Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/22/opinion/prosecute-torturers-and-their-bosses.html <comment><USER3> I just feel sick when I think of how helpless I am as a citizen while I watch my government's officials get away with shit like this. Yeah, I can sign petitions, vote, contact my congressman, but I always have the feeling of someone that's just watching from the outside.

My hope is that those people that we don't see or hear about that work around injustices like these are doing what they can to keep some sort of balance. I try to convince myself sometimes that these people that love their country and want to do good are trying to use what power they have to make things right. I know for a fact that there are amazing people working in government and I hope the good stuff these people do just doesn't get much attention.

I love my country, I served, I consider myself a patriot, but I worry about my children and their children. I don't expect much, if anything, to come of this and the fact that that feeling is common for me as an American puts knots in my stomach.

<comment><USER4> The biggest problem when your nation tortures people is you've trained people to torture; you've created institutionalized psychopaths. What do you do with them when their mission ends? Are they properly supported back into society or just dropped like most vets? Do the go home to become nightclub bouncers or security guards at your kids school?

That's why we have to clean up this mess.

<comment><USER5> One might almost say the creation of psychopaths is the goal of military training. Without training a small fraction of soldiers ('natural psychopaths') will kill for pleasure, another small fraction will be the heroes that kill and put themselves in danger for the good cause, but the majority twill try and come out alive. The goal of military training is to make the army more effective by increasing that second fraction, but increasing the first fraction isn't that bad, either, from a direct military perspective.

([http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Killing:_The_Psychological...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Killing:_The_Psychological_Cost_of_Learning_to_Kill_in_War_and_Society), [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killology](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killology))

<comment><USER6> Now I'm not aware of how modern military training is built, but I have to imagine that the top priority for the military is making sure that their own soldiers don't die. Apart from the ethical aspects, training somebody takes a long time, and having people with experience on the field seems valuable.

Much like how lifeguards are taught that the first priority is making sure that they are safe rather than saving the person drowning.

<comment><USER5> Yes, you want your soldiers to survive because training is expensive, and comrades dying is bad for morale, but it is not _the_ top priority.

If it were the top priority, very, very few attacks would take place. Taking that hill, destroying that gun, or gaining knowledge about enemy positions often gets higher priority than the lives of a few (or lots of. Generals knew lots of soldiers would die on D-Day, for instance) soldiers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm still searching for a society in history that engages in torture against its opponents that doesn't eventually turn to torturing its own citizens. They will, of course, be labeled terrorists when that happens, but that time is coming.

When that story came out of Chicago a few years ago about a two decade history of torturing inmates to get them to confess to crimes, we asked how that could go on for so long. Well, apparently you can torture powerless people of color in Chicago without consequence. They were only torturing "bad" people, weren't they?

I get ill listening to the "arguments" for torture. "Well, it works." I want to drop my head into my hands. The efficiency expert's answer to moral questions. But what about a ticking bomb? Can't Jack Bauer put a bullet in a prisoner's knee to get him to talk? The Israeli's have the process down: They torture supposedly because of a ticking bomb, a time limit, whatever, but then they take a break for the Sabath. Gotta keep those priorities in mind.

If torture "worked", does that mean we have no limits? Just animals ripping the face off our prey?

I'm not very religious. What are Christians thinking when they allow this to happen? Has the iron law of Paul taken over from the Prince of Peace? If there is one piece of evidence that the US is a post-Christian country, this is it.

<comment><USER8> Not post-Christian enough: [https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/12-20-14.jpg](https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/12-20-14.jpg)

The non-religious are the only group of which a majority opposes torture.

<comment><USER9> > The non-religious are the only group of which a majority opposes torture.

Notice how all the "religious" groups aren't defined by religion alone, but also by the qualifier "White". That's important, because if you go to the source [0], you see that the Race/Religion combination suggests the conclusion you describe because of its blend of race and religion together in some of its categories, but if you look at the Race breakdown, you see that _Whites_ have large majority support for torture (66/25), while _Non-Whites_ do not. Which makes the fact that the Race/Religion breakdown shows that the identified "religious" groups it breaks out all have majority support -- when those "religious" groups are _White_ evangelical protestant (69/20), _White_ non- evangelical Protestant (75/22), and _White_ Catholic (66/23)-- somewhat less significant in _religious_ terms than it seems at first.

[0] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/page/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/page/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2014/12/18/National- Politics/Polling/question_15189.xml?uuid=MALZwIcMEeSrz1o9ezsguA#)

<comment><USER8> Very good point. I can't find the breakdown for nonwhite religious or nonwhite nonreligious, alas.

<comment><USER9> If you follow public opinion polling in the US much, you'll find that this is quite common, and that many conclusions presented based on media polls about the relation between religiosity and other views are based entirely, for at least the Christian groups covered by the poll supporting the argument, on what _White_ members of those religious groups believe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you want to see torture prosecutions, write a letter to your editor calling out your elected officials by name (source below). I did it, so can you!

How to get your senators' and representatives' attention on any issue without being a wealthy donor | Protip from a former Senate intern[1].

\</comment><comment>--

An email to your senator or representative may result in a form letter response and a phone call to the office may amount to a tally mark on an administrative assistant's notepad. But, for any given policy concern, if you want to get their attention a letter to the editor in one of your state's 5-10 biggest newspapers that mentions them specifically BY NAME is the way to go. If your message is directed to your representative, pick a newspaper that is popular in your district.

That is the crucial thing to know--the rest of this post is an explanation of why I know this is true.

I know this because, when I interned in the D.C. office of a senator one summer, one of the duties I shared was preparing a document that was distributed internally both online and in paper format. This document was made every day and comprised world news articles, national news, state news, and any letters to the editor in the 5-10 largest newspapers within the state that mentioned the senator by name. I was often the person who put that document on his desk, and it was the first thing he read every morning after arriving to the office.

I began to suspect that this was standard operating procedure because several other senators' offices share the same printer in the basement of the Russell Senate Office building, and I saw other interns doing the exact same procedures that I was involved in.

Since the internship, I've conferred with other Senate and House employees past and present and determined that most--if not all--offices use essentially the same procedure.

\</comment><comment>--

[1]: [https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1os8rz/how_to_get...](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1os8rz/how_to_get_your_senators_and_representatives/)

</comment><comment><USER11> _Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses_

And while we're at it, we should sanction those -- like the New York Times -- who enabled and shielded the torturers via a consistent editorial policy -- solidly in place for 12 years -- of never referring to the practice of torture by name, but instead employing that famous dystopian euphemism: "Harsh Interrogation Techniques."

<comment><USER12> Doubleplus interrogation is one of the best parts of Miniluv's joycamp.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm voting this up even though I think it's a horrendous idea. Here's why:

The problem isn't that there wasn't a crime: it certainly looks like there was. I am outraged by parts of what I've read. The problem was that the system sought to legally justify it. _The problem is that we changed the system so that a good portion of people believe there was no crime._ If somebody is told by the system that there is no crime, we can't then go backwards in time and declare there was one. History shows us that such legal application is always more destructive to society than the original incident.

An important concept to understand is "criminalizing politics". That's when politicians, who rotate through office and are expected to spend most of their lives as private citizens, make decisions that could be criminal but do not involve personal gain.

We elect people to make hard choices that involve results that could be construed in other contexts as criminal, especially with respect to foreign policy. We always have.

I do not like any of this, but it's very important to understand that the problems here are _systemic_. A different president and VP were just as likely to make the same choices. Want to go back and try people for Japanese interment? All the rendition done prior to 2000? Assassinations and coups overseas? Spying on MLK? Such an emotional attitude is understandable, but you just can't continue a government like that. If the system was acting as best as it could, and it screws up? You fix it. You don't get the firing squads out. That's banana republic territory.

So let's fix the system so it doesn't happen again. If we want somebody to hang, start a nice show trial. But since folks were acting in good faith (which is more important than "just doing their jobs"), pardon them and let's move on. There is no justice to be had here. We need to learn. This is not the time to let emotional outrage lead us into hurting each other needlessly.

<comment><USER14> Nazi's had very similar logic to yours.

<comment><USER15> And Justice Douglass (from the US supreme court) agreed with that: "I thought at the time and still think that the Nuremberg trials were unprincipled, Law was created ex post facto to suit the passion and clamor of the time." [1]

Ex post facto is also explicitly forbidden by the US consitution (Article 1, sections 9, 10) [2], and by the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 11, section 2) [3].

On a technical level, you can argue that torture was already illegal under US law, however the torturers were advised by agents of the State that what they were doing was legal, so ex-post-facto could very reasonably apply. There may be people high up on the chain of command who can be prosecuted under US law, but for the most part prosecutions would have to go through international law.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trials#cite_ref- reapp...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trials#cite_ref- reappraisal_95-0) [2] [http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_trans...](http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html) [3] [http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/](http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/)

<comment><USER16> So you're saying that anything done by the state should be legal, and if you have a problem then you should apply diplomatic (ultimately military) pressure? Sounds like a recipe for atrocities and then war (like in nazi Germany). It's unfortunate that the high level sociopaths will probably get away with it, but we should still prosecute the lower level sociopaths who did the torturing. This will make it hard to order people to do this in the future.

