Moderate French Presidential Candidate Suggests He May Pressure US Tech Companies Into Creating Encryption Backdoors
from the safety-through-insecurity dept
France’s presidential election season has kicked in. The supposed “moderate” of the bunch — Emmanuel Macron — has managed to gain considerable support in the last several months. Some of this has sprung from our own recent election. Earlier this year, the candidate took digs at Trump’s anti-climate change stance, stating France would welcome dejected US scientists with open arms.
He also said this, taking a shot at Trump’s planned border wall.
Macron also had a thinly veiled dig at Trump’s intention to build a wall along the Mexico border, comparing it to France’s Maginot Line, which in 1940 failed to keep Nazi invaders out of France.
“I don’t want to build a wall. I can assure you there’s no wall in my program,” he told about 8,000 cheering supporters. “Can you remember the Maginot Line?”
Macron has, for the most part, refused to get swept up in post-terrorist attack hysteria. Most of his statements have stressed restraint rather than indulge in expansions of government power, as so many others are prone to do.
But something’s changed recently. Macron may be the moderate who doesn’t want European nations to turn into police states in reaction to terrorist attacks. But he appears to feel there’s a certain amount of security/privacy that could be sacrificed to fight terrorism.
Speaking at his Paris launch, Mr Macron said he wants to legally compel social media companies to give authorities access to encrypted messages between terror suspects.
“Democratic states must have access to content exchanged between terrorists on social media and instant messaging,” he said, while introducing a five-point strategy that would bring in new powers across Europe.
He said it was “no longer acceptable” for companies to insist that they have a contractual obligation to clients after offering protected communication.
He cited Google, Facebook, Apple and Twitter as those he wants to have frank discussions with.
This sounds like the French counterpart to the “adult conversations” FBI Director James Comey wants to have with tech companies about encryption. Of course, in Comey’s case, the “conversation” doesn’t necessarily even have to include tech companies. He’s fine with legislation or All Writs Orders or whatever for the time being — anything that doesn’t involve actually speaking to anyone who understands encryption.
It’s tougher to get a read on Macron’s desires and intentions. He hasn’t spent months hammering away this issue or claiming terrorists are staying ahead of law enforcement by using Whatsapp or iPhones or spiral-bound notebooks. But what he’s suggesting is rather breathtaking: an EU-wide undermining of encryption. If tech companies are offering encryption, they’re going to have craft backdoors or start holding onto users’ encryption keys. The other alternative would be to pull themselves out of the European market, which seems like the least likely route they will take.
Even if elected, there’s no guarantee the country’s legislators will comply with Macron’s wishes. Despite recent terrorist attacks on French soil, no further action has been taken to undermine encryption, despite periodic calls to do so being issued by more panicky members of the French government.
Macron’s pronouncement seems at odds with his refusal to be cowed by terrorists or be pushed towards sacrificing the public’s rights and privileges on the altar of national security. No further details were offered by Macron to explain this stance, but presumably there will be much more discussion of this surprising announcement in the near future.
Filed Under: emmanuel macron, encryption, france, going dark, terrorism
Comments on “Moderate French Presidential Candidate Suggests He May Pressure US Tech Companies Into Creating Encryption Backdoors”
awk
“they’re going to have craft backdoors”
What happens when the keys to the backdoors are released to the wild? And believe me, it’s not a matter of if but rather when. Are they going to have a “Plan B encryption” ready to replace THE ENTIRE FLAWED ENCRYPTION SYSTEM they want to implement in a matter of hours before too much damage is done?
Ask them this next time they spew the ‘backdoor’ bs. Even the most secure conscious companies have been through security incidents of some degree, what makes anybody think the Government is going to do it right and keep the magic keys from falling into bad hands? What makes anybody think that among the ‘good guys’ aren’t one or two spies/criminals pretending to be good?
No really, ask them these questions. I expect some bone cracking, joint dislocating tap dancing to avoid those questions.
Re: Re:
These keys passed around to law enforcement. Once course if they have keys, the other countries will be wanting them keys also. You might as well just throw security right out the window. So all the non-criminals which is most of the population will have piss poor security while the Terrorists will just use 3rd party open source solutions with no back doors. So what exactly was accomplished?
Besides, Looking at a phone after the fact stopped nothing.
Re: Re: Re:
it has never been about stopping crime. it has always been about having tools to silence those they wish to silence.
Under the guise of protecting you, they seek to get you to accept their authority and autonomy over deciding who are good and bad citizens. And once you have given enough away to the bad guys, there is little left to protect even the good guys once the good guys “finally” wake and realize they have been giving their power away to the bad guys all along.
This game is ancient and well documented across history and many standing and fallen empires. Yet here we play it again… because people cannot be bothered to learn it!
The conspiracy side of me wonders ...
The conspiracy side of me wonders if some governments want to undermine encryption and the Internet. The lose of brick and mortar stores is causing a lot of governments to loose revenue. If you undermine encryption (to keep the people safe … or is it … to save Children these days), then you can undermine ecommerce and bring back the brick and mortar stores. The worse option is to require two different encryption standards on the Internet – a secure encryption that is only used for financial payments and a weaker encryption that is used for all communication on the Internet.
Re: The conspiracy side of me wonders ...
It is likely that politicians would like to destroy the Internet, because it allows people to organize without their assistance. Terrorism is not the problem that they see that needs tackling, but rather the ability of people to rapidly self organize when they need to. That reduces the role and power of politicians and bureaucracies in society.
