Our Government Needs to Encourage Encryption, Not Resist It: New at Reason

How telling is it that in the summer of the hacker, when politicians have been repeatedly (and entertainingly!) humiliated by unauthorized access to information, FBI Director James Comey is still wagging his finger at the American public, chastising us for our insistence on protecting privacy by encrypting our gadgets and communications.

“In the first 10 months of this fiscal year, our examiners received 5,000 or so devices from state and local law enforcement asking for our help, with a search warrant, to open those devices. About 650 of them we could not open. We did not have the technology. We can’t open them. They are a brick to us,” he told the American Bar Association annual meeting.

Well, yes. That’s the whole idea of encrypting things, as well as of locking doors, and hiding valuables—so that strangers can’t get to them without our permission. J.D. Tuccille explains more.

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