Declan McCullagh wrote:
Law enforcement arguments about pedophiles generally trump discussions of privacy rights.
The problem seems to be that LEA's are full to the brim with incompetent officers who are incapable of enforcing the laws of the land without violating the citizen's Constitutional rights. The solution? Make room in the LEA's for people who *are* capable of doing so. The US has more of their citizen-units in prison than most of the 'bad' countries that they claim to be protecting us from, yet they turn around and tell us that, despite the mountains of our cash they are demanding to keep their protection racket going, that they cannot protect our children from the great hordes of child molesters and drug czars who are running free while they spend their time arresting grandmothers who are putting money in parking meters and confiscating the vehicles of other grandmothers who have a joint in their car. Let me get this straight... These dweebs are capable of finding a single joint in a vehicle travelling amoung thousands of others on the freeway, but they are incapable of finding a ton of cocaine in an airport with less than a hundred planes in it? These idiots need to be able to invade *everyone's* privacy in order to catch the millions of pedophiles lurking on the InterNet, but they can't catch them *now* when it is likely that hardly any of them know squat about strong encryption? Why are the LEA's salaries not tied directly to the price of drugs on the street? Because, with the price of heroin at a record low for the decade, then these thieving fucks would be making less than the minimum wage! How about a new system of LEA payments, etc., that is based on *results*? Low drug prices, low LEA salaries. If you are victimized by a criminal, you get to kill 1 cop. If you are victimized by a cop, you get to kill 1 politician. If you are victimized by a politician, you get to Nuke DC! "Do you feel lucky, Mr. President? Well...do you?"
FBI director Louis Freeh, DEO head Thomas Constantine, and Raymond Kelley (undersecretary for enforcement, Treasury Department) also sent a letter earlier today to the Commerce Committee endorsing Oxley's amendment "on behalf of the entire law enforcement community."
They don't seem to be exaggerating. The International Association of Chiefs of Police on September 22 said just that. So did the National Sherrifs' Association yesterday. And the National District Attorneys Association on September 19. And the Major Cities Chiefs on September 23. Plus a few state police associations.
Uuhhh...are these the guys who can't understand what the crack dealers are saying? Is there a "use of Ebonics in the commission of a crime" provision in the Oxhead amendment? I'm willing to compromise. We hand over our secret keys on the condition that if a single key, anywhere in the world, is compromised by their system, we get to kill every legislator who voted for GAK. This, in itself, is likely to result in the elimination, in one single year, of more drug dealers and pedophiles than would result from a hundred years of GAK. On the other hand, I am willing to admit that GAK might prove useful for saving lives in other countries that need to track the activities of US Foreign-Law Breaking Agencies who are murdering their citizens by slipping bad components into their imported parts and supplies. These fuckers are all crazy... A Player To Be Named Later