On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 2:11 PM, Philip Musyoki
<pmusyoki@gmail.com> wrote:
Well, I was just making a point and I was just using the Blackberry example to illustrate it. I am arguing that the Blackberry case now 'raises' some Governments interest in monitoring citizen's communications, as has been demonstrated by countries which all over sudden want 'access' to Blackberry data when previously they did not seem to care.
While today this is a BB issue, who knows where it will stop? As one of the CEOs of RIM said, these people do not exactly have PHDs or Degrees in Computer Science and they seem to be driven by reasons hard to imagine. And then there is the issue of personal liberties and privacy, even with Lawful Intercept Gateways, we need to have a system of making sure this is not misused. In the US, law enforcement agencies require to get a warrant to tap or intercept calls or data.
I think the RIM CEO's position is wrong. State security cannot be left to anyone and MUST be closely monitored, but not used to abuse the rights of anyone.
Well, back to reality, only RIM is affected by this crisis. The other manufacturers/providers can easily avail the data required. Wait a moment - I am not a Telecommunications Engineer. I am only commenting based on what I've read on this issue.
The bottom line is that RIM, if they need to maintain presence anywhere, have to find means and methods to give state security organs access to whatever they want, now that some states have lifted the lid off the can of worms! So you are right, but it's not a precedence set by RIM, but rather the states.