Germany: New government plans 'right to encryption'
In all honesty, I don&#x27;t&#x2F;can&#x27;t value government provided rights.  The reason is governments have no basis to grant anything more than an individual.<p>If you think about it, if I grant you a right to privacy - what can that possibly mean to you?  If not just I, but I and 10 others (or 100, or 10000) agree to grant you a right, still - what does that mean?   Do you now have that right?<p>In fact, the position is nonsense.<p>The question then, is at what point do a bunch of people become a government?   What is the magic number?  And on what basis does a government have greater rights than the individuals it purports to represent?<p>The answer in reverse, is that government does not have greater rights than individuals.  It does not determine morality.  A majority of people might decide to rule over others - and they may be successful via their greater or co-ordinated force - but at no point does that use of force become a right.  Put simply, if someone or a group or a government initiate force, that is a wrong.  Re rights, you can do whatever as long as you are not harming another.<p>Governments are not greater than individuals.  While we might go along with government dictats or government &#x27;granting of rights&#x27;, there is no moral basis for it.  It is just the labouring under an illusion.  The government illusion is powerful, for sure, and there is malign threat therein, but at no point can government create a right that is not already existent for the individual.  If some people believe it can, they are mistaken.  If those people undertake the dictats of government, acting forcibly against other that have done them no wrong, they are acting immorally.<p>In answer to the main post then, individuals have always had a right to encryption, if it is not harming anyone.  Governments have never had the (moral) &#x27;right&#x27; to decrypt as that is stealing someone&#x27;s privacy.  Governments can of course write laws to justify whatever they like, but these laws themselves need to align with morality to be &#x27;right&#x27;.<p>PS I seriously don&#x27;t mind being down-voted, but would rather understand what the objections are to my argument.