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Harold Mansfield
05-03-2016, 12:15 PM
The international fight over users privacy and right to encryption vs. governments and law enforcement is really heating up now.


A BRAZILIAN STATE JUDGE ordered mobile phone operators to block nationwide the extremely popular WhatsApp chat service (http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/mercado/2016/05/1766869-justica-determina-bloqueio-do-whatsapp-em-todo-o-brasil-por-72-horas.shtml) for 72 hours, a move that will have widespread international reverberations for the increasingly contentious debate over encryption and online privacy.

WhatsApp is the most-used app in Brazil, a country of 200 million people (it is now owned by Facebook, the country’s second-most used app (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/dec/17/whatsapp-blocked-brazil-48-hours-facebook)). An estimated 91 percent (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/tech-news/whatsapp-comes-down-how-brazilians-are-coping-without-their-social-mediafixes/article27799710/) of Brazilian mobile users nationwide — more than 100 million individuals — use WhatsApp to communicate with one another for free (it has 900 million active daily users around the world).

This ruling comes from the same judge, Marcel Maia Montalvão, of a small town in Sergipe state, who two months ago ordered (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/02/technology/brazil-arrests-facebook-executive-in-data-access-case.html?_r=0) Facebook’s vice president for Latin America, Diego Dzodan, to be detained (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/01/brazil-police-arrest-facebook-latin-america-vice-president-diego-dzodan) over WhatsApp’s failure to cooperate with a subpoena issued as part of a criminal investigation. The judge said the arrest was justified by Facebook’s “repeatedly failing to comply with judicial orders” in a drug-trafficking case. Pursuant to that order, Dzodan was arrested by federal police and held in custody for a full day, until an appellate court overturned the order.

Afterward, the Facebook executive insisted that (http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/whatsapp-data-dispute-facebook-vp-says-brazil-jailers-treated-him-with-respect-302885.html) “the way that information is encrypted from one cellphone to another, there is no information stored that could be handed over to authorities.” WhatsApp similarly said: “WhatsApp cannot provide information we do not have.”


It's been clear for a while that governments and politicians are completely oblivious to how encryption works, and don't understand most technologies. For that reason this is just going to get worse as they flail wildly trying to pass laws and make rulings that are impossible to comply with because they have no idea what they're talking about and most seem unwilling to simply ask the experts and actually learn.

Do cases like this make you want to encrypt and protect your info from law enforcement and the government even more so...even though you have nothing to hide?

Fulcrum
05-03-2016, 01:09 PM
Do cases like this make you want to encrypt and protect your info from law enforcement and the government even more so...even though you have nothing to hide?

Makes me want to demand that these same lawmakers subject themselves to the same rules and scrutiny. I can all but guarantee that the laws would be different (read fair) if the politicians need to abide by the same laws as the rest of us.

Harold Mansfield
05-03-2016, 01:40 PM
Makes me want to demand that these same lawmakers subject themselves to the same rules and scrutiny. I can all but guarantee that the laws would be different (read fair) if the politicians need to abide by the same laws as the rest of us.


Interestingly enough, The U.S. House of Reps just voted unanimously to strengthen email privacy laws and raise the requirements for gaining access to people's emails. It used to be that emails over 180 days old were considered abandoned and therefore not subject to needing a warrant, just a subpoena.



The (https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/699) bill (https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/699) will require law enforcement agencies to obtain search warrants from judges to gain access to personal messages and files stored on the servers of companies like Google, Yahoo and Dropbox. The legislation would substantially revise a 1986 law, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, that allows agencies to get emails older than 180 days and other digital files by issuing subpoenas to technology companies without going to a judge.


There are 425 members of the House. The vote was 419-0 in favor of the new requirements. It now goes to the Senate where...even though they refuse to vote on pretty much anything right now....this effects them too since they all have private email accounts and most will likely have lives after Congress (as Lobbyists) ..so maybe they'll actually do some work on this one. Fingers crossed.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/04/27/us/politics/ap-us-congress-email-privacy.html

Joseph Ray
06-04-2016, 07:10 PM
Interesting article... something to think about.