Politicians, legacy publishers, and large conglomerate corporations are like the Church and Aristocracy after the invention of the printing press, a new technology is undermining the base of their power, by changing how knowledge is spread, and social organization is carried out.
Re: The conspiracy side of me wonders ...
Hanlon’s Law: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Sharing Economy
One wonders if those requesting encryption keys realize the trade-off: Whatever key they may be able to pressure Whatsapp to produce, one thing is sure – they won’t get it exclusively. If they get a key, a lot of others will get one, too.
While the key may allow them to read other people’s communication, they pay by opening up their own.
what one good thing could be
Everyone would get to read the racy texts and photos politicians keep sending to their mistresses.
Wouldn’t have to wait until the goof up and hit ‘send all’ anymore.
This Confirms....
You won’t just be worrying about the ability of all the federal, state and city-level police with access to the backdoor to protect its secrecy. You’ll be worrying about the abilities of their counterparts in dozens of other countries too.
You won’t just be worrying about the pure intentions of all the federal, state and city-level police with access to the backdoor, or their respect for your rights. You’ll be worrying about the intentions of their counterparts in dozens of other countries too.
What I don't understand
What I don’t understand is this:
During the cold war we were up against a well resourced enemy with enough conventional weaponry to overrun us – let alone the nuclear arsenal that they had.
They were also very active on the ideological front too and in those days they had an ideology to push. They were trying to win the world for communism.
These days the Russians’ agenda seems to be mostly a bit of national pride, nothing that really threatens us.
So why do we need to have all these extra security measures now, when the main threat seems to come from a few "nutcases" causing a militarily insignificant amount of damage by deliberately pushing the road accident toll up by 0.2% ?
Re: What I don't understand
For a lot of reasons, but let’s talk about a few possible ones.
1) People are pretty panicky and while terrorists cannot cause overwhelming loss of life on a global scale, their actions cause people to be scared individually and nobody wants to be scared.
2) (A pessimistic view) The people in power in the large nations see the global panic over what amounts to less loss of life than many diseases as an opportunity to increase their power and reduce the chances of them losing power.
3) The people in power in the large nations are reacting to political pressure to be seen as someone that can “do something” and are making mistakes that will overall have a negative impact on their nation and society.
4) The people in power are not actually impacted by these “security measures”. Keep in mind that, at least in the US, many of the people that drive the rules that have the TSA telling us to remove our shoes do not actually go through the TSA security check. It would be easy to say restricting farm equipment from using public roads has little impact – but it is only easy to say that if you are not a farmer.
Re: What I don't understand
So why do we need to have all these extra security measures now, when the main threat seems to come from a few "nutcases" causing a militarily insignificant amount of damage by deliberately pushing the road accident toll up by 0.2% ?
It’s because the "nutcases" cause militarily insignificant damage that we "need" these security measures now. When the Soviets moved, they moved on military targets (or rarely, on third world civilian targets). It was extremely difficult to convince the American/Western European populace that we needed to remove their freedom when they themselves weren’t actually being threatened. Now that civilians are being targeted, such things are much more palatable to the general populace. Because the people don’t care about military strength, they care that the military can protect them. The strongest military in the world is meaningless if it isn’t protecting them.
Further, most of the populace at the time had either fought in WWII, or knew people who fought in WWII, so little things like "enough conventional weaponry to overrun us" didn’t cause all that much fear. After all, the Japanese had had enough conventional weaponry to overrun us…until they didn’t. Considering the successes of WWII, few people outside the higher ranks of the military/government were actually all that concerned about losing a war. We didn’t lose wars. Everyone knew it.
“But something’s changed recently. Macron may be the moderate who doesn’t want European nations to turn into police states in reaction to terrorist attacks. But he appears to feel there’s a certain amount of security/privacy that could be sacrificed to fight terrorism.”
There’s a fair argument that anyone opposed to such reactionary policies needs to make some noises about doing “something” whether or not they plan to. There’s been a number of high profile attacks recently, and it won’t take much for the right wing extremists to get more popular support if they’re the only ones visibly promising something. The people who are scared of terrorists won’t let little things like pragmatism and caution enter their minds, and it can’t be a complete coincidence that recent attacks have been occurring close to France in the run-up to their elections.
If there’s something that can be taken from the idiocy of the Brexit and US election results, it’s that standing back and offering calm facts about situations won’t get you elected opposed by loud liars pandering to fear. Better to promise talks and later say they weren’t fruitful / you found other solutions than be painted as someone who refuses to get results, even if you know that results will never be forthcoming in that manner.
Now, I don’t follow French politics closely enough to know this guy’s actual thought processes or leanings, but not promising something is a good way to fall foul of the likes of Le Pen, and nobody wants that.
Re: Re:
However the are a few different “somethings” that could be done without compromising our security.
1) Every time there is an attack don’t stand up and say “this is nothing to do with Islam, which is a great and peaceful religion”. You don’t know anything about it.
2) Stop listening to the wrong advisers, many of whom are in fact Islamic apologists whose ultimate agenda is the same as that of the terrorists.
3) Start listening instead to ex-muslims and religious minorities (including atheists) from muslim regions. They know more about it than you do.
4) Stop taking money from wealthy oil states like Saudi Arabia and do something to limit their Islamic propaganda in the west.
5) Put real pressure on those countries that are supposedly our allies to allow genuine freedom of (and from) religion. This would mean Saudi Arabia allowing churches to be built, Pakistan repealing its blasphemy laws (and while we’re at it, Turkey handing back the Hagia Sophia to its rightful owners). It would also mean that those countries would stop punishing atheist bloggers and/or shielding the people that murder them.
