[blackshoe]

PassedOut, on 2012-November-18, 12:21, said:

I'm sure that most posters here know that it is illegal in the US to encrypt emails or other electronic communications in such a way that the government cannot easily decrypt them.

It wouldn't surprise me if the government has given us such a law, but can you cite it?

[kenberg]

blackshoe, on 2012-November-18, 18:14, said:

It wouldn't surprise me if the government has given us such a law, but can you cite it?

I found this:
http://en.wikipedia....ic_Security_Act
This does not, in itself, quite do it, I think. Maybe there is more somewhere/

[PassedOut]

blackshoe, on 2012-November-18, 18:14, said:

It wouldn't surprise me if the government has given us such a law, but can you cite it?

The way that this has been explained to me is that export regulations make "unbreakable" encrytion illegal for communications that cross the borders of the US, and emails are not restricted geographically. Software companies cooperate with the government on this as a practical matter, but you could theoretically use roll-your-own PGP or other encryption. If you could then make certain that your encrypted communication stayed within US borders, the fifth amendment would protect you unless law enforcement had some probable cause to force decryption.

----

I should say that I'm not a lawyer and so my information is second hand, and it's certainly possible that my understanding and/or explanation is inaccurate. Perhaps an attorney would weigh in on this...

This post has been edited by PassedOut: 2012-November-18, 22:28

[barmar]

blackshoe, on 2012-November-16, 20:58, said:

He may not have known that when he started the affair.

Another indicator of poor judgement? Shouldn't someone in his position be a better judge of character?

It's not like he'd just met her in a bar, she'd been spending time with him writing his biography.

[nigel_k]

kenberg, on 2012-November-18, 10:22, said:

Here is a simple (?) question: If Bill Clinton did not resign over Monica, why should Petraeus resign over Paula?

Possession of basic decency and morals could be one fairly obvious difference. Pretty hard to draw conclusions about what someone should do by looking at what Bill Clinton actually did.

[Zelandakh]

kenberg, on 2012-November-18, 10:22, said:

I have been thinking a little more about this. Here is a simple (?) question: If Bill Clinton did not resign over Monica, why should Petraeus resign over Paula?

I suspect that Petraeus has ideas about a political career and thinks it is in his best interest to be seen to do the right thing now so that the affair does not permanently tarnish his image. He has plenty of cash in the bank and a reputation as a strong strategic thinker - how hard do you think it will be for him to find another senior posting until he has secured his position enough to make moves towards Washington again?

[blackshoe]

kenberg, on 2012-November-18, 19:18, said:

I found this:
http://en.wikipedia....ic_Security_Act
This does not, in itself, quite do it, I think. Maybe there is more somewhere/

No it doesn't. As I read the article, the bill was never passed into law.

[blackshoe]

PassedOut, on 2012-November-18, 19:37, said:

The way that this has been explained to me is that export regulations make "unbreakable" encrytion illegal for communications that cross the borders of the US, and emails are not restricted geographically. Software companies cooperate with the government on this as a practical matter, but you could theoretically use roll-your-own PGP or other encryption. If you could then make certain that your encrypted communication stayed within US borders, the fifth amendment would protect you unless law enforcement had some probable cause to force decryption.

This sounds like BS to me.

[blackshoe]

barmar, on 2012-November-18, 21:58, said:

Another indicator of poor judgement? Shouldn't someone in his position be a better judge of character?

It's not like he'd just met her in a bar, she'd been spending time with him writing his biography.

Shouldn't someone in his position be perfect?

[PassedOut]

blackshoe, on 2012-November-19, 07:00, said:

This sounds like BS to me.

Could be.

[kenberg]

nigel_k, on 2012-November-19, 00:26, said:

Possession of basic decency and morals could be one fairly obvious difference. Pretty hard to draw conclusions about what someone should do by looking at what Bill Clinton actually did.

I was thinking of it more as an abstraction. Permit me to repose this as three questins:

1. If it is discovered that the married president of the United States is having an affair, should s/he immediately resign?

2. If it is discovered that the married head of the CIA is having an affair, should s/he immediately resign?

3. If the answers to 1. and 2. are different, why?

It seems to me that if the answer to question 1 is yes, then we had better take a lot of care in who is chosen as vice-president, and probably also take care in who is chosen Speaker of the House.

