Report: FBI Running Dragnet Against 200,000 Conservatives

The subject of the dragnet is reportedly Protonmail, which many of you may know. It's based in Switzerland, and is an encrypted email system that I've used for more than a decade. Of course it's not really secure; email is forever, and can never be really deleted. The FBI is asking for formal cooperation, but the NSA can definitely read it. So they already know what they're allegedly looking for; they just need a legal construction they can take before the courts. 

There's not really a good way to communicate via encryption if you really want the government not to see the stuff. Here as elsewhere, you'd need to go lo-fi -- written letters, transmitted through trusted couriers. Cash payments instead of credit cards. Movement via vehicles that don't have electronics onboard, like old fashioned muscle cars or motorcycles. 

If they couldn't beat the Taliban, they can't beat you. Not that any of you would consider doing anything they'd need to worry about anyway, not a fine upstanding lot like yourselves. 

UPDATE: More on Protonmail being used by governments to prosecute activists. 

1 comment:

douglas said...

Proton Mail says no request of that sort was made... ?
https://twitter.com/ProtonMail/status/1443863845840248833?s=20

The second link is interesting. They do have to comply with Swiss law, but even then, they could only tell the authorities "who" (via the ISP) not "what" (data in the transmission, the email, they don't have access to, apparently).

Still, I'd be cautious of using anything that claims security, because for all I know, it's the feds (or someone) running a front and vacuuming all the data up.