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Erm, no.
1) I don’t think anyone says that Islam has nothing to do with it. There certainly is, especially with extremist Islam. But, trying to pretend that all of the 1+ billion Muslims in the world are trying to kill you also achieves nothing. Stop demonising the entire religion, and the extremists narrative of a war on islam will stop gaining more recruits.
2) Examples?
3) They also have their own agenda. Plus, “religious minorities” in certain regions would include some sects of Islam. Are you suggesting that you ignore the words of Shia Muslims because they’re persecuted by Sunnis, or vice versa? If, so, why?
4) I’d love it if our governments stopped cosying up to despicable regimes, no matter which religion they claim to follow.
5) …and here’s the problem. You dislike the way those countries operate, so you won’t be happy until you’ve destroyed their culture and reshaped it to your own values. That’s exactly what the extremists are trying to do to you. I’d prefer it if all the citizens of those countries have the same rights that we purport to have in the west, but you won’t get there easily – especially since the thing that allowed extremist Islam to gain a foothold in places like Iran was Western intervention in the first place (look at the history of Iran before the US-driven coup).
Re: Re: Re: Re:
I don’t think anyone says that Islam has nothing to do with it
Theresa May’s recent speech came pretty close to it and we have seen similar from David Cameron, the Pope, Barack Obama and George W Bush.
trying to pretend that all of the 1+ billion Muslims in the world are trying to kill you also achieves nothing.
Of course they aren’t – that is your straw man and that was never my point. The point is this, when western leaders, whose knowledge of Islam is minimal, say things like that it adds no value to the conversation. For those westerners who know nothing of Islam it is the blind attempting to lead the blind and of course muslims will largely ignore it. If someone is going to say that then it should be an Islamic leader who has some evidence to back it up.
When the communists invaded Afghanistan or Czechoslovakia did anyone important stand up and say "This is not real communism it is a perversion of a great political ideal"?
(Even though that statement is plausibly true)
2 – examples – well we could start with CAIR.
"religious minorities" in certain regions would include some sects of Islam.
Yes -and we should certainly listen to – for example the Ahmadyya and any of the other minor sects that have a reliable theology of non-violence.
.and here’s the problem. You dislike the way those countries operate, so you won’t be happy until you’ve destroyed their culture and reshaped it to your own values.
Absolutely NOT. Stop making assumptions.
My agenda would be to restore their pre-islamic culture. For example Coptic Christianity in Egypt, Buddhism in Afghanistan or Zoroastrianism in Iran. I’m certainly not in favour of exporting secular materialism, US evangelicalism or Roman Catholicism.
Look at the history of Persia before the Islamic conquests of the 7th century.
The thing is that there are no indigenously Islamic countries. They are all colonies won by violent conquest followed by a ratchet process of coercive conversion on an initially non-muslim population.
The myth that islam was somehow spread peacefully by Arab traders is not supported by the historical evidence.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
“trying to pretend that all of the 1+ billion Muslims in the world are trying to kill you”
if the maxim of… “all that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing” is true…
then it follows that all of those Muslims not doing anything to stop terrorism are actually invested in seeing you killed.
I think Brigitte Gabriel gives the best answer to this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry3NzkAOo3s
It is clear that no one is really talking about the peaceful Muslims, you just like to frame it that way to shut the debate down and its pretty damning to your side of the argument to do that. Is there any wonder you are not convincing many people that you are in the right?
So stop creating a false narrative, and then people can have a dialogue.
Fear is a nature human continue. Terrorism is heavily linked to Islam, this means that a lot of people out of preservation are not going to be very welcoming towards them and I don’t blame anyone for that, because the only out cry is on behalf of the irrelevant portion doing nothing to prevent their own from going nuts.
You want me on your side? I want to see your own culture treating other cultures with respect and dignity. Now show me an Islamic nation that treats women, children, and peoples of other faiths with due respect? I will be waiting!
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
“Terrorism is heavily linked to Islam”
To a lot of other things as well. It’s just that when someone other than a Muslim commits a terrorist act, some people tie themselves in knots to try and explain why that person doesn’t represent America/Christianity/Republicans/whatever while every lone Muslim who does something is representative of the entire religion in every country. It’s pretty transparent, and as someone who has lived and worked most of my life in countries that were regularly attacked by “Christian” terrorists, the hypocritical scapegoating is pretty disgusting.
“I want to see your own culture treating other cultures with respect and dignity. Now show me an Islamic nation that treats women, children, and peoples of other faiths with due respect? I will be waiting!”
Do you hold every religion to the same standard (for example, the Christian nations in Africa who so similar things)? Or just that one?
In my view, it’s only the countries that keep religion as far away from government as possible that do what you ask. Theocracies – no matter which faith is in charge – are always very bad for minorities.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
To a lot of other things as well. It’s just that when someone other than a Muslim commits a terrorist act, some people tie themselves in knots to try and explain why that person doesn’t represent America/Christianity/Republicans/whatever while every lone Muslim who does something is representative of the entire religion in every country. It’s pretty transparent, and as someone who has lived and worked most of my life in countries that were regularly attacked by "Christian" terrorists, the hypocritical scapegoating is pretty disgusting.
Go on believing that, in contradiction to the obvious evidence, if you wish.
The problem is that you only seem to be looking at terrorist attackes in the west.
In the west there are comparatively few Muslims, and they are more affected by the surrounding culture and so more likely to be moderate in their opinions.
