Clinton’s War on Encryption

I’m not much of one to debate politics, in fact, I despise politics, but then I saw this. We’ve all heard the arguments from the government about why we should not encrypt our communications, how hard it will be to convict criminals or gather evidence if their data is encrypted, and the concerns of terrorism as well. They put these horrific images in our minds of what could happen in an attempt to scare us into submission, to get a public outcry for tech companies to hand out the keys to “break” the encrypted communications. I find it amusing and terrifying at the same time that they are so invested in monitoring our communication.

Let’s be real about this, prior to the Snowden revelations and the public concerns for privacy and government spying, how many terrorist efforts were thwarted, on our own soil, by having keys to encryption? Some, I’m sure, but not all. In the investigation into the San Bernadino shootings that took place earlier this year officials discovered that there were communications about jihad going on for years online, no mention of encryption is made however.

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, has stated that removing encryption tools would serve only to harm law abiding citizens. There has never been a greater truth spoken in my opinion. The government, the politicians and the police are putting pressure on companies like Apple, Google, and various device manufacturers to give them a backdoor into their products, for what purpose? With all the various types of encryption out there, the ability to modify the encryption algorithm and the plethora of available ways to communicate without the aforementioned products, what data do these officials really plan on gathering?

Look at the Juniper Networks breach, all signs point back to the NSA for the code introduced into the enterprise VPN software. Are they honestly looking for terrorist activity through healthcare and business channels?

We are moving further and further into a police state, giving up our rights and freedoms because the government is telling us stories about the boogeyman lurking right around the corner. We need to wake up and realize that it’s Uncle Sam that’s the true threat, grooming us for their purposes and scaring the masses into submission.