Hacker News Reader

Comment by whynotminot | Hacker News Reader

I get so annoyed by this Socratic line of questioning because it’s extremely obvious.

Terrorist has plans and contacts on laptop/phone. Society has a very reasonable interest in that information.

But of course there is the rational counter argument of “the government designates who is a terrorist”, and the Trump admin has gleefully flouted norms around that designation endangering rule of law.

So all of us are adults here and we understand this is complicated. People have a vested interest in privacy protections. Society and government often have reasonable interest in going after bad guys.

Mediating this clear tension is what makes this so hard and silly lines of questioning like this try to pretend it’s simple.

View on HN

The better rational counter argument is that "privacy is a human right enshrined in international law". Society has zero business knowing anyone's private communications, whether or not that person is a terrorist. There is nothing natural about being unable to talk to people privately without your speech being recorded for millions of people to view forever. Moreover, giving society absolute access to private communications is a short road to absolute dystopia as government uses it to completely wipe out all dissent, execute all the Jews or whatever arbitrary enemy of the state they decide on, etc.

You do not get to dispense with human rights because terrorists use them too. Terrorists use knives, cars, computers, phones, clothes... where will we be if we take away everything because we have a vested interested in denying anything a terrorist might take advantage of?

Who decided absolute privacy in all circumstances is a fundamental human right? I don’t think any government endorses that position. I don’t know what international law you speak of. You’re basing your argument on an axiom that I don’t think everyone would agree with.

This sounds like a Tim Cook aphorism (right before he hands the iCloud keys to the CCP) — not anything with any real legal basis.

Article 12 of the United Nation's Declaration of Human Rights:

> No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy [...]

which has later been affirmed to include digital privacy.

> I don’t think any government endorses that position.

Many governments are in flagrant violation of even their own privacy laws, but that does not make those laws any less real.

The UN's notion of human rights were an "axiom" founded from learned experience and the horrors that were committed in the years preceding their formation. Discarding them is to discard the wisdom we gained from the loss of tens of millions of people. And while you claim that society has a vested interest in violating a terrorist's privacy, you can only come to that conclusion if you engage in short-term thinking that terminates at exactly the step you violate the terrorist's rights and do not consider the consequences of anything beyond that; if you do consider the consequences it becomes clear that society collectively has a bigger vested interest in protecting the existence of human rights.

> No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy

“Arbitrary” meaning you better have good reasons! Which implies there are or can be good reasons for which your privacy can be violated.

You’re misreading that to mean your privacy is absolute by UN law.

But if you want to make it possible for the Feds to break into a terrorist's secure phone, you have to make it impossible for anyone to have a secure phone.

That is arbitrary interference with all our privacy.

Admittedly "arbitrary" is something of a legal weasel word that leaves a lot of room for interpretation. I lean towards a strong interpretation for two reasons: the first is because it is logically obvious why you must give it a strong interpretation; if the people responsible for enforcing human rights can arbitrarily decide you don't have them, you don't have human rights. The second is because we have seen this play out in the real world and it is abundantly clear that the damage to society is greater than any potential benefits. The US in particular has made an adventure out of arbitrarily suspending human rights, giving us wonderful treats like Guantanamo Bay and the black sites across the Middle East. I don't know what part of that experiment looked remotely convincing to you, but to me they only reinforced how clearly necessary inviolable human rights are for the greater good of society.

>if the people responsible for enforcing human rights can arbitrarily decide you don't have them, you don't have human rights

But the "arbitrary" there is too account for the situation where the democratic application of the law wants to inspect the communications of suspected terrorists, and where a judge agrees there is sufficient evidence to grant a warrant.

Unfortunately, that law does nothing against situations like the USA/Russia regime where a ruler dispenses with the rule of law (and democratic legal processes too).

You can't practically have that sort of liberalism, where society just shrugs and chooses not to read terrorists communications, those who wish to use violence make it unworkable.

Usually such "international laws" are only advisory and not binding on member nations. After decades of member nations flouting UN "laws" I can't see them as reliable or effective support in most arguments. I support the policy behind the privacy "laws" of the UN, but enforcing them seems to fall short.

Enforcement mechanisms are weak, but they still exist to set a cultural norm and an ideal to strive towards. Regardless, I have also laid out an argument at length as to why society would logically want to have this be a human right for its own good, regardless of any appeal to existing authority.

This means there are no valid concerns.

There are just things some people want and the reasons they want them.

So the question that you are so annoyed by remains unanswered (by you anyway), and so, valid, to all of us adults.

@hypfer gives a valid concern, but it's based on a different facet of lockdown. The concern is not that the rest of us should be able to break into your phone for our safety, it's the opposite, that you are not the final authority of your own property, and must simply trust Apple and the entire rest of society via our ability to compel Apple, not to break into your phone or it's backup.

At the risk of being kind of ass, which I've been trying to be better about lately, I'm going to offer some advice. If you can't even respond to a question about secure computing without bringing American presidential politics into things, perhaps you need to take a break from the news for a few weeks.

The reason I asked that question is because I don't think it's complicated. I should be able to lock down my device such that no other human being on the planet can see or access anything on it. It's mine. I own it. I can do with it whatever I please, and any government that says otherwise is diametrically opposed to my rights as a human being.

You are more likely to be struck by lightning while holding two winning lottery tickets from different lotteries than you are to be killed by an act of terrorism today. This is pearl-clutching, authoritarian nonsense. To echo the sibling comment, society does not get to destroy my civil rights because some inbred religious fanatics in a cave somewhere want to blow up a train.

Edit: And asking for someone to says "there are concerns!" to proffer even a single one is not a Socratic line of questioning, it's basic inquiry.

This article is about the Trump admin seizing a reporter’s phone. The politics was here from the start.

The line of reasoning is more like this: if you make and sell safe-cracking tools then it would not be unreasonable for the government to regulate it so only registered locksmiths could buy it. You don't want people profiting from the support of criminal acts.

The government could similarly argue that if a company provides communication as a service, they should be able to provide access to the government given they have a warrant.

If you explicitly create a service to circumvent this then you're trying to profit from and aid those with criminal intent. Silkroad/drug sales and child sexual content are more common, but terrorism would also be on the list.

I disagree with this logic, but those are the well-known, often cited concerns.

There is a trade-off in personal privacy versus police ability to investigate and enforce laws.

> I get so annoyed by this Socratic line of questioning because it’s extremely obvious.

Yeah after seeing the additional comments, my gut also says "sea lion".

Truly a shame

> ...the Trump admin has gleefully flouted norms around that designation...

One would have to hold a fairly uninformed view of history to think the norms around that designation are anything but invasive. The list since FDR is utterly extensive.

I didn’t say he was the first to abuse powers. Indeed it’s kind of silly to even have to clarify “but other administrations…” because that’s fairly obvious to anyone old enough to have seen more than one president.

But the article is literally referencing the Trump administration seizing a reporter’s phone so the current administration’s overreach seems relevant here.

But that's not what I said.

My point was that your stated assumption of what the norms are is inaccurate. If nearly every modern administration does it, that is literally the norm. The present administration, like many before it, is following the norm. The norm is the broader issue.

Which makes the rest of it (and your followup) come across as needlessly tribal, as both major parties are consistently guilty of tending to object to something only when the other side does it.

Frankly I really don’t care about both sides-ism anymore. I can agree with you that a lot of administrations have been irresponsible on this point while also believing that the current administration is particularly dangerous in this area.

If I lose you here because of “needless tribalism” oh well.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com