From Lucy Steigerwald at antiwar.com:
The most recent Republican debate for the 2016 election was unsurprisingly dominated by the shadow of terrorism and war. The Paris attacks that killed more than 130 people, plus the 14 deaths in San Bernardino, California seem to have brought about a new-old sentiment among Republicans. The year is now somewhere between 2001 and 2005 again.
One thing that has changed since the height of Bush-and-Cheney paranoia? Technology. The Internet is our lives like it wasn’t in the pre-iPhone days. And with great dependence comes great(er) government-induced fear-mongering.
Encryption is often the big boogeyman, a sentiment which Ohio Gov. John Kasich expressed at the debate. As always, details of who used what to plan what terrorist attack never seem to matter so much as frightening hypotheticals. The NSA’s dragnet spying is vital. We are in danger every moment one legal justification for that program is down, and we must bring it back. So said Sen. Marco Rubio at the debate, a point that is generally echoed by every candidate on stage except for Sen. Rand Paul (and Sen. Ted Cruz on a good day).
These presidential candidates are pandering to the right, powerful people. Feds constantly say they cannot afford to “go dark.” Meaning, they need on-demand backdoor access to servers and mobile devices and cannot let technology leave them powerless to spy and snoop.
Apple and Google have responded to the question of how much they should oblige law enforcement by taking the decision out of their own hands altogether. Full device encryption is standard on all Apple and Android devices sold with the current operating systems. The keys for this encryption is stored locally and not held by Apple or Google. That’s one way to get around certain requests, and it is a way that ticks off many of the people who are dying to be the so-called leader of the free world.
Former Hewlett-Packer CEO Carly Fiorina spoke critically about tech at the debate as well. (She also he told the vaguest Tom Clancy novel plot summary of all time about the time she happily shared technology with the NSA, so they could more easily implement the STELLARWIND wiretapping.) She may be the most adamantly anti-technology, anti-Fourth Amendment of the Republican candidates, speaking about the PATRIOT Act not in terms of its horrible legacy, but in terms of something nice that needs a serious tune-up in 2015. In her mind, government’s job is to keep pace with each new method of communication, or new technological toy. The idea that anonymity has value has not occurred to her. Not when terrorists are out there. And companies shouldn’t need to be forced to comply, they should do it anyway.
Naturally, the idea that cyber-terrorists are a serious threat but also the government needs to be able to force backdoor access into devices is one that government officials can hold flawlessly in their compartmentalized minds. Even if the latter would make life much easier for any malevolent hacker. And even if law enforcement still has many other options when it comes to snooping out data and communications.
To continue reading: Technology Is a Mysterious Enemy to Politicians
