This is a thread full of passionately argued polemics about the US national security state and not one link to the legislation proposed in any incarnation. After the debacle that was the trade press reporting on CISPA, it is probably a bad bet that Declan McCullagh got this exactly right.
Obviously, a provision that allows law enforcement warrantless access to random people's email would be a terrible thing. It seems a little unlikely that in the wake of the Patraeus scandal, that's what Leahy would really be proposing. Maybe it is. Can we FIND OUT?
No point. It's shitty living somewhere with a government that would propose this sort of thing. It's also like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, as the NSA et al have already tapped everyone's fibers years ago.
Furthermore - it's not a secret that they did so. Books have been written on the matter. The public got suitably outraged, and then nothing happened. The taps are all still there, and the equipment's all been upgraded as the capacities have increased.
It truly doesn't matter what these laws say. Your communications in the US are all already monitored as a fact of life.
I respectfully but vigorously disagree with you that there's no point discovering what proposed laws say. It's our responsibility as citizens to figure this stuff out. There aren't that many "cyber" laws proposed every year.
This is a country in which people of African descent couldn't even reliably vote 55 years ago. I refuse to succumb to the notion that all is lost simply because we've had 8-10 years of overreach.
> It's our responsibility as citizens to figure this stuff out.
Well, that, or flee.
> I refuse to succumb to the notion that all is lost simply because we've had 8-10 years of overreach.
If that's the case, I ask non-sarcastically: How many decades of tapped phones, illegal body searches, and indefinite detention and/or torture of political prisoners are you willing to wait for reform before you declare the US an unacceptable place for good and reasonable people to continue living in and paying taxes to?
I'm genuinely curious. Is there an upper bound?
For me, personally, it was ~8 years.
"The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are." --H. L. Mencken
> How many decades of tapped phones, illegal body searches, and indefinite detention and/or torture of political prisoners are you willing to wait for reform before you declare the US an unacceptable place for good and reasonable people to continue living in and paying taxes to?
So, if things get tough you typically quit? Only 8 years? There are isolated cases of each of those occurrences, and while just one is unacceptable, this country is far from uncorrectable.
There are quite a few citizens of the USA that waited a lot longer than 8 years for rights we all are born with and take for granted today. I find it perfectly reasonable to both have the determination to stay active/volunteer as well as the patience for the process to work.
> Your communications in the US are all already monitored as a fact of life.
I would ask you to provide evidence that my private communications are being monitored. Explain to me how the US government has cracked/backdoored every crypto library available.
You feel safe hiding behind the theoretical/practical integrity of a cryptographic library? I'm almost tempted to link the requisite XKCD cartoon.
I think ensuring private communication for all people, regardless of technical means of ensuring secret communication serves us all, including those, like you, who feel safe with their already existing measures.
If a precedent is set that allows a government the power and right to spy indiscriminately everyone's privacy is dimished including those who are avid PGP users.
Besides, once that step is taken the next logical conclusion is to simply demand you provide pass phrases and private keys for any encrypted communication as is the case in other countries [1].
Besides, information leaks by other means, which might be used to circumvent encryption. Man-in-the-middle attacks or simply targeting a weak end point in a communication stream. Colleagues might not be as adamant about security and their end of the communication might come under scrutiny. Besides, unless all electronic devices are electromagnetically shielded TEMPEST and other similar attacks are still possible. Once the door is open to monitoring or surveillance all bets are off as to how they accomplish this, and it might be through means that render current cryptographic libraries useless.
Even assuming a perfect means of ensuring a message is sent unseen, the patterns of communications themselves can yield a significant amount of information. Even if governments can't tell what the contents of a message the fact a communication existed (a carefully protected communication at that) might be used against people, never mind if they're to trace the communication or establish contact frequency.
It also reminds me of the mechanisms used look for errant behavior patterns. Targeting people that use only cash, don't have credit cards or those who simply fall outside of the established behavior patterns. Monitoring of everyone else's communications establishes sufficient data to single further target people and erode their privacy.
Target was able to determine when clients were pregnant by simply analyzing shopping patterns [2].
It also reminds me of how Germany dealt with the Baader Meinhof group, by screening for "seemingly mundane items as utility bills" to establish probable cause for detention or investigation. Once we're all under surveillance the government won't even need to read everything we write to further erode our privacy.
By fighting for better privacy protection for all I think we make our own private communications safer.
What you're complaining about is not a solvable problem, and has nothing to do with privacy.
Today, in this world we live in at this very moment, I can communicate in such a way so as to prevent the US government from reading/hearing what I say.
So, unless you have specific evidence that this isn't the case, people should listen to what you're saying with the same attention they give every other conspiracy theorist.
Maybe I didn't explain myself properly, but what I was stabbing at had everything to do with privacy. As does the whole point the OP mentioned of having communications monitored.
Whether or not the US government can at this point in time read/hear what you say is somewhat irrelevant if they're monitoring it and recording it and there exists a non-0 chance of they being able to then crack it.
I was also not attempting to draw up some huge conspiracy theory that the US government is out to get you or any particular person. I'm merely trying to point out that the more information and communications the US Government (or any other entity) records, then the greater their capacity to infringe on our privacy. And that in some use cases the actual contents are irrelevant in so far that the monitoring itself can inconvenience us and harm us due to information that is inadvertently leaked or signalled through our communication patterns.
But to be honest, I'm glad there exists a way for someone to have every single method of communication go through secure means that are impervious to any manner of eavesdropping.
> Whether or not the US government can at this point in time read/hear what you say is somewhat irrelevant if they're monitoring it and recording it and there exists a non-0 chance of they being able to then crack it.
No, that's completely wrong. Just because something exists doesn't mean it's accessible. That's what warrants are for, and if it's unlawful for the government to ever see that information, then the warrant will never be granted.
We were talking about whether or not people are able to communicate privately, and you claimed it was impossible. This is factually inaccurate, as I've been trying to point out.
Do you have any evidence to suggest that the government is capable of breaking currently considered secure encryption? If not, shut the fuck up.
Obviously, a provision that allows law enforcement warrantless access to random people's email would be a terrible thing. It seems a little unlikely that in the wake of the Patraeus scandal, that's what Leahy would really be proposing. Maybe it is. Can we FIND OUT?
Late edit: here it is: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4811489