On Thu, 22 Aug 2013, Edward Ned Harvey (lopser) wrote:
From: [email protected] [mailto:discuss-
[email protected]] On Behalf Of David Lang
There's a huge difference between "It would be possible to track me" and
"the
government is routinly tracking me"
I agree, but for the sake of devil advocacy: Driving on the highway, you're
in a public place, and all the travelers are routinely and indiscriminately
observed to see if they're complying with the law. (Some are even
discriminated against, or subject to profiling.) The same is true of publicly
used internet cables - Sure I acknowledge some differences; the highways are
government owned and made available for use of the public in exchange for
taxes, while the internet cables are privately owned and made available for
public use in exchange for subscription fees and other considerations... And
sure enough, on the highways, you are permitted to obscure the contents of
your vehicle by driving a windowless van or truck, or transporting something
in the trunk of your car. You are not subject to content search without
probable cause. (Same as encrypted traffic on the internet.)
Aside from that, all your non-encrypted usage of the internet is a public
communication, as if you painted it on the side of your car.
Sure, when I'm driving down the road, if there's a cop by the side of the road
they will observe that I'm there and what my behavior is.
But that is very different from placing a tracking device in my car that records
where I have been, how fast I've been going, how sharp my turns have been, etc.
Or before the days of tracking devices, to have the cops tail me everywhere I
go.
It's been long settled law that it's perfectly Ok for a cop to sit in one place
and report what happens there, but if they want to track my every move, they
need a court order specifically allowing this.
This settled law has been slightly unsettled in the last couple of years over
the need for a search warrent to place a GPS tracker on someone's car, and the
cases are going to the supreme court. But if you go back pre-GPS, having the
cops put you under 24 hour inspection has always required approval.
What we are dealing with here is similar.
Nobody technical has disputed that your online actions could be seen by someone
in your network path. That is similar to the traditional 'speed trap' on the
highways.
But what they are doing now is much more like putting trackers in everyone's car
to record their every movement.
As for the "I have nothing to hide", how many people would have been willing for
their parents to know their every action and their location at all times during
their teenage/college days?
I don't know what conditions brought the demise of groklaw, lavabit, etc. If
the govt actually approached them and demanded them to provide decryption
keys... Or if they just shutdown to make a publicity statement about *fear*
that the govt might someday do that.
well, for lavabit, it's pretty obvious that they recieved a "national security
letter" demanding broad access to the system. They have said that they have
complied in the past with requests for information on specific users. They have
been very careful NOT to say that they recieved a NSL because the law does not
allow them to do so, but they been VERY strong in their implications that this
is the case.
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