PIA as conduit for crime
I figured I'd pitch this for discussion. I know that this will probably fall on deaf ears and I'm in the minority in this forum, but I am really interested in engaging in some thoughtful conversation here.
I fully understand the desire and need for internet privacy. How do we provide that and still hold criminals accountable for their behavior?
Now, when I say "criminal behavior" I am sure most of you are going to assume I mean torrents. I'm talking about more serious activity...
I know from good authority that PIA is frequently used by people who engage in creating and distributing child pornography. Its used by people who engage in domestic terrorism. It's used by people who scam and defraud the elderly and those involved in human trafficking. PIA is used by teenagers to paralyze communities by calling in loads of false bomb threats to public places.
I fully get that governments is overreaching with NSA surveillance. But services like PIA cripple the governments function of protecting our citizens when they have a legitimate reason to infringe on our right to privacy. Our constitution guarantees us freedom from unreasonable searches. How do we develop a system where reasonable searches are possible?
As it stands now, if a government agency serves PIA with a valid legal process based on probable cause from criminal activity, they get no response from PIA because no records are maintained. Is this ethical?
"When it comes to privacy and accountability, people always demand the former for themselves and the latter for everyone else."
Comments
That's easy. PIA answers subpoenas and other legal requestions with this " We have no information or logs to provide".
Does that mean a criminal could potentially use pia? yes. however pia will never sacrifice user privacy. pia is committed to privacy and anonymity so if that means a criminal might use pia,so be it.
pia gives a response to all legal subpoenas . they tell them " we have no information or logs to provide"
I am not willing to sacrifice my freedom and privacy in order to catch a criminal. I see where the OP is trying to go with his post.
the same kind of people use terrorism and child porn as excuses as to why people shouldn't have any privacy
Would Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights apply since it was signed in "good faith" by the United States and most of the rest of the world back on December 10th, 1948?
"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his
privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his
honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the
law against such interference or attacks"
https://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a12
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights
Do you notice the difference? You demonstrate you are using a mobile device by posting that.
@robert_lazar
I know it’s easy for PIA to answer they don’t keep logs; the
question I pose is: “Is that right?”
I understand that you are not willing to sacrifice your
freedom and privacy to catch a criminal.
I am not posing that you do. Nor
am I using terrorism and child porn as excuses for people not to have any
privacy. I’m asking, do we want to live
in a world where everyone has complete privacy without exception. I think that is what PIA is advocating.
I think it’s easy for us to say things like “..a criminal
might use pia, so be it” until you are a victim of a crime. I suspect that if you or a loved one fell
victim to a crime where the criminal used this service and the government was
telling you there was nothing they could do, you might feel differently.
Listen, I don’t believe the government is to be completely
trusted. They have done way more than
their fair share of illegal, immoral and unethical things. I think it is our duty to keep the government
in check. I personally don’t want to
live in a country where criminals are allowed to thrive because, “Hey, I’m now
able to browse the internet without the NSA knowing who I am.” No do I want to live in a country where
everything I am doing is subject to being monitored and recorded.
I’m advocating a system where we can use services like PIA
to maintain anonymity, but can still protect each other from those taking
advantage of us.
@moshbeast
Thanks for the link.
I think what the NSA is doing is abhorrent and inexcusable. The branches of government were set up for
checks and balances to avoid this sort of thing. If the NSA or any executive agency wants to infringe
on someone’s privacy, they needs to be a violation of established criminal law
and the facts need to be presented to a judge with competent jurisdiction.
I think incidents like these are directly linked to the
creation of software such as PIA. When
we don’t trust the government, we swing to the complete opposite end of the
spectrum and demand complete and total privacy.
I’m arguing that our Constitution does not give us complete
freedom and privacy. There are
exceptions.
I think if we demand complete privacy and anonymity, we allow
criminals a safe haven. Most of the people using this service are
probably good-natured law abiding citizens.
Their privacy deserves protection.
