
Time for a Rigorous National Debate About Surveillance - AlexCoventry
http://www.wsj.com/articles/time-for-a-rigorous-national-debate-about-surveillance-1451856106
======
renlo
>> "America is in a long war against a resilient enemy capable of striking the
homeland, but U.S. intelligence capabilities are falling short of meeting the
threat."

>> "Reasonable warrantless searches are compatible with the Fourth Amendment.
So are searches of data shared with third parties, such as social-media
posts—a highly valuable surveillance window, since people undergoing
radicalization are prone to showcase their zealotry online."

This type of rhetoric really concerns me. Especially because the author tries
to distance himself from beliefs that he clearly espouses by structuring his
opinions into factual statements ("America is in a long war...").

He says straight out that a) Social Media is a great tool for spying on
people, b) that basically we should have 'thought police' ("people undergoing
radicalization" ought to be spied (with the implication that they should be
sanctioned)).

~~~
0xdeadbeefbabe
No kidding. I expect gov to keep me reasonably safe, and not absolutely safe.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I also expect to be kept safe from the government; overbearing surveillance
isn't going to do that for me.

------
libeclipse
I feel that the gun debate and the encryption debate have a shared argument:
in a world where X is outlawed, only the outlaws will have X.

~~~
bborud
No. Not really. And frankly, it scares me that this is even confusing to
people.

~~~
unethical_ban
That you probably are not in favor of strong gun rights, doesn't mean the
situations don't have similarities.

~~~
bborud
Would it surprise you to learn that I am a gun owner?

------
wakkaflokka
This, along with Sessions who sided with the FBI in the San Bernadino case,
makes me very worried about the future of online privacy and communications
encryption.

Can somebody please allay my fears. Besides the EFF, where can I donate to
have most impact in terms of preventing the requirement of government
backdoors in consumer hardware or software?

~~~
davidw
The ACLU is a pretty good place to donate to as well.

------
jwtadvice
The argument at the top of this article DEEPLY confuses the issue of mass
surveillance, which I think is a very bad way to start an article titled “Time
for a Rigorous National Debate about Surveillance”.

The article begins by invoking the spectral boogyman of terrorism, and doubles
down on the concept that the United States can somehow be at war with a
tactic.

The article refuses to admit that mass surveillance, as disclosed by the
Snowden Documents, revealed that the capabilities of ubiquitous espionage were
not developed and are not primarily used for a ‘war on a tactic’.

What the disclosures and investigative journalism clarified is that mass
surveillance is about power and control writ large, with surveillance
capabilities having been build long before terrorism became relevant and used
at that time for the same power and control purposes that it is used today.

Specifically, the disclosures revealed that the intelligence is used to
understand populations and how information moves through them - this helps
with propaganda operations in various settings. They also revealed that the
espionage was used to aide US diplomats by giving them negotiating leverage in
international meetings, and was used to support domestic industries by
stealing relevant market information from overseas competitors.

This slight of hand - equivocating public safety with national security - is a
common tactic. There is a very specific definition of national security,
defined by National Security Presidential Directive-1
([http://fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd-1.htm](http://fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd-1.htm)):
"National security includes the defense of the United States of America,
protection of our constitutional system of government, and the advancement of
United States interests around the globe. National security also depends on
America's opportunity to prosper in the world economy.”

As the homeland is the safest place on Earth, the typical invocation of
"national security" refers to the other components: a prospering economy,
overseas access and interests, and protection of the current global political
system for which America sits on top.

Mass Surveillance helps America to maintain it’s edge as a leading world
power.

It is not about boogymen and terrorism, or about defeating certain kinds of
tactics.

The article is completely ingenuous.

------
chrissnell
I'm going to go out on a limb here. I think he's right.

It's _a_ red flag, not the only red flag. Like, if you use strong encryption,
have associated with known drug traffickers, and served time in prison on a
felony charge, someone might want to keep an eye on you. It's one of many
factors that may or may not be worth considering. The use of strong encryption
alone should not be considered bad.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Indeed. People are forgetting we have a whole piece of math - called
probability theory - for dealing _exactly_ with that stuff. It can tell you
whether or not doing X is an evidence for you being Y (or evidence against
it).

The important thing is - probability theory doesn't depend on rhetorics.
Someone speaking the "nothing to hide" argument, or someone else finding
arguments against it convincing, doesn't suddenly invalidate Bayes' theorem!
Trying to argue from principle is a mistake because reality doesn't listen to
principles. The only relevant question is whether encryption/Tor/whatever is
or is not currently an evidence for/against being an evildoer, and how strong
that evidence is.

Those considerations do include things like loss of utility because of false
positives / false negatives, too. So for instance, it may be so that evildoers
are more likely to use encryption than general population, but there's so much
normal people using encryption that you can't get evidence for being evil out
of just noticing that a person uses encryption (the same considerations
explain why so much of what TSA is doing is security theater).

