All these communications.  All these juicy opportunities to gather information, maybe evidence, or just enjoy private conversations when business is slow around the precinct.  Law enforcement wants its own special backdoor where it can get anything it wants now, for the mere asking.

The explanation for why this is needed, and justified, requires no great stretch.  There are people out there doing bad stuff, and law enforcement needs access to it to protect us, and particularly our children, from these people.  Who would want to deny police access to information that might save a child?  No one wants to see a child harmed.

But the issue devolves to trust, and law enforcement has proven time and again that its “new professionalism” is a load of malarkey. They can’t be trusted.

But the most controversial element is probably the private Web interface, which raises novel security and privacy concerns, especially in the wake of a recent inspector general’s report (PDF) from the Justice Department. The 289-page report detailed how the FBI obtained Americans’ telephone records by citing nonexistent emergencies and simply asking for the data or writing phone numbers on a sticky note rather than following procedures required by law.

In an incendiary October 2009 essay, however, Kardasz wrote that Internet service providers that do not keep records long enough “are the unwitting facilitators of Internet crimes against children” and called for new laws to “mandate data preservation and reporting.” He predicts that those companies will begin to face civil lawsuits because of their “lethargic investigative process.”

“It sounds very dangerous,” says Lee Tien, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, referring to the police-only Web interface. “Let’s assume you set this sort of thing up. What does that mean in terms of what the law enforcement officer be able to do? Would they be able to fish through transactional information for anyone? I don’t understand how you create a system like this without it.”

Could it possibly come as a surprise to anyone that police “unanimously” would want unfettered access to electronic communications?  Why anyone would spend time or money to determine such a thing is beyond me.  Of course they do.  Of course they should.  The arguments in favor of it are clear and forceful, maybe even compelling.  That’s never been the issue.

There is a list, a very long list, of things that law enforcement would like in order to make it more effective in combating crime and identifying criminals.  Every door that blocks their view makes their job more difficult.  Every door that swings open upon command makes their job easier.  Can we stop wasting money to conduct surveys and issue reports about the obvious?

What no report or survey has yet to address is the fact that law enforcement just can’t control itself.  It can’t be trusted.  Every time they promise not to stick their nose in where it doesn’t belong, where they have no business being, they do it anyway.  They just can’t help themselves.

Sure, we want to catch child predators online.  Using children as the justification to gain access to everyone’s electronic communications is clearly their strongest position, since no one will ever argue that children aren’t worth protecting.  You can’t blame them for putting their best foot forward.  But we’ve heard that argument before.  We’ve heard it many times before.  It’s always about the children, hoping that no one notices the breadth and scope of application that includes everyone, from friends to celebrities to neighbors to former spouses. 

If the backdoor is built, and cries for its need are heard about every other year from law enforcement advocates who proclaims that electronic communications are thwarting their efforts to protect us and have become the weapon of choice from pedophiles to terrorists, then the miracle of modern communication will expose our every utterance.  Will we continue to use it knowing that there is no privacy? 

The bottom line is that no one can reasonably question the benefits of unfettered access by law enforcement to electronic communications, but similarly no one has come up with a way to assure that law enforcement won’t take advantage of its power and abuse it.  It always does.  This brings us back to the same old question, which this latest cry for access fails to acknowledge or address.  Are we willing to give up all privacy for the potential of safety? 

Either way, why bother with another report or study or survey.  We know the issues. We know the problems.  Eventually, law enforcement will time it just right so that their demand comes when we’re vulnerable, like a month after terrorists attack the World Trade Center, or a child is kidnapped, raped and murdered, and they will finally get their way.  That’s why they keep asking the same question, hoping that eventually, if the stars align, they’ll get their way.