Hacker News Reader

Most of the time such laws are passed on Christmas or New Year's eve (Obama literally allowed the NSA to share Upstream surveillance data with all the other 16 agencies like 3-4 days before his presidency ended - how exactly would anyone have stopped Obama then?!), or people "allow" them to pass through inaction, which I think is not quite the same as actively supporting something. Governments of the world simply take advantage of people's inaction or their lack of attention to certain issues. This is a problem with how most democracies work (the democratic processes are not democratic enough, but we've failed to improve upon them due to complacency).

And 10 years later when people wake up to it they come out and say "but we've been using this for a decade and it's been so helpful in our investigations!". And even if that was true, often they don't provide real proof, and also the government is almost never interested in doing a cost-benefit analysis for such things. Like it may have been "helpful", but how much damage did that lack of privacy and the existence of backdoors caused, too?

That still doesn't answer my question, the legal precedence for all of these was set up decades if not centuries ago. We agreed that a government should be able to tap a phone, in fact it's illegal to be a communication provider in the US and in the majority of the rest of the world essentially every country where there is a rule of law has the same laws without complying with the legal intercept requirements from the government. Every piece of telecommunications equipment already has these backdoors built-in, in fact part of the FCC certification is to ensure compliance with LEI when applicable.

What Obama did with the NSA is also a doesn't have any bearing on this issue, if the NSA surveillance is warrantless it's another issue as far as sharing the contents of the in interception with other agencies well it's again a different issue.

But again this isn't about the NSA, this isn't even about the US the question is and always was what makes WhatsApp any different than a phone call? Your mobile provider by law must provide LEI of data, voice and text, now no one uses voice anymore, most people don't even text not without using alternative apps like WhatsApp or iMessage.

So what is so special about these apps that the laws don't apply to them? and if we are using encryption as a way to back out of the rights we as a society already granted our government then by all means let's do it publicly because there is no reason why the government should be able to tap the phone of a 90 year old grandmother but not yours just because you know how to use WhatsApp.

>Like it may have been "helpful", but how much damage did that lack of privacy and the existence of backdoors caused, too?

Practically none, every telecommunication equipment in the US and the west in large has LEI backdoors built-in these aren't used for exploitation, just like the fact that most mobile phones can be easily tapped by anyone with a $100 worth of SDR equipment.

While these are technically a risk in practice they aren't really a risk because they still have a high barrier for entry, high risk, and essentially very low reward due to the lack of scalability.

The difference is that these agencies never even bother with a warrant to store all of our data, and claim to not "collect" anything all while using algorithms to conduct mass surveillance at a scale far beyond the KGB's wildest dreams. And when they do want to spy on an individual more directly, it's done through gag orders and secret courts with no accountability to the public.

Digital data is actually afforded even fewer protections than your example of letters in the mail.

>But again this isn't about the NSA, this isn't even about the US

This has everything to do with the US, and the NSA, because the legislation in question is part of a broader campaign orchestrated by the Five Eyes.[1]

[1] https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about/national-security/five-...

The difference is how we use this "communication". It isn't just communication between peers anymore, but part of our digital... self (i'm blanking on a better word). The equivalent of you accessing your google drive wouldn't have been governed by these laws a few centuries back. You'll have a hard time demonstrating WhatsApp or iMessage are used for nothing more than phone calls usually were.

Yes, all changes are tiny/gradual and the huge effect they have in combination with all others can often only be seen in retrospect. That's what makes your "this barely changes anything, it was always this way" argument usually so hard to argue against. But in this case it is obvious how our lives are becoming more and more digital...

> If it is then we should just publicly say that the government shouldn’t be able to tap phones regardless of what technology they are using to communicate.

They can tap phones, and should be able to tap phones, along with VoIP, video calls, and mail. But while privacy isn't absolute, their ability to wiretap communications with a court order has never been absolute either, merely opportunistic.

These are opportunities they don't have available to them, and it needs to stay that way.

They should not be permitted to set aside all other concerns just to keep that wiretap and search ability in the cases where it comes up, because it simply isn't that important compared to all of the problems they will cause in the process.

People, including whistleblowers and political dissidents, even in the U.S., will be harassed, threatened, blackmailed, or even killed as a result of their tampering, and the government itself will misuse those expanded access powers, just like all the others they've publicly or secretly obtained.

