Here is a link to the letter that Connor Brant, Alex Hansen, and I wrote to the editor of the Observer.

---

Encryption is a fundamental right only as it relates to privacy. Obviously it’s not something the Founding Fathers could’ve foreseen, but the magic in their words lies in the applicability to ever-changing technology and culture. Encryption is ultimately a privacy tool, but there’s no reason encryption, itself, should be a fundamental right. Additionally, privacy is a fundamental right, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be suspended by the government when it’s warranted.

The issue of complete, irreversible encryption is, in my opinion, only really an issue because of the partial distrust of our government. If American citizens trusted the government entirely, there wouldn’t be any questions asked when the government requested Apple to unlock an iPhone for an investigation. So, to me, encryption isn’t a big issue when aligning with a politician. To me, the heart of the issue is the heart of the candidate – choosing a politician I trust.

If I trust the president of the country, I may disagree with certain individual stances like encryption or immigration or climate change, but I am willing to go along with what he or she decides because I trust his or her judgement.

In any struggle, I like to visit the extremes of either side. With personal privacy, the extreme is that the government has no access to any of its citizens’ data (physical or digital) and is essentially powerless in investigations. With extreme national security, I imagine a surveillance state in which the government has access to all of the data they could ever want, including what each citizen is doing at every moment of every day. They’re both scary, but if we want a government at all, we should want it to have efficacy in dealing with problems we can’t deal with individually (catching a murderer, stopping a terrorist plot), so I definitely lean toward the national security side.

Again, it boils down to trust for me. If everyone in the country trusted the government to obtain our personal data responsibly (i.e. only when they need it for an investigation and not to use it against us unnecessarily), there would be no debate.