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A comment on Bill Gates calls for terror data debate. Parent comment

Re:Bill Gates calls for terror data debate by vectorjohn on Tuesday February 23, 2016 @03:20PM (#11161965)
People always bring up the idea that they didn't have this capability until recently as if that bolsters your position. Since criminals didn't have this capability 15 years ago they couldn't use it to hide criminal activity. How does that make your case? "Regular old police work" has become less effective because it will find less evidence. If criminals are sufficiently on top of their shit, they can be very hard to catch indeed.

I mean, why draw the line here? Bugs and taps were new at one point. Why not say "police used to get things done without these newfangled spy devices, so why should we allow it now?" I would say a bug or tap is actually very invasive, but as long as a warrant is required, it doesn't seem so bad.

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Re:Bill Gates calls for terror data debate by AnthonyMouse on Tuesday February 23, 2016 @04:03PM (#11162310)
> Since criminals didn't have this capability 15 years ago they couldn't use it to hide criminal activity.

The difference with an iPhone is not that it hides criminal activity but that it records it to begin with. There was no default recording of the content of communications. What loss have the police suffered that the information is now stored but unreadable when it was previously not stored at all?

> I mean, why draw the line here?

Because there is a difference between the police being allowed to do something and everyone else being obligated to facilitate it.

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