[Cryptography] "Most Americans Don't Mind Being on Candid Camera"

[dan at geer.org]

 | However, what I am not keen on - actually what I think is the threat to 
 | the very nature of the democratic and free societies we were taught 
 | about in school - is that the intelligence agencies then use their broad 
 | and well-funded surveillance powers on everyone, *and then hand the data 
 | over to the police*.
 | 
 | That way lies the police state.  And for that, there is no excuse, 
 | because we were all (*) alive and aware when the Berlin Wall came down.
 | 
 | Spying on everyone is fine - for national security.  But there is a 
 | long-standing taboo between mixing national / military affairs with 
 | domestic / criminal affairs.



Show me the man and I'll find you the crime.
                        -- Lavrentiy Beria, NKVD

Beria is all the more correct in a surveillance society;
read Silverglate's _Three Felonies a Day_ if needing more.
The real question is who can (is able to) opt out, and what
is the social cost for doing so when we are facing a wave of
globalized, extra-territorial prosecutions for social crimes
for which the Bill of Rights is but a local ordinance.

Freedom, Security, Comfort.  Choose Two.


--dan, channeling for Demosthenes