~~~
wakkaflokka
I agree with you in general. My issue with this line of thinking for policy
decisions, is that I personally believe relying solely on objective
probability theory to associate people with _______, without looking at the
larger picture, and then building policies from that, could exacerbate the
reason the association is being payed attention to in the first place.

Let's say theoretically, that people who wear red shirts are objectively more
likely to commit a crime. Policies are made such that people with red shirts
are targeted for extra policing. People with red shirts who are not criminals
feel discriminated and overly watched, and because of that, generate a
resentment against society and (I admit this is a jump), ultimately end up
with a higher disposition towards committing crimes. And then it just goes on
ad infinitum.

So in some situations, I would argue that society benefits from ignoring these
objective probabilities entirely, if there's evidence that taking action based
on them could cause downstream negative consequences.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I've seen this argument brought up in discussions about racial profiling,
and... I think this may be a real - and in some situations significant -
phenomenon. I currently have no idea how to model it in a way that could plug
into the probability calculations. I need to think about this some more.

I say in some situations, because the typical case is that if something (e.g.
wearing red shirts) is likely to attract attention you don't want, you'll tend
to avoid doing that thing (you'll stop wearing red shirts in order for the
police to leave you alone). So there's a negative feedback loop. But I can see
how this loop can fail in case of things one can't (easily) change - like skin
color, cultural background, religion, etc. This leads me to believe that just
looking for probability-based signals may be a good thing in case of guns and
encryption, but a bad thing in case of race and religion.

------
1024core
From the horse's mouth:
[http://pompeo.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=...](http://pompeo.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=398776)

------
samsolomon
For anyone confused about the date of this article, it was co-authored by the
incoming CIA director Mike Pompeo at the beginning of this year.

~~~
AlexCoventry
Yes, I attempted to provide this context in the original title, "Incoming CIA
Director: Strong encryption in personal communications is a red flag," but
it's been changed to the title of the editorial.

The main reason this seemed to be of interest to the HN community is the
following: "Forcing terrorists into encrypted channels, however, impedes their
operational effectiveness by constraining the amount of data they can send and
complicating transmission protocols, a phenomenon known in military parlance
as virtual attrition. Moreover, _the use of strong encryption in personal
communications may itself be a red flag_."

------
vonklaus
Trump wins largely due to poorly secured communications of his opponent. I
think HRC getting hacked actually pushed this issue forward. If it can happen
to someone this powerful, and it is now so easy to secure email & texts, most
Americans probably are. That means; hopefully, it doesnt matter if it is
flagged as security is hopefully on a mainstream trajectory

------
yup123
Just keep in mind that governments that take powers never give it back.

~~~
nine_k
Not unless some pressure is applied.

~~~
apo
Do any examples come to mind?

~~~
mcbits
Marijuana legalization is a step in that direction that I previously thought
would never happen in my lifetime.

