
Subpoenas and Gag Orders Show Government Overreach, Tech Companies Argue - JumpCrisscross
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/05/technology/subpoenas-and-gag-orders-show-government-overreach-tech-companies-argue.html
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John23832
The fact that governments don't want people or companies talking about what it
does at all shows that governments are overreaching.

These aren't nuclear schematics we're talking about. These aren't plans for a
doomsday device. We're talking about the government silencing people/companies
when it gathers (or forces those people/companies to gather) information about
(largely random) people in order to use that information against them if they
become "subversive". Government intelligence agencies seem to be modeling
themselves more and more after the Stasi's.

Though I will say, people often forget that the primary directive for any
government is to stay in power. No matter what.

Keep them silent and keep the power.

~~~
rileymat2
> The fact that governments don't want people or companies talking about what
> it does at all shows that governments are overreaching.

Or it shows they do not want to ruin a very targeted investigation.

~~~
crooked-v
There's a substantial difference between 'keep quiet for the duration of these
investigative legal proceedings' and 'you are never allowed to ever tell
anyone about this no matter how much time passes'.

~~~
lettergram
Not that I agree, but they are trying to keep the "bad guys" thinking certain
forms of communication are safe when really they are listening.

I see the logic, hide our capabilities (kind of like the star wars program)
and then no one knows what's safe.

~~~
jdavis703
That also keeps the "good guys" thinking they're safe, when in fact there
could be a backdoor for the Chinese government that sends over all messages
that say "falun gong." As demonstrated by the recent leak at the NSA perhaps
we should be investing in as much cyber defense as offense before a cyber
terrorist attack occurs.

~~~
FullMtlAlcoholc
From everything I've learned about security, offense is much, much more
effective dollar for dollar and that any concerted effort of creating an
impenetrable shield would result in a cyber Maginot Line.

An all out cyber war would be scary as there isn't any procedure or policy for
descalation once started, no white flag.

What's especially scary is that the government wastes all this time and money
surveillaning people's online habits when the electric grid, probably the
number one target in the event of a cyber war, is so defenseless that a
squirrel can effectively take out electricity for the Eastern seaboard.

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dcposch
Title would've been a lot stronger without the last three words.

Our media has an unfortunate habit of turning stories into he-said-she-said,
even when evidence is overwhelmingly on one side.

They seek artificial balance and are unwilling to speak frankly. Ironically
this makes their journalism _less_ objective.

It undermines their mission of holding power accountable, because when someone
or some agency does something really vile, the media act as unwitting
apologists by framing it as just another two-sided disagreement.

Related:

[https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/713416863678595076](https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/713416863678595076)

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JoshTriplett
It's right up there with the statement that the FBI wants to have an "adult
conversation" about encryption.

~~~
trendia
Hopefully the FBI will hire some adults to explain encryption to them.

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grownseed
Something I said before on a related topic:

> It is truly fascinating (and of course, terrifying) to watch governments
> expect, demand and enforce complete transparency and blind trust from the
> people, while providing absolutely none of either.

The constant flow of such news only makes this feel truer by the day. It blows
my mind that so many of the people who defend these actions are the same
people who will take any opportunity to disparage other "non-democratic"
countries, while gloating about their supposedly unique freedom. The hypocrisy
and the superiority complex are palpable.

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kyledrake
As I've mentioned before, one way to fight these on a budget is to throw away
data. There are no mandatory data retention laws in the US
[https://www.eff.org/issues/mandatory-data-
retention/us](https://www.eff.org/issues/mandatory-data-retention/us)

It looks like Signal has more or less applied this policy to their
implementation.

I can attest to how abused gag orders are and am happy that Microsoft is
trying to do something about it.

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fweespeech
The risk with that is they can likely instruct you to retain and/or provide
them with access needed to retain such records.

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throw2016
Current events translated with the Orwell language filter

Secret courts and secret processes - Police state

Gag orders - Authoritarian

FISA court with 100% approval rates - Kangaroo court

Surveillance of citizens - Totalitarian state

Zero accountablity to people - Despotic regime

Elections is not equal to democracy. I think by now we have to concede the US
fails the democracy test. There is no way for citizens to effect change
peacefully and these actions are in no way consistent with a democratic state.