However in Islamic majority countries there is much violence directed at minorities and the perpetrators often become heroes. Only the biggest of these incidents make the news but worldwide they are a constant flood. For example attacks on the Copts in just one small province of Egypt are running at one a month in recent years.
Theocracies – no matter which faith is in charge – are always very bad for minorities.
Only one faith has "being a theocracy over everyone" written into its agenda.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
“The problem is that you only seem to be looking at terrorist attackes in the west.”
Yes, those are the only ones that directly affect me in any way whatsoever. I’m similarly more concerned with knife attacks in the countries I live in than I am with random gun-related massacres in the US, although I do take note of them both.
Funny thing, though – people take great steps to label anything related to a Muslim as terrorism, and those not related to them as not terrorism, no matter how obvious it is that the Muslim was just a random nut and the non-Muslim had a clear stated political agenda. That’s intriguing to me.
“However in Islamic majority countries there is much violence directed at minorities and the perpetrators often become heroes”
Same with numerous other countries, be the violence perpetrated against people due to religious, political and other reasons. That’s also a very simplistic way of putting things, since the victims of many of these violent actions are also Muslims.
Again – there’s a great many problems, but the fundamental issue is combining religion and state, not which flavour of fiction the rulers happen to favour. Nominally Christian countries have just been historically a bit better at not letting religious leaders keep control of both the church and state.
“Only one faith has “being a theocracy over everyone” written into its agenda”
Well, depending on who you ask there’s a lot more than one. It all depends on who’s cherry picking what out of their texts and who’s taking every word literally, and who’s taking what in and out of context.
The reason why all major religions have so many offshoots and sects is that they disagree on fundamental issues like that. But, I only ever see one being attacked for being a monolithic hive mind. Again, this seems very interesting to me.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
Yes, those are the only ones that directly affect me in any way whatsoever.
Actually the only ones that affect you are the ones that kill or injure you or someone you know.
Anyway that seems a rather selfish atttitude.
Same with numerous other countries,
Easy to say – if you don’t provide any evidence. However the evidence for the Islamic attacks is here:
https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
and in case you think this information is in some way fake, be advised that the BBC checked their statistics for one month a couple of years back and found it to be an underestimate.
the victims of many of these violent actions are also Muslims.
and that makes it better, how?
It all depends on who’s cherry picking
Some trees have a lot more cherries in than others.
The cherries here are visible in red or purple
http://www.koran-at-a-glance.com/
and the Koran is only the start – then you have the Sira and the Hadith to go through.
The reason why all major religions have so many offshoots and sects is that they disagree on fundamental issues like that.
Actually you are wrong- they generally agree on almost everything. EG most Christian Churches will agree on the Nicene Creed (give or take one obscure phrase).
The reason for the offshoots is usually nationalism – as in Henry VIII.
But, I only ever see one being attacked for being a monolithic hive mind.
You should consider the possibility that it actually is. After all when you have considered and dismissed all the palatable alternatives the unpalatable but **obvious might need to be given a chance.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
“Actually the only ones that affect you are the ones that kill or injure you or someone you know”
Really? So, for example, attacks that change public policy, restrict travel, cause direct or indirect impact on my surrounding community or cause, say, Muslim friends of mine to be at higher risk of retaliatory attacks despite being opposed to those actions don’t affect me?
You have a strangely narrow definition of some terms, while being happy to expand others to extremes.
“and that makes it better, how?”
Better, no. But, it certainly changes the narrative from “Muslims want to kill or convert all non-Muslims” when the majority of their victims are also Muslims.
“The cherries here are visible in red or purple”
Yes, on a site that clearly cherry picks pages from the Koran and refuses to give any background on the authors or their biases. I could set up a similar site about the Bible too, that doesn’t mean anything.
Sorry, anonymous uncited sources don’t make a great retort to the idea that people are cherry picking what they want to see.
“most Christian Churches will agree on the Nicene Creed”
…something that was introduced over 300 years after the faith was founded. They disagree about a hell of a lot of other stuff, though, some of it predated that by some way. Hell, Christians can’t even agree which specific translation is the best one, let alone what the words actually say.
“You should consider the possibility that it actually is”
Why?
“After all when you have considered and dismissed all the palatable alternatives the unpalatable but **obvious might need to be given a chance.”
Except we’re a long way from that point. How can it be a hive mind, when even you admit they are fighting amongst each other as to which belief is valid and that people living in different parts of the world think very different things?
That’s literally the opposite thing! It’s not about whether your claim is “palatable” is whether it’s based in any sense of logic or reality, and you’ve not made a good case for that.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
“Theresa May’s recent speech came pretty close to it and we have seen similar from David Cameron, the Pope, Barack Obama and George W Bush.”
What did they say? “Islam has nothing to do with it”, as you claim, or “The people responsible are extremists, we shouldn’t hold all Muslims accountable for their corrupted view of their faith any more than you should hold all Christians responsible for their extremists”? There’s a big difference.
“The point is this, when western leaders, whose knowledge of Islam is minimal, say things like that it adds no value to the conversation.”
“Leave innocent people out of this” is a valuable message in my mind. Certainly more valuable than the “we should kill their families and children” message Trump espoused or the “let’s wipe them all off the face of the Earth” message from other right wing morons that only help create more extremists. The IRA was defeated by working with them for a peaceful solution, the massacres on both sides didn’t do anything to bring the troubles to a close. I don’t think there’s anything more valuable to say than “let’s only attack those actually responsible for these crimes” and “let’s work with the peaceful members of the faith/race/nation/whatever”.
