Burr And Feinstein Plan One Sided Briefing For Law Enforcement To Bitch About ‘Going Dark’ by Mike Masnick.
From the post:
With the world mocking the sheer ignorance of their anti-encryption bill, Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein are doubling down by planning a staff “briefing” on the issue of “going dark” with a panel that is made up entirely of law enforcement folks. As far as we can tell, it hasn’t been announced publicly, but an emailed announcement was forwarded to us, in which they announce the “briefing” (notably not a “hearing“) on “barriers to law enforcement’s ability to lawfully access the electronic evidence they need to identify suspects, solve crimes, exonerate the innocent and protect communities from further crime.” The idea here is to convince others in Congress to support their ridiculous bill by gathering a bunch of staffers and scaring them with bogeyman stories of “encryption caused a crime wave!” As such, it’s no surprise that the panelists aren’t just weighted heavily in one direction, they’re practically flipping the boat. Everyone on the panel comes from the same perspective, and will lay out of the argument for “encryption bad!”
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An upside to the approaching farce is it identifies people who possess “facts” to support the “encryption bad” position.
Given fair warning of their identities, what can you say about these “witnesses?”
Do you think some enterprising reporter will press them for detailed facts and not illusory hand waving? (I realize Senators are never pressed, not really, for answers. Reporters want the next interview. But these witnesses aren’t Senators.)
For example, Hillar C. Moore, III, has campaigned for a misdemeanor jail to incarcerate traffic offenders in order to lower violent crime.
“He said Wednesday that he believes the jail is an urgent public safety tool that could lower violent crime in the city. “This summer, we didn’t have the misdemeanor jail, and while it’s not responsible for every murder, this is responsible for the crime rate being slightly higher,” Moore said. “Baton Rouge could have done better than other cities, but we missed out on that. It’s time for everyone to get on board and stop looking the other way.”
Moore’s office asked the East Baton Rouge Parish Metro Council in recent weeks for authorization to use dedicated money to open a misdemeanor jail on a temporary basis, two weeks at a time for the next several months, to crack down on repeat offenders who refuse to show up in court.
The request was rejected by the council, after opponents accused law enforcement officials of using the jail to target nonviolent, low-income misdemeanor offenders as a way to shake them down for money for the courts. More than 60 percent of misdemeanor warrants are traffic-related offenses, and critics angrily took issue with a proposal that potentially could result in jailing traffic violators.”
Evidence and logic aren’t Hillar’s strong points.
That’s one fact about one of the prospective nut-job witnesses.
What’s your contribution to discrediting this circus of fools?