Unfortunately you cant. They have already exempted themselves from any type of monitoring. Only the proletariat can be spied on or forced to account for themselves.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new...

This is very true. There is class antagonism behind the surface.

Exactly this. I often hear such things from politicians who sound like they don't understand the topic, and it's usual at a point of "weakness" for civil liberties such as after terorism events. I assume it's just a form of lobbying, but I wonder if it's from other clueless people (police chiefs/unions who just want the job to be easier) or elite security services who make a conscious decision to trade public good for their own interests (ignoring the claim that they do good themselves...).

"You will not be safe until there is a complete information asymmetry between government and governed."

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2961

It is important that the medium she is using to make these conversation build meta-data around these conversations. And then uses AI and machine learning to detect potentially harmful content and inform the authorities.

And if she's nothing to hide then she's nothing to fear of them being made known, right?

My viewpoint when talking about security is please sign this form and your bank can send your bank statements on the back of a postcard in full view of everyone.

For your convenience we will include your PIN number and card number in full on all correspondence.

What does this mean?

Not much. Your bank access credentials will be visible to multiple government workers. They're all trustworthy so nothing will change. On top of it they'll be able to catch any ...-ists who use banking for their illegal activities.

Also, this is beyond ridiculous. Have fun having those "private conversations" on a backdoor-riddled machine.

I'll be Librebooting my X200 shortly, the webcam and mic are coming out too.

Noone is interested in listening at your heavy breathing and watching your extactic face while you are getting entertained with adult material on your TP.

savagery detection unit is redlining

Ye, I should have re-read myself and opted for cancelling the previous comment. sorry. :\

Don't be, it got a laugh out of me.

https://www.sudosatirical.com/articles/new-owner-of-secondha...

they won't be private for long

Who decrypts the decrypters?

Are you law enforcement with a warrant?

The Home Secretary is a proxy for the security services. Not the police, I'm referring to MI5. It doesn't seem to matter who holds the job, they've been pushing this for decades.

MI5 have no interest in things like warrants or courts and a rather murky history in Northern Ireland.

I'm not sure of the relevance of this to jstanley's argument, nor my rebuttal.

I think GP's point is the warrant isn't needed. I guess whether it is relevant to your comment depends on whether your point is that a warrant is required despite their authority, or that you are simply pointing out that those in authority have a default duty/right to an individual's private conversations.

> I think GP's point is the warrant isn't needed.

GP?

> Whether [...] you are simply pointing out that those in authority have a default duty/right to an individual's private conversations

Certainly not. Whether they do ought to should be decided by society and its representatives via the legislature.

GP = grandparent.

If you remove the technological protections, the communications become accessible not only to law enforcement but also to malicious people - cryptography doesn't care if you have a warrant or not.

A particular communications channel either is secure from anyone or it's vulnerable to everyone. If UK home secretary argues that we shouldn't be allowed to use secure channels, then that does imply that all such communications will be vulnerable to all kinds of criminals as well.

> will be vulnerable to all kinds of criminals as well.

But legal authorities would never abuse their power (without you even knowing about it, unlike in other cases of abuse).

The superficial solution to this is not to outlaw cryptography completely, but to require those who make cryptography available to keep master keys and/or logs.

I know that these are not a real solution as they can be leaked or abused, but it's best that we don't pretend not to hear this argument. We should make clear that these are insufficient and that there's nothing wrong with private communications truly remaining private.

> The superficial solution to this is not to outlaw cryptography completely, but to require those who make cryptography available to keep master keys and/or logs.

The infrastructure keeping those keys then becomes an irresistible target to compromise. The government has already lost critical data such as the application data for most/all Classified personnel in the military and contractors. If that kind of data cannot be kept safe then you can be sure that a legally centralized infrastructure to keep keys will be attacked, and likely compromised at some point.

> The superficial solution to this is not to outlaw cryptography completely, but to require those who make cryptography available to keep master keys and/or logs.

Completely or not completely, so to outlaw the strong crypto without a backdoor and put privacy activists who create such tools behind bars? I see where the UK is headed.

> but it's best that we don't pretend not to hear this argument

not "best", even if "reasonable, yet complicit". Best would be neutering these governmental bodies who are so accustomed to forking us whenever we roll over.

