I believe encryption is a fundamental right in the sense that privacy in someone’s home is a right until the government gets a warrant. However, due to the fact that technology has currently outpaced the government the government is still unable to access certain things. Once the government develops a way to break the encryption without putting individuals’ personal data at risk for criminals I believe the government should be locked out. As we stated in our letter to the editor, “A hole in security is open for both good and evil, and opening a hole should be done with the knowledge that such holes make hacking by criminals easier as well.” Therefore, until the government finds a way to be “caught up” with technology I think US citizens should have access to technology that can lock them out.
The encryption issue is important to me because I believe it will set a strong precedent on future security questions. I firmly believe encryption is vital in protecting personal information but it does not entirely effect who I would support politically because there are more than issues of security. By being single issue voters is what weakens a country and I believe in looking at candidates in a holistic approach, and while no candidate will be perfect some benefits outweigh the negatives. Strong encryption rights would definitely be something I want but it is not the sole deciding factor in who I support politically, financially or socially.
I think in the long run the government will eventually beat encryption for a while but technology will always outpace the government. I am somewhat resigned to this fact but will continue to support encryption causes. There will always be encryption that criminals and terrorists will find a way to utilize and as stated in our letter by weakening customer-level encryption would only really hurt individuals and make them more susceptible to being hacked and taken advantage of by criminals.
programming ethics 