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M_Grey
Or government is absolute out of control; the system on the whole needs an
enema. Wherever you stand on social/ideological issues, we need to be united
in the face of this, as well as other basic issues like police with MRAP's on
city streets, and the need to maintain our infrastructure.

~~~
lettergram
"Everyone wants a dictator in charge, as long as they agree with them"

~~~
M_Grey
I'd just take a group of assholes who can pass a budget and understand the
issues, they don't even need to agree with me on them.

~~~
lettergram
I think with the advent of the internet, we probably will have less and less
moderates every year (at least until some major disaster brings us together).

I'd recommend checking out the libertarian ticket - at least they seem willing
to negotiate and can admit when they are wrong. Hell they are both Republicans
from Democrat states running on a libertarian platform.

~~~
M_Grey
The ticket as it stands, with a guy who thinks that vaccinations should be
optional, and can't think of any world leaders? That's not a ticket, that's a
joke.

~~~
lettergram
"Everyone wants a dictator in charge, as long as they agree with them"

Not getting a vaccine only hurts you (and arguably others who don't get
vaccines, based on herd)... Wanting to force it, is kind of contrary to the
whole quote. Also FYI I'm highly allergic to the stuff in vaccines and they
still try and make me soooo I kinda want to point out that the freedom to
choose what to put in your body should be an inalienable right.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Not getting a vaccine only hurts you (and arguably others who don't get
> vaccines, based one herd)...

That's incorrect. Vaccines are effective, but (like most things in the real
world) not 100% effective. So not getting a vaccine increases _everyone 's_
risk of getting the disease the vaccine protects against.

~~~
lettergram
Totally agree, if the assumptions made on that theory were correct. The fact
is, many of the diseases we get vaccinated against: rabies, polio, small pox,
chicken pox, etc. Are not spread through the air. And pretty much everyone was
voluntarily vaccinated for those.

Meaning the less people around you who have the disease the better, as you
pointed out this is the general idea. That totally breaks down for air born
pathogens that aren't spread via feceal matter, saliva, etc. one sneeze on a
railing a train station can spread across 10000 people. We will always come in
contact with it, vaccines may help, but yeah... it doesn't spread node to node
as chicken pox, more like node to 100 X node.

We haven't even come close to solving air born pathogens.

Also, I'd argue that many of the reductions in disease rates have more to do
with better plumbing and teaching people to stay home as opposed than
vaccines. Both help, but the theory is just that a theory, with some pretty
large holes and ignores the easy international travel, air born illness, and
the evidence doesn't really have enough behind it to say "everyone has to be
vaccinated"

~~~
dragonwriter
> The fact is, many of the diseases we get vaccinated against: rabies, polio,
> small pox, chicken pox, etc. Are not spread through the air.

Whether a disease is airborne or not is somewhat irrelevant here (its
obviously relevant to how easy it is to spread, but as long as a disease is
communicable by some kind of contact, the increased danger from unvaccinated
members of the population is qualitatively similar.)

> Meaning the less people around you who have the disease the better, as you
> pointed out this is the general idea. That totally breaks down for air born
> pathogens that aren't spread via feceal matter, saliva, etc.

No, it doesn't; it changes the shape of the "increased risk" curve resulting
from changes in vaccination compliance, but it doesn't change that there is
such an increased risk.

> Also, I'd argue that many of the reductions in disease rates have more to do
> with better plumbing and teaching people to stay home as opposed than
> vaccines.

Yes, that those things have reduced disease rates for many diseases is a well-
established fact, not really a point in any kind of contention.

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Zigurd
Internet services could be making it impossible to comply with such orders.
Routine e2e encryption and easy key management and web-of-trust that
piggybacks on their existing social graphs and realtime communication would
blind the monster. Complaining isn't going to do much.

~~~
colejohnson66
The problem is consumers like the ability to reset their password while
keeping all their data. If you encrypt using a key derived from the password,
resetting the password renders all your data useless.

~~~
Zigurd
Key pairs are not like passwords. Nevertheless it is possible to migrate
encryption keys.

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mr_tristan
My sense is that we need more journalism that can relate the dangers here to
everyday people. A tech company complaining about a gag order probably won't
garner a lot of interest to the average joe.

Sadly, comedians seem to be the only ones that understand this. Like what John
Oliver did in his interview with Snowden: explain that the NSA could read his
dick pics.

