Bringing encryption restrictions in through the back door [LWN.net]

Bringing encryption restrictions in through the back door

Posted Mar 18, 2020 20:15 UTC (Wed) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106)
Parent article: Bringing encryption restrictions in through the back door

Our fundamental error here has been letting government officials get away for far too long with repeating the lie that commercial speech and speech conveyed through third-parties is not just as thoroughly covered by the principle of Freedom of Speech and the 1st Amendment as direct speech between individuals. Speech is speech, regardless of who is speaking, what they're speaking about, or how that speech is communicated. Threatening to punishing anyone for the content of speech either originating on or conveyed through their platform—even copyright-infringing material or CSAM—abridges the freedom of speech. The very concept of illegal content which this law is ostensibly aimed at policing is anathema to the Constitution, never mind the collateral damage on perfectly ordinary and inoffensive communications.

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Bringing encryption restrictions in through the back door

Posted Mar 18, 2020 20:50 UTC (Wed) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (1 responses)

The problem with your reasoned response is that the rebuttal is simply "<Politician X> sided with special interests against giving law enforcement the tools to protect your children from predators. But I will be be tough on crime, vote for me!"

(And it just goes downhill from there..)

Bringing encryption restrictions in through the back door

Posted Mar 19, 2020 10:45 UTC (Thu) by ale2018 (subscriber, #128727) [Link]

Correct. Who would dare to uphold CSAM now? Bigotry is anathema to freedom in the same sense.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that there are cases where child sexual abuse is welcome. I'm saying that to overreact to any whisper about such subject undermines tolerance an civic sense.

Bringing encryption restrictions in through the back door

Posted Mar 19, 2020 0:46 UTC (Thu) by ILMostro (guest, #105083) [Link] (6 responses)

I wonder how that rationale compares to CitizensUnited, where corporations were found to have freedom of speech protections. Obviously, there are plenty of problems either way. If there are unjust laws, it's up to the people to demand that those laws are changed. However, when the people are preoccupied working more than any other people around the world, they are too busy to know who their government representatives are, in some cases, much less what they are doing or to form an opinion about it. * https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/jul/27/joe-biden/biden-almost-right-us-workers-most-productive/ * https://time.com/4621185/worker-productivity-countries/

Bringing encryption restrictions in through the back door

Posted Mar 19, 2020 13:50 UTC (Thu) by zlynx (guest, #2285) [Link] (4 responses)

Can you not repeat this misinformation?

Citizens United found that *the people* have free speech rights, even when using corporate resources.

And that isn't only giant international corporations, that's also unions, non-profits, farming co-ops, etc. Any organization.

Any organization is made up of people, and those people don't lose their rights when part of an organization.

Bringing encryption restrictions in through the back door

Posted Mar 19, 2020 18:49 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (3 responses)

... except that it's not the people who are part of an organization who get the right to speak for it. It's the subset of those people who say what the rich people who run those organizations want them to say. It's money buying a (much) louder voice than everyone else, and thus gaining power, and thus corrupting the law. And that way lies oligarchy at best, plutocracy at worst.

Bringing encryption restrictions in through the back door

Posted Mar 21, 2020 19:07 UTC (Sat) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (2 responses)

Trying to restrict the rich from having the loudest voice is laudable but totally futile, it can never work. The only counter-measure is "freedom of information" = *who* is paying for this or that propaganda. That is of course under attack too but it's a much simpler and actually winnable fight.

Bringing encryption restrictions in through the back door

Posted Mar 24, 2020 8:47 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

"Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel"

Cheers,
Wol

Bringing encryption restrictions in through the back door

Posted Apr 9, 2020 0:15 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

The only cures for inequality that have heretofore been known are warfare and plague, but that doesn't mean that warfare and plague are *good* things, or that it is not desirable to find other ways to reduce the power of the mighty. Of *course* it's worth trying to restrict the rich from having the loudest voice, just as it is desirable to restrict the rich and powerful from having absolute power of life and death over everyone.

Bringing encryption restrictions in through the back door

Posted Mar 20, 2020 9:29 UTC (Fri) by nilsmeyer (guest, #122604) [Link]

It's not unique to the USA. Imagine having another Federal government (EU) on top of your Federal, State and local governments.