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Obama on encryption: 'It 's fetishizing our phones above every other value '


G+_Mark Swaim
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I think President Obama, and others who share the same view, are wrong. Our phones, and more generally our computing devices, are not simply another set of physical devices that the government/state needs or must have control over. The classic argument does not apply.

 

These are much, much more than simple devices, they are literally extensions of ourselves, storing, tracking and more so every day intuiting what we do, think, want and believe. They are more an extension of our minds and selves, knowing perhaps more about us than we know of ourselves.

 

What could be more personal than an intimate moment by moment diary of your life, thoughts you've written, words you've spoken and patterns of interaction with the world that make you who you are. Is there anything more intimate than that?

 

If we don't protect the devices that are extensions of ourselves then we are letting government - and corporations - into our minds.

 

We don't allow government to force spouses to reveal details about us, why then not also our digital companions. Do they not know as much perhaps more about us than our natural spouses?

 

Moreover do we not deserve, is it not a right, to have personal space to think and dream thoughts of good and sometimes ill. A place where we can reflect and work through who we are and want to be. Dare we think through a thought which may be evil to work out why it is so and engrain in our psyche not just that something is wrong but why?

 

We agree that free speech means not only speech we agree with but those ideas which we don't as well. If this freedom exists in our interaction with the outside world, then isn't a protection for the sharing and working through our thoughts using our most intimate devices to augment our brains just as if not more important?

 

Security in our personal devices is as necessary, maybe even more necessary, than security of access to our minds. If there was a device that allowed government to see into our minds and thoughts, read back what we saw, heard and thought... would we permit the government to forcibly peek into our minds? Of course not. So why should they see into what is not the next best thing and soon to be perhaps even better than the real thing - our digital minds.

 

We do, Mr. President, want and need personal black boxes where all our thoughts, notes, ideas, worries, fears and dreams lie. These our ours and ours alone. Yes, a perfect encrypted black box that is ours and ours alone.

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Obama seems stuck back in the 20th century. Phones today are extensions of people's minds and self. Everything they are outside of themselves is managed and stored in that small incredibly powerful computer they carry everywhere. It connