Saturday, March 5, 2016

The FBI, Apple and Privacy

I don't get it.

On probable cause the government can get a warrant from a judge and search my house.  But they shouldn't' be able to search my phone?

Privacy is an abstract concept, what does it mean in the real world? 

What data could be on my phone that I would perceive as more important than accommodating to governments efforts to protect us from violent attacks?   

The techies argue this is a slippery slope, if they open the door to let the government into a terrorist suspects phone soon all manner of bad people (or the government) will then be able to troll through the data in all of our phones.  So?  Maybe I don't do my banking on my phone to protect financial data.  An inconvenience, but in my mind worth not providing safe havens for those seeking to engage in potentially murderous criminal activity.  

It would be helpful to understanding if the techie claims have merit if they could give a few concrete examples of what other data from my phone could present a threat.  Because I haven't been able to come up with much.

I can accept that some governments in this world would collect data to stifle dissent, maybe even arrest people on trumped up charges.   But as my mother used to say, two wrongs don't make right.  Hamstringing governments ability to investigate potential threats to public safety doesn't seem like the way to deal with bad government.  

I wonder if the tech industry isn't overly wrapped up in the idealistic notion that technology is going to save the world.  They don't want to face up to the problems their ambitions are creating.  I'm old enough to remember life when it didn't revolve around the phone in our pockets, I'm no happier now than I was then.