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Comment by giantg2 | Hacker News Reader

"investing in walkie-talkies that have encryption can be worth it as well"

Generally not allowed in many bands in the US. Motorola sells some AES walkies. They're really the only ones I know of, and they're very expensive.

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I don’t understand under what logic AES encrypted radio communications (walkie-talkie) differ from AES encrypted radio communications (mobile network).

Encryption allows you to use a public resource (GMRS, for example) for exclusive private use. To have private use of a frequency, you gotta pay.

In the US, you can't run anything but analog voice on the bands you can use somewhat freely (CB, GMRS, FRS etc). On the amateur bands, you can run digital voice but you can't apply encoding for the purpose of obscuring the meaning of a communication.

You can do this on land mobile frequencies, but unless you're an organisation, you won't meet the eligibility requirements to be granted a licence by the FCC.

Your only other lawful option is one of the 900MHz FHSS solutions, though I don't think any of these offer robust encryption.

Well the whole point of hiding your tracks is evading law enforcement, why would you care if it’s illegal? Or is it because of the „only do one crime at a time“ thing?

Why do you assume this is about doing illegal things? This is about protests, many of which never turn into riots or illegal acts.

I was thinking along the lines of „the state wants to oppress the protestors and makes it illegal“, but if you just want to avoid surveillance at a legal protest, yeah, you’re right.

Going into a protest with illegal communication devices is almost a direct sabotage of the protest's intent. It gives law enforcement a legitimate reason to act, even if almost certainly ex post facto. And it paints the protest as wilfully illegal--you went in intending to break the law.

If you're protesting an oppressive regime then it's likely most privacy respecting methods are illegal.

If you're attending a protest with a phone, the cell tower ping will deanonymize you anyway.

The state has every reason (for itself) to demand perfect law-abiding behavior. The abstract Protest’s intent does not.

“If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear” right? That’s the same logic politicians are using to make spying on populations legal.

"Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." - Ed Snowden

No one was arguing this.

It’s possible to have encrypted communications without fucking up public parts of the spectrum.

Hiding from surveillance is not the same as planning to do something illegal.

... but it benefits the state if people think it's the same ...

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