Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones
Obama has a meta-point however that proponents of the absolutist position don't seem to want to face. Democracy relies on transparency. Many of the progressives who are rallying in support of absolute right to privacy are some of the same people who constantly criticize Swiss bank accounts, Cayman island financial shenanigans.But if companies were to implement the same sorts of impenetrable encryption, on every device, all the way down to the corporate desktop, in a way that not even the company executives themselves can read the email of their own employees, then lots of regulations the government applies to companies would be mooted.Taken to the extreme, if all communication is digital, and 100% impregnable, and people maintain good OpSec, then it will be hard to impossible to execute lawsuits or regulatory investigations into malfeasance because they'll be no paper trail.The end result of going full tilt on crypto is cryptoanarchy. This was pretty much well argued in the 90s among the cypherpunks community. Most of the libertarians and Objectivists were salivating over how strong crypto protocols would end fiat currency, end taxation, end regulation, and so on.So how far as a society are we willing to take this? Does it just extend to private data? Does it extend to transactions? To payments you make for things? To transfers of money? To business transactions? Will Democracy be able to audit nothing of the interactions of citizens or our institutions in the future?You don't have to agree with Obama's position to see that cryptoanarchy and Democracy are on a collision course, and it makes sense to discuss the possibilities openly without just plugging your ears and taking an absolutist position that demonizes anyone who disagrees.