Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Fascist government goon says "What?"

Actually, he said that anonymity of the Internet should be against the law:
A senior Homeland Security official recently argued that Internet anonymity should outlawed in the same way that driving a car without a license plate is against the law. 
Erik Barnett, an assistant deputy director at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and attache to the European Union at the Department of Homeland Security, outlined his argument in an article titled “Whose Privacy Are We Protecting? Balancing Rights to Anonymity with Rights to Public Safety,” published in FIC Observatory, a French publication dedicated to debates about cybersecurity.
Because speech needs a license, just like your car does.  Or something.  And of course he rolls out the do-it-for-teh-childrenz excuse as justification.  Odd that he doesn't spend much time discussing government suppression of free speech, like the IRS audits of the Administration's political enemies.

Actually, he doesn't spend any time discussing that.  Must not be a problem*, or something.

* To him.

5 comments:

parascribe said...

This article makes me think; so often we think of government as some faceless, monolithic, faceless bureaucracy, this is a good reminder that no matter how big, it's individual assholes who are the problem.

Doxing might figure into the solution....just sayin...

drjim said...

Yep, and NONE of those individual assholes are elected!

My Take said...

OT what is TLS 1.2 AES 128 GSM data encryption.?

Eagle said...

"... and eliminating anonymity makes it easier for us to know who opposes us, which makes it easier for us to send in the Stazi... er, DHS agents when necessary..."

R.K. Brumbelow said...

@My Take : an encryption schem broken almost 6 years ago, but still in use