as for the rest" at the bottom.
Though the post I was replying to seemed to imply the medical reasons themselves were strawman arguments. Hence my focus on that rather than anti-vax arguments overall.
Otherwise, I tip my nonexistent hat to you good stranger.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
And?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Back door vs. front door
"I'm just really concerned about the possible side effects" is a valid position.
"I'm just really concerned about the possible side effects, so I'll listen to actresses and debunked studies from fraudsters rather than qualified doctors" is the problematic one.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Back door vs. front door
"IANAD but vaccines should not be given to..."
There are plenty of medical reasons for people to not be able to take vaccines, and even a small number of people who do have the vaccines but they aren't effective. This is why herd immunity is so important, and why it's so dangerous for idiots not to get their little Typhoid Marys vaccinates.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Back door vs. front door
"Let's not listen to the government - instead, let's listen to celebrities who have won the hearts and minds of people by simply being popular and having a team dedicated to building a likeable persona and manufactured image, that sounds much more legitimate!"
Differing opinions on celebrities themselves aside, I think it's fair to say that celeb culture as a whole is fucking cancerous.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
"We need access to every bit of conversation that flows thru here and you will give it to us. You know what, how about you just let us work out of here."
-The Day the Stasi was created-
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The Government, Law Enforcement and Spooks (GCHQ, NSA, etc.) want backdoors in encryption 'cause child molesters and terrorism. eye roll
Anyone with a brain knows that everybody will be able to use the backdoor.
So why don't they just make it illegal to use the backdoor if they're not a member of the aformentioned?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
There are 2 points:
1: Criminals will use the backdoor just because it's there just like if the government mandated everyone leaves the backdoor to their house unlocked. There's a law but that's clearly not sufficient.
2:Just because some may want to allow their government to have a backdoor that doesn't mean they want every government to have access to that backdoor and they would. For example, in the US homosexuality isn't a crime but in other countries they execute you for it. Or for not following orders from 'dear leader' as another example. Not all governments deserve to have access but governments will generally have the resources to get in it anyway.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
Grant one government a backdoor, and you have to grant all of them a back door, which means that that criminals in some countries will also gain access to that backdoor.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Protect Us?
He's on his way down, TFH, having been caught up in the Ukraine scandal. //Munches popcorn//
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
How do you propose to ensure that the hardworking men and women of law enforcement, sworn to protect you and your families, actually maintain lawful access to the information they need to do their jobs?
By getting a damn warrant PRIOR to attempting to access the information. LEOs are not above the law.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
A musical refrain: "If they only had a brain..."
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Need for grammatic logic
The Need For Lawful Access is created by crime.
Crime rates are down. FBI's shrill aggression is up.
Okay. The FBI hates whatever results in less need for lawful access.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Protect Us?
He and Trump seem pretty simpatico. It's possible that could change -- Trump could throw Barr under the bus and fire him, or Barr could get sick of Trump's erratic behavior and quit -- but for now, at least, they seem to be on the same page.
I support the impeachment investigation, and I support impeachment. But unless something major changes, even if the House impeaches Trump, the Senate will not convict. Conviction requires a 2/3 majority, which means every Democrat and at least 20 Republicans would have to vote to convict. That seems very unlikely at this point; so far, Republicans have strongly sent the signal that they'll defend Trump no matter what he does.
Facts could change in the coming months, depending on what comes out in the investigations. A number of polls already show a majority supporting the impeachment inquiry and a plurality supporting impeachment; that's huge compared to Watergate, where only about 20% of the public supported the impeachment investigation when it first started. It could be that we've already crossed a tipping point and support for impeachment will only increase from here.
But there are differences between Watergate and today. One is that the president has his own propaganda network to defend him, and a large contingent of his supporters only get their news from that network. Another is that there is not one single Senate Republican who has the personal integrity of Barry Goldwater.
