{"id":216,"date":"2015-03-27T04:02:42","date_gmt":"2015-03-27T04:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dogoodsoft.com\/blog\/?p=216"},"modified":"2024-12-23T07:53:10","modified_gmt":"2024-12-23T07:53:10","slug":"fbi-quietly-removes-recommendation-to-encrypt-your-phone-as-fbi-director-warns-how-encryption-will-lead-to-tears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dogoodsoft.com\/blog\/fbi-quietly-removes-recommendation-to-encrypt-your-phone-as-fbi-director-warns-how-encryption-will-lead-to-tears-216\/","title":{"rendered":"FBI Quietly Removes Recommendation To Encrypt Your Phone… As FBI Director Warns How Encryption Will Lead To Tears"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FBI<\/a><\/p>\n

Back in October, we highlighted the contradiction of FBI Director James Comey raging against encryption and demanding backdoors, while at the very same time the FBI’s own website was\u00a0suggesting mobile encryption as a way to stay safe. Sometime after that post went online, all of the information on that page about staying safe magically disappeared, though thankfully I screenshotted it at the time:<\/p>\n

<\/center>If you really want, you can still see that information over at the Internet Archive or in a separate press release the FBI apparently didn’t track down and memory hole yet. Still, it’s no surprise that the FBI quietly deleted that original page recommending that you encrypt your phones “to protect the user’s personal data,” because the big boss man is going around spreading a bunch of scare stories about how we’re all going to be dead or crying if people actually encrypted their phones:<\/p>\n

Calling the use of encrypted phones and computers a \u201chuge problem\u201d and an affront to the \u201crule of law,\u201d Comey, painted an apocalyptic picture of the world if the communications technology isn\u2019t banned. <\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re drifting to a place where a whole lot of people are going to look at us with tears in their eyes,\u201d he told the House Appropriations Committee, describing a hypothetical in which a kidnapped young girl\u2019s phone is discovered but can\u2019t be unlocked.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, until recently, the FBI was actively recommending you encrypt your data to protect your safety — and yet, today it’s “an affront to the rule of law.” Is this guy serious?<\/p>\n

More directly, this should raise serious questions about what Comey thinks his role is at the FBI (or the FBI’s role is for the country)? Is it to keep Americans safe — or is it to undermine their privacy and security just so it can spy on everyone?<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, Comey pulls out the trifecta of FUD in trying to explain why it needs to spy on everyone: pedophiles, kidnappers and drug dealers:<\/p>\n

\u201cTech execs say privacy should be the paramount virtue,\u201d Comey continued, \u201cWhen I hear that I close my eyes and say try to image what the world looks like where pedophiles can\u2019t be seen, kidnapper can\u2019t be seen, drug dealers can\u2019t be seen.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Except we know exactly what that looks like — because that’s the world we’ve basically always<\/i>lived with. And yet, law enforcement folks like the FBI and various police departments were able to use basic detective work<\/i> to track down criminals.<\/p>\n

If you want to understand just how ridiculous Comey’s arguments are, simply replace his desire for unencrypted devices with video cameras in every corner of your home that stream directly into the FBI. Same thing. Would that make it easier for the FBI to solve some crimes? Undoubtedly. Would it be a massive violation of privacy and put many more<\/i> people at risk? Absolutely.<\/p>\n

It’s as if Comey has absolutely no concept of a cost-benefit analysis. All “bad people” must be stopped, even if it means destroying all of our freedoms, based on what he has to say. That’s insane — and raises serious questions about his competence to lead a government agency charged with protecting the Constitution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in October, we highlighted the contradiction of FBI Director James Comey raging against encryption and demanding backdoors, while at the very same time the FBI’s own website was\u00a0suggesting mobile encryption as a way to stay safe. Sometime after that post went online, all of the information on that page about staying safe magically disappeared, … Continue reading FBI Quietly Removes Recommendation To Encrypt Your Phone… As FBI Director Warns How Encryption Will Lead To Tears<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[89,88],"class_list":["post-216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-encrypt-phone","tag-fbi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dogoodsoft.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dogoodsoft.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dogoodsoft.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dogoodsoft.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dogoodsoft.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.dogoodsoft.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":219,"href":"https:\/\/www.dogoodsoft.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions\/219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dogoodsoft.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dogoodsoft.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dogoodsoft.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}