Ask yourself two questions:

Is it ok to kidnap someone, lock them in your basement, beat them and rape them?

Does some shit written on a piece of paper make it ok?

<comment><USER15> I am saying that if the state said something is legal, it should not then prosecute people for having done it while the state was saying it is legal. If you have a problem with what another state is doing (and you are a state), then you should apply diplomatic/military pressure; I do not know what other recourse you have.

In this case, what was done is illegal under international law, and was illegal under international law at the time it was done, so people can be tried in international court without ex post facto concerns.

I am one of those people who disagree with the Nuremberg trials. If something atrocious happened, but was legal, then we should make it illegal and accept the fact that some people got away with doing horrible things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "Whoever fights with monsters must be careful lest he become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you." \- Nietzsche

Based on their actions (which ultimately may have not yielded anything useful either) the torturers and their masters are monsters of the worst kind - <USER2> sanctioned.

So now why stop at just releasing the report? Take the next logical step & prosecute these sociopaths.

<comment><USER18> > "Whoever fights with monsters must be careful lest he become a monster."

I believe this is _one_ of the overlooked but very important reasons not to torture. The torturers are also damaged, in their own way. We should not require this of anyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> It would be an interesting bit of schadenfreude, if countries imposed some sort of sanctions against the US over harboring war criminals.

The State Department would probably release statements of insane hypocrisy given how they're perfectly fine preaching about human rights when OTHER countries violate them.

<comment><USER20> Alone watching those statements would be of such a great pleasure...

<comment><USER21> It gets old very quickly and becomes painful and then you just stop caring for the most time, only occasionally flaring up with righteous indignation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The _very least_ that I expect out of this is for the International Criminal Court to convict them as war criminals. Whether those convicted will actually do any prison time is another issue. However, US will have to live with the _shame_ for decades that it's harboring war criminals, and it may even impact its dealings with other countries in the future.

US will be in the history books as a country that not only allowed, but keeps condoning torture by refusing to punish the torturers. Brennan even implied that he's not ruling out the use of torture in the future.

Maybe eventually, some new US president will decide that it's time to prosecute and imprison them so US can have a "clean start" in its international relations.

<comment><USER8> On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely do you think it is for President-elect Bush or President-elect Clinton to announce this fresh new start?

<comment><USER19> -1000000

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" \- Solzhenitsyn, _The Gulag Archipelago_

</comment><comment><USER24> For anyone doubting the claims you can go right to the Senate Committee's report: [http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/09/world/cia- tort...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/09/world/cia-torture- report-document.html)

Page 10 is the start of the findings and conclusions.

</comment><comment><USER25> They won't be prosecuted, of course. I ostracized those in my life who supported it. That may be the best anyone can do against it, given our 2-party oligopoly.

<comment><USER26> At least, as long as they stay in the US. I've read that a few countries will be arresting and prosecuting any participating agents the second they enter their borders. Not that that will solve problems here though.

Correction: The UN has said that anyone _can_ if they want to.

[http://amanpour.blogs.cnn.com/2014/12/12/cia-agents-who- tort...](http://amanpour.blogs.cnn.com/2014/12/12/cia-agents-who-tortured-are- vulnerable-to-prosecution-in-any-country-in-the-world-says-u-n-official/)

</comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands I guess this means we should throw all the Democrats under the bus who suddenly had amnesia about knowing anything about the techniques being used too?

[http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2014/12/feinsteins- duplicity-...](http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2014/12/feinsteins- duplicity-68-people-in.html)

 _The report (embedded below) shows that the CIA briefed at least 68 members of Congress on the CIA interrogation program, including "enhanced interrogation techniques" (EITs) . It details the dates of all congressional briefings and in most cases, the members of Congress in attendance and the specific subjects discussed. Keep in mind though, that the topic for each one of these meetings was interrogation of prisoners._

 _For example in April 2002 both the House (HPSCI) and Senate (SSCI) committees on intelligence were briefed on the "Ongoing Interrogations of Abu Zubaydah, who was mentioned in the Feinstein report. According to the report, at this time EITs were referenced but there is no evidence they were discussed in detail. However later meetings not only discussed but gave examples of EITs being used, (but attendees weren't mentioned). Finally near the end of 2002 we see that the most Senior members of the House and Senate committees had meetings totally devoted to EITs._

</comment><comment><USER27> >Since the day President Obama took office, he has failed to bring to justice anyone responsible for the torture of terrorism suspect.

This is such an important topic, that it is a shame it always has to be discussed in the political context (i.e. Obama failed to bring justice anyone from the Bush administration).

#1. Obama's administration continued using the Bush era Enhanced Interrogation Techniques; therefore, politically he could not pursue anyone from Bush's administration without subjecting his own administration to the same...including himself.

#2 From a legal standpoint anyone who actually engaged in these alleged acts of torture would have a legal defense, they relied on Government officials and attorneys who authorized/ordered them to perform these interrogations. Whether the officials/attorneys were right or wrong in their judgment, this is a lawful defense recorgnized by US criminal courts. See US v. Baker, 546 F.2d 940 (D.C. Cir. 1976).

<comment><USER28> Out of interest, is #2 basically just the Nuremberg defence?

<comment><USER9> > Out of interest, is #2 basically just the Nuremberg defence?

It is somewhat different, its "I relied on _the entity now trying to prosecute me_ ". This does refer to the same entity as "Just following orders of my superiors" when the entity prosecuting you is also the one you worked for, but its a substantively different defense in the general case (and note, in the Nuremberg tribunals, this defense would not have been equivalent to the so- called "Nuremberg defense" even in the entity it refered to.)

There is a very good reason for a legal system to have this defense as a bedrock principle that applies without exception within the legal system, and there is a very good reason for crimes against humanity and war crimes to have international tribunals with personal jurisdiction to try them so that this defense doesn't become a shield for perpetrators that happen to be backed by the top officials of a government at the time they act.

<comment><USER28> Thanks for the clarification. Yet another reason for the ICC and its ilk...

<comment><USER29> Which the US does not submit to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Does anyone honestly believe that the current administration which has: 1) doubled down on the Bush admins attack on the Fourth Amendment; 2) attacked the 1st Amendment directly (something even Bush/Ashcroft didn't do..) and 3) run what is an arguably similar program in its moral and ethical ambiguity(Drone strikes) to the interrogation techniques; would even think about going after the previous administration!?!? Give me a break, that's beyond laughable.

This piece by the Times is about what you'd expect from an organization that has lost its grip on reality. What's worse is that people actually pay attention to the Times at this point. Sadly, what we lack in this country is an honest journalistic broker that can objectively communicate about the political realities we have in front of us and our shortcomings as a nation and an electorate.

Here's the thing, _all of us_ that vote (and those that don't), are responsible for the mess in D.C.. The people that inhabit the beltway are simply taking advantage of our apathy and incompetence as an electorate..nothing more, nothing less...it's up to us, as the electorate, to purge our government of the latent corruption and decay that has come to permeate that town. Until we take up that charge in a meaningful way, we can't even have a discussion about topics such as this, it's just a waste of time..

</comment><comment><USER31> Obama is a disgrace. The reason he was elected over Hillary was because he initially took a harder line against the war, the spying and the torture. At the end of the Bush administration the American people voted overwhelmingly to break from the recent past, and Obama inexplicably betrayed our democracy. And I have my doubts that it will ever fully recover.

<comment><USER32> And yet when polled, citizens seem to mostly be in favor of the torture the CIA was involved in.

> The reason he was elected over Hillary was because he initially took a > harder line against the war, the spying and the torture.

Have you considered that this is a vast oversimplification, and you're mostly just projecting your pet issues onto 70 million other people? I don't want to just regurgitate talking points, but saying he "inexplicably betrayed our democracy" is probably only inexplicable to _you_ because you haven't wanted to take the time to think it through.

An attempt to prosecute Bush would basically be political suicide, severely damaging his legacy and cementing complete government inaction for the remainder of his term. You can say that's a betrayal of our country, but calling it inexplicable is just silly. Also, as far as I know, I don't remember one of his stump speech promises being to taking the unprecedented step of pushing for the prosecution of a former President. You can project these ideas onto people if you wish, but no one will ever be able to live up to your standards, much less the President of the United States -- a person that has arguably the hardest, most complex job in the world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is the kind of self-prosecution that you can't trust the USG to pursue with the necessary zeal.

This is what the International Criminal Court at The Hague is for.

<comment><USER34> Not a chance. The US took the necessary measures to authorize military action against the International Criminal Court if one of its criminals is brought to justice there: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service- Members%27_Pro...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service- Members%27_Protection_Act)

<comment><USER33> Huh. Thanks for the education on the matter.

