Proto-totalitarian FBI Director James Comey is at it again — for our own good, of course

© 2017 Peter Free

 

07 May 2017

 

 

Left unsupervised, law enforcement spills into autocracy

 

No one rational will accuse FBI Director James Comey of nuanced constitutional thinking.

 

A month ago:

 

 

FBI Director James Comey said Wednesday the bureau is renewing its focus on the challenges posed by the growing use of encryption.

 

At Boston College's cybersecurity conference Wednesday, Comey said that he a fan of "strong encryption" but noted that "it is making more and more of the room of what the FBI investigates dark."

 

Between September and November, the FBI received 2,800 devices it had lawful authority to open but could not open 1,200 of them "with any technique," he said.

 

He said there needs to a balance between privacy and the FBI's ability to lawfully access information, a conversation that he acknowledged will require some "humility" on the part of the bureau.

 

"We need to stop bumper-stickering each other. This isn't the 'FBI versus Apple,'" he said.

 

"We need to build trust between the government and private sector."

 

© 2017 Tom Winter and Tracy Connor, Comey: FBI Couldn’t Access Hundreds of Devices Because of Encryption, NBC News (08 March 2017)

 

 

Just this week, Comey reiterated the message to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

 

 

Trusting Big Government to keep us safe?

 

Should I "trust" Director Comey, when he alleges that:

 

 

(a) we are under grave threat

 

and

 

(b) he has to be able to read all of our electronic communications (via a usually secret court's order)?

 

 

I don't think so. No disrespect intended.

 

 

What would the Founders say?

 

The United States' founders and public intentionally tipped the Constitution toward privacy protection and away from state-sponsored intrusiveness.

 

Director Comey's "we need to know" excuse tips the balance the other way. If protecting free society is actually the goal, he is not persuasive.

 

 

Think this through

 

Camouflaged American totalitarians characteristically like to muddy understanding of constitutional issues by pretending that maintaining public safety necessitates giving up a freedom (or so) there and a privacy (or two) here.

 

We have seen, for instance, how the War on Drugs and our judicial system's privileged elite trashed the Fourth Amendment.

 

The freedom-wrecking Homeland security crew then took those transgressions and amplified them into even more indiscriminately used tools in their "war" against terror.

 

With those constitution-based legal protections successfully strangled, the illustrious FBI Director now wants American industry to assist Government in obliterating technology-based privacy protection.

 

Absolute power is the goal.

 

For our protection, of course.

 

 

If we had brain-reading technology — these autocratically inclined folks would want to use it

 

All the while pretending to diligently protect us against their inevitable overreaching and casually indulged injustices.

 

 

The moral? — This is how wannabe totalitarians think

 

Fascism is the word that describes "trust" between government and "private sector." A conspiracy that loots and chews The People results.

 

Director Comey is convicted out of his own (probably well-intended) mouth.