Hacker News Reader

Comment by whoopdedo | Hacker News Reader

From another leaked memo (or maybe the same memo):

    Although “the legislative environment is very hostile today, it could turn in the
    event of a terrorist attack or criminal event where strong encryption can be shown
    to have hindered law enforcement.”

    There is value, he said, in “keeping our options open for such a situation.”

In other words, he was hoping for a terrorist attack that could be used as a flag to push anti-encryption legislation.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/tech-...

View on HN

I wouldn't go that far. This is ODNI's General Counsel saying that they would prefer to defer public attacks -- er, debate -- on any specific plan until a crisis occurs, at which point opposition will be muted. They can then take advantage of the climate to go full court press with whatever strategy has been preselected. Whether "preparing to leverage" is worse than "hoping" is up for debate.

That's a rather pedantic difference. What you're essentially saying is they just used weasel words that gives them an out instead of just blatantly saying what they mean.

This is unfortunately an old idea expressed openly by politicians in the US.

Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's former chief of staff was quoted as saying:

> You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before

At least he's honest about his political opportunism.

This is not necessarily bad by default. There do exist inherently good things that do not have public support or the support is muted until there is a crisis. For those items, a crisis is an opportunity to come out ahead at least as it relates to those good things which now have support.

Sure, in theory. I just think politicians should be honest and transparent with their intentions. Don't treat the public like little children that need to be manipulated into accepting what the politician deems as good.

And historically, I would argue that crisis has been used primarily to consolidate political power, and fuel nationalism (Japanese internment camps, Iraq war, government surveillance etc)

You say "hoping" but the quote reads to me like he's making sure they are prepared. Even Obama's staunchest critics don't actually think that the President of the US is hoping for a terrorist attack.

Power attacking (or planning to attack) its self to further it's agenda is not unprecedented. In the most famious case, it was the President that put a stop to the plan. See Operation Northwoods: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods and the Strategy of Tension.

This is known as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine

If there is a successful attack politicians will be questioned about why they did not do more, no conspiracy needed. Is it dangerous to have encryption keys stored? Of course, but the danger is mostly that they will be stolen not used by the government, although that is still a risk but smaller.

I'm curious how / why you trust the government, which is made up of people with various agendas.

I don't, I said it is a threat, but the bigger threat is someone else getting them. Every group is made of people with various agendas so that is a pretty vapid statement.

> I don't, I said it is a threat, but the bigger threat is someone else getting them.

I see no reason to accept this as prima facie true. If you look over the course of history, most of the world's violence has occurred at the hands of a state, religion or combination of the two.

Weren't there around 100 million people murdered by their governments in the 20th century? That's got to be right up there with malaria.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com