Assuming some political will, however, the legal obstacles to UN enforcement of human rights are not insurmountable.
"Basically, the technology has been purposely designed by our manufacturers so that even they claim they can't get into their own devices after they've built them," Bratton told MSNBC, describing terrorists' ability to "go dark" as a huge obstacle to law enforcement.
International borders pose no hindrance to criminals, so we're making sure those borders do not pose an obstacle to effective enforcement".
Other obstacles to monitoring, surveillance and enforcement include inherent scientific uncertainty, a dynamic state of scientific knowledge, lack of expertise within regulatory agencies and often complex and fragmented multi-level infrastructures.
The commission scheduled this week's proceedings after the Justice Department reversed its earlier position that anything less than stringent regulations would pose legal and technical obstacles to the ability of law enforcement agencies to do wiretapping for criminal and terrorism investigations.
Cindy Auten, the general manager of the Telework Exchange, a public-private partnership that advocates the greater use of telecommuting, said the bill's more precise guidelines and greater monitoring and enforcement could overcome obstacles to the practice.
Today, unions face high obstacles to organizing, from corporate anti-union campaigns to weak enforcement of labor laws.
Due to the lack of security awareness, for many non-technical folks this argument remains too abstract – simply an obstacle to providing law enforcement with a backdoor access it wants.
Law-enforcement officials say there are many obstacles to prosecution.