I didn't realize that we had not ratified the treaty. Considering how involved we were in the Nuremburg Trials, I had assumed we would be just as keen about the ICC.

Naïvely, I didn't take into effect the extent of the USG's cranial-rectal inversion syndrome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> For all you liberals out there who want to go after Bush, don't forget that Obama has been killing people indiscriminately with drone strikes. Something tells me you'll be less likely to go after him, indicating the real source of your outrage.

The CIA report was written solely by Democrats with an ax to grind, and sought no information from an opposing side.

Go back and watch any 9/11 news video (as it happened) and put yourself in the shoes of those who struggled to find direction during that time. I personally don't think torture is a good decision, but those in power did it out of precaution to identify possible future acts.

When the next terrorist attack occurs, please think about the bullshit you wrote here.

<comment><USER36> If it helps any, I agree with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that US drone attacks in Yemen and Pakistan have likely broken international human rights law and should be investigated as war crimes.

I want a full, serious, and public war crimes investigation, to include drone attacks and torture. If we find out that Obama, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Frank had a secret meeting to allow torture then I want them and all who knew about it behind bars. Torture is illegal under US and international law. The law allows no extenuating circumstances.

Are you with me?

When ISIS dressed James Foley in orange then beheaded him, do you think that was a deliberate reference to Guantanamo or just coincidence?

If we find out that those predicted attacks of yours occur because someone wanted revenge for having their parent, or sibling, or friend anally raped by US orders ... then what? More torture? Which will help because?

"Sought no information from an opposing side"? Are you saying the CIA is on the _same_ side as the committee members? Because the members certainly sought information from the CIA, which must count as 'an opposing side'. Good on you for saying there are multiple sides; what do you think the sides are?

And you must despise Senator Mike Gravel, who put the Pentagon Papers in the public record without first seeking information from an opposing side. Do you just like it when the Executive branch systematically lies, not only to the public but also to Congress, and tries to keep it hidden? I don't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Yes. Prosecute them, put them all in prison. If the US won't do that, the rest of the world has to oblige the moral and legal duty of prosecuting anyone involved in the torture of humans. That will restrict their travels wastly, right Dick?

</comment><comment><USER37> I can't think of a worse idea than prosecuting Bush administration officials. Jailing the previous administration would set a terrible precedent, and would fatally undermine the stability of our government.

There are many people who are convinced, e.g., that abortion is murder and that politicians who enable it ought to be prosecuted. Or, more on topic, that Diane Feinstein is a traitor for making these torture memos public. They believe this with as much moral certitude as anyone here believes torture is a crime. It is only a matter of time before another right-wing president is in the White House, and when there is I don't want there to be a precedent for jailing one's political rivals.

<comment><USER38> So you are saying we shouldn't prosecute the executive branch even though they clearly broke and sanctioned breaking existing laws. When _should_ we prosecute them? What makes them different from tyrants?

Also your example doesn't make any sense. Creating a law for abortion is not even in the same category as breaking current laws. This is not purely an issue of morality, it's about the rule of law as well.

<comment><USER39> I believe you mean prosecute.

<comment><USER38> Yup, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> A few low level torturers were prosecuted and put in prisons. Their bosses had the political language to endorse and encourage torture while using language vague enough to escape prosecution.

</comment><comment><USER41> "looking forward" (as the article attributes to being Obama's argument for not prosecuting) is something one does to forgive others. self-punishment is something one does to prove trust to others. The looking forward policy of the US was important in the construction of the Marshal Plan. But now is the time they need to show they are trustworthy arbitrators of any moral ground. If they fail to prosecute anyone for torture they set a horrible precedent but more importantly the lack of correction turns any future moral arguments into platitudes.

This article deserves juxtaposition with this scene from the Act of Killing:

[http://youtu.be/tQhIRBxbchU?t=2m9s](http://youtu.be/tQhIRBxbchU?t=2m9s)

"We need our gangsters to get things done" @BarackObama

</comment><comment><USER42> Vices News interview with the "Architect":

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmNUi0itl-8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmNUi0itl-8)

</comment><comment><USER43> [https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/prosecute-full- ext...](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/prosecute-full-extent-law- all-parties-responsible-use-torture-outlined-cia-report/17ZgKTtB)

</comment><comment><USER44> Prosecute and Confiscate their properties/wealth

</comment><comment><USER45> question: how exactly do you prosecute the to bosses in a democracy? As the top bosses is the voters..So how will we prosecute the voters?

</comment><comment><USER46> Sorry, I can not take any organization seriously that complains of "torture" while fully supporting the act of siphoning out an unborn child's brain.

</comment><comment><USER47> I still find it interesting what the major news websites and channels choose to make front page headlines with or not. In the world I want to live in, there'd be a lot more daily hammering with (apparently factual statements) like: "US Gov Violates Geneva Convention on Torture" ever since the Senate CIA report came out. The US is signatory to that, ratified it by Congress, and indeed was one of its architects in the post-WW2 landscape. They repeatedly posture themselves as one of the Good Guy nations, the ultimate White Hat lawman. They have tortured and violated international law, to which they are signatory, on basic human rights and ethical behavior.

</comment><comment><USER48> Shouldn't Europe be boycotting the US? They are not in a very good position to do so but maybe they should work on unraveling their dependencies.

<comment><USER49> I think Europe would rather not have the spotlight turned on them.[1]

[1][http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/09/cia- tor...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/09/cia-torture- report-europe-complicity-britain)

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Just as Obama will never be impeached, imprisoned, or in any other way brought to justice for his atrocities committed against the Constitution, the people in the highest offices responsible for the torture will never see punishment. Rightly so I say, there is nothing wrong with interrogating terrorists.

<comment><USER51> I hope you're joking. Mainly because this line of thinking is easily shown to be slippery. Sure, let's say interrogating terrorists is always good. But what defines a terrorist? All of a sudden black and white becomes a murk, once again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> If two people kidnapped your wife and children saying they would rape and slaughter them in 24 hours, and you somehow caught one of the two culprits, you would do whatever it took to save your family. Whatever it took. And if you say you wouldn't, then you're either a lier, or you are a cruel and cowardly person. On the world scale, performing non-lethal EIT on one terrorist in order to save 500 or 5000 or 50000 lives is both reasonable and moral. To think otherwise is just shocking.

<comment><USER53> Would you feel bad if person you found turned out to be unrelated, you had him confused with someone else? And then after keeping him locked in your basement for a few years and torturing him a bunch, maybe a little bit of rape too, you accidentally killed him? And it turns out it was just some dude?

Would you feel bad? Would you feel guilty? Would you think about the family of the guy you accidentally killed, because you thought that was how to save your family somehow, would you think about the family of the dead guy in your basement, and how they must feel? Would you think that, it turns out, maybe your methods had been disastrous, monstrous even, and should be revisited?

Not if you're Dick Cheney.

Okay, now let's say you're not the one who had the wife and children kidnapped, you're the brother of the guy THAT guy picked up accidentally thinking he was a kidnapper, locked in a basement for a few years, tortured, raped, and killed.

NOW what would you do?</comment></comment>


The TX-2 Computer and Sketchpad (2012) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.ll.mit.edu/publications/labnotes/LookingBack_19_1.pdf <comment><USER2> Demonstration of Sketchpad and the light pen: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USyoT_Ha_bA#t=04m36s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USyoT_Ha_bA#t=04m36s)</comment>


Number of Internet users by language (pic) - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2706/27062201.jpg <comment><USER2> Let me point out the obvious; that is, the title of this submission is slightly misleading as this is not a chart of the number of internet users by language, it's a chart of the number of internet users by country of residence. There's no such language such as "US" or "UK", and while there are many notable differences, I wouldn't consider UK English and US English different languages. Obviously, there's also no "Indian" or "Chinese" language.

<comment><AUTHOR> My bad. I wrote the title in haste. Sorry about that. The image also leaves out Latin America/Spanish Internet users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Misleading. Having lived in China I can tell you that an Internet user there is nowhere near equivalent to an Internet user in the US in terms of how often and to what extent they use the Internet.

For a more relevant breakdown of sophisticated Internet users by country see: <http://downloadstats.mozilla.com/>

Another interesting metric would be open source projects per capita.

</comment><comment><USER4> Brazil Number of Internet users: 67,500,000 Percentage of world's internet users: 3.4

India Number of Internet users: 60,000,000 Percentage of world's internet users: 5.2

Either the numbers are seriously messed up, or an Indian is worth 1.7 Brazilians

</comment><comment><USER5> Having no Spanish speaking countries on the map makes that woefully incomplete. There are more native speakers of Spanish on Earth than English.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers).

</comment><comment><USER6> Why isn't there a subset of web traffic/application for Adult Content?

Perhaps urban myth, but I remember 5-10 years ago people would talk of large percentages of online content consisting of such material.

</comment><comment><USER7> Very nice. But how come Brazil has more internet users than Germany and India but it shows as having a smaller percentage of the world's internet users?

