<story><title>Congress finally showed it&apos;s willing to fight the FBI on encryption</title><url>http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/01/congress-showed-willing-fight-fbi-encryption-finally</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>pdkl95</author><text>I also watched most of the hearing[1], and Comey was very practiced at sticking to his story. However, one bit in particular stood out as something I haven&amp;#x27;t heard before: he seemed to criticize Apple for trying to protect people. He went off on a brief tangent at one point where he said things like[2]:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;It&amp;#x27;s not Apple&amp;#x27;s job to protect the American people.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;They sell phones, they don&amp;#x27;t sell public safety. That&amp;#x27;s our business to worry about.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;He spent a minute or two saying things like that. This almost sounds like Comey sees this as some sort of turf war, with Apple infringing on his responsibilities. I&amp;#x27;m not sure how to interpret that - isn&amp;#x27;t it the job of &lt;i&gt;any&lt;/i&gt; manufacturer to make sure their product is safe? Wouldn&amp;#x27;t any kind of courier have a duty to protect what that which they carry?&lt;p&gt;[1] side note: I&amp;#x27;m actually very impressed by most of Representatives understanding of the issue and the fairness of their questions.&lt;p&gt;[2] These may not be exact quotes! This is what I remember, I&amp;#x27;ll see if I can find the spot in the video later.</text></item><item><author>sigmar</author><text>I watched most of the hearing (can be viewed here &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=g1GgnbN9oNw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=g1GgnbN9oNw&lt;/a&gt;), this article seems like a pretty accurate characterization. Comey&amp;#x27;s parsing of words in his response to the question of whether any gov&amp;#x27;t agency can access the phone reminded me of Clapper&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;least untruthful&amp;quot; answer (ie his lie about NSA data collection).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>prebrov</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m delighted to see Congress taking a stand for&amp;#x27;s right here, and I hope politicians finally realised they do have a personal stake in the matter.&lt;p&gt;They do have secrets, like most of us and effects of revealing these secrets would have far worse consequences for them and their careers than for most &amp;quot;ordinary citizens&amp;quot;, which makes them high-profile targets. Easy targets, too, if (or when) FBI&amp;#x2F;NSA&amp;#x2F;CIA allies with some party in domestic political struggle.&lt;p&gt;Given surveillance powers these guys want, it won&amp;#x27;t be too long before they decide that next order of business is to find more effective ways to steer political discourse in the favourable direction.&lt;p&gt;I can see how &amp;quot;ordinary people&amp;quot; would think they &amp;quot;aren&amp;#x27;t important enough&amp;quot; when it comes to surveillance, but it amazes me that ambitious politicians wouldn&amp;#x27;t see themselves as &amp;quot;important enough&amp;quot;.</text></comment>
<story><title>Congress finally showed it&apos;s willing to fight the FBI on encryption</title><url>http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/01/congress-showed-willing-fight-fbi-encryption-finally</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>pdkl95</author><text>I also watched most of the hearing[1], and Comey was very practiced at sticking to his story. However, one bit in particular stood out as something I haven&amp;#x27;t heard before: he seemed to criticize Apple for trying to protect people. He went off on a brief tangent at one point where he said things like[2]:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;It&amp;#x27;s not Apple&amp;#x27;s job to protect the American people.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;They sell phones, they don&amp;#x27;t sell public safety. That&amp;#x27;s our business to worry about.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;He spent a minute or two saying things like that. This almost sounds like Comey sees this as some sort of turf war, with Apple infringing on his responsibilities. I&amp;#x27;m not sure how to interpret that - isn&amp;#x27;t it the job of &lt;i&gt;any&lt;/i&gt; manufacturer to make sure their product is safe? Wouldn&amp;#x27;t any kind of courier have a duty to protect what that which they carry?&lt;p&gt;[1] side note: I&amp;#x27;m actually very impressed by most of Representatives understanding of the issue and the fairness of their questions.&lt;p&gt;[2] These may not be exact quotes! This is what I remember, I&amp;#x27;ll see if I can find the spot in the video later.</text></item><item><author>sigmar</author><text>I watched most of the hearing (can be viewed here &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=g1GgnbN9oNw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=g1GgnbN9oNw&lt;/a&gt;), this article seems like a pretty accurate characterization. Comey&amp;#x27;s parsing of words in his response to the question of whether any gov&amp;#x27;t agency can access the phone reminded me of Clapper&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;least untruthful&amp;quot; answer (ie his lie about NSA data collection).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>alanwatts</author><text>It is a turf war because times are changing. This is actually a central theme in the newest James Bond movies, and one that Marshall Mcluhan wrote about back in the 70&amp;#x27;s:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;&lt;i&gt;Man Hunter and Sleuth: Posture and Imposture&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;In one of Sherlock Holmes&amp;#x27;s adventures his quarry demurs when Holmes declares that he had seen him at a particular spot. The quarry retorts that &amp;quot;I saw nobody follow me there.&amp;quot; And Holmes comments, &amp;quot;That is what you may expect to see when I follow you.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;Half the world today is engaged in keeping the other half &amp;quot;under surveillance.&amp;quot; This, in fact, is the hang-up of the age of &amp;quot;software&amp;quot; and information. In the preceding &amp;quot;hardware&amp;quot; age the &amp;quot;haves&amp;quot; of the world had kept the &amp;quot;have-nots&amp;quot; under &amp;quot;surveillance.&amp;quot; This old beat for flatfoots has now been relegated to the world of popular entertainment. The police state is now a work of art, a bureaucratic ballet of undulating sirens. That is a way of saying that the espionage activities of our multitudinous man hunters and &amp;quot;crediting&amp;quot; agencies are not only archaic, but redundant and irrelevant.&lt;p&gt;-Marshall McLuhan, Take Today: The Executive as Dropout</text></comment>