“Yes -and we should certainly listen to – for example the Ahmadyya and any of the other minor sects that have a reliable theology of non-violence.”
So, you admit that Islam itself as a whole is not the fundamental problem?
“My agenda would be to restore their pre-islamic culture”
That’s not going to happen, and it won’t be something you can do without killing more innocent people than the Muslims extremists are. You sure as hell won’t do it by waging a literal war on their current religion.
“The thing is that there are no indigenously Islamic countries”
Nor are there indigenously Christian countries, or indigenous countries of most religions. What kind of silly argument is that?
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
What did they say? "Islam has nothing to do with it", as you claim,
They all said words to the effect "the true faith of Islam has nothing to do with it".
The problem with that is that the true faith of Islam is centred on Mohammed and his behaviour correlates very well with that of the people you call "extremists".
"Leave innocent people out of this" is a valuable message in my mind.
Fair enough – but they specifially exonerated the ideology. One could say something to exonerate the people without exonerating the ideology.
The IRA was defeated by working with them for a peaceful solution,
True – but the analogy fails. The IRA had the ambition of a united ireland and was prepared to settle for a compromise that gave the nationalist community (that had been excluded unfairly before) a say in the politics. The agenda of Islam is conquest of the entire world – by force if necessary
http://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=8&verse=39
So, you admit that Islam itself as a whole is not the fundamental problem?
Well most Orthodox Sunni Muslims regard the Ahmadis as non-muslim (in fact to enter Pakistan as a muslim you have to affirm that fact). The existence of a small, persecuted, peaceful sect doesn’t change the overall picture.
That’s not going to happen, and it won’t be something you can do without killing more innocent people
Stranger things have happened, the fall of communism for example – and when that happens – if the West keeps its boots out of the way – people do revert .Look at the growth of the Orthodox church in Russia. I don’t know why you assume that anything in my agenda is violent, it isn’t, all I’m in favour of is honest speech.
Nor are there indigenously Christian countries, or indigenous countries of most religions
The difference is this.
Christianity was spread for its first 300 or so years by purely peaceful persuasion. The authorities saw the way the wind was blowing and adopted it (cynically you might say they did it to retain their authority).
Later various countries joined because their leadership converted and took the people with them. None of this involved significant use of military power.
Islam on the other hand was spread by conquest from the very beginning. Initially most of the conquered peoples retained their Christian/Zoroastrian/Jewish faith (Hindus wern’t so lucky). However they were humiliated and forced to pay high taxes so over the years many of them converted.
see here for an explanation of how this worked:
https://medium.com/@najwa.najib/donald-trump-is-good-for-middle-eastern-christians-350f049bed62
(Although I think her faith in Trump nay be misplaced)
Consequently, to paraphrase Brian Clough, Islam hasn’t achieved its status in those countries fairly.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
“They all said words to the effect “the true faith of Islam has nothing to do with it”.”
Interesting how you keep paraphrasing, rather than supply the actual quotes you have a problem with. Perhaps you realise you can’t twist the words when they’re accurately quoted?
“Fair enough – but they specifially exonerated the ideology”
The ideologies of the extremists that are not shared by the people they’re saying were not involved? Yes, they did indeed.
“True – but the analogy fails”
It’s not really an analogy, although not an identical situation there are many parallels. Fighting took place due mainly to extremists, the “sides” were strongly split among religious lines, progress was never made by fighting them head on and in fact direct fighting caused massacres and other atrocities that only helped as recruitment tools.
True, there’s no similar overarching political motive to address here, but you’re a fool if you think that all Muslims agree on pretty much anything as a whole anyway. there’s no single agenda to address, except for the one espoused by extremists that are not shared among all believers. The majority of the issues we’re facing are a direct result of meddling in the middle east by people who don’t understand the issues, or think that oil is more important than a stable region.
“The agenda of Islam is conquest of the entire world – by force if necessary”
Yet, the majority of the 1+ billion Muslims of the world are trying to do no such thing. You yourself admitted that many Muslims are working peacefully. You can cherry pick quotes from any religious text to demonise the beliefs of the whole.
If they all adhere to the same aim so strongly, why are there so many different sects that violently disagree with one another?
“The difference is this.”
Really, you’re wishing to destroy a religion and forcefully convert people to other religions because you don’t like your interpretation of what happened nearly a millennium ago vs 2 millennia?
Stop backpedalling. You stated a dumb idea, and are now looking foolish when called on it.
“Islam hasn’t achieved its status in those countries fairly”
Neither did America. Neither did the current populations of a great many countries, including those conquered by Christian nations while some of us were building empires. So, you’ll be calling for them to be reverting to tribal religions as well, right?
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
Interesting how you keep paraphrasing, rather than supply the actual quotes you have a problem with
When so many paople said more or less the same thing in such a prominent place so many times I rather thought that you would have seen those words yourself so it was unnecessary.
However Cameron said this exactly:
" It cannot be said clearly enough: this extremist ideology is not true Islam. I have said it myself many, many times, and it’s absolutely right to do so. And I’ll say it again today."
You can find it here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-extremism-speech-read-the-transcript-in-full-10401948.html
However that analysis fails – as this guy found out:
https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/islam-facts-or-dreams/
Here is an excerpt:
I was not foolish enough to believe I could win an argument over Muslim theology with a doctor of Islamic jurisprudence. But I did think that if what we were saying as a government was true—that he was perverting Islam—then there must be two or three places where I could nail him by saying, “You told your followers X, but the doctrine clearly says Y.” So my colleagues and I pored over the Blind Sheikh’s many writings. And what we found was alarming: whenever he quoted the Koran or other sources of Islamic scripture, he quoted them accurately.