The only way 20 Republicans turn against Trump is that public opinion turns so hard against him that they fear there's a greater risk they'll lose reelection if they protect him than if they convict him. Given everything they've defended him on so far, and how steady his approval rating has been, that's going to require a major sea change -- something coming out in the investigation that's more damning than anything we've heard to date, or, perhaps more likely, an economic crisis.
In any event, I think it's much likelier that Trump -- and Barr -- will be removed from office by losing the 2020 election than by being impeached and convicted in the Senate. That's not to say it won't be the Ukraine investigation that brings them down, just that it's likelier to bring them down at the ballot box than in the Senate.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Dear FBI
See....
Its a great idea..
Direct monitoring, and jump in to pre-program the idiots.
Its that, or we goto Church and listen to another idiot..
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Protect Us?
We're at the point where a Republican-led probe found that Russia did, in fact, help Trump during the 2016 elections. Nothing else will come of it in the party, of course. Trump could shoot a baby with a handgun, claiming he is threatened by the idea of babies, and the White House would eagerly start teaching their infants how to fellate firearms.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Protect Us?
I never doubted Russians meddled in the election and possibly in a favor of Trump. I highly doubt Trump knew a thing about it until he was in office though.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
"...sworn to protect you and your families..."
According to the Court, that is not their job
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Back door vs. front door
"Let's not listen to the government - instead, let's listen to celebrities..."
They are the same thing now. The Trump card has been played.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
"It's a legitimate concern..."
No. It isn't. Unless they are used to having copies of every conversation ever.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Protect Us?
Well, apart from the fact that he openly asked them to do something during the debates and there were already suspicions of his involvement with them to the point that Clinton called him out as a Russian puppet during the debates, of course.
If he didn't know directly, he was clearly being used masterfully by them. I'm not sure which one reflect on the country worse.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Back door vs. front door
"Looks like you need a vaccine again coughing up strawmen."
No, there are valid medical reasons for not administering vaccines to people with a compromised immune system. A vaccine is basically an attempt to use neutralized parts of a virus in order to convince the body to manufacture antibodies targeting said virus.
For the overwhelming majority of the population this works just fine. To those whose immune system is too trigger happy or otherwise compromised this can be lethal, triggering anaphylactic shock response, which may be lethal.
This is more or less the same mechanism as people who die of bee stings - the venom itself is harmless, but the person dies to "friendly fire" by his own immune system.
If a doctor legitimately advises you against vaccination for a good reason that's one thing. That doesn't make said doctor an anti-vaxxer.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Protect Us?
True, dat. However, the point of continuing the impeachment process is to demonstrate the utter lawlessness of the Republican party when they refuse to convict. They're doing a great job of that now. There is no bottom.
Flake and Romney, among others, are expressing dismay, and The Bulwark has recommended Romney for president on the basis of that. I won't be able to take him seriously till I hear him utter the "I" word. Prediction: he'll flip-flop. Again.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Protect Us?
Yeah, stupid public requests are a grey area of election law. It can be considered a donation in kind to the campaign in which case it is illegal but it could also be free speech in which case either it doesn't count as a donation in kind or the law is unconstitutional.
Clinton was in the Obama administration and would be more likely to know that the Russians were meddling than the other candidates. She would have had contacts and advantages no one else would.
I doubt Trump is being used. He seems to have a really opportunistic personality and if he doesn't see personal advantage he usually doesn't do stuff.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Protect Us?
The President's gambit seems to be "this was legitimate treaty enforcement within my Constitutional authority as head of the executive/law enforcement".
It's exactly what I thought he would do and has a good chance of holding up if it was in a court. However his impeachment proceeding by Congress isn't constrained by courts so it doesn't matter if he was exactly legally in the right. It only matters if he is popular enough in Congress.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Protect Us?
"Yeah, stupid public requests are a grey area of election law"
That has nothing to do with whether or not they indicate that he knew what was going on.
