[StavrosK]

So this is something like planting a microphone into your house so they can hear your conversations (with a warrant)? That doesn't really sound too bad, it's targeted and you have to go through the proper channels to get authorization.

[MeinBlutIstBlau]

Coming from the country that had the Stasi, no. It's very bad. The Stasi was so smart, they knew it wasn't threatening you with violence that made you complicit, it's blackmail and threats to your loved ones or ruining your career. Also absurd types of guilt trips that make you feel obligated to comply with the objective of the state for other people.

[ncmncm]

Exactly this.

The best return on investment in surveillance is always, always, always extortion. The spooks like to extort by threatening to reveal crimes, or prosecute them. Ever heard of plea bargaining? Most often the promise of "reduced" charges is exchanged for participating in surveillance, yielding more victims and more pigeons. Spies like to get other kinds of cooperation, for other kinds of threats--including revealing that you already caved once. Some people have enemies who would act on revelations. Most people have relatives who wouldn't want them harmed. Judges have relatives. Ever wondered at Judges blatantly violating settled law? It is not always just because they felt like it. Since surveillance always involves official secrecy, it is easily and widely abused, and abuse is never, ever prosecuted.

Do you wonder why politicians stay exactly in line, these days? Think they just don't have any ambition, no independence, no cojones?

We already have a surveillance system in place that the STASI could only have ever dreamed of.

[inquirerofsorts]

> it's blackmail and threats to your loved ones or ruining your career

Something you'll find prevalent with some dissidents today. Many of them return "willingly" when presented with the alternatives.

[StavrosK]

So you consider legal wiretapping and following people immoral as well?

[ncmncm]

If it is cheap and easy, there is no reason to assume it will only, or even mainly, be legal.

[MeinBlutIstBlau]

The primary purpose for entities such as the FBI and CIA are to give autonomy to an entity that somewhat exerts the will of the ruling establishment by curtailing movements or organizations. Communism had no influence or money even remotely close to that of the mob. Yet who did they prioritize? Communists. They pick and choose whom the state wants to deem as enemies and exert their powers to silence them.

[s9w]

The problem with similar laws has always been that there are no proper channels. There were cases those were just flat out ignored. And in other laws released numbers showed that less than 1% of requests were denied. These requirements are for optics only, they are never in place in practice.

Another example is a police internal system to request information about citizens. That has been abused many times to spy on neighbors and even celebrities. Kind of a current topic in Germany.

[abdullahkhalids]

> less than 1% of requests were denied

The statistics of a rubber-stamp court are identical to a court, where the requirements for an approved request are so clear that no one ever submits requests that are likely to be denied.

To prove what you are claiming, you have to actually show that a large number of accepted requests were "unethical".

[majewsky]

The problem with these surveillance requests is that only rejections need to be argued. When the court says yes, it's mostly just a rubberstamp. When the court says no, they have to write about 4 pages of text. Given the overload of the court system, judges tend to say yes except in the most egregious cases because they need to move on to the next case.

(Disclosure: I'm occasionally involved in public relations for a local chapter of the CCC, a German NGO that deals among other things with surveillance policy.)

[DavidSJ]

I think you’re being sarcastic but I’m actually not sure.

[StavrosK]

I am not, do you consider legal wiretaps bad?

[DavidSJ]

Not generally, but there shouldn’t be government microphones preemptively planted in everyone’s home, Stasi style, just waiting for a warrant either.

It’s one thing to have the ability to wiretap selectively and with some cost which makes it prohibitive to do on a massive scale; it’s another thing to require vendors and service providers to deliberately sabotage their customers’ products for them.

I mean there’s just potential for rampant abuse here. What of the right of political dissidents or other persecuted minorities to communicate safely? What of the possibility that this could be used to target a politician’s political adversaries (the way we see frequent mention of today)? There’s a whole history of abuse here, in the US and across the world, and there’s no need to facilitate the potential for such abuse on a scale we’ve never seen before.

[StavrosK]

Right, but the article, top comment, and my comment talk about one thing, and your response is about something completely different. That's a frustrating way to conduct discourse.

[DavidSJ]

You’re right, I didn’t read the context carefully enough.

[gruez]

No, but wiretaps typically have scalability problems that prevent their widespread use. There's a high marginal cost (labor + equipment) with physical wiretaps, but with digital wiretaps the marginal cost is effectively zero.

[Zak]

A wiretap by compromising a specific device using an exploit after obtaining a court order is also likely fairly high-effort.

[MeinBlutIstBlau]

Wiretaps are normally implemented for a singular specific purpose by specific entities. Not run of the mill average everyday programmers.

[StavrosK]

So exactly like the proposed law then.

[MeinBlutIstBlau]

I guess I should've reread that. I think it's fine for large companies because they can afford to do it. It's just the small ones that I'd find it egregious.