Attacks on encrypted communicxatiopn rising in Europe

[Robert J. Hansen]

> ... the German and French government are attacking the right to
> encrypt communication of their serfs.

I've got to ask a question.

What would you have us do instead?

For the last eight years I've worked in digital forensics.  That's put
me in a position to see the works of psychopaths up close and personal.
They tend to love photographing or recording their exploits, and their
"art" winds up crossing my desk.  Evil exists and the worst thing I've
ever heard is a wailed, "Daddy, no, please stop!"

I believe that privacy is on balance a good thing and we need good tools
to preserve it.  But I've also seen enough victims and crimes to believe
that we also need ways to detect, apprehend, and prosecute offenders, too.

So long as you're a privacy absolutist -- which it appears you are --
then you're going to be on the losing side of your nation's privacy
debate.  As soon as people hear that your preferred answer to, "So how
should investigators and forensics geeks deal with this Tor, GnuPG, and
cgiproxy-using fiend?" is, "well, he shouldn't, because privacy!",
they're going to write you off as not having anything useful to bring to
the discussion.

Some serious questions --

	1.  Are you a privacy absolutist?
	2.  If yes, why should we listen to you?
	3.  If no, then how should we permit privacy tools to be
	    circumvented?