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The more I think about this issue the less interested I am in the extreme of either side. The government shouldn’t have unfettered access to our devices, but I

The more I think about this issue the less interested I am in the extreme of either side. The government shouldn’t have unfettered access to our devices, but I can’t think of any other product in the history of the planet that gave people the ability to hide information so completely that the government could never look at it. To those that argue that our phones are an extension of our minds, that is both a bad thing and fetishizing our phones. Finally, couldn’t I argue that my diary or journal is an extension of my mind (certainly more so than a phone)? Yet diaries and journals can and have been subpoenaed.

oleganza 8y ago
Phrasing it "extreme of either side" sends a message that you place either extreme in the same moral bucket. Some people may argue that extreme personal protection is good and extreme personal vulnerability is bad, which makes these "extremes" quite opposite, making one highly desirable and another one not. Plus who decided that subpoenas are a good idea, or law enforcement traditions are how things ought to be? Inquisition and slavery were also a thing until they were not.
uniformlyrandom 8y ago
> any other product in the history of the planet that gave people the ability to hide information so completely that the government could never look at it. Any volume-level encryption?
- TillE 8y ago
  Or anyone's who come up with a half-decent code that's stored only in one or two brains. There are various medieval alchemical manuscripts which have never been fully deciphered.
buckminster 8y ago
But the information being hidden is largely information that never previously existed. Specifically, a complete log of where you went, what you read, who you chatted to, possibly the contents of those chats, etc. It is a previously unimagined level of intrusion, which is perhaps justifiable once someone becomes a suspect, but not extending backwards in time for potentially an entire life.
kstrauser 8y ago
The most ancient and trusted security mechanism was a secret whispered into a willing ear in an isolated place. No government has ever been able to intrude on that.

oleganza 8y ago

Phrasing it "extreme of either side" sends a message that you place either extreme in the same moral bucket. Some people may argue that extreme personal protection is good and extreme personal vulnerability is bad, which makes these "extremes" quite opposite, making one highly desirable and another one not. Plus who decided that subpoenas are a good idea, or law enforcement traditions are how things ought to be? Inquisition and slavery were also a thing until they were not.

uniformlyrandom 8y ago

> any other product in the history of the planet that gave people the ability to hide information so completely that the government could never look at it. Any volume-level encryption?

TillE 8y ago
Or anyone's who come up with a half-decent code that's stored only in one or two brains. There are various medieval alchemical manuscripts which have never been fully deciphered.

buckminster 8y ago

But the information being hidden is largely information that never previously existed. Specifically, a complete log of where you went, what you read, who you chatted to, possibly the contents of those chats, etc. It is a previously unimagined level of intrusion, which is perhaps justifiable once someone becomes a suspect, but not extending backwards in time for potentially an entire life.

kstrauser 8y ago

The most ancient and trusted security mechanism was a secret whispered into a willing ear in an isolated place. No government has ever been able to intrude on that.