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Comment by ohazi | Hacker News Reader

> Are we really suggesting that every end-to-end encryption technology be nuked in favor of “saving the children?”

Yes. Their goal is to nuke encryption. The children are a red herring. This is solely about government power.

Yeap. Clipper chip 2.0. The ruling elite doesn't want us "plebs" to have any privacy in order to make mass surveillance easier and to be able to exploit pilfered details to silence and defeat their enemies. It strikes me as inverted totalitarianism about to give way to direct totalitarianism.

Think of the children fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children

No. Their goal is to protect the children. They don't understand technology and do not care how many enterprises are destroyed by their clumsy fumbling. Stop trying to reframe stupidity as conspiracy.

"Conspiracy" makes it sound like the US government hasn't been building the largest spying apparatus in history over the past 2 decades. Reality says otherwise.

And Feinstein has always been on the side of surveillance, except of course when she is affected:

https://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/13/politics/feinstein-cia-sn...

If Congress were serious about "protecting children", there are many other things they would do before focusing on the boogeyman of online pedophilia. I already mentioned child health care in another comment; you could also think of social/public housing for destitute parents of children; food security, which _is_ a problem in the US (and the programs are being cut); minimum wage increase; free child-care for working parents etc.

Has Senator Feinstein been promoting any of this?

Those are all massively expensive ideas, EARN it isnt. Just because these senators haven't been able to enact some of your other ideas doesn't mean they aren't serious about protecting children. At least some of the senators behind EARN it are in favor of expanding social welfare programs [0] - its just politically difficult to get traction on new laws with huge costs attached to them.

[0] https://democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/

1. Diane Feinstein isn't in favor of those things, and this is who we're talking about.

2. The party platform? Really? After the last primary cycle, Sanders was allowed influence over that document, improving it somewhat. Are party elected officials bound by it? was Clinton? Is Biden?

2. "In favor" for a Senator or Congressperson must mean: Propose it, speak about in in the Senate, speak about it in the media, support civic organizations campaigning for it, and don't be dependent on donors who want it not to happen.

They have made it abundantly clear that they don't give a fuck about the children in so many ways it isn't funny. They are more willing to give free lunch to contractors than schoolchildren.

>Yes. Their goal is to nuke encryption

Who is "they"? Are you talking about the deep state?

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/deep_state

> A large group of people, typically members of government agencies and the military, believed to have long-lasting political influence that is difficult for an administration voted into power to counter. [from 1990s]

United States law enforcement doesn't have the greatest track record of not blackmailing people. Or not shooting the wrong person and their dog for good measure.

If you want to call the FBI, NSA, and CIA the "deep state" go ahead. They have real names though and aren't secretive about their desire to make (end to end) encryption illegal.

While the deep state as a scholarly concept does not require secrecy, this bill certainly uses deception to manipulate the public, and did not originate with Representative Feinstein's local constituency as evidenced by the overwhelming opposition.

>A deep state can also take the form of entrenched career civil servants acting in a non-conspiratorial discretionary manner to further their agency mission

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_state

The question I wish would be asked is "should the deep state (CIA, NSA etc) be influencing the legislative process to the point of overriding the concerns of voters?"

This is pretty funny: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_state#Differences_from_sc...

As generally used, the term "deep state" refers to career officials acting in opposition to the democratically-elected leadership of a country.

In this case, the elected officials are completely in accord with the desires of the security/intelligence agencies.

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