<comment><USER8> Also: 67.5m is supposed to be 26% of Brazil's population, which would make it 260m. The CIA book's 2008 estimate for Brazil's population is only 190m.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Where's Russia?

<comment><USER10> Indeed! And why is it modded down? It would still be something like 80 mln, Ukraine and Belarus included.

<comment><USER11> Ukraine and Belarus are not Russia :)

EDIT: Usually Eastern and Central Europe are "forgotten" in these surveys and statistics...

<comment><USER10> Isn't it about languages, not countries?

When it's about languages, you count language users.

<comment><USER11> Correct me if I'm wrong but I think majority of Ukraine and Belarus people speak russian only as a second language.

So we then we should count ukrainians and belorussians separately.

<comment><USER12> Russian is also an official language in Belarus, so you should count them in. Ukraine is a different story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I guess this is a somewhat interesting chart, but it's got nothing to do with language except one unqualified prediction about what languages will dominate a future Internet.

Please title your post more appropriately.

Now, about the chart itself...

How did the authors fail to sample Russia - the most demographically significant userbase between N.A/Europe and China/India?

</comment><comment><USER14> I was honestly surprised to see that email was only 6% of internet traffic. Also surprised to see gaming at only 2%.

<comment><USER10> They aren't traffic intensive, even if the number of messages/connections is vast.

Things can change for gaming if they move image rendering into the cloud (which I doubt would work)

<comment><USER15> if third world countries raise Internet Bandwidth and Speed and broaden the internet culture

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> China just doubled in size from 2006 to 2008.

Very interesting, the Internet field is still booming...</comment>


Clojure 1.2 quick reference/cheat sheet - <AUTHOR> http://faustus.webatu.com/clj-quick-ref.html

<comment><USER2> Wow, this is awesome!!!

Thank you gtani, is this yours? If it is, it would be nice to use bigger fonts.

Thanks!

<comment> j-g-faustus It's mine, I had no idea it would make it to Google and HackerNews that quickly. Glad you like it :)

On bigger fonts, can't you just use the browser "increase font size", Command-+ on my system?

I prefer the smaller fonts to make room for more on one screen. But if people find it hard to read, I can increase it a bit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> That must be the biggest cheat sheet I've ever seen!

But good work, will come in handy when playing with Clojure.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've added this to the list of Clojure cheat sheets on DevCheatSheet - <http://devcheatsheet.com/tag/clojure/>

</comment><comment><USER5> Good reference, but I wish it flagged up which bits were 1.2-specific.</comment>


Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook's Leaders Fought Through Crisis - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/technology/facebook-data-russia-election-racism.html#click=https://t.co/m0poTQLAqI <comment><USER2> dupe [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18453958](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18453958)</comment>


Show HN: Voicemail hasn't changed in 15 years. We're reinventing it. - <AUTHOR> https://www.bettervoicemail.com?ref=hn

<comment><USER2> Seems obvious, I wonder why we haven't had this before?

Great looking app, I'll be signing up soon.

FYI, I would seriously look at formatting a reservation system for restaurants, salons, etc.

When I had my restaurants we still booked 80% of our reservations over the phone, and calling back to confirm took ages. Being able to send a quick text confirmation, and to quickly sort the messages visually would be a huge value prop to that industry.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! We're working on plugging into other products like Google Calendar. Those additions should make it a piece of cake to have a reservation system.</comment></comment>


SpoonRocket finds a home with Brazil-based iFood - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/16/spoonrocket-finds-a-home-with-brazil-based-ifood/ <comment><USER2> Congrats to the SpoonRocket team on finding a buyer in the final hour!

</comment><comment><USER3> Hope the rest of the team benefited.</comment>


Science as we know it can't explain consciousness – but a revolution is coming - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/science-as-we-know-it-cant-explain-consciousness-but-a-revolution-is-coming-126143 <comment><USER2> I feel goff is simply using the naievety of the press to exagerate this 'gap' or hard problem of understanding what i actually thought was moving relatively forward towards picking apart neural correlates of consciousness. Hmmm</comment>


Universal Basic Income is an affordable and feasible response to coronavirus - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/927d28e0-6847-11ea-a6ac-9122541af204 <comment><USER2> I still don't understand why the rich need an income when poverty has not been solved. UBI means everyone gets a check including the rich and wealthy. Seems like an idea advanced by the rich. I have yet to hear of the poor saying that the rich need a check from the government. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett will get checks with UBI.

<comment><USER3> This seems like a minor thing to get caught up on. "The 1%" has become a popular term in the past few years, so consider that including the 1% would cost only 1% of the total cost of UBI. The 99% would receive 99% of the money. There's beauty in the flat nature of UBI.

Making UBI, you know, _universal_ allows you to simplify the program and reduce the administrative overhead, perhaps enough to make up for that 1% of payments.

Besides, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet would both contribute far, far, far more to the UBI program via increased taxes than the small (to them) $1k check they receive.</comment></comment>


Apple's dangerous game - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/09/19/apples-dangerous-game/ <comment><USER2> Orin Kerr is clearly a lawyer. He argues not for what is right but for what is permissible given the existing body of law. Where the existing body of law is wrong, his writings have no sympathy for the damage inflicted on its victims nor any sense that resisting such wrongs is noble.

If the government never abused its authority, I would be much more sympathetic to Kerr's position. Given the facts of prosecutorial abuse, vague and conflicting laws, the ongoing gutting / suspension of habeas corpus, "three felonies a day" \-- [http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/Youtoo/tabid/86/Default.asp...](http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/Youtoo/tabid/86/Default.aspx) \-- and many more reasons not to rest moral authority on our body of law, I find his insistence that we revere lawfulness to be foolish at best. It's important to stand up to unjust laws.

Leaving aside warrants which are merely held to be lawful (where the true facts, might we know them, show the opposite), it's not just lawful warrants that this technology protects against. Law-abiding citizens may be compelled to reveal private information via totally unjust mechanisms such as National Security Letters. Consider Nick Merrill's experience: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Merrill#Challenging_th...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Merrill#Challenging_the_National_Security_Letter:_Doe_v._Ashcroft)

Also [http://techpresident.com/news/24272/nick-merrill-fought- fbi-...](http://techpresident.com/news/24272/nick-merrill-fought-fbi-can-he- beat-nsa-too)

Let's not even get into protecting yourself from the NSA. Any tools which help us resist such tyranny, even at the risk and expense of civil disobedience, are to be applauded. Reserve your condemnation for the John Yoo of the tech world.

<comment><USER3> Orin Kerr is definitely a lawyer, and has been working and writing on digital crime and civil rights for years. For example, he was part of the defense team during weev's appeal of his conviction.

I do think he thinks beyond the technicalities of the law. And I think he's correct that there are legitimate reasons to pierce device encryption. If a victim is murdered, and their phone is locked, it sure would be nice too see if there were some evidence on that phone that could help catch the killer.

That said, he knows better than most what the law does say, and I think that makes this an op-ed worth reading carefully. I found two of his points interesting.

1) A passcode is probably not covered by Fifth Amendment protections. Thus a phone owner who refuses to lock their phone could be punished by the court anyway.

2) An encryption system strong enough to thwart legitimate and legal police actions could lead to a legislative "backlash" (my word, not Orin's) of increased consequences for failure to unlock. This is the "game" in the title of the op-ed. Technology and law are often in tension and an escalation from one side could trigger an escalation from the other.

But I disagreed with his state that "The policy switch doesn't stop hackers, trespassers, or rogue agents. It only stops lawful investigations with lawful warrants." That seems wrong to me because it's not just a policy change, it's an improvement in how the OS encryption actually works. Seems to me that could help keep out some bad guys too.

<comment><USER2> I completely agree with your assessment of Kerr, and there is nothing wrong with purely legal analysis.

What got to me initially was the deliberate limiting of legal scope to warranted privacy violations, as though warrantless privacy violations are insignificant. He's welcome to do so, but he should be clearer about this and less rhetorically dedicated to his agenda.

 _EDIT: I see now that he reasons this technology only affects warranted privacy violations, since Apple has a policy of refusing unwarranted inquiries. He is overlooking the possibility that Apple may nonetheless be pressured, deceived, or compelled to violate users ' privacy. He doesn't realize that Apple's claim of being invulnerable to warrants also protects the user from Apple's own vulnerabilities. It's not just USA law enforcement that targets users by exploiting Apple's access to protected data._

My understanding is that warrantless privacy violations have grown tremendously since the Patriot Act, both in scope and quantity -- that we have many new laws or codes since then which reclassify previously warrantful privacy violations as now warrantless.

He asks "How is the public interest served by a policy that only thwarts lawful search warrants?"

This is a nasty rhetorical trick. Does Apple's policy change serve any other purpose than to thwart lawful search warrants? Kerr puts "no" in your head, but of course the answer is yes.

He then makes appeal to the "civil libertarian tradition" of protection from warrants, saying that Apple is thumbing its nose at "that great tradition". What a joke. Apple is selling a product with powerful capabilities, some of which can be used to break the law, all of which have legitimate lawful purposes. Are Ford, Boeing, Delta, Budweiser, Louisville Slugger, Smith & Wesson all playing dangerous games as well?

