StringJunky

He means: we will now be just like those we oppose.

I think you have a good objective view on your country.

Irony? Nay, hypocrisy, writ very large!

Can't picture a UK MP doing that on the campaign trail. If it wasn't for visiting here, and the thoughtful and very intelligent Americans here, I could easily think they were generally thick as a population.

See my comment in the "Competent Republicans" thread you posted in about him. It's people like him that, once in power, would say: "What have you got to hide?"

So much for following the party line about freedom from federal interference.... think guns and Republican resistance to government oversight about them. Where's the sick bucket?

Yes. I meant it WRT mass surveillance, generally.

I should say: peace of mind knowing that the government response is proportional to any perceived potential threat. Their current direction can only inspire large scale insecurity and paranoia. The fact is people are inherently just nosey, for the sake of it; it's all just a pretext, governmentally, to satisfy that desire imo.

Let's be pragmatic and look at the real world eficacy of the current state-of-the-art in cyber security: are the NSA, and other critical agencies systems getting hacked? Yes, on regular basis it seems, because so many people, legitamately need access to departmental information. What this tells us is that a single chink in cyber security armour WILL be exploited. It has to be all or nothing for best peace of mind. Let's face it, how many stories have you read of adolescent computer nerds breaking into the systems of large organisations? They devote millions to protecting their information.

I posted the OP as a general principle, not that specific case really. I've not considered that there's actually potentially two avenues of dialogue here: the application of encryption and government access when needed, subsequently compromising overall security, which is what the article is about, and also, how much freedom should a government have to randomly access personal data; unfettered trawling of anything and everything, in effect.

I think the operative word is 'particular', which I don't think we here disagree with. The problem and concern is that we are entering into a new phase where the governments want free access to everything, on a whim. The notion that if you aren't doing anything wrong you have nothing to fear is complete bollocks. There are elements of people's lives that I think they have a fundamental right to keep private from routine governmental surveillance

Remind me to never use biometrics as security.

Better to address the cause than try and treat the symptoms.

Yes, as the electorate, we need to make sure that Apple et al don't get stuck between a rock and a hard place by the security services. I think they might have to go to court to bring it out into the open, so that everyone is listening and judging the situation. When I say 'we' I mean the European and US population..... we have common cause for concern because all the services are .snooping each other AND up each others arses at the same time.

Yes, it's either bullet-proof or it isn't. I missed that link! Read it now, cheers. What concerns me is that Teresa May and her US counterparts always say "Terrorism!" but they actually want access to much minor stuff, like social security fraud for example, for which I don't think unfettered access to device/ISP data is a proportional response to the basic loss of an individual's right to privacy.just for stuff like that. It has to be very serious stuff that might cause societal instability or a threat to lives. Each case must be sanctioned by an independent legal authority. At the current time, I think the sophistication of NSA, GCHQ technology and resources vastly outcompetes Islamic State; it's more than enough. I think the focus on the terrorist angle is just a smokescreen for unlimited access to Joe or Josephine Public's data. The more data, even seemingly inocuous, an organisation has, the more profiles it can make the more control it will have... not good. The only way for three people to keep a secret is if all of them are dead. We cannot be trusted.

Is Apple ethically correct to take up this stance or is the government's need more important?

That's what I was saying, it's not all-encompassing. It works if they are different but not if they are the same.

If the chirality (right or left handedness) of certain amino acids or sugars were different to that, which is common to life on Earth, might be one way. Isotopic composition of certain elements might be another. This idea would be nullified If the chirality from the two planets was the same, then one might propose that life's basic ingredients was 'imported' from somewhere else rather than started on that particular planet from scratch. The same conclusion could be derived for isotopic composition.

This was the essence of the OP.

Yes, I agree, I suppose this subject is quite closely associated with the "What is America's biggest problem?" thread, as a possible cause.

This post was inspired by the death of Antonin Scalia and the apparent overt political leanings of his profession in the US which can ultimately decide policy. I'd like to focus on the weight the judiciary carries in political policy via test cases. I found this UK article about the appointment of a then-new UK Supreme Court judge in 2011. He had a lot to say about the importance of the judiciary's influence on government policy. Do you think that this approach that government should make policy and not by judges? Here's the thrust of what I'm on about. It's worth reading the page for more detail: Note the difference (bolded) between the required political impartiality of judges in the UK vs their American counterparts, who wear their affiliation like a banner.

OK.

Nice. What was his part in the project? I quickly read up on him that he's a GR maths specialist.

In the same sense that a magnetic field is not material, for example, but is measurable, and the same for energy. I should make a thread about it if it still bugs you.

I learnt it from you about energy-density distribution.. It took me a long time to get my head around the fact that it's not material.