Letters to the Editor
tempus
Published Letters: 469 Editor's Choice: 8
-
I'd LOVE to use the encryption tools
[Read the article: The significance of the FBI's law-breaking]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Moreover, it's clear that people don't much care. There are effective encryption technology that anyone can use to prevent government interception of their messaging traffic.
I know of these tools and am equipped to use them (Gnupg, jsteg, etc) and even have a second email address that is TRULY anonymous and automatically sends encrypted emails as the default. The problem is not me, it is everyone else. It is well nigh impossible to convince my family members scattered around the country to learn to use PGP or one of its clones. If software makers would do things like build encryption into their email clients and set it as the default, then it would be much easier to get people to use it but since you must install 3rd party apps, set it up, and learn the ins and outs of using it...
I can send encrypted emails that would take a major effort for the government to crack. I can send messages hidden inside image files or hidden within other innocuous messages but my recipients just will not learn how to do it and cannot deal with such messages. I can purchase a phone that encrypts the voice traffic but it requires the receiving end have a similar phone that can decrypt it.
It should be the default behavior of all communications software.
-
Not a joke at all
[Read the article: The significance of the FBI's law-breaking]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This is a joke, right? Your encryption tools will not stop the government from decrypting your files, unless you have your own very good ones that you haven't told the government about.
Not a joke at all. 4098-bit encryption is not trivial to crack. Can it be cracked? Of course, however, it takes effort. If everyone (or most or even a significant fraction) used encryption then it would become very difficult for government spies to actually go about spying. The effort of cracking thousands and thousands of emails or trying to crack voice encryption keys (that lacks a wide-open backdoor) would be overwhelming.
At THIS point, so few likely use encryption that they actually DRAW attention to themselves - encrypted messages stand out in the huge swell of crap, trivial messages (mainly forwarded, forwarded, forwarded bad jokes or simple spam). EVERYONE should be forced by software makers to use encryption, and no, there is no backdoor to GNU software. Gnupg has no backdoor and no gnu mail client has a government backdoor. Microsoft might be convinced to allow rampant spying on its users but it is not practical for linux/freebsd/openbsd users.
Speaking of spam, there is a tool available that will encrypt your email messages into spam. Quite cute and interesting. Innocuous and annoying spam to a net tap but an encoded message to the recipient that can only be obtained by passphrase.
On a practical level, it is just impractical for the government to examine and try to crack every image file or email (potential steganographic encryption) sent. It would be slightly less impractical to crack, in anything approaching realtime, directly encrypted messages (Gnupg, PGP, etc) if a lot of users actually use it routinely. Get rid of the low-hanging fruit and then almost anything the government wants to do vis a vis spying on free citizens becomes reaching for the high-hanging fruit. Costly and slow.
-
Not clear at all
[Read the article: The president's oh-so-noble reliance on "executive privilege"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This Nixon argument bugs me senseless:
The first ground is the valid need for protection of communications between high Government officials and those who advise and assist them in the performance of their manifold duties; the importance of this confidentiality is too plain to require further discussion.
Really? Too plain to require further discussion? I don't see that in any plain manner. It looks COMPLETELY open to argument. For instance, there can be NO reasoned argument for keeping information about a friggin' national energy policy meeting secret. Keeping it secret doesn't make sense because it is a discussion that, under normal, reasonable circumstances, requires ALL sides to present (which did NOT happen in that case) and then discussion to decide on the best course which will then become publicly obvious. You can't hide a public policy! There is no valid reason to hide public policy discussions from the people who employ you (and suffer under policy).
Protected communications only makes sense for true, narrowly defined national security matters and legal council issues, same as any other citizen. Nothing else can reasonably be said to require secrecy at all.
-
It's worse than you think
[Read the article: What Bush is hiding]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If he wins, they will have won the ability to stonewall investigations to the point that nothing meaningful will come out until 2009, at which point nobody will care.
The problem isn't just some transient Bush Administration thing that will disappear when Bush is dump for his successor. If Bush wins this, if the Congress allows him to win then all is lost. It will mean that henceforth no Congress can ever again investigate wrongdoing by ANY president. They will be giving up their oversight roll forever. They will be, contrary to the Constitution and its intent, be sidelined as the a superfluous organ of government barely a step above the neutered Judiciary (thanks to Unitary President true believers Scalia and Alito and, perhaps, Roberts).
Article I of the Constitution, the first and foremost portion of the Constitution, is devoted to what is supposed to be the preeminent wing of government. The President/Executive branch were always intended to be a weak branch. It was supposed to be far removed from kingship. It is kingship, however, that Bush and Cheney have sought and been given by a prostrate Congress for most of the Bush Administration. If Congress doesn't go all the way - subpoenas served, arrests for contempt of Congress, impeachment (if Bush STILL stands illegally obstinate) - then that is it. Forevermore the Congress will be powerless and the Republic will be dead.
This isn't hyperbole, it is truth. Congress MUST exercise its full Constitutional and legal powers of real oversight and act as a true check and balance on Presidential power.