Tuesday, June 9, 2015

U.S. TECH INDUSTRY WARNS OBAMA AND OTHER GOVERNMENT BUMS TO KEEP HANDS OFF ENCRYPTION. BUMS SHOULD FOCUS ON THE DEADLY ROADS, BORDER CROSSINGS, INSTEAD.





JUNE 9, 2015

WASHINGTON, DC (REUTERS) 

While the U.S. roads continue to record more than 34,000 kills every year, governmental bums have been assaulting the citizen’s privacy, assaulting numerous other legal rights, attacking and assaulting people using military gear, assaulting the innocent pressure cookers, assaulting teenagers with deadly weapons, shooting unarmed men in their backs, sending live anthrax to numerous destinations, refusing to fix the porous borders where millions enter our country every year, and so on.  

And all that in the name of protecting the public from theoretical terrorists.  The public and now corporations do not buy that.  

Since 9/11, there have been very few terrorist acts; at the same time, over 500,000 people have been killed on the deadly U.S. roads and several million injured.  Millions of illegals have entered the U.S. through the borders – an impact on our safety that is much more significant than these “terrorist” acts.  Yet, these bums and clowns are refusing to fix the borders and the roads and instead attach our privacy rights.

It is obvious that the priorities of these bums are misplaced, perhaps because these losers never held a useful and productive job in their lives.  It is also possible that many of these bums are trained killers who came back to the states from the ill-conceived invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and multitude of interferences with the affairs of many other countries.

Top U.S. tech companies are warning the Obama administration against imposing new policies that the companies say would weaken increasingly sophisticated encryption systems designed to protect consumers' privacy.

In a strongly worded letter to President Barack Obama on Monday, two industry associations representing major software and hardware companies said, "We are opposed to any policy actions or measures that would undermine encryption as an available and effective tool."

The Information Technology Industry Council and the Software and Information Industry Association, representing tech giants, including Apple Inc, Google Inc, Facebook Inc, IBM and Microsoft Corp, fired the latest salvo in what could be a long fight over government access into smart phones and other digital devices. 

Obama administration officials have pushed the companies to find ways to let law enforcement bypass encryption to investigate illegal activities including terrorism threats, but not weaken it in a way that would let criminals and computer hackers penetrate the security wall.

So far, however, the White House has not spelled out specific regulatory or legislative steps that it might seek to achieve that objective. 

Last week White House press secretary Josh Earnest called this a "thorny policy challenge" that has Obama's attention.

While he recognized tech companies' efforts to protect Americans' civil liberties, Earnest, responding to a reporter's question, added that the companies "would not want to be in a position in which their technology is being deployed to aid and abet somebody who’s planning to carry out an act of violence."

The industry letter to Obama also was sent to FBI Director James Comey, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, Attorney General Loretta Lynch and other Cabinet heads.

Days earlier, the United States enacted legislation that will curtail the government's ability to scoop up huge volumes of data related to records of Americans' telephone calls.

The government surveillance was an outgrowth of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and was exposed by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

The industry groups noted that online commerce has flourished in part because consumers believed their payment information would be secure.

"Consumer trust in digital products and services is an essential component enabling continued economic growth of the online marketplace," the industry wrote.

"Accordingly, we urge you not to pursue any policy or proposal that would require or encourage companies to weaken these technologies, including the weakening of encryption or creating encryption 'work-arounds'."

It a nutshell:  dear governmental bums:  fix the roads, fix the borders, stop assaulting the citizens using military gear, leave the pressure cookers and our privacy alone.
(Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh)
Source: Reuters.com