The NSA wants tech companies to give it 'front door' access to encrypted data

[Dexter]

http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/12/8392769/nsa-front-door-access-encryption-key

The National Security Agency is embroiled in a battle with tech companies over access to encrypted data that would allow it to spy (more easily) on millions of Americans and international citizens. Last month, companies like Google, Microsoft, and Apple urged the Obama administration to put an end to the NSA's bulk collection of metadata. The NSA, on the other hand, continues to parade the idea that the government needs access to encrypted data on smartphones and other devices to track and prevent criminal activity. Now, NSA director Michael S. Rogers says he might have a solution.

During a recent speech at Princeton University, Rogers suggested tech companies could create a master multi-part encryption key capable of unlocking any device, The Washington Post reports. That way, if the key were broken into pieces, no single person would have the ability to use it.

"I don’t want a back door," Rogers said. "I want a front door. And I want the front door to have multiple locks. Big locks."

The suggestion comes as Congress considers a new framework for handling encrypted data. Government and law enforcement officials say total encryption could stand in the way of national security operations, while leaders in the tech industry and advocacy groups say the government shouldn't have complete, unobstructed access to citizens' private communications.

[Oceander]

The trouble is, a left-wing government - nay, any democrat-controlled government - cannot be trusted with this sort of power.  The Obama administration has used whatever was at its disposal to suppress dissent, including, most notoriously, the IRS.  People like Obama and his ilk would not hesitate to use this sort of power to thoroughly destroy anyone who disagreed with them.

[EC]

I'm afraid it's not just left wing governments that can't be trusted with this sort of power - and for the same reasons. No matter how pure the motives of the people in charge, they will end up deciding for you if you let them. Call it national security, call it the greater good, whatever, it will happen sure as eggs is eggs.

[Dexter]

I'm afraid it's not just left wing governments that can't be trusted with this sort of power - and for the same reasons. No matter how pure the motives of the people in charge, they will end up deciding for you if you let them. Call it national security, call it the greater good, whatever, it will happen sure as eggs is eggs.

 

[Oceander]

I'm afraid it's not just left wing governments that can't be trusted with this sort of power - and for the same reasons. No matter how pure the motives of the people in charge, they will end up deciding for you if you let them. Call it national security, call it the greater good, whatever, it will happen sure as eggs is eggs.

As between the lesser of two evils, left-wing governments are quicker and more willing to utilize such tools against their political opponents.  We don't have the choice of virtue or a lack thereof, we have only a choice between degrees of vice.

[EC]

True - which means they should not be given the tools at all.

[Dexter]

True - which means they should not be given the tools at all.

Indeed.

[Oceander]

True - which means they should not be given the tools at all.

Therein lies the rub.  If the government, pared back down to its core - the so-called night-watchman state - is to prevent crime, esp. terrorism, it needs to have some degree of tools.  And the government, even a wholly legitimate government, has always had the power of arrest and of the right to legal use of lethal force; the ability to arrest someone and hold him in detention incommunicado for an indefinite period of time is in many ways a more powerful tool than being able to crack encrypted messages.  And that goes doubly for foreign/international affairs.  But for the Allies having broken the Nazi codes, WWII could have ended in a much less favorable manner.