Now, you might be able to argue that he took scripture out of context or gave an incomplete account of it. In my subsequent years of studying Islam, I’ve learned that this is not a particularly persuasive argument. But even if one concedes for the purposes of discussion that it’s a colorable claim, the inconvenient fact remains: Abdel Rahman was not lying about Islam.
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_"The agenda of Islam is conquest of the entire world – by force if necessary"
Yet, the majority of the 1+ billion Muslims of the world are trying to do no such thing. _
They don’t have to be trying to do it. All they have to be doing is following their rules, and the rules are designed to do exactly that. (I say "designed" but actually they arose accidentally out of the needs of Mohammed’s situation – however the effect is the same).
If they all adhere to the same aim so strongly, why are there so many different sects that violently disagree with one another?
They each think that the other lot aren’t really proper Muslims. This has been going on since the day Mohammed died.
Really, you’re wishing to destroy a religion and forcefully convert people to other religions
Stop putting words into my mouth. I’ve said repeatedly that I don’t favour any kind of force.
Neither did America. Neither did the current populations of a great many countries,
I used the Clough quote for a reason. He was not saying that Leeds were the only club that ever committed a foul – of course everyone did it – but only one club did it to the level where their success became a consequence of foul play.
When you attempt to kill an argument by tu quoque – which seems to be your main strategy – then you effectively promote the worst at the expense of the best because you make them equal.
I assume that youare not actually a muslim – nor would you like to live in a muslim majority country – but look at the history of the middle east and east asia and you will see that along the road you are going your descendants will have no choice.
Aung San Suu Kyi has been a talisman of freedom, a kind of second Nelson Mandela in many people’s eyes -but she understands the danger I am talking about – and has been vilified by people like you for it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aung_San_Suu_Kyi
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“They don’t have to be trying to do it.”
Oh, very nice get out. Even the people not being violent secretly approve of it, so their inaction mean they’re also responsible. Same with the people who are directly opposing the violence too, I assume, as it’s just some sort of misdirection?
You can demonise anyone you want with that tactic, it’s quite handy.
“They each think that the other lot aren’t really proper Muslims. This has been going on since the day Mohammed died.”
So, same with any major religion, then. The trick has been not to let one sect have direct power over everyone else, something that older nations learned the hard way and countries like the US who took note and explicitly prevented this have had reasonable results with. Even majority Muslim countries had some success with that as, I recall, before things happened to get the fundamentalists in power.
“Stop putting words into my mouth. I’ve said repeatedly that I don’t favour any kind of force.”
You’ve said you wish to convert entire countries to the religion you think they should be following. How are you going to achieve that without force?
“look at the history of the middle east and east asia”
The colonial history, where much of the problems have been caused by Westerners splitting up regions and countries in ways that encourage conflict, then followed by deliberate sabotage for access to oil supplies? Or, some other history?
“I assume that youare not actually a muslim”
I defend a lot of people whose group I’m not part of. Women, children, racial minorities, members of the LBGT community, Americans, people who don’t share my religion. Hell, I’ve even been known to defend people I vehemently disagree with if I see they’re being unfairly targeted.
So?
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Oh, very nice get out. Even the people not being violent secretly approve of it, so their inaction mean they’re also responsible. Same with the people who are directly opposing the violence too, I assume, as it’s just some sort of misdirection?
Once again you put words into my mouth. The people in question are also victims of the ideology.
So, same with any major religion, then.
No it isn’t. The first five "rightly guided Caliphs" (immediately after Mohammed) were all murdered by each other or their followers.
There is no record of violence between the apostles.
You’ve said you wish to convert entire countries to the religion. How are you going to achieve that without force?
Same way the apostles did it to the Roman Empire. Same way that the Orthodox church revived in Russia.
The colonial history, where much of the problems have been caused by Westerners splitting up regions and countries in ways that encourage conflict,
That is all very recent and a comparatively short period of time. I’m talking about an earlier and longer term history.
I defend a lot of people whose group I’m not part of.
I suggest you have a go at defending Middle Eastern Christian then – they need it!
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The colonial history, where much of the problems have been caused by Westerners splitting up regions and countries in ways that encourage conflict,
Addendum:
now it is true that we’ve badly messed up a lot of countries where we had colonies – but you need to examine exactly why we got involved in those countries in the first place. Oil was not an issue in the 19th century when our involveent began. The reality is that the legacy of Islam in those countries had already created a mess that was causing danger to the west in the form of the Barbary pirates.
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“Once again you put words into my mouth.”
No, I’m reading back to you what you’re saying. If I’ve got it so wrong, perhaps consider the words you’re using more carefully.
“There is no record of violence between the apostles.”
Well, considering the gospels were written many years after the death of Jesus by people who have been trying to spread his word, some of them those same apostles, in a book that is known to have been edited a few centuries later, leaving out some of the other gospels that didn’t fit the narrative? Not surprising.
“Same way the apostles did it to the Roman Empire. Same way that the Orthodox church revived in Russia.”
Wait for Mongol and other hordes to attack and diminish the existing infrastructures and get a new converted leader to spread the word? Ignoring the fact that the current Islamic faith has no central leadership or infrastructure such as those empires did, there’s a lot of context you seem to be missing, especially since you seem so convinced that the existing Muslims are so single-minded and violent.
“That is all very recent and a comparatively short period of time. I’m talking about an earlier and longer term history.”
