
If elected, Clinton would support an “Encryption Commission” to help feds - lisper
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/10/what-is-trumps-tech-policy-not-even-the-nsas-former-lawyer-can-tell/
======
jwtadvice
The article itself is actually very generous to Clinton, as it primarily
questions Trump's policies, features a ridiculing picture of him, and praises
Clinton's policy documents (focusing, actually, on the number of pages rather
than their clarity, consistency or purposes). They also snub Trump for
questioning whether the hacks of the DNC were supported by the government of
Russia.

In doing so this article falls prey to much of what plagues the media during
the election cycle. Broadly aligned against particular candidates and willing
to take widely biased and selective approaches toward writing and editing
about them, they fail to say much of anything substantive at all.

For instance this article can't come up with what a good policy might look
like, any particular appraisal of either candidate's policies (it merely cites
pages and makes an issue of known Clinton's backdoor policies).

The article mentions that both candidates consider Snowden a traitor, with
Trump explicitly using the word and Clinton calling for Snowden to be
extradited to the United States under investigation for violating the
Espionage Act.

Reading between the lines the article emphasizes that Silicon Valley doesn't
understand or trust the policies from either candidate, but appears to have a
stronger majority support for Clinton due to issues not related to either
campaign promises or policy directions.

EDIT: People below in the thread take issue with the term "libelous" so I
replaced it with "ridiculing".

~~~
dogma1138
>The article mentions that both candidates consider Snowden a traitor, with
Trump explicitly using the word and Clinton calling for Snowden to be
extradited to the United States under investigation for violating the
Espionage Act.

Only 15% of American believe that Snowden is a hero, 30% call him a traitor
outright and only 25% of them believe that he should be offered any type of
deal/pardon.

[http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/edward-snowden-rasmussen-
po...](http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/edward-snowden-rasmussen-poll-hero-
russia/2016/09/23/id/749866/)

So both candidates either appeal too or represent to the vox populi.

~~~
mhays
>Only 15% of American believe that Snowden is a hero, 30% call him a traitor
outright and only 25% of them believe that he should be offered any type of
deal/pardon.

According to that poll. I think it's a reasonable possibility that one of
those buckets is shortchanged by the way polls are conducted.

~~~
dogma1138
Honestly, I was surprised that 25% of the US public/registered voters are
willing to pardon Snowden, I would've thought that that percentage would be
far lower.

You need to realise that even in the Huff's online polls e.g.
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/05/edward-snowden-
poll...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/05/edward-snowden-
poll_n_3542931.html) Snowden was viewed unfavourably, and if online and the
Huff is not pandering to a favourable demographic even tho on paper the poll
might match the US demographics then I don't know what is.

------
daxorid
This is no surprise. She has long wanted to create a "Manhattan Project" to
backdoor crypto

Why the infosec community overwhelmingly supports her is an ongoing point of
confusion for me.

~~~
GordonS
Maybe because the alternative is Trump. Which is the lesser evil?

~~~
toomuchtodo
> Maybe because the alternative is Trump. Which is the lesser evil?

This is what we're reduced to? Voting for the "lesser evil"? Who in a first
world country should tolerate this?

I'm not voting, but I hope Trump wins. Hopefully the resulting 4 years are so
terrible that voters never tolerate a candidate like Trump or Clinton again.

EDIT: I'm against Clinton's encryption policies, her pro-fracking stance, her
war hawk attitude, her backroom political dealings, and her stance on
privatizing social security, just to start (almost forgot! The ACA is "good
enough" and we won't ever see single payer). I don't care if she's the "lesser
evil", that she's a woman, whatever. She's not just a terrible candidate, but
also a terrible person.

~~~
dragonwriter
Everyone in a democracy should work to get the best possible options in an
election, but then choose intelligently the best (which is the same as the
least bad) option in terms of expected result of voting when the election
arrives.

A failure to secure the options you'd like to have in the head up to an
election may prompt reflection and longer-term changes in approach to try to
get better results in the future, but doesn't change that you ought to make
the best (which may merely be least bad) available choice at the election.

------
jordanb
I'm becoming very worried about what an increasingly likely Clinton presidency
means for privacy.

The FBI carried a ton of water for Clinton with the email investigation. We
already know what the FBI's top legislative priority is. And now she owes thim
a big one.

Then you have all the Wikileaks hacking. I think it's probable that Clinton
will see this as further demonstration of the "lawlessness" of the Internet
and the need to assert federal authority over the net.

Finally you have the fact that Clinton was already a Dianne Feinstein on this
issue. There was a leak where a staffer contemplated getting Clinton to say
something good about Snowden or whistle-blowers while she was fighting off
Bernie but admitted that it was against her nature to take that position.

I really think that Clinton is going to be a cornucopia of goodies for the
police state and the panopticon.

(Disclosure: I'm a Bernie supporter and I've early voted for Stein).

------
nv-vn
Who in the intelligence community believes that it was undeniably Russia who
hacked the DNC? And why is this article advocating for Clinton when her policy
is pretty much just as bad: she wants Snowden extradited and she wants
backdoors in encryption. Worst of all is her claim that Snowden could have
done the same legally; I'm surprised her fact checkers didn't notice this one
[1]. Other than the more explicit language and the part about executing
Snowden, they basically said the same thing. A piece like this should have
instead highlighted the people who are actually on our side: Bernie Sanders,
Rand Paul, Jill Stein, and Gary Johnson (2/4 of which have sadly been knocked
out of the election, with the remaining 2 having no chance of winning).

[1] [http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2015/oct/...](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2015/oct/14/hillary-clinton/clinton-says-nsa-leaker-snowden-
failed-use-whistle/)

------
StanislavPetrov
Its simply astounding that in the 21st century the overwhelming favorite to
become the ruler of the "free world" literally doesn't know how to use a
computer. She doesn't even know how to read and send email on a computer.
Absolutely frightening.

[http://thehill.com/policy/national-
security/267727-clinton-d...](http://thehill.com/policy/national-
security/267727-clinton-didnt-know-how-to-access-email-by-computer-state-dept)

------
MichaelBurge
I don't know that Trump cares much about encryption by itself, except perhaps
indirectly by bolstering the NSA to protect against foreign attacks.

Though, Hillary blowing a few million(or tens of millions) on some
cryptography research wouldn't be the worst thing a president could do.

After Wikileaks, Trump might be more sympathetic to whistleblowers like
Snowden. He seems to be making corruption a central point in his more recent
rallies. And I can't imagine Clinton would have much sympathy for
whistleblowers, probably associating them with Assange.

------
davesque
While there are certain issues on which I don't agree with Clinton, here's why
I'm still voting for her: she believes in man-made climate change and, in my
opinion (I know a lot of people don't agree with me on this), a vote for one
of the third-party candidates is largely wasted.

~~~
leppr
What high expectations.

I'm hopeful this election will be the trigger that makes the mainstream
consciousness reflect on democratic republic systems' grave shortcomings.

~~~
frogpelt
"reflect on democratic republic systems' grave shortcomings."

And do what in response? Abolish the current system of government? In favor of
what?

~~~
leppr
Who talked about abolishing?

If the only way to change the status-quo is to completely discard the current
system, that means it's clearly not flexible enough and indeed has to be
abolished. But I doubt that's the case. Open up, experiment on small scales,
improve incrementally.

We keep calling that system "Democracy" as a shortcut(/newspeak), maybe it'd
be good to indeed try pushing it toward a real democracy?

------
gjolund
Typical apologist bullshit.

~~~
sctb
We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12748319](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12748319)
and marked it off-topic.