I don’t think we need to extend that blanket to everyone.
Anyways my understanding of g v. c. is that the SC recognized the Fourteenth Amendment as providing a substantive due process right to privacy from the state.
Could be a troll, or,someone sent froma rival vpn,or reddit to start trouble and create doubt about pia. We cant be for sure. Anything is possible.
I think it is safe to assume that all vpns have been and will continue to occasionally be used by criminals. In the case of pia, if a criminal uses pia to do a crime then the crime has already been committed and the crime's effects already felt. At that point theres nothing pia can do about the crime or its effects because pia has no information "logs" to hand over. With the crime already having occured by the time pia gets a subpoena theres nothing pia can do,for two reasons 1 : the crime and its effects already done/felt. 2: pia has nothing to hand over regarding user information.
In a way the OP's point is dead because theres nothing pia can do about it.
Many times people who do illegal activity with no VPN'S online get away with crimes. Nothing is full proof and to go all crazy and ban VPN'S is the wrong approach. The key to losing our freedoms and privacy is to have it taken away little by little. As an example, censor someone from making jokes about another race, then the next step make it a crime. I am not advocating to make jokes about other races, people will be rude and ignorant and still do dumb things. The fact of the matter is that there is a healthy balance between enforcing laws and then overreaching laws. You opt for an overreaching approach. This approach will go beyond banning vpns, it will ban proxy servers, firewalls, probably even ad-blockers. It starts off with one thing and almost always snowballs into something more.
Furthermore when you ban everything it stifles creativity. There will be no more people who will make innovative products to make the internet more private or to catch criminals because people will be afraid to develop something that is going to get them in trouble. This is why the government and the senate have its lowest approval ratings ever. They take an issue and use fear porn and punish the masses for the crimes of the few. Most people world-wide are law abiding, good people, it makes no sense to ban a vpn because a few people are perverts or some so called terrorist. In this day and age everyone is a terrorist according to the government. We wouldn't know that we were being spied on if it wasn't for whistle blowers like Edward Snowden. He used secure communications to safe guard his information. If we ban vpn's then how will people who live in oppressive countries reach out to others for help if they dont have a means like a vpn to do it. A vpn can be used for good as well as bad and you choose to only focus on the negative. So i pose the same response that banning a vpn service for illegal misdeeds, people who are the minority, to punish the law-abiding, who are the majority is stupid and oppressive.
You might want to live in a police state society where we all spy on each other and rat people out who don't conform but i don't. We already had this happen in our history during WW2. Germans citizen spied on other citizen and in their ignorance lead many innocent people to concentration camps. History repeats itself and banning vpn providers is a slippery slope. We will lose our freedom completely when we eliminate all forms of privacy and it will eventually leave us with no privacy at all.
If an entity were planning to kill me and they were using a vpn to hide then that's just the way it is. If the vpn had no information to share,so be it. Id rather take my chances with terrorism than give up my liberty. And if a terrorist was using a vpn to plan my death more than likely I'd already be dead . The only way to catch the criminal is to catch them before they commit the crime. The vpn would have to be wiretapped and monitored in real time. Pia would never allow that to happen. And since they also have no logs or information theres nothing they could do after "my murder" anyway.
lrryie yes I am paranoid and fearful. that comes with schizophrenia. I do my best to control it. but sometimes being fearful is good.
Im just not willing to give up my liberty for the sake of "catching" a criminal no matter the crime. Please don't take offense,,im not trying to fight. We just have different viewpoints.
As long as the law in the usa permits pia to keep no user information then that's just the price we have to pay for not being able to catch terrorists/criminals.
To catch a terrorist in that manner, you would have to be monitoring in real time,,which means that pia's system would have to be wiretapped and keys handed over. pia would never permit that. Even if pia had logs to hand over that wouldn't help much because more than likely the terrorist/criminal would already have committed their crime.
Ethics is one thing, privacy is another. For regular users like us to have our privacy that means that more than likely a criminal will be able to get away with some things.