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Comment by ChrisCinelli | Hacker News Reader

It is fair to assume that the general public knows very little about how many dreadful criminal activities they were able to avoid because they could tap into some conversations early on: massive shootings, terroristic activities, nuclear weapon programs of countries that should not be trusted with them, drugs that may have killed users and mere stupidity that may have started new wars.

I think that the only way agencies were able to keep postponing the end of the Patriot act and related laws ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act ) is presenting massive evidence to the congress of the tragedies they were able to avoid with the power granted by those laws.

Somebody that was publicly martyred by a country of great power makes more noise than a war that was avoided.

Weakening strong cryptography is not the solution but I think we sometimes grossly underestimate the other face of the coin.

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Cryptography and secure messaging systems are not all under US jurisdiction. If access to backdoors alone has kept multiple massive criminal activities from being executed, then surely we should see some being successfully executed by the groups not using backdoored encryption.

The fact that we don't suggests either that (1) backdoors aren't that essential to thwart them or (2) there are no such regular massive attacks.

Further, as people like the US Attorney General helps to publicize those backdoors, more criminals will choose alternative messaging systems (fewer of which are backdoored), making the US less safe.

That is why I wrote "Weakening strong cryptography is not the solution."

> It is fair to assume that the general public knows very little about how many dreadful criminal activities they were able to avoid because they could tap into some conversations early on

Sure, because we're never told. And you know what? Maybe there's good reasons. But "we can't tell you why, but trust us, it's super effective!" isn't enough of an argument.

I agree. See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20509563

Do we?

Law enforcement seems overeager to label anything and everything terrorism if they possibly can. For instance, someone at my previous workplace vandalized prod in a fit of rage when he left and they called it terrorism because the system had utility companies as customers. Why would law enforcement be so interested in juicing their terrorism numbers if the real thing was plentiful?

My hypothesis: real terrorism isn't plentiful, but the budget to go after it became plentiful after 9/11, and the people who benefit from the budget do what they can to keep it that way. Erosion of freedoms and judicial overreach are side-effects.

From their point of view, if technically possible, they would like to listen to any conversation and being able to spot in seconds conversations about any country security threat.

It is easy to see that the risk is that if plaintext data is available, the data can be mined for a lot of other purposes including illegal or not ethical ones. It is also possible that eventually that data could leak to the wrong entities.

And yes, in any big organization, the left hand may not know what the right hand is doing and, while one is concern in matters of public safety, the other may be primary concerned with the hegemony of its own power.

So it is complex.

But just assuming that you do not need them and they are just evil is a massive over generalization.

> But just assuming that you do not need them and they are just evil is a massive over generalization.

Fine, but assuming that they'll abuse any amount of power given is completely reasonable, in light of plentiful examples in the past.

> It is fair to assume that the general public knows very little about how many dreadful criminal activities they were able to avoid because they could tap into some conversations early on

Aren't the ones we hear of are the ones where the FBI set the whole scenario up?

Lack of transparency is indeed what make people second guess their intentions. And I have to agree that "being lied to" is the number one reason why people do not trust them.

I mildly prefer the "neither confirm nor deny" responses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_response

I am not an expert but I think the general feeling most of people have is we are hearing a lot of constructed lies. Is there a list of stories told to the public that were proven to be lies? Did they even come out and say "Yes, we lied and this is why..." ?

>> It is fair to assume that the general public knows very little about how many dreadful criminal activities they were able to avoid because they could tap into the conversation early on

I'd like to see more of that made public.

I don’t think it’s fair to assume that at all. Without evidence, I’m unconvinced the governments need for information access is motivated by justice rather than the interests of a few.

Which "a few"?

economic elites

Renewing the Patriot Act and other such laws is easily explained by self-interest.

Renewal: The best case is it foils a terrorist attack. The worst case (Snowden) has already occurred.

Nonrenewal: The best case is no terrorist attacks. The worst case is a terrorist attack that may have been prevented with Patriot Act level wiretapping.

No one wants to be blamed for a terrorist attack at the next election so the Patriot Act is renewed.

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