[y66]

Guest post from Adam Gopnik:

Quote

Petraeus, and his defenders and attackers alike, referred to his “poor judgment,” but if the affair had had anything to do with judgment it never would have happened. Desire is not subject to the language of judicious choice, or it would not be desire, with a language all its own. The point of lust, not to put too fine a point on it, is that it lures us to do dumb stuff, and the fact that the dumb stuff gets done is continuing proof of its power. As Roth’s Alexander Portnoy tells us, “Ven der putz shteht, ligt der sechel in drerd”—a Yiddish saying that means, more or less, that when desire comes in the door judgment jumps out the window and cracks its skull on the pavement.

The really big news of the week was that Roth had stopped writing fiction, for reasons of his own, one gathers, though it isn’t hard to imagine him awed into silence by what American reality had once again wrought. Let’s hope that a novelist’s retirement may be, like a soprano’s, quickly reversible. In the meantime, let’s recall, from “The Human Stain,” the narrator’s dream that, at the height of the Clinton imbroglio, someone had hung a banner from the White House reading, “A Human Being Lives Here.”

[barmar]

Yes, it's obviously not really judgement, it's self-control. I think the expectation (or hope, at least) is that people in positions of great power should have better self-control, so that lust doesn't lead them to do stupid things.

Is there any reason to believe that he'll take his oath of office more seriously than his marriage vows when in the heat of passion? If a woman can seduce Petraeus to cheat on his wife, is it far-fetched that she might be able to get him to divulge national secrets during pillow talk? We want leaders who aren't likely to give it up to Mata Hari-type spies.

I'm not really sure any of this is really the issue. Others have mentioned that affairs are not a big deal in other countries. I think much of the hoopla is simply because America is more puritanical in this respect. Most of the time, sex scandals kill political careers -- Clinton is a notable exception to the rule.

[PassedOut]

barmar, on 2012-November-19, 11:05, said:

Is there any reason to believe that he'll take his oath of office more seriously than his marriage vows when in the heat of passion? If a woman can seduce Petraeus to cheat on his wife, is it far-fetched that she might be able to get him to divulge national secrets during pillow talk? We want leaders who aren't likely to give it up to Mata Hari-type spies.

First, why suppose that he's made any marriage "vows" at all? Some people do and some don't. I've been married twice and in neither case did either of us make vows.

Second, I do think it farfetched that Petraeus would divulge national secrets during the pillow talk of an affair. Many intelligence officers don't even tell their wives national secrets.

[kenberg]

I have no real knowledge of security procedures for the CIA or other agencies. I imagine that they have a list of triggers. Unreported meetings with foreign nationals, a lifestyle that seems beyond the paycheck, a gambling habit, and so on. I would expect extramarital affairs to be on this list. But beyond that, I really have no idea. If, say, it is discovered that a high level, but not top level, senior analyst is having relations with someone, what happens? I simply don't know. If this high level person would get dumped, then it would appear to be unfair, and bad for morale, if Petraeus stayed on. Really, I would not drop dead of shock to learn that some high level analyst was found to be in such a situation, was called in and told to knock it off, and then everything went on as before. But I didn't get the memo, so I just don't know what happens.

From a while back:
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=zljYVfHdAOE

[blackshoe]

barmar, on 2012-November-19, 11:05, said:

I think the expectation (or hope, at least) is that people in positions of great power should have better self-control, so that lust doesn't lead them to do stupid things.

Perhaps so. Personally, I think that to hold to this hope in the face of thousands of years of human history that demonstrates that people in positions of great power do not necessarily have better self-control (or, in some cases, any self-control at all) is insane.

[helene_t]

The evolutionary explanation for the fact that men are more eager than women to reach powerful positions is that it increases their expected number of sex partners. In most if not all social mamals, alpha males have more sex than the underdogs and humans are no exceptions.

So expecting powerful men to show sexual restraint is very naive.

[barmar]

Rational or not, we like to believe that we've evolved beyond this. Thousands of years of history also indicate that war (and other forms of violence) is inevitable, but society has made much progress in reducing this.

[jeffford76]

PassedOut, on 2012-November-18, 12:21, said:

I'm sure that most posters here know that it is illegal in the US to encrypt emails or other electronic communications in such a way that the government cannot easily decrypt them.

This isn't true. Encryption is legal in the US.

[barmar]

jeffford76, on 2012-November-20, 11:55, said:

This isn't true. Encryption is legal in the US.

I believe you're correct.

At one time in the 90's, I think the government tried to pass a law that required that all encryption technology incorporate "key escrow". I don't think it ever passed.

Encryption technology was also classified as a munition, which made it subject to severe export regulations. So you could use and sell it domestically, but not to any foreign customers. A loophole that was noticed is that this does not apply to DEcryption technology, so you could encrypt a message in the US and send it to someone outside, and they could purchase the software to decode it. I don't know offhand if these restrictions are still in place.