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Comment by p0w3n3d

16 days ago

The most horrible part of the discussion we're making is that we're arguing that UK intelligence should be able to access only UK related data, and not that UK intelligence should not undermine privacy of people

The Overton Window has shifted.

  • Has it? UK has a long-standing reputation as one of the most persistent surveillance nanny states in the West.

  • The Clipper Chip died a quick death back when the Clinton administration wanted it, as the push back against it was pretty strong. Now? Seems like a matter of time before every form of electronic communication has a dozen different back, side, and front doors into it.

    • I don't think that was mandated to be used for every device though. It was also shown to perform key escrow in secret and had its security defeated before it launched.

  • PSA:

        The Overton window is the range of subjects and arguments politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time.[1] It is also known as the window of discourse.
    
        […]
    
        The political commentator Joshua Treviño has postulated that the six degrees of acceptance of public ideas are roughly:[7]
        
        unthinkable
        radical
        acceptable
        sensible
        popular
        policy
    
    

    * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

What we're discussing here is whether a private company should obey laws of the country they operate in or not.

  • The moral thing to do would be to resist obeying such laws as much as is feasible. If that fails close all your legal entities and continue offering services to the citizens of that country to the extent that is feasible.

    Of course it wouldn’t be very profitable. So unfortunately you really can’t expect a major public company to take a stand like in a case like this.

  • Fully agree. Imagine giving your data to company XYZ which promises you full encryption privacy. The company XYZ opens a subdivision in country CBA and all's okay unless CBA's law is changed to mandate all companies to give all their data. Now your data is lost to CBA's agents.