Category Archives: culture

Encryption and the Government

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Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance wants Congress to enable government agencies—the police in Vance’s case—to penetrate private citizens’ encrypted cell phone communications. His justification?

Just for iPhones alone we have 111 cases that we are not able to access…due to new encryption protocols[.]

Out of a population of 320 million Americans possessing some 200 million smartphones—the targets of Vance’s desire—Vance has a problem with 111. That’s roughly akin to five people out of the entire city of New York. Five problems, and so all of New York City must lose their ability to protect their privacy against government snooping. One hundred and eleven problems, and so all Americans must lost.

Trust us. We government men would never abuse this power.

This is exactly the arrogance of officials of intrusive government that drove our Founders to write the 4th Amendment. Can’t crack the encryption, even with a warrant? Do actual police work. You have brains. It only takes one failure? Reread Ben Franklin’s remark about security and liberty.

We’ve been over this.

 

EU Border Policy

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Jean-Claude Juncker, European Commission President, says the Paris attack won’t cause the EU to change its strategy for handling the flood of refugees from Syria, North Africa, and elsewhere.

Jean-Claude Juncker…urged citizens and politicians not to confuse the Paris perpetrators with those seeking shelter from war and terror.

It’s becoming apparent that one of the Islamic terrorists entered France legally, via Greece, on a Syrian passport. But that’s just one of the seven, or so, terrorists who butchered so many innocents. How, exactly, does Juncker propose that “citizens and politicians” sort out the terrorists from the refugees (and “ordinary” migrants, legal or otherwise) when they’re all so thoroughly mixed in among each other as the flood crosses the EU’s “borders?” The Paris butchery clearly demonstrates that the EU’s existing strategy is worse than unequal to the task, it’s a signal and tragic failure.

Because There Isn’t Enough Regulation

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Nature abhors a vacuum, and so do Democrats. The vacuum Democrats abhor, though, isn’t a natural one, it’s manmade—gaps in regulation. Americans are just too stupid to manage our own lives, on our own, insist Democrats, and so Democrats demand to regulate our lives for us. For our own good, you see. And for the good of Democrats’ political power. Here are two examples.

In Houston, the Liberal city government didn’t think bathroom accommodations for those who can’t accept who they are should be a matter of negotiation between employer and employee or prospective employee.

More importantly, the Liberal city government thought religious beliefs should be a matter appropriate only to Sundays in churches and not available in the workaday world or to the men and women who operate businesses in the city.

The Liberal city government didn’t think such perks or rights should be competitive offers in free market competition among employers for labor—the way “full dental” was exactly such a competition offer in the last century. So, after having an outright city ordinance struck in court, they put the regulation to the city’s voters in full expectation of being able to ram it through, with the help of millions of dollars from outside Liberals and Democrats.

Houston’s mayor, Annise Parker, even sought to justify this regulatory overreach:

No one’s rights should be subject to a popular vote[.]

No, they shouldn’t. But the Liberal, looking to fill a regulatory vacuum, did exactly that; she put Christians’ and employees’ in general rights to a popular vote.

In San Francisco, the regulatory vacuum involved what private property owners should be allowed to do with their private property when the Liberal city government and its special interest supporters object to those uses.

In another referendum, San Frisco voters rejected the city’s efforts to limit short-term housing rental, a move made by a number of house owners to earn a few extra bucks letting a room to freely agreeing renters needing a place to stay.

[T]enants-rights organizations, a group representing landlords, a hotel workers’ union and hotel associations

all supported the limiting measure because it might compete with their interests. Freedom to compete—or even just to earn some money in an enormously expensive city—should be limited because, well, because competition must be regulated. The argument they put forward wasn’t even intended to be a serious one. Such room-letting would drive up housing costs. By reducing demand for housing, I suppose.

Both of these moves were demonstrations of how much the Left—the Progressives in government and the Democratic Party at large—abhor American citizens’ behavior being unregulated. Americans are just too dumb to handle our own affairs; every action we take has to be regulated to the last detail.

Remember these Democratic Party attempts next year.

Religious Bigotry in our High Schools

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Bremerton, WA, High School football assistant coach Joe Kennedy has been suspended from coaching his high school football teams because after each game he leads a voluntary prayer session with his players and others wishing to join in at the 50 yard line.

The school district says it’s afraid of being seen as endorsing religion. It prefers, instead, to be seen as banning religion.

While the district appreciates Kennedy’s many positive contributions to the [Bremerton] football program, Kennedy’s conduct poses a genuine risk that the district will be liable for violating the federal and state constitutional rights of students or others[.]

This is plainly bogus. No one is forced to participate in the prayer sessions. They occur after school functions—like the football game—have ended. According to the players themselves, he doesn’t even invite them to participate: he just does his thing, and the players on their own initiative join in. Or don’t.

It gets…better. As part of Kennedy’s suspension, Superintendent Aaron Leavell told him what else he’s not allowed to do.

He was also ordered to avoid kneeling, bowing his head, or doing anything that could remotely be seen as religious.

And

Leavell had offered to let the coach engage in “private prayer” following the football games—provided no child could see the coach petitioning the Almighty[.]

Because Christianity and being Christian are such shameful things, apparently, that they need to be kept hidden away in a back bedroom.

It’s interesting, too, that Kennedy has been doing these private, voluntary prayer sessions since 2008, yet “the school district” says it only just noticed them.

That’s such blatant nonsense that it’s a clear indication of the level of integrity with which the district is approaching this problem which it’s created.

Fatal Flaw

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The “problem” with encryption of private communications is becoming empirical rather than hypothetical. Hillar Moore, District Attorney for East Baton Rouge, LA, says he’s one of 16 prosecutors to write the Senate Judiciary Committee calling for back doors into encrypted devices for law enforcement.

He, and other state and local prosecutors and police have a mix of smart phones owned by deceased victims and suspects that those government representatives can’t get into for any evidence related to the crimes being investigated because the phones are locked and the passwords are unavailable or the suspects refuse to give them up.

While I’m sympathetic to the government’s problem in such cases, the fatal problem is those back doors into the encryption. Back doors destroy the encryption. Back doors are openings for nefarious individuals to steal from the phone’s owner. Back doors are openings for out of control governments to abuse the citizens they’re supposed to protect.

That there aren’t easy answers to the conundrum—yet—doesn’t alter that simple fact. Nor does it alter the fact that the convenience of government is not an excuse for circumscribing individual liberty.

In the meantime, if government wants to know something, get a warrant.