Lastly, this is about removing Apple's ability to unlock. Just like Colin Percival's tarsnap. Doing proper security via proper cryptography. Minimizing untrusted third parties. Apple is getting criticized by Kerr for doing the right thing for its users. There are no victims in this action. It should matter not a whit that this makes the government work harder to violate privacy. Apple has no general duty to offer permanent taps for the government's pleasure.

 __This is why focusing only on warrantful privacy violations is a travesty of justice. __

Please watch this before re-reading Kerr:[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT2fQu50sMs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT2fQu50sMs)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Because the victim isn't alive to share his password, and the phone will > have locked before the body was found, the government won't be able to > search the phone to find the messages. Apple's policy will keep the police > from finding the killer. That seems bad.

The problem with this argument is that it applies to _all_ secure encryption. The purpose of encryption is to keep people not authorized to access private data from being able to access it. The fact that it may work as designed is hardly a sufficient excuse to backdoor everything.

Kerr's position seems to be that the government should be authorized to unlock everything in one way or another. The list of problems with that is long and well known. We can't actually trust anyone, including the government, with the keys to everything. Once they have the keys there is nothing to stop them from using them without a warrant.

And backdoors are security vulnerabilities. You intend for them only to be used by the government using constitutional process but they end up being used by criminals and foreign intelligence.

Meanwhile a required lack of security causes chilling effects. Politically unpopular groups will be afraid to communicate if their devices are compelled to spy on them and corrupt government officials can use that to harass and oppress them. Not to mention the small matter that it enables corrupt government officials to harass and oppress them.

<comment><USER3> I think Orin's point is not that everything should have a backdoor (which would not comport with his many previous writings on tech and law), but that Apple's shift, and in particular the public way in which it has been done, could trigger unintended consequences from the courts or Congress. Hence the "dangerous game" title.

<comment><USER5> Is Congress now going to legislate away the fourth amendment?

<comment><USER3> The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, not all searches and seizures. Given a warrant is properly issued, a court can hold a person in contempt if they refuse to provide the documents listed in the warrant. So the question is, what is the punishment for contempt? Congress can legislate that for specific situations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The very first sentence starts with a faulty premise: "Apple has announced that it has designed its new operating system, iOS8, to thwart lawful search warrants"

Why couldn't Apple have designed it to remove itself from the burden of having to play fisherman? While it's true that there may have been moral drivers in this design decision, it makes sound business sense as well.

You can't betray what you don't know. Which is the ultimate position to take in order to be competitive in a privacy conscious world. Besides, warrants are rubber stamps now (as pointed out here and many places elsewhere) and are by no means the carefully measured moderator of state influence they may have once been.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think it's hard for a lawyer, who has to say things like "If I understand how it works" before speaking about a topic, to understand that it is infeasible to create a system which is both secure in general, and insecure when the government wants something. These changes are likely in response not only to public distrust in institutions like NSA, but also to existing general threats to the security model of previous iOS releases, which like any system with a backdoor, have the potential for the backdoor to be used nefariously.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The arguments in this article are hinged on one crucial premise: Apple stills owns your device even after selling it to you. This is different from gmail where your data is on servers owned by google. The analogy to this premise is that the producers of a safe that they sell to you must be able to provide the government a key to the safe. This clearly does not make sense, and neither does requiring Apple to always have a backdoor to your device.

<comment><USER8> _The arguments in this article are hinged on one crucial premise: Apple stills owns your device even after selling it to you._

Hu? That idea isn't even mentioned in the article, and it seems entirely irrelevant.

 _The analogy to this premise is that the producers of a safe that they sell to you must be able to provide the government a key to the safe. This clearly does not make sense.._

It may not make sense to you, but key escrow is a thing both for encryption keys[1] and for physical keys[2].

I agree there are pretty serious problems in both cases

[1] This is basically what happens in iOS 6 and below: Apple has a key they use to unlock the device. Another example is the aborted Clipper chip: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip)

[2] [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/07/physical_key_...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/07/physical_key_es.html)

<comment><USER9> The point is that when someone sells you a thing, they should no longer be responsible to someone else for it. You should be responsible. It is now your thing.

<comment><USER8> Oh, I see what you are saying. That's an argument that isn't supported in the physical world, and one that isn't made in the article.

In this case it is more similar to car manufacturer being asked under warrant to produce a new electronic key for a car.

They have specialized skills and tools that allow them to do that, as did Apple prior to iOS 8.

No one is making the argument that Apple retain ownership of the device.

(To be clear - I think Apple is doing the right thing here. But there is no point in trying to confuse the issue with inaccurate arguments)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For most of us, Orin Kerr is on the opposite side of the privacy debate. He thinks that current online privacy laws go too far in the direction of protecting the accused. There is a summary of one of his talks at [http://hlrecord.org/?p=10987%7COrin](http://hlrecord.org/?p=10987%7COrin). (It's a shame there is no recording or transcript of that talk.)

I think the main difference between my opinions and his is that he places much more trust in government.

</comment><comment><USER11> Apple's architecture decision proves a quiet point - that Apple feels it has been illegally pressured by the government (notably the NSA) to crack too many cell-phones, and that their own business and the rights of their users are at risk from an overly aggressive government. I interpret Apple's move as a self- defense mechanism to attempt to stop the immoral actions of a government over- stepping it's bounds, and to protect the people that Apple cares about most - their users.

</comment><comment><USER12> The article asks:

> How is the public interest served by a policy that only thwarts lawful > search warrants?

Perhaps the answer is that judges act as rubber stamps now, authorizing way too many search warrants. The author assumes that the judges are fairly applying the 4th amendment.

<comment><USER13> > judges act as rubber stamps now

Exactly. Our government is as overbearing and oppressive as it's been in a very long time. I read somewhere that judges approve something like 99% of the search warrants presented to them. They no longer serve as a check on law enforcement.

I'd love to hear otherwise, to hear how judges are doing a good job balancing the interests of people against the interests of law enforcement.

<comment><USER14> I did not downvote you, but there's a perfectly good explanation for why 99% of warrants would be approved.

Consider that the police know what warrants a judge is likely to approve and which he's likely to turn down. Over time, police departments will learn to submit the warrants they can get approved and not bother wasting a judge's time with warrants that won't be approved.

So very high approval rates do not necessarily signal the loss of the judge's ability or willingness to check police power. Just that everybody involved is doing their jobs as professionals in their domain.

<comment><USER4> > there's a perfectly good explanation for why 99% of warrants would be > approved.

Your argument is that the approval rate could be 99% legitimately. Even if true it doesn't actually provide any evidence that judges are not acting as a rubber stamp, it only attempts to discount some evidence in favor of it. Moreover, the fact that the approval rate is 99% is still evidence that judges are not being very critical in approving warrants. The high rate makes it statistically more likely that judges are approving warrants uncritically than would be the case if the rate was lower.

<comment><USER14> > Moreover, the fact that the approval rate is 99% is still evidence that > judges are not being very critical in approving warrants.

No it is not.

> The high rate makes it statistically more likely that judges are approving > warrants uncritically than would be the case if the rate was lower.

As I said in another sub-thread, you are going to have to explain the statistics involved if you want to make an argument from them. Otherwise you are just being circular. You cannot expect a statement to be its own proof.

<comment><USER4> > No it is not.

Yes it is. There is no question that it is evidence, so you can only be questioning whether the evidence supports the proposition. You want a mathematical proof? OK. Without knowing the percentage of approved warrants we can't exclude the possibility that exactly zero warrants were approved, which would be a hard disproof of the proposition that judges are uncritically approving warrants. Discovering that the percentage is nonzero eliminates the possibility that it is 0%, which increases the probability that the proposition is correct. Continuing by induction, with each warrant not approved the possibility that it was approved uncritically is eliminated, whereas with each warrant approved the possibility that it was approved uncritically is retained. So the higher the percentage of approved warrants the more it supports the proposition that they are being approved uncritically. QED.

What you're arguing is that it's weak evidence. It could be that there were many legitimate warrants requested and few illegitimate ones. But that's a weak argument unless you can present some contrary evidence for the opposite position. All you're doing is claiming that the proposition hasn't been strongly proved, not proving it incorrect.

<comment><USER14> Your position is circular. You are defining 'critical-ness' with the sole criteria being the approval rate. If we accept that as the only criteria, then sure the proposition stands, but then it loses meaning and becomes nothing more than a rhetorical device.

Generally speaking, we mean 'critical' to involve the weighing of a decision against an ethical standard. Assuming the standard isn't changing, we would expect an equilibrium to emerge where the parties involved would come to understand the standard, especially given that the warrant process is not adversarial. So there's no reason not to expect the approval rate to settle at close to 100%, with the few denials being law enforcement attempts to skirt the boundaries.

