A Sullied Legislative Legacy
How do you want to be remembered?
During a tough time in my life, many years ago in my youth, one of the positive influence in my life helped me understand the concept of “legacy.”
This is to say, what you’re remembered for — what you leave in your wake.
Not everybody is Alexander The Great. Not everybody will be remembered. So, in essence, it doesn’t matter that much.
Or does it? For the period of time you will be remembered, how do you want to be remembered? Are you prepared to answer questions about your legacy?
I know, as of right now, I’m known for saying shit people don’t like. In some ways I wish I could get my point across better. In other ways, I’ve come to a point of peace with myself and the fact that this is just the way I am.
People are most often remembered for the accumulation of life experience — this is to say, the latter portion of what they leave behind, and less-so for the former portion of refining their life’s work and efforts.
A “Discussion Draft” of a Senate Encryption Bill was released this last Thursday, effectively ending Senator Dianne Feinstein’s career.
If you think I’m wrong, or that this is harsh, consider the fact that Senator Feinstein is a staunch Democrat from California. And California is home to Silicon Valley, where the largest and most well known tech companies operate.
Forget about that. Senator Feinstein is in her 80’s. And she’s a “Class 1” senator — meaning that she was re-elected in 2012, and she’s up for re-election again in 2018. At this point, she’ll be in or near her mid 80's.
The odds are that Senator Feinstein is not going to run for Senate again, and, she doesn’t really care too much anymore, given her advanced, octogenarian age, diminished and limited mental capacity continuing to decline, and not really paying attention because it doesn’t matter.
BUT, if it did matter. If she’s still of sound mind to stay a Senator into her 90’s, succeeding at a re-election bid in 2018, then she would definitely be paying attention to what she’s doing and what she’s proposing by co-writing and/or sponsoring this bill.
She’s not paying attention to the voter base or constituents who would re-elect her. In simpler terms: Senator Feinstein is giving the finger to major political powers in California, telling everyone that she’s retiring and doesn’t care about the voters (the people); only about what she thinks is right.
It is still honorable to do what you think is the right thing for the greater good. But, given that the greater good is as a representative for the people who elected her… subjectively, her actions in co-writing or co-sponsoring a bill which directly and specifically alienates a large section of her voter base — this is not doing the right thing.
The odds of a bill like this passing are minimal. Compelling a company, based on “third party” is not going to fly in the courts. A court can issue an order compelling a company to compel a 3rd party service or software provider, by proxy, to open things up. Nope. Does not compute. Talk to the vendor.
And this is dirt simple:
App developer can’t directly implement encryption due to prohibitive regulatory laws. App developer says: “Download this other app-library, and enable interaction between these two apps.” If someone on the other end (an individual) does this, then you have end-to-end encryption, device-to-device, and, the company providing the app only has to provide the wire-level data. (Sorry, these two peopel are coordinating their efforts independent of the service we provide.) From there, all that needs to be done is to pull the technical specifications and implement encryption manually. When the court issues an order saying: “You are required to be compliant because Big Brother Sez So…” … the people who implemented the encryption turn to the people who published the encryption method saying: “Hey, 3rd party, you have to comply with El Bastardo’s order, or else.”
Of course EMC and RSA are going to give it the finger: “Ha, ha, fuck you,” and the government have only look to itself for AES. (Or hold the AES contest winners responsible for participating in a government funded project to create stronger encryption. The AES people will shrug, look back at the government blankly… “You asked for this, we gave it to you, our work is validated as computationally infeasible to be broken, fund your own efforts to break what you asked for; and don’t come back to us asking for help when someone leaks the information to make everything insecure again.”)
What it all boils down to is that Senator Dianne Feinstein has effectively ended her career in politics. And it doesn’t matter to her too much, since she’s of advanced age and probably not going to run for Senate again (last hurrah to say “fuck you” to her voter base and do whatever the hell she wants to in her last term, because from here it doesn’t matter).
But, should this crappy legislation pass —
This will be her permanent legacy. A staunch Democrat from California undermining democracy… well… you know… “just because.” (Ain’t got nothing better to do and don’t want to think too hard and don’t care.)
