Monday, November 3, 2014
FBI Holds Secret Meeting To Scare Congress Into Backdooring Phone Encryption
In September, both Apple and Google announced plans to encrypt information on iOS and Android devices by default. Almost immediately, there was a collective freakout by law enforcement types. But, try as they might, these law enforcement folks couldn’t paint any realistic scenario of where this would be a serious problem. Sure, they conjured up scenarios, but upon inspection they pretty much all fell apart. Instead, what was clear was that encryption could protect users from people copying information off of phones without permission, and, in fact, the FBI itself recommends you encrypt the data on your phone.
But it didn’t stop FBI director James Comey from ignoring the advice of his own agency and pushing for a new law that would create back doors (he called them front doors, but when asked to explain the difference, he admitted that he wasn’t “smart enough” to understand the distinction) in such encryption.
So, now, of course, the FBI/DOJ gets to go up to Congress and tell them scary stories about just how necessary breaking encryption would be. And it’s being done in total secrecy, because if it was done in public, experts might debunk the claims, like they’ve done with basically all of the scenarios provided in public to date.
It doesn’t matter if the Republicans win the Senate if they don’t actually limit government
As of this writing, wunderkind statistician Nate Silver puts the GOP chance of retaking control of the Senate in tomorrow’s midterm elections at 68.5 percent and trending upward. The New York Times model is similarly optimistic for Republicans, and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is so close to Senate Majority Leader that he’s probably daydreaming about it right now.
Yes, the GOP is likely to win the Senate tomorrow. But if the Republican establishment keeps failing to live up to its limited government rhetoric, who cares?
Sure, many politicians in the Republican Party talk a good talk. The problem is that—for most of them—it’s nothing but talk.
Take foreign policy, for instance. The last six months have seemed like a competition between Republicans and Democrats over who can stoke more fear and which party is more eager for another war. The hysterical and exaggerated depictions of the threat posed by ISIS are not only completely wrong; they’re also a typical way Washington scares the public into accepting more big government.
But don’t forget the previous decade, either. Though our Nobel Peace Prize-winning President has started and renewed plenty of wars of his own, we can’t forget that it was a Republican, George W. Bush, who launched this round of wasteful, endless foreign policy with devastating human and financial costs.
How is our costly foreign policy going to change with a Republican-controlled Senate?
How will spending and debt change? Many Republicans like to say that Democrats are irresponsible and spend way too much borrowed money. They’re absolutely right. The national debt has spiked under Obama, but you know what? We didn’t get to nearly $18 trillion of debt and counting just because of Democrats. Debt is a bipartisan issue.