"Clinton was in the Obama administration and would be more likely to know that the Russians were meddling than the other candidates."
Knowing and being able to present an airtight legal case proving it in the middle of an election campaign is something else. it's quite possible that she knew, but apart from calling him out on it during the debate and hoping he'd incriminate himself, there might not have been much she could actually do.
"She would have had contacts and advantages no one else would."
She did... then after she won the popular vote by over 3 million votes, someone else overrode those advantages with the electoral college.
"I doubt Trump is being used. He seems to have a really opportunistic personality and if he doesn't see personal advantage he usually doesn't do stuff."
Exactly. So, all someone needs to do is convince him that doing things to aid Russian interests is good for him. Being used just means he's not the mastermind, and he really doesn't seem to be a hard person to manipulate if you have the right combination of money, ego massage and buzzwords.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
"Whether or not it's possible depends. Most modern encryption methods are basically impossible to crack. The "take a while" is literally measured in billions of years."
Yeah, any brute force attack on a modern algorithm will require more resources than currently exist on earth. I've read comparisons stating that the processor capable of brute-forcing a 256-bit cipher would also have to have the capacity to record, in detail, every atom existing in the solar system.
Every time encryption has been "broken" in modern times it is because parts or the whole of the encryption KEY has been intercepted, rendering the process possible.
...which brings us to modern passwords where standard user-friendly encryption used under the hood in almost everything gets defeated by the opposition's ability to throw a dictionary attack at guessing the passkey. It's not exactly hard to "crack" a user account when a standard list of roughly 20000 words and phrases can unlock over 50% of the accounts existing in the english-speaking part of the world.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
"How do you expect....protect you and your family" blah blah blah. I don't expect you to protect us, as you have made abundantly clear that you are under no obligation to protect us.
"How do you explain to a victim..." How about you demonstrate that you give one iota of shit about victims and ensure that no police department gets away with shoving rape kits the closet to collect dust and run out the statute of limitations.
And that nonsense about letting your children mingle with strange adults who might groom them... For just a second, let's be real. Who are the people who, statistically, are the most likely to hurt and victimize children? Not strangers! Aside from parents, it's the familiar adults that parents know and trust, like church leaders, coaches, counselors, other family members, friends, scout leaders, teachers and even doctors. I'm not saying that strangers don't find ways to groom children, but statistically, it's the people that kids are supposed to trust and respect and obey.
Law enforcement needs to get a legislative overhaul that gives it priorities. Decriminalize drugs, prostitution and whatever else consenting adults want to do that doesn't harm anyone else. Legalize all immigration, except anyone with a credible history of violence, so that no one is forced to work under the table-. And I know most people disagree with this but, decriminalize possession of child porn, and refocus efforts to crushing it's production. Production is where children are harmed, and without prohibition of possession, the value of production drops. When law enforcement's goals become bringing justice to victims, including victims of law enforcement, and they dump all the junk science bullshit, we could have this nonsense conversation about encryption again.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Protect Us?
Yeah, Flake and Romney (and Collins and the late John McCain) have been great at expressing concern but not actually doing anything.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Mandating backdoors will make things worse
"How do you ... actually maintain lawful access to the information ... need[ed]?"
Can't be done. Not possible.
Any developer worth their salt, can make an "unbreakable" communication app in a few hours. If the government makes big players make backdoors (er, bedroom windows?), then the bad guys will start using apps that are less common, and less familiar to law enforcement, which will make law enforcement's job even harder.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Mandating backdoors will make things worse
Indeed. The whole thing is ultimately predicated on the idea that criminals either cannot or will not roll their own solution and will stick to a handful of apps from major corporations. Which might be true for some low hanging fruit, but not the kind of organisations people are supposedly being asked to forfeit rights to fight against
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Agree on the backdoor
I kinda agree that there is no back door. Weakening encryption is just opening up the front door to everyone.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
This is them figuring it out, you halfwit.
[ link to this | view in thread ]