I think that this is an incredibly complex issue. I think that just reading a few articles on it puts me in absolutely no position to make take a standpoint on the issue. I know this is an ethics class and the idea is to argue a point and use data or scholarly information to make a conclusion on a point–ethical or not ethical. I just think its difficult when there is no ethical side, or when both options are unethical in different reasons.
I thought it was interesting in the article, “Going Dark: Encryption, Technology, and the Balances Between Public Safety” how it explained the government and law as “going dark”:
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today about the growing challenges to public safety and national security that have eroded our ability to obtain electronic information and evidence pursuant to a court order or warrant. We in law enforcement often refer to this problem as “Going Dark.”
I can see that people are concerned about the government’s issues with surveillance and privacy, and they have responded in to those issues. They believe that they have to uphold civil liberties including privacy:
We, too, care about these important principles. Indeed, it is our obligation to uphold civil liberties, including the right to privacy…
We would like to emphasize that the Going Dark problem is, at base, one of technological choices and capability. We are not asking to expand the government’s surveillance authority, but rather we are asking to ensure that we can continue to obtain electronic information and evidence pursuant to the legal authority that Congress has provided to us to keep America safe.
In their eyes nothing will change with regard to the privacy of the American populous. They will still use legal ways to obtain search warrants, etc. The idea is not to expand the government’s surveillance authority, but instead to ensure to give the electronic information to keep America safe.
In the eyes of the government and the DOJ, they admit that the problem is incredibly complex.
Mr. Chairman, The Department of Justice believes that the challenges posed by the Going Dark problem are grave, growing, and extremely complex. At the outset, it is important to emphasize that we believe that there is no one-size-fits-all strategy that will ensure progress.
The issue is that the complexities that they see definitely are not the only issues that could arise from going either way on the security issue. From what I read from these articles, I cannot go ahead and say that the government backdoors are the solution to our national security problem. In the article, “ISIS using encrypted apps for communications; former intel officials blame Snowden (Updated)” we saw that these taps might not be the magical solution that the government once thought they could be.
But even if the US government were to press forward a demand for companies such as Apple, Facebook, and Google to provide a way to tap into message traffic, that would do little to prevent the use of existing peer-to-peer encryption and other encrypted social media tools by terror organizations.
Alongside that, in the article “F.B.I. Director Repeats Call That Ability to Read Encrypted Messages Is Crucial” we saw that this might be a premature avenue to approach a change in national surveillance and privacy. Everyone is still left worried and vulnerable after the Paris attacks, it seems like a time where rash decisions could be made that could completely alter the entire precedent that the government could take when evaluating ethical methods of enforcing security.
Some security experts and cryptographers said some officials were trying to use the Paris attacks to push their agenda.
My understanding is not combatting the argument that “If you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear” argument. My idea of this, is that it is too rash to make a decision right now on policy before a robust security system can be created to protect everyones sensitive information. Secrets are security. The government, even though are in a position to do a lot of good, could also do a lot of bad if legislation makes it mandatory for the companies such as Apple and Google to allow government backdoors. At this point, if the government is allowed in a backdoor. The same terrorists and criminals that we are trying to stop will also be able to utilize these weakened security measures.
I am looking forward to learning more about this in class so that I can make a more informed answer to these questions. This is my response based off of my first exposure and understanding to this ethical dilemma.
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