…but only the parts that support your claim. You won’t consider either the darker times for other religions nor the fact that many Muslim countries were becoming more secular before interference.
“I suggest you have a go at defending Middle Eastern Christian then – they need it!”
I will. I’ll also support Muslims where they’re minorities, Hindus where they’re minorities and atheists where they’re minorities. I don’t pick and choose who’s worth more based on arbitrary labels, unlike some people.
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But, trying to pretend that all of the 1+ billion Muslims in the world are trying to kill you also achieves nothing.
They may not be personally trying to kill you – but they benefit from those that are.
Se how this works here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObIThAi07Tg
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Do you have anything of your own to say? I can’t watch YouTube where I am, and my experience is that such videos are usually full of crap anyway. Do you have evidence I can read and research?
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Do you realize that your opinions are as extreme as those you attribute to all Muslims, and more extreme than those held by most Muslims.
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Do you realize that your opinions are as extreme as those you attribute to all Muslims, and more extreme than those held by most Muslims.
Churchill held extreme opinions about Hitler – – by the standards of the time.
What most muslims believe doesn’t matter. It is what they can be persuaded to go along with that matters. Otherwise Pakistan, Iran and a host of other Islamic countries would be very different places and would not be so dangerous for Christians or other minorities.
In any case only one muslim’s opinion really matters – that is Mohammed himself. Study his life and you will understand.
http://wikiislam.net/wiki/The_Timeline_of_Muhammad
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Hitler was a person who was on a path to dominate Europe. Muslim refers to a group of related religions, just like Christian does. Do you judge all Christians by the actions of the Westboro Baptist Churcht?
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You do if you are on the left or are “progressive”.
Hell, they still blame Christians for the crusades.
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I’m so far to the left that Bernie Sanders is to the right of me.
My father is a pastor, and the most thoroughly Christian person I know of.
He’s even further left than I am.
(Also… didn’t the Christians, you know, engage in the Crusades? Who else would you blame for the Crusades?)
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Yeah, but blaming modern day Christians? Still happens.
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I can’t entirely refute that claim, but all I can say is that the only examples of the Crusades being brought up in re modern Christianity that I can think of have all been in terms of pointing out "Christianity isn’t pure and innocent either" when people point out atrocities (both current and historical) of Islam. That doesn’t read like "blame" to me, although the people on the opposing side in the arguments where I’ve seen it often seem to have read it that way.
Maybe it’s true that Christianity in its entirety has developed past the point of doing things like that, and maybe it’s also true that Islam (in whole or in part) has not – but there was a time when Christianity hadn’t either, and it would be no more appropriate for us to declare Islam as a whole hateful and irredeemable for today’s actions than it would have been for people to similarly condemn Christianity as a whole for the atrocities of those earlier times.
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Maybe it’s true that Christianity in its entirety has developed past the point of doing things like that, and maybe it’s also true that Islam (in whole or in part) has not – but there was a time when Christianity hadn’t either,
That is a misreading of history. Christianity was originally nonviolent. Some Christians may have been members of the Roman army – but that is no different from the US or UK military today. Later, when rulers adopted Christianity, they had a problem. No state in the history of the world has been able to maintain order without using violence. So the theologians were forced to invent reasons why it could be OK (the "just war" theory springs to mind).
Most of the history of "Christian" violence is actually the history of normal nation to nation violence where Christianity has been co-opted (often on both sides) to support the state. There have always been conscientious objectors – although before the 20th century conscription was rare and so they don’t show up in the record.
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Who else would you blame for the Crusades?
The Muslim Seljuk Turks who provoked them of course.
So much talk about the crusades – so little about the 400 years of Jihad that preceded them. This included attacks on Rome and Constantinople- the capture of most of Spain and an incursion into France that was only stopped at the battle of Tours. Without that victory Europe might well have succumbed to Islam. In a wider context the crusades were just one relatively small episode in a long war that was started unilaterally by Mohammed in the 7th century. Isolating the crusades as a "thing" on their own is misleading.
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Well they are still guilty of starting the crusades. So until someone else starts them….
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Blaming Christianity for the crusades is like blaming Churchill for D Day.
Yes he was immediately responsible – but he didn’t create the need.
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Im pretty sure there was no need to slaughter the residents of Jerusalem.
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Something tells me you do not get out much.
There are a lot of people that lump general Christians in with the Westboro guys.
There are a lot of people that like to Godwin others.
all.
day.
long.
In fact, it is very common for others to take another groups fringe elements and use them to vilify the whole. Happens all the time during Gun debates where left media will intentionally pick fruit cakes with terrible diplomacy skills and debate them for an easy win.
Same as with the Occupy Wall Street movement, they went around intentionally getting the dumbest and moronic people to represent the movement on camera. I was not a part of the movement but I could have made a better case than those fruits!
We go no where when we do things like this, we only succeed in holding ourselves back.
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“Same as with the Occupy Wall Street movement, they went around intentionally getting the dumbest and moronic people to represent the movement on camera.”
Well, to think that is to completely misunderstand what OWS was. It was a truly grassroots movement. Thus, they had no actual central leadership – there was no actual spokesperson. Factions calling themselves OWS in other parts of the country had little to no direct involvement with the NYC movement. There were “leaders” who claimed to represent the movement, but they were either only leaders of an offshoot, or did not actually represent the majority since they were not elected or chosen by the group as a whole.
Thus, sadly, it was easy to propagandise against. Anyone looking to discredit them just had to interview the sillier-looking people among those who claimed to represent them, and point out the inevitable misbehaving people who claimed to be a part of the group. Therefore, their clearly stated aims were ignored or muddied to the point of irrelevance.
