“Three years ago, reeling from Edward J. Snowden’s disclosure of the government’s vast surveillance programs and uncertain how to respond, President Obama said he welcomed a vigorous public debate about the wrenching trade-offs between safeguarding personal privacy and tracking down potential terrorists,” Michael D. Shear, David E. Sanger and Katie Benner report for The New York Times.
“But the national debate touched off this winter by the confrontation between the Justice Department and Apple over smartphone security is not exactly the one Mr. Obama had in mind,” Shear, Sanger and Benner report. “Mr. Snowden’s revelations produced modest changes and a heightened suspicion of the government’s activities in cyberspace. Because the issue now centers on a device most Americans carry in their pockets, it is concrete and personal in a way that surveillance by the National Security Agency never was.”
“Law enforcement officials have been adamant they must be able to monitor the communications of criminals. They received a vote of confidence from Mr. Obama on Friday, when he said the ‘absolutist’ position taken by companies like Apple is wrong. But the pushback has been enormous,” Shear, Sanger and Benner report. “”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The “absolutist” position is the only possible position because encryption is binary; it’s either on or off. There is no middle ground upon which to endlessly dither, which must be killing Obama. He’s either uninformed or he’s lying.
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