------
kensai
Oh really? What about weapons-armed civilians then?

~~~
fixermark
For what it's worth, quite a few citizens consider other armed citizens a red
flag, 2nd Amendment be damned.

------
panarky

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------
fixermark
And it will continue to be a red flag until and unless it becomes common among
individuals to communicate that way. Really, more individual education is the
only practical way to de-stigmatize strong encryption in the eyes of
authority; it can't be wrong if everyone's doing it, but if everyone isn't, it
looks suspicious.

------
daheza
Maybe this is just false security, but I at least feel comfortable knowing
apple and I are on the same side in this fight.

------
MichaelBurge
One of the authors(Mike Pompeo) is going to be appointed as head of the CIA. I
suppose it's natural for him to want to expand surveillance, since it helps
him do his job. I hope Trump speaks with Snowden at some point, which seems
somewhat more likely given how a whistleblowing organization helped his
campaign. I don't really like these surveillance programs.

The one good thing he said was he wants better congressional oversight. It
helps him cover his ass, but I suppose it also lets concerned congressmen get
more information. I don't know how much information the intelligence committee
currently gets, or if the people on that committee are for or against
increased surveillance.

I don't mind this guy on the CIA; I'd be more concerned about who's going to
head the NSA.

------
kag0
Full text not behind WSJ paywall, for convenience
[http://davidbrivkin.com/time-for-a-rigorous-national-
debate-...](http://davidbrivkin.com/time-for-a-rigorous-national-debate-about-
surveillance/)

------
dzdt
Just like keeping the curtains drawn on your house is a red flag...

~~~
estebank
Funnily enough in The Netherlands there's an aversion to curtains, to the
point where people decorate the interior of their houses next to the window as
some sort of diorama.

(Just so people don't think I'm just making this up:
[https://stuffdutchpeoplelike.com/2010/11/24/no-8-not-
owning-...](https://stuffdutchpeoplelike.com/2010/11/24/no-8-not-owning-
curtains/) )

~~~
lb1lf
In Norway (and probably a few other places!) there's a sect called the
Læstadians after the founder, Something-or-the-other Læstadius (19th-century
Swedish preacher)

Anyway, for some reason they have an aversion to curtains, too - it is
commonly said to stem from one of the significant preachers who, during a
sermon, exclaimed 'One does not need curtains to go to heaven!'

The point he was trying to make was that one didn't need to be well heeled
(19th century northern Norway not being anybody's idea of a well-off
community!) to make it past the pearly gates; however, this has since been
taken to mean that 'Curtains will not get you to heaven!' \- and, hence, being
useless.

This is probably apocryphical; however, it is an anecdote lots of Norwegians
have heard, and sadly, I do not know any Læstadians I can ask to verify it...

------
quizotic
This motivated me to sign up for ProtonMail. Now I want to send Mike Pompeo a
congratulatory email! He seems like a decent guy. Does anyone know where to
send an encrypted email to the incoming cia director?

~~~
wakkaflokka
I love the idea of ProtonMail (and other encrypted email services). I keep
getting the hankering to switch to one. But then I realize how convenient and
integrated Gmail is. It's really weighing my privacy vs. convenience, but I am
getting close to the point where I'm ready to move it all over.

------
gorbachev
Rigorous debate and the Trump Administration? Surely you jest WSJ.

------
r00fus
Those who voted for Trump - did you know you were going to get this?

I think Trump's stance on Apple was pretty indicative of where things are
headed.

~~~
ProAm
> Those who voted for Trump - did you know you were going to get this?

Of course we did, we know this next 4 years are going to be largely terrible
and he will be a horrendous president. However sometimes before you can
rebuild you need to burn the existing structure to the ground first. We're
tired of the status quo and want significant change in how we're represented.
Sometimes you have to endure a little pain before things get better.

EDIT: I think the next round of house, senate and presidental
campaigns/elections will be vastly different (for the better) than the last 20
years.

~~~
buckbova
> we know this next 4 years are going to be largely terrible and he will be a
> horrendous president.

I heard the EXACT same thing said about President Obama. The results were
debatable.

> EDIT: I think the next round of house, senate and presidental
> campaigns/elections will be vastly different (for the better) than the last
> 20 years.

You're projecting. Plenty of Americans are very happy with the way the
elections went and suspect more republicans taking power in the midterm
elections. Historically republicans do better in midterm elections.

~~~
ProAm
> Plenty of Americans are very happy with the way the elections went

I wasnt talking about Americans, both political parties were embarrassed and
horrified at how the elections went. It's those people who are going to try
harder. The Republican party is in shambles, and the DNC is embarrassed they
lost what looked like a gimmie election by putting their weakest candidate in
front.

------
er0l
good luck putting a red flag on the 1 billion WhatsApp users

~~~
maxerickson
Dear WhatsApp-

Per [whatever law they pass], please stop providing server capacity for any
versions of your software that are not compatible with [unintentionally ironic
name for surveillance system].

Thanks.

------
rm_-rf_slash
>Time for a rigorous debate

>paywall