Anything less than a very high rate would indicate that the standards are inconsistent or are being inconsistently applied. The only reason I can see to be inconsistent is to game statistics like this one that seem to mean more to certain people than they actually do.

<comment><USER4> > Your position is circular. You are defining 'critical-ness' with the sole > criteria being the approval rate. If we accept that as the only criteria, > then sure the proposition stands, but then it loses meaning and becomes > nothing more than a rhetorical device.

There is nothing circular about it. There is no requirement to exclude other evidence. Regardless of what other evidence exists, discovering that there is a very high approval rate makes it more likely that warrants are approved uncritically than it was before the approval rate was known.

> Assuming the standard isn't changing, we would expect an equilibrium to > emerge where the parties involved would come to understand the standard, > especially given that the warrant process is not adversarial. So there's no > reason not to expect the approval rate to settle at close to 100%, with the > few denials being law enforcement attempts to skirt the boundaries.

The fact that the process is not adversarial only makes it more likely that judges are approving warrants they shouldn't be. Moreover, prosecutors have every incentive to try to "skirt the boundaries" as often as possible, unless the boundaries are so broad they don't need to be skirted.

> Anything less than a very high rate would indicate that the standards are > inconsistent or are being inconsistently applied.

Or that prosecutors are continually testing the fences as they have every incentive to do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "The first question is whether the government can lawfully compel the telephone's owner to divulge the passcode. I believe the answer is that yes, a person can in fact face punishment for refusal to enter in the password to decrypt his own phone. If the government obtains a subpoena ordering the person to enter in the passcode, and the person refuses or falsely claims not to know the passcode, a person can be held in contempt for failure to comply."

Soooooooooo... there already is a legal mechanism to force the phone's owner to divulge the password. Why isn't that enough?

<comment><USER16> I don't know how they can reasonably prove you remember what the code is.

<comment><USER17> Because most people use their phones on a daily basis, it would be rather difficult to convince a jury that you don't remember, especially when most, if not all, members of the jury will have a smart phone themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I would rather let a few murderers go free than expand the government's power to store and retrieve private communications. You never know what benign things you might be doing today that will one day be dangerously illegal (or maybe just embarrassing enough to hurt you now that you have some kind of power).

</comment><comment><USER19> Kerr's argument sounds silly when you use analogies with conventional devices. Nobody would argue that a highly secure safe should have a backdoor that can be used by the manufacturer to open it.

<comment><USER20> Safes do have a back door. Drills.

If you get possesion of a safe, you can physically cut it open (given enough money, expertise and time).

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The public is interested in (and is served by) a technical solution to lawful search warrants because the public no longer believes that lawful warrants are just.

<comment><USER22> You're speaking for an awful lot of people and an awful lot of different kinds of search warrants....

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> "Apple's design change [is] one it is legally authorized to make, to be clear."

That's really all that matters to me.

</comment><comment><USER24> These are the fruits of the abuse of the fourth amendment.

This action is a prime example of why (ethics and liberties aside) getting carried away with surveillance and warrentless snooping was ultimately a bad idea even for those who were doing it.

There are reasons for fair treatment of citizens that stem directly from practicality. But lack of foresight and hubris seem all too common with government officials as of late.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'll leave it to other hackers to put it more eloquently. Any means to bypass the encryption on iOS 7 and before are vulnerabilities that adversaries can use to bypass the encryption on iOS 7 and before. Apple is basically saying that they didn't build in back doors, which this author is making the case for. iOS 8 data is still available to the government by other means than warrants and at much, much, much higher expense.

<comment><USER26> are you sure they built in a real backdoor?

i thought they salted user PINs with a hard-wired nonce that's specific to every device - then when the fuzz needs to get the device unlocked apple looks up what the hard-wired nonce is for that specific device, and then crack the 4 digit pin.

anyone have details on how apple actually unlocked devices?

<comment><USER27> >apple looks up what the hard-wired nonce is for that specific device, and then crack the 4 digit pin.

Not quite. There are two nonces involved. One is (probably) easy for Apple to extract (the randomly generated, re-writable value in effaceable storage) and the other is (supposedly) very difficult to extract, because it's burned into the CPU hardware. If all works as intended, the only way to extract the second one is to decap the CPU and read it with a microscope.

Also, you can have arbitrarily long PINs, including alphanumeric.

If Apple's security PDF is correct, the only obvious way Apple can break the PIN is via brute force, which I believe they claim to provide when LEAs request it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I don't think the genie can be put back into the bottle. If Congress passes laws to require it on US-bound devices, I could see interested parties importing from Asia and Europe and/or embargoes on our devices abroad.

It could hurt US companies abroad because they will rightfully think the US Gov't has a backdoor. I think Apple and Google would use their lobbying funds to make sure the author's hopes never happen.

</comment><comment><USER29> > Apple's new policy seems to thumb its nose at that great tradition. It stops > the government from being able to access the phone precisely when it has a > lawful warrant signed by a judge.

When the government has a warrant, the person being called into question is being served the warrant. The way it works now, the Government just bypasses the person and forces the carrier/handset manufacturer to give up information. This step is just brining the law back in line with how it was traditionally instated and enforced. That's like the Government going to Audi for a backdoor key to unlock my car while I'm not there so they can search it.

</comment><comment><USER30> The only really consistent position will become to treat a person's digital trace as we treat the contents of their head. The two are merging sooner rather than later.

</comment><comment><USER31> It's clear by reading the article that this is a purely one-sided legal assessment of the issue.

Putting on Apples shoes I think this decision was more guided by financial, risk and PR motivations.

Apple is a mass technology company focused on synergies. Dealing with red tape and custom data decryption is definitely outside that area. It adds additional cost, not just for the work performed, but also organisational overhead (they probably have to hire people for this, open new organisational units or divert existing resources from more useful work). I'm sure that can't be simply expressed in numbers and much less covered by the government, even if they pay for the services.

There is the risk which has a technical nature: if a black hat / leak (e.g. disgruntled employee) / someone outside the organisation ever acquires the means to unlock costumer phones outside the confines of Apple, all hell would break loose. And while I'm sure they make proper precautions, not having to deal with this as a risk is likely more desirable.

The PR side is the most obvious one: there are lot's of people that are not comfortable that Apple can simply unlock their data and will buy something else just because they are not so forthcoming with the court warrants. More importantly, businesses will have a very hand time to justify the risk of information leakage because they use a product that has outside access vectors.

So this decision seems to make perfect sense to me from a business perspective: less cost + operational overhead, less risk of something going horribly wrong and better PR light. What's not to love about it?

Note: IANAL, I don't own any Apple devices and I'm not a U.S. citizen nor do I live in the U.S.

</comment><comment><USER32> Looking at this from outside the US, the situation looks very different. Any argument that can be made that US law enforcement should have a right to require access to the contents of phones, and that it is immoral to foil lawful requests to access user data applies has to pass a simple test. Would you make exactly the same argument in favour of government access in China, Russia, Iran, etc?

Apple has customers and suers across the globe. Any portection or lack thereof they put into their OS affects all of them, not just the ones in the US. Their policy has to serve all of those people equally. User protections in iOS8 protect users in these countries just as much as they portect user data in the US. Weaknesses and gaps in that portection expose user data in those countries just as much as they expose them in the US.

</comment><comment><USER33> I think it is perfectly reasonable what Apple is doing. They are basically saying: Dear government. If you want us to make a backdoor in our software and setup a service to which you can send phones to have them unlocked, then please make a law that explictly forces us to do so.

</comment><comment><USER9> All of this debate happened around the Clipper Chip in the 1990s [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip)

Sane people realized then that mediated security is no security at all.

</comment><comment><USER34> I know these "blow-by-blow" comments can seem petty, but there are just so many things wrong with this post. It's sad, because I have a lot of respect for Kerr (besides being a very intelligent guy, he participated in weev's legal defense pro bono).

> That's hugely important. And under Apple's old operating system, > cryptography protects iPhones from rogue police officers, too.

Kerr is a lawyer, not a techie, and it really shows here. This statement first of all implies that the previous system was "adequate, but with a backdoor", which of course we know is not possible.

But that is a matter of theory; the practice, according to [1], is that previously iOS filesystem encryption wasn't tied to the user passcode anyway, so it wasn't even a matter of "decrypting" the devices, nor was it something only feasible for Apple to do. Indeed, vendors such as Elcomsoft (believably, given the info in those slides) claim that their software can grab most user data without a password [2].

The aforementioned slides mention a second level of encryption, "data protection", which is derived from the passcode, and which Elcomsoft claims to not be able to access. I wonder whether Apple could (since if implemented properly it shouldn't have).

> Because Apple demands a warrant to decrypt a phone when it is capable of > doing so, the only time Apple's inability to do that makes a difference is > when the government has a valid warrant.

Kerr never says it, because he knows it's not true, but he gives the impression throughout the piece that because Apple could access on-device data when presented with a warrant, it had to. It didn't. Perhaps Kerr thinks they had/have a moral obligation?

