We do n’t know the specifics of howthe terrorist attacksin Paris last Friday were carried out . That has n’t stopped the practice of law enforcement community from shamelessly blaming encryption for helping terrorists , or from assume the attack as an opportunity to defend surveillance .
intelligence information official are blame the Paris attacks on the gratis availability of encryption dick to protect private conversations , the implication being that if we could only track what the terrorist were saying to one another , we would have give up it . But we already have a historical event of how we react to a holy terror plot that we have surveillance coverage over : Mumbai . We were watching . We did n’t break off it .
The 2008 Mumbai attacks are a good example of what it looks like when a terrorist organization carries out a secret plan . Afterwards , the steps and missteps the intelligence community took before and during that attack were take stock , and some of the text file Snowden leak shed light on what run down . The intelligence community knew about some of the attackers , it was able to track them , but it flush it to identify their planuntil it was too recent . That failure has nothing to do with encoding .
Some of the Mumbai terrorists were known to British , Amerindic , and US news agencies , but the agencies did n’t deal enough information with each other to visualize out the plot beforehand . It was only after the attack that they swop intel and saw how many hints they missed . The Mumbai attackers were n’t skulking around in blind spots . One of themused Google Earthto map out out where they would go . The problem was n’t that the terrorist were too slick with their privateness creature , or that those privacy tool stymied an investigation . It was that the intelligence information residential district did n’t effectively analyze and share the ample information it collected .
“ I can not remember a single example in my calling when we ever stopped a plot base purely on signals intelligence , ” retired CIA counterterrorism chief Charles Faddistoldthe New York Times at the time . Yet these trump - up charges against encoding do n’t account for the all important part human intelligence agency play .
The same kind of stinking data - communion among strange agencies may have stymy the intelligence community of interests in the Paris attacks as well . A Turkish functionary sound out that Turkey hadwarned France twiceabout one of Friday ’s attackers , but did not hear back . Israeli , Iraqi , and Jordanian functionary also report thatthey had put out warnings to France .
Yet law enforcement officials wasted no time fingering encoding as a terrorist tool to further their schedule . New York Police Commissioner Bill Brattonsaidthe Islamic State ’s ability to go “ black ” will roleplay “ a meaning component in this event ” on This workweek With George Stephanopoulos on Sunday .
Brattoncontinued his medium blitz against encryptionon Face the commonwealth . “ We , in many regard , have go blind as a result of the commercialization and the marketing of these devices that can not be get at either by the producer or , more significantly , by us in law enforcement , even outfit with search guarantee and judicial authorisation , ” he said . “ This is something that is sound to need to be deliberate very quickly because we can not continue operating where we are blind . ”
CIA conductor John Brennancalled the attacka “ arouse - up call ” during the public debate around encoding , read that “ unauthorized revelation and manus - wringing over the government ’s role ” made it hard for the external intelligence community to keep attack . The “ unauthorized revelation ” he referred to is , of course , Edward Snowden ’s whistleblowing , as though terrorists suddenly realize they were being tracked by legal philosophy enforcement in 2013 .
We do n’t know exactly how the tidings community miss what was about to happen in Paris . Amistaken Forbes reportclaimed that Belgium ’s Union home affairs curate , Jan Jambon , stated thatthe terrorist used Playstation 4to talking to each other . But Jambon made that statement before the attacks .
Whatever platforms the terrorists used to pass , the idea that encryption spoil the intelligence residential area ’s exploit to end them is still suppositional . Even if we do take that these attackers used the most cut - edge , hardcore encryption tools privacy counsellor would jizz over , the argument that the solution is to level these pecker by making keys for governing actor is nonsensical .
We ’ve known thatterrorists have used encryptionsince at least 2001 , as Glenn Greenwaldpointed out . This has been happening for almost two decades . The grandiosity against privacy tools is cynical expedience , and accusing encryption of enabling the attacks is a callous shifting of responsibility . Framing encryption as a major factor in the attacks is not only jump to an unproven conclusion , it brush off the independent reason that most terror attacks are n’t terminate : A failure to share data .
A ignition lock on a bomb makes it severe to defuse , but we ’re not going to start blaming or banning locks . Encryption provide secrecy serve that make the internet safe for the huge majority of its user . Instead of using it as a bogeyman to scare people into supporting a surveillance apparatus that has been show inefficient at stopping plan of attack , the word community should acknowledge its failure in assessing the threats it could see .
Image : AP
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