The intriguing standoff between the FBI and Apple may have ended for now, with the FBI hacking the dead San Bernardino terrorist’s iPhone. But the issue is far from over. This tug-of-war between technology firms and investigative agencies will continue. Not all tech firms have the clout of Apple, Google, Facebook or Microsoft to withstand governmental pressure to allow access to users’ data.
The debate over the government’s right of access and the individual’s right to privacy, including using encryption technology, is an extremely complex one. As law enforcement finds it more difficult to crack complex passcodes, to get clinching evidence to convict criminals, the temptation is to seek court orders to access protected material. But this defeats the privacy that democracies are meant to guarantee their citizens.
The argument that terrorism must be fought as society’s greatest enemy in modern days and all citizens must do everything to help is a powerful one. But that shouldn’t let governmental agencies get lazy or complacent. Given the vast resources that all governments possess, it should be their duty to keep official agencies a step ahead of criminals in technology.
Already, the privacy of citizens is vastly compromised by the snooping methodology of much of data gathering, including of the meta-data mining that key agencies do for the state. To allow governments a free run in snooping on citizens and access to their various devices would militate against the very principles of the basic freedoms of all citizens.