> The policy switch doesn't stop hackers, trespassers, or rogue agents. It > only stops lawful investigations with lawful warrants.

I don't know what Kerr is getting at here. If it is within the means of "hackers" or "trespassers", it is surely within the means of law enforcement.

> How is the public interest served by a policy that only thwarts lawful > search warrants?

But it doesn't _only_ thwart lawful search warrants, it protects against other would-be intruders. Apple is simply choosing, in light of recent controversies regarding government incursions on privacy, to highlight that aspect.

> Apple's new policy seems to thumb its nose at that great tradition. It stops > the government from being able to access the phone precisely when it has a > lawful warrant signed by a judge. What's the public interest in that?

Apple is responding to a political and market reality: a lot of us don't believe that "great tradition", as practiced, is actually serving the public interest. I guess it is out of the scope of the piece for Kerr to explain why we're mistaken, but many of those applauding Apple's decision aren't going to buy it, and yet it's his argument's key premise.

> Because the victim isn't alive to share his password, and the phone will > have locked before the body was found, the government won't be able to > search the phone to find the messages. Apple's policy will keep the police > from finding the killer. That seems bad.

Maybe. But recall, for perspective, that 15 years (generously) ago people didn't carry these repositories of personal information with them.

> If we get a lot of cases like that, I suspect Congress may look to > legislation to try to restore the privacy/security balance more in the > direction of the traditional Fourth Amendment warrant requirement.

I would expand on the same point as above: what year's balance are we striving to "restore" to? Law enforcement today have unprecedented access to personal information, and that will be only marginally less true when smartphone encryption is more widespread and robust.

> The most obvious option would be follow the example of CALEA and E911 > regulations by requiring cellular phone manufacturers to have a technical > means to bypass passcodes on cellular phones.

I know Kerr is talking about what Congress might do and not what would be ideal, but I'm sure Kerr knows the lessons of the Clipper chip [3].

I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but I've been stewing over this since I read it on Friday. Apologies for the rantiness.

[1] [http://www.slideshare.net/eltufl/ios-encryption- systems](http://www.slideshare.net/eltufl/ios-encryption-systems) [2] [http://www.elcomsoft.com/eift.html?r1=pr&r2=ios6#passcode](http://www.elcomsoft.com/eift.html?r1=pr&r2=ios6#passcode) [3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip)

<comment><USER35> Well said.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> While I do understand the situation the law enforcement is dealing with, it is not an excuse to not allow us to have complete privacy and full encryption support on our digital devices. Nobody including governments has any rights to have any access to my personal data. If I don't share it with anybody, it's mine just as my personal thoughts in my head.

I agree with what Apple is doing and I want them to do more. There are still some remaining holes that need to be closed up and all users should be encouraged to enable 2FA with the mandated switch in a few years.

</comment><comment><USER37> So basically, the author wants every "secure" software system to have a backdoor. iOS versions prior to 8 all had a backdoor and he's lamenting that Apple has closed this backdoor. Not only that, if this applies to the iPhone, it must apply to any and all encryption software. While it's widely known that the government already has backdoors into a lot of popular software, codifying this in law or expecting that all software be built with backdoors is preposterous.

Furthermore, his feeble explanation of why this isn't a 5th Amendment issue doesn't stand up. The courts have so far come down on both sides of the issue, and while he cites one court case, there are others and other decisions that disagree ([http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/federal-appeals-court- fifth...](http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/federal-appeals-court-fifth- amendment-protects-suspect-from-having-to-decrypt-hard-drive/)). It's obvious that the author believes so strongly in the right of the government to have a backdoor that he ignores significant case law that does not back his viewpoint (I'm sure he's aware of it or he's a piss-poor law professor).

Because the author doesn't see this for what it is, a backdoor, he can't even begin to understand other, unforeseen consequences (such as criminals getting ahold of the decryption process) and even brushes off this issue early in the article.

<comment><USER38> > iOS versions prior to 8 all had a backdoor and he's lamenting that Apple has > closed this backdoor.

iOS versions prior to version 8 didn't have a backdoor - I believe the difference is just that less content was stored encrypted before.

<comment><USER37> In that case, prior versions are just in-securable. If less content was encrypted, however, why would investigators need Apple's help in getting to the data when the data is stored in unencrypted right on the device?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> (IANAL.) From the three last options proposed in the article:

\- Option 1 doesn't make sense to me because, if you assume that private crypto is lawful, the phone's data could be encrypted using the passcode, so that it would be technically impossible to bypass the passcode.

\- Option 2 seems like a bad idea to me. The central premise is that there is one passcode which you must know, so you can be forced to provide it. However, if you are using deniable encryption you could have multiple passcodes, an "everyday" passcode, a "secondary" passcode for sensitive data, a "duress" passcode, etc., and there would be no way for you to prove that you have provided everything. Under this interpretation, forcing users to hand in "all available passcodes" sounds too much like asking the accused to help the investigation make sense of their encrypted data.

\- Option 3 seems more reasonable (although I think it is undesirable). In fact, I am surprised that retention of text messages is not yet an obligation under the law (though maybe they are already retained, just not lawfully). Of course this would make a lot less sense if people (or their phones) encrypted texts...

Yes, telephony is stuck with historical ad-hoc messaging protocols (SMS), proprietary devices, OSes and applications, with strong dependencies to their manufacturers and mobile providers, and people do not often use serious crypto on them. But mobile phones with a mobile connection are essentially computers on a network, and one should be wary of special bypass mechanisms on passcodes or texts that would make no sense with computers.

</comment><comment><USER40> > Apple's new policy seems to thumb its nose at that great tradition.

Tradition is not law.

I like Apple's approach. It's not their job to do the government's job for them nor is it their job to make the government's job easier. It's their job to develop the best product they can and not be hindered by tradition or whatever other albatrosses they don't wish to accept.

The government is now free to develop the best methods they can to retrieve information, within the law.

</comment><comment><USER41> With all due respect, being somewhat of a privacy and security freak (although I use social networks etc.), all I can read while going through the article is a crybaby whining about how it is harder than before to get user data.

The article makes an assumption that the warrants and the snooping is only done in legal and genuine cases, which has been continuously been proved wrong lately. Not to mention all the secret courts, FISA orders etc

</comment><comment><USER42> I agree it's odd that they're actually marketting it as anti-law enforcement.

There are certainly other reasons to appreciate secure encryption though. But "not even a disgruntled apple employee, or one paid by your business competitor" brings up questions that are not good marketting to put in people's heads. Even "not even a hacker, cause we used actual secure crypto" is not what they want people to think about.

Now, personally, I include "not even law enforcement" in my list of attackers I'd like to defend from, and there's nothing wrong with that (and there's not supposed to be in America, the 4th ammendment and all). But the fact that it's actually good marketting generally (or at least they're betting on it) -- well, we have Snowden to thank for that. And I doubt it will last.

Also, of course, there are a variety of reasons the iphone crypto as a system isn't all that secure -- including but not limiting to the fact that we still have trust apple (we can't see the code, or the code in the updates pushed out regularly).

Not that I disagree that it's a benefit to make it harder for law enforcement

</comment><comment><USER43> Is this actually new in iOS 8? I thought this has been the design of iMessage from the beginning -- namely that Apple does not have the decryption keys.

What Apple does have is the directory of recipient public keys that your device should use to encrypt its messages. (Background: iMessage encrypts each message separately for every recipient device, which shows just how far Apple went to protect key security. Not only does Apple not have the keys, private keys never have to be exchanged among devices ever.)

But technically speaking -- I have no idea if they actually do this -- that gives them a way to insert a "wiretap" of sorts in the form of an additional, silent recipient that you don't know about. Think of it as adding another device to your iCloud account, only it's not yours. Still, this could at least be discovered by monitoring the size of the outgoing data to see if it matches the expected number of recipients.

<comment><USER44> The article is referring to the contents of the phone's storage, not iMessage. Apparently before iOS 8, Apple could decrypt the contents of a phone's storage, and would do so when presented a warrant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> His argument for why Apple should assist the government in obtaining private information shows how easy it is to write the meaning of the constitution however you please, at least when a society is in the middle of intense technological evolution:

        The civil libertarian tradition of American privacy law,
        enshrined in the Fourth Amendment, has been to see the
        warrant protection as the Gold Standard of privacy
        protections. ... the government must go to a neutral
        magistrate and make that case before it conducts the
        search. ... But when the government does make that
        showing, on the other hand, the public interest in
        solving crime outweighs the privacy interest. That's
        the basic balance of the Fourth Amendment

</comment><comment><USER46> A back door is a vulnerability regardless of its intended use. There is no way to assure it can't be used elsewhere. I would be shocked if the existing decryption method used internally at Apple wasn't fully available to other agencies. How hard would it be for a three letter agency to get someone in the right position to obtain the keys and tools?

