There will always be foolproof software alternatives for encryption but the aim of the FBI here is clearly to be able to decrypt the lowest common denominator. They know that most criminal or even terrorist suspects will simply have the default level of encryption.

The fight here is really against Apple turning on encryption by default which is something it only started doing after the Snowden NSA revelations. If I recall right, previously Apple would unlock iPhones at will for law enforcement. The change was to protect their reputation given the pervasive assumption that US based tech companies were all in collusion with the NSA. Also they would have probably been miffed that while co-operating with them, the NSA was also hacking trans-continental cables to get access to communications more directly.

I also think that Obama had a point when he recently said at a tech conference that it is likely some ugly law will be rammed through Congress with very little debate after the next major terrorist attack, and that it will be much more draconian than anything proposed now. However, that doesn't really get past the fact there is no good software solution here. Encryption is math. You can no more build a foolproof backdoor than you can make 1+1 equal 3.

Where's the line?

On the shelf to the left of my screen rests a copy of Dirty Wars by Jeremy Scahill. Excuse the hyperbole, but every single page of that book details actions by the US military/intelligence agencies that were in violation of both international and domestic law. Individuals may refuse to obey unlawful orders, but the organisations will commit every atrocity in the book without much thought.

How many laws did the CIA break during those three years when Hayden was in charge? How many torture camps did it run? How many "black sites"? How many extrajudicial renditions took place?

Let's not even bother with all the shenanigans of the NSA under Hayden's command.

GOP goes down = fine.
Trump compromises the US and forces the shadow government (NSA CIA Pentagon etc) to quietly change the rules to maintain order = end of the US as we know it.

I think article linked below on reading level is important to note in regards to this.
https://contently.com/strategist/2015/01/28/this-surprising-reading-level-analysis-will-change-the-way-you-write/ By keeping his language simple, he is able to reach, and have his keywords understood by a larger American audience. Of course understanding speech and reading are slightly different, but it's word choice still becomes important.

As this video notes. Trump is a salesman. And he's selling his crap expertly well. He circumvents the answer with babble that never actually answers the question. He never answered if it's un-American to have a religious litmus test to allow people to visit the US, he just says we have a problem, and implicates all the people of one faith in that, which ISIL itself said sometime ago was their goal, to turn the world against all of Islam to make it easier to recruit and radicalize more people... which is off topic. He doesn't address the point of the question, he sort of skirts it and generalizes it into his overall framework. One could argue that yes, saying there's a problem is itself an answer to the question, but it isn't a direct answer.

I don't know as if he's intentionally talking at that low a level though, or if he's just his style period.

It'd also be interesting to see if Hitler's run-up to being elected, if he used similar style. That is if he used a simple style to appeal to the masses. Not just Hitler, but other leaders of his ilk. I choose Hitler here as more an example of an elected leader gone wrong, that had mass appeal to his people, but later regretted to the point of shame.

Even if Britt's famed Warning Signs of Fascism isn't fully accurate by all scholars (and I'm aware he doesn't actually have academic scholarship) many do come close. I think most can agree that it requires at least Extreme Nationalism, warmongering, a loss of civil liberties and rights (Patriot Act, wanting to increase the spy power of the NSA, etc), corporatism a merger of the state and corporate power, racism (Britt's warning signs says sexism, but I think racism is more apt and I don't think what people normally think about sexism applies, though we need more of a racism slash something, to note those who "sin" differently than others, such as the gays).

I am sure that the NSA has already decoded it.

Here's a product catalog in case any of you are interested in ordering:

https://nsa.gov1.info/dni/nsa-ant-catalog/

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Media: "German intelligence services provide assistance to the NSA's espionage program, including selectors aimed at economic/political targets in Germany/EU"

Plebs/Parliamentary committee of inquiry: "Government, show us those selectors!"

Chancellory: "Sincerest apologies, but our hands are tied. The White House made it abundantly clear, we cannot hand these selectors over to any committee, much less the public, without risking the NSA's cooperation."

Media: "White House says it's up to the German Chancellory to make the call."

Chancellory: "Look, a three-headed monkey!"

I hate this pathetic joke of a government...

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Tuesday: head of counter-intelligence says there is no evidence for espionage by the NSA [in Germany].

Wednesday: WikiLeaks publishes lists of top German NSA targets and intercepts.

Thursday: I need to grab a replacement keyboard from my shelf, because the previous one is now, once again, covered in coffee from when I had a laughing fit.

Wow, how baked are you @MrFisk?

The point you made was about Public figures and their privacy.

Regardless of how their privacy came to be violated..

(Anthony Weiner mistakenly? linked his pics on is public twitter originially. Hah.)

the result is the same:

People flocking to oogle their naked/scantily-clad bodies in photos that were meant to be private.

Isn't that the issue?


And then the rest of your comment about how..

..even private citizens should expect less privacy because of illegal data collection by the NSA..

(not unlike the illegal seizure by the Fappening hacker effectively)

Yet somehow that's okay because.. they didn't publicly share those photos.. O_o? really?

..wtf dude.. @_@

Really. Public figures have less expectations of privacy. The difference between Wiener's wiener and 'The Fappening' is how the material was accessed and disseminated. And I'm not saying either is not a problem, but I'm saying that Wiener was a married elected official who chose to send dick picks to chicks other than his wife while in office. And then some of the recipients provided the material to the media, which isn't the same as an ex-lover self-publishing. And 'The Fappening' was a lapse of security of the cloud, right? So I don't see causation of similarity.

@GenjiKilpatrick -- I'm sure you could contact Anthony Wiener and get more pics. And I definitely wouldn't say leaked nudes is perfectly acceptable and to be expected, but it's most likely to be expected because the technology and ramifications are new. Snowden said the NSA casually exchanged images of nude women (probably men, too), and they weren't celebrities. Of course, I'm sure neither Snowden or the NSA leaked them.

liberals are worst, but both are bad.

im more libertarian/green/constitution party

course I'm a NSA target waiting to happen anyhow since I wish we'd have a coup and reboot the government in US.

and execute them all current sitting for treason.