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Hitler was a person who was on a path to dominate Europe. Muslim refers to a group of related religions, just like Christian does.
You are wrong on both counts here.
Muhammad was a person who was on a path to dominate Arabia – as the timeline I linked shows clearly.
Both religions have a set of orthodox beliefs that almost everyone subscribes to. Your phrase "a group of related religions" makes little sense.
The Westboro Baptist church is an outlier – just as the Ahmadiyya Islamic sect is an outlier.
Just by the content of the written tradition and the conduct of the founder and the first 300 years or so of followers.
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The problem has not been in identifying terrorists, or potential terrorists, or even reading their communications after the event. The problem has been a failure to keep close enough tabs on them to prevent the attacks. Giving the police more power to snoop on people will simply make it easier for a terrorist to carry out an attack because the police are too busy chasing down false alarms.
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Yeah, the problem’s generally been that each reaction to terrorist activity since 9/11 is to increase the size of the haystack rather than the size of the needle, so to speak.
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No, the problem is not understanding that you cannot actually prevent them, just make them more difficult to be achieved.
There is a reason that the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots.
We mistakenly believe that we can keep that tree fresh with only the blood of tyrants, but when you try it, you wind up feeding it mostly with the blood of patriots & innocent!
Dear leaders
Dear leaders,
We know that the Russians are already reading your emails.
Now you seem to want them to be able to read everyone else’s too.
WHY?
Re: Dear leaders
Jealousy, envy, evil, corruption… pick one or more!
Why are the Russians allowed to do it but not us?
~every other government
“I don’t want to build a wall. I can assure you there’s no wall in my program,” he told about 8,000 cheering supporters. “Can you remember the Maginot Line?”
Why would anyone take military advice from anyone in France? The new French Navy all has glass bottom boats, so when they sail the seas, they can see the old French navy.
Which would happen first, tech companies leaving the European market or US and other consumers having nothing to do with a insure European market?!?
that’ll be fine until France gets hacked via a backdoor he or some other idiotic politician insists is created for the security services that just about every group that wants to access what the backdoor allows access to, does so and shit hits fan!
seems to me the bit i read many years ago is so very nearly true, whereby governments will do the terrorists job for them!!
Alternatives
> The other alternative would be to pull themselves out of
> the European market
That may be true for companies like Apple who sell physical products and therefore need a physical presence in France, but companies like Google and Twitter and Facebook can continue to do business in Europe without actually being *in* Europe, and therefore wouldn’t have to obey any of these new and exciting laws that are being proposed.
The only recourse European lawmakers would have against them is to block access to their services from within their jurisdiction. But turning off Google to all their citizens, who not only use the search engine, but in many instances have built entire businesses and livelihoods around Google’s suite of cloud-based products, could come with serious political blowback for the lawmakers who choose to take that step.
I find it really ironic that...
these people who are stating they want an “adult conversation” are so adept at sticking their fingers in their ears and go “lalala-ImNotListening-lalala”, like 5 year olds, when people all around them with actual knowledge on the subject are speaking.
Re: I find it really ironic that...
Actually, as many client supporters stick their fingers in their ears and go lalala-imNotListening-lalala as to others.
There is a debate to be had about how much humans are contributing. Recent news is somewhere between 40 and 60 percent. This leads me to believe that climate change will happen one way or another. We can debate about how fast, but it is happening.
Now what to do? We can debate that. Can we stop it? Doubtful, but we can debate that. Who pays for the fixes that will need to be put into place? We can debate that.
But since your comment is totally off topic, is random and inappropriate for this article, I assume you are just a climate change wacko and no one should take you seriously.
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Hmm I am not sure if you are joking or you mixed my comment with another… I am quite baffled about what I wrote in my comment that remotely relates to climate change.
In any case, my comment was not inappropriate, not off-topic, I hardly qualify as a wacko and you can take me as serious as you want.
Re: I find it really ironic that...
“We need to have an adult conversation on the issue of encryption.”
“Good to hear, what adults will you be nominating to represent you, and do they know they’ve been thrown under the bus yet?”
France failed during WWII
because they were fighting the last war.
History is repeating itself as the encryption backdoor becomes the new Maginot Line. The German Army did not pierce the Maginot Line. Rather, they went around it just as terrorists will go around the new Maginot Line dubbed the Encryption Backdoor.
what EVER HAPPENED TO debate
It used to be,
WE debated thoughts and ideal and found SOME truth, and at LEAST a middle ground..
THEN in gov. we would have a BILL that had a bit of thought in it..
NO Thought, no common sense, and NO DEBATE..
If you throw Enough BS at the wall, Something is going to STICK..was it worth it?
When Encryption is Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Encryption
Dark, third-party app spaces will sprout encryption programs like mushrooms after the rain. The trick will be identifying which aren’t poisonous, but we’ve faced that issue all along (I’m lookin’ at you, RSA, and I’ve got my eye on you too Verisign).
The winningest vendors in the game will those who manage anonymously to monetize REAL, strong encryption apps that mimic the overt, external appearances of the broke-ass “encryption” that the gov’t permits.
Democracy?
“Democratic states must have access to content exchanged between terrorists on social media and instant messaging,” he said, while introducing a five-point strategy that would bring in new powers across Europe.
Is is afterwards still a democracy? Where is the trust to the people? Can’t people talk to each other without the state knowing it? Those are crazy times! Better use an end to end encrypted messenger which do not know the private keys.
1984 is not an instruction manual.