This is the argument raised by security experts in http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/97690/MIT-CSAI... , which I'm not qualified to disagree with. It seems strong! Even if it were technically possible, I expect there's also a strong argument along the lines of asserting our right to privacy.

But if she has nothing to hide, why should it matter if he's law enforcement or not? After all, there's no harm in being spied on, is there?

Is the home secretary using that argument?

We ought to use strong arguments. This thread's arguments aren't strong.

She wants to institute pervasive spying (targeted spying can be achieved by individually planting hardware backdoors, or simply recording the suspect entering their password).

But pointing out the harms of pervasive spying is a weak argument, because she didn't deny (or even address) those harms?

> She wants to institute pervasive spying (targeted spying can be achieved by individually planting hardware backdoors, or simply recording the suspect entering their password).

I can see targetted spying is possible today. It sounds like she wants targeted spying to be cheaper, and restricted by the judicial system.

> But pointing out the harms of pervasive spying is a weak argument, because she didn't deny (or even address) those harms?

The argument I replied to wasn't pointing out the harms of pervasive spying. Nor was your argument.

"If she wants law enforcement to be able to see other's metadata, she should expose her metadata" is weak. We needn't waste time with that.

There are stronger arguments, such as asserting our right to privacy, or perhaps that it isn't technically possible without critically compromising encryption for everybody.

I don't know if you're being deliberately obtuse, but I'll humour you:

> It sounds like she wants targeted spying to be cheaper, and restricted by the judicial system.

The cheaper that spying is, the more spying gets done - this has been repeatedly shown in many countries, even supposedly free ones, so lets not pretend this will result in the government saving a few bucks on security. It will result in (continued) data collection on a massive scale, the kind that is increasingly being hampered by encryption. Does 'Snowden' ring a bell?

> ..wasn't pointing out the harms of pervasive spying.. ..she should expose her metadata..

While I agree that the argument "if she thinks it's okay she should let folks spy on her" is weak (it's always possible to find someone crazy/sold-out enough to do whatever is being pushed), that's not actually the argument, except in the most literal reading.

The argument is twofold. First, pointing out that there are harms and she's aware of them, despite not addressing them, because she refuses to disclose her communications. Second, that the spying will be used asymmetrically - you, dear citizen, will have all your communications recorded, stored indefinitely, and subject to discovery when some prosecutor or large corporation decides to do away with you. But try and find out which corporations are sponsoring which politicians, who owns them, and what kind of deals those politicians are making in your name, and you'll meet a stone wall of silence - just like in the TTIP negotiations.

But the OP put it more concisely and humorously.

> There are stronger arguments, such as asserting our right to privacy

I don't think this is a stronger argument. In fact, I don't think this is an argument at all. First of all, it's circular - the law shouldn't strip us of our right to privacy, because the law gives us the right to privacy. Second, it won't convince anyone, it's just pointing out the status quo - sure we have a right to privacy, but so what? What harm will come of losing it?

> First, pointing out that there are harms and she's aware of them, despite not addressing them, because she refuses to disclose her communications.

Though I'm skeptical of how much a 3m42s interview can be said to represent the entirety of her views, I'd say she alludes to the harms by referring to such access as "warranted". That is, authorisation is restricted [because of the costs of unrestricted access].

> Second, that the spying will be used asymmetrically - you, dear citizen, will have all your communications recorded, stored indefinitely, and subject to discovery when some prosecutor or large corporation decides to do away with you.

This law would apply to politicians too, right? If they're suspected of a crime, a warrant could be issued for their communication details.

> But try and find out which corporations are sponsoring which politicians, who owns them, and what kind of deals those politicians are making in your name, and you'll meet a stone wall of silence - just like in the TTIP negotiations.

As mentioned, if those are crimes I expect them to be investigated similarly.

> I don't think this is a stronger argument. In fact, I don't think this is an argument at all.

Sorry yes, my single sentence wasn't the entirety of the argument. I was referring to arguments that rely on the benefits of privacy, rather than defeating a strawman (my, as you say, literal reading of top-level comment).

> If they're suspected of a crime, a warrant could be issued for their communication details.

What warrant? How naive are you, there wouldn't be such a thing.

You must also consider https://www.popehat.com/2014/07/15/warrants-bulwark-of-liber...

Have a read of this, I'd imagine the UK might want to tighten up their airport security a touch before encryption becomes a major issue:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jul/31/pipe-bomber-...