>They can tap phones, and should be able to tap phones, along with VoIP, video calls, and mail. But while privacy isn't absolute, their ability to wiretap communications with a court order has never been absolute either, merely opportunistic.

No it was never opportunistic, it was always by design and mandated by law as telecommunication providers must provide LEI capabilities this affects how they design and implement their networks and the equipment they use which is why LEI capabilities appear even in CPE equipment such as your modem and the FCC and other regulatory bodies enforce this as part of their certification process.

The case here is that that now the telecommunication providers aren't actually that useful for LEI or at least it's that WhatsApp/Facebook isn't classified as one because if it was it would be required to provide LEI capabilities by law.

>People, including whistleblowers and political dissidents, even in the U.S., will be harassed, threatened, blackmailed, or even killed as a result of their tampering, and the government itself will misuse those expanded access powers, just like all the others they've publicly or secretly obtained.

If we turn back the clock even only 5 years ago where essentially nothing was encrypted in a manner that would invalidate LEI this wasn't an issue, nor does it grant the government any new powers.

Perhaps such interception capabilities were developed because encryption technology wasn't widely available at the time. Even back then people with high security needs encrypted phone calls with contemporary encryption technology. Times have changed and encryption technology is widely available now. The question is whether encryption will be broken by people resisting change or whether law enforcement will be satisfied with metadata alone.

EDIT: Should have been posted under grandparent.

>The problem is that we as a society already agreed that it’s acceptable.

>We allowed the government to open mail, open locks and tap phones with a warrant all of which were technically challenging.

If we had a referendum on this ("should the police be able to access the communications of someone as part of the investigation of a crime?") I bet "yes" would win. Myself I also think it's acceptable. Don't think it's so clear-cut.

>If we had a referendum on this ("should the police be able to access the communications of someone as part of the investigation of a crime?") I bet "yes" would win.

I highly doubt so, but if so it should be the way to go because there are backdoors in nearly every piece of telecom gear because the providers are mandated to provide LEI capability by law.

Maybe, and only maybe, you'd get a no in the US, because of the deeply ingrained hate/distrust for the government. But the rest of the world? Seriously. Maybe I'm wrong but I doubt it.

>Maybe, and only maybe, you'd get a no in the US, because of the deeply ingrained hate/distrust for the government. But the rest of the world? Seriously. Maybe I'm wrong but I doubt it.

If anything the if the US has a trust problems with the government then it should be a yes rather than a no.

But anywhere else in the world there is also little to no chance that the population at large would be up for denying the government the ability to have lawful intercept and lawful access to any protected resource during an investigation.

In fact you might not want to deny them that right at all because it would essentially shift the majority of the evidence to circumstantial eyewitness testimonies.

Because why stop at a phone call? why should a government be able to search your residence? open a safe? read a diary? open your computer?

And if you deny them all that then what happens? sure at first the legal system would be in a transition phase where much less people might be convicted because under these new restrictions the prosecution won't be able to meet the bar required for conviction but fairly quickly as soon as conviction rates would drop the legal system would bounce back up and get used to the reality of less evidence and this isn't a good place to be.

Any development in forensic sciences and investigatory techniques has prevented innocent people from being charged and convicted just as it helped to convict the guilty (don't get me wrong I'm not saying it's perfect or that mistakes are not being made, but DNA for example had to exonerate as many people that it helped to put in).

So I'm not entirely sure we want to go back to the days where people were judged in court based on how many character references they could provide.

Ah okay, we have it backwards. I'm saying that people would allow LE to intercept communications everywhere in the world except in the US!

I think i misread the original comment you made then :)

I agree. "yes" votes in referendums are quite rare in Australia. There'd be much political mileage to made campaigning against it.

Please don't use whataboutism.

If it was already agreed there would be no bill.

Just because our forefathers succumbed to the scare tactics, fake news, logical fallacies, propaganda and plain old whataboutism does not mean we must also do so.

The people, society, law makers, whatever made their decisions and it is incredibly hard to undo them.

I would love say today, hey you know what, it was worth while having law enforcement be given access in the past but in light of their abuse re Snowden et al, maybe it's time to roll some of this back. Because you know, the rewards no longer justify the means.

But you know what? That just isn't a workable option.

Now with that said, for the bill I question, It does not just plainly follow that we must make the same mistakes. We have hindsight and should take advantage of that fact, not just squander it.