The closing of this vulnerability makes business sense for Apple. Considering how connected these devices are only, marooned data would not already be available elsewhere. Perhaps a photo that wasn't uploaded or a note taken. Everything else is accessible. Location data is available via cell tower logs. Voice calls, call history, SMS, email, web history, etc... all available already...

</comment><comment><USER47> For a moment I thought I was reading a Xinhua article.

<comment><USER48> This could be the reason why iPhone 6 has not been approved in China. With heavy smuggling they will get plenty. A lot of arguments assume the (American) government is decent, but iPhone is a global device. Let's hope Apple products have the same security all over the world.

<comment><USER35> Agreed. Everyone forgets that my phone has to be protected from everyone in the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> So, when BlackBerry was doing it, it was all good. Now that it's Apple, it's bad?

</comment><comment><USER50> Apple is an international company, while I trust my government I do not trust the Chinese.

<comment><USER51> "Love your country, but don't trust your government."

the question is, why do we take Apple at their word here?

[http://www.jwz.org/blog/2014/09/why-we-believe- apple/](http://www.jwz.org/blog/2014/09/why-we-believe-apple/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Let me see if I get this straight. If I design a front door that can't be broken down, which also comes with a lock that can't be picked, it's my responsibility to keep a duplicate of every key, just in case law enforcement should come by and want to get into someone's home?

</comment><comment><USER53> This seems likely to be more than a little related to the recent warrant canary discovery. My expectation is that Apple was recently forced to do something they considered unlawful and the iOS8 changes will prevent that issue in the future.

<comment><USER54> the world is much simpler than that, my friend.

Apple left the canary there to not alarm their customers. As far as we know, they could have received millions of warrants and never removed it for market reasons, or they could have received warrants that told them to not change that page as to not harm ongoing investigations.

Anyway, it is very conveniently timed with the release of ios8, and their month old marketing plan of announcing that new 'super secure feature' that "we can't comply to warrants even if we wanted BS". I'd have to be a huge fool to not thing that this is a pure marketing ploy to force me to move to IOS8, and nothing more.

Also, you probably can still access iCloud pictures that the phone uploads automatically by just guessing random urls or something or another.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I support the Apple stand. All new iPhones have fingerprint based authentication which stores the info in a crypted way inside the phone itself. Let the government force the accused to unlock via fingerprint.

</comment><comment><USER56> >The first question is whether the government can lawfully compel the telephone's owner to divulge the passcode. I believe the answer is that yes, a person can in fact face punishment for refusal to enter in the password to decrypt his own phone. If the government obtains a subpoena ordering the person to enter in the passcode, and the person refuses or falsely claims not to know the passcode, a person can be held in contempt for failure to comply.

I thought the exact opposite was true?

That no judge or any court can force you to disclose your password?

ie self incriminating your own person.

Apparently it varies from country to country: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law)

</comment><comment><USER57> It's a catch 22. They'll be criticized, but they need to deploy much stronger security measures to show customers that they're not playing along and 'data- pimping'. Unfortunately for them it's probably too late. When open-source alternatives like ubuntu mobile and firefox os are ready for prime time, they stand to take a good market share, imho.

</comment><comment><USER58> Jeff Bezos's newspaper publishes an article impugning Apple.

</comment><comment><USER59> A right to silence and a right not to incriminate oneself.

</comment><comment><USER60> You have to explain the statistics involved

</comment><comment><USER61> I wanna learn real hacking . I'm a Nigerian 18yrs old

</comment><comment><USER62> I feel nauseated by the higher than thou attitude of Apple.

While Apple is pointing fingers at Google about collecting user data, let's see what kinds of business Apple and Google are in.

Apple's main strength is designing product, farm them out to contractors for assembly, market the products and sell them.

When it comes to child labor or near slavery like working condition that the Chinese assembly line workers labor in, Apple's defense is that they are not Apple employees. Well, that doesn't fly with me. They are still paying (or not paying enough) for the tough condition.

And what business is Google in? Their business is in collecting user data and selling them for ad. They don't farm out assembly work to contractors that force employees to work in slavery like condition.

So what do like less? 1) Supporting a company that condones slavery like working condition? 2) Supporting a company that collects data but does not pay contractors who put workers into slavery like working condition?

So I'd say it's even. Apple is not any better than Google. And frankly, looking at me.com and other cloud platform that Apple has tried to prop up and failed so far, I'd say Apple is better off staying in their line of business.

<comment><USER63> Tell me, was me.com also built using child labour? Or does Android run on nothing but the thin air? If not, can all makers show something like [http://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/](http://www.apple.com/supplier- responsibility/) ?</comment></comment>


Study: U.S. entrepreneurs are educated, experienced - <AUTHOR> http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207404024

<comment><USER2> I would love to see some data about the relation between startup success and field of study. The article mentions that 2/3s of the surveyed startups were founded by science, engineering or maths graduates, and the other 1/3 by business graduates. This is nice, but what about the success rate ? Is there any correlation? That would be nice to see.</comment>


Opera 10.5 pre-alpha released for Linux - no longer uses Qt - <AUTHOR> http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/happy-new-year

<comment><USER2> No longer -dependent- on Qt. As in, my C++ code no longer uses QString in the core. Just read one more sentence and QT4 is listed as a supported toolkit :)</comment>


Apple has allegedly begun removing Iranian iOS apps from the App store - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/29/apple-has-allegedly-begun-removing-iranian-ios-apps-from-the-app-store/ <comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps this explains why:

[https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-joint- res...](https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-joint- resolution/10)

[http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and- prosperit...](http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and- prosperity/2017/january/28/pre-emptive-attack-iran-bill-active-in-us-house/)

<comment><USER2> Those are links to a whole other issue that deserves its own discussion. Why not the following from the article itself:

"However the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury puts blocks on this market. According to Techrasa, Apple has sent the following to Iranian startups attempting to upload apps:

"Unfortunately, there is no App Store available for the territory of Iran. Additionally, apps facilitating transactions for businesses or entities based in Iran may not comply with the Iranian Transactions Sanctions Regulations (31CFR Part 560) when hosted on the App Store. For these reasons, we are unable to accept your application at this time. We encourage you to resubmit your application once international trade laws are revised to allow this functionality."

<comment><USER3> This. Apparently, it's shocking and newsworthy that Apple adheres to US law, and moves to rectify situations where they have been misled:

"While there is no official App Store available for the territory of Iran, many companies registered their apps as being outside of Iran to be able to get onto the store."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting. Looks like the Google Play store was also embargoed at one point:

[http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/28/4669004/google-opens- play-...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/28/4669004/google-opens-play-store- to-iran-after-us-lifts-sanctions)

I wonder what exactly is going on. Trump administration looking for ways to put pressure on Apple?

<comment><USER5> Well he does use an Android, so it wouldn't surprise me if that was 100% correct.

<comment><USER6> Yes, I'm sure it's that, rather than say Apple making sure it conforms to existing (e.g. pre-Trump) U.S. law /s

See: [https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/31/560.204](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/31/560.204)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Disgraceful

<comment><USER6> Are you referring to Apple's actions, or the 2012 law that prohibits them from supplying (directly or indirectly) goods, technology, or services to Iran:

[https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/31/560.204](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/31/560.204)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This was posted yesterday, and I flagged it then, and I'm flagging it now. TechCrunch has a reputation of writing opinion stories without doing the proper research or due diligence. With their reputation in mind, I'm going to say this is false news, without sources and confirmations.

Don't believe me? See TechCrunch absurdities written by Megan Rose Dickey who is a self proclaimed reporter at TechCrunch focused on diversity, inclusion and social justice. How she still has a job is beyond me. If this were the other way around, a white male writing like she does he would be blasted as a sexist, and racist and socially shamed into oblivion.

\- Dear White People, You Suck At Diversity ([https://techcrunch.com/2015/12/13/dear-white-people-you- suck...](https://techcrunch.com/2015/12/13/dear-white-people-you-suck-at- diversity/))

\- Twitter doesn't have quite as many white employees as it did last year ([https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/19/twitter-doesnt-have- quite-...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/19/twitter-doesnt-have-quite-as- many-white-employees-as-it-did-last-year/))

\- GitHub's diversity is just as bad as the rest of Silicon Valley's ([https://techcrunch.com/2016/05/26/githubs-diversity-is- just-...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/05/26/githubs-diversity-is-just-as-bad- as-the-rest-of-silicon-valleys/))

<comment><USER9> You just said she's a reporter who's focused on diversity, and the 3 headlines you quoted look like they're focused on diversity. Without having read the articles, just reading your comment, it kind of looks like she's actually doing her job.

<comment><USER8> Fully expect to be downvoted, but that's an absurd topic to have at TechCrunch. She's just feeding the constant outrage machine.

<comment><USER10> The guidelines explicitly ask not to comment on flagging (as you did above) or downvotes. Feel free to express your opinion on TechCrunch or the aforementioned author in a civil and substantive manner (perhaps taking extra care if you're worried you may be downvoted), but follow the guidelines. You're likely to get downvoted for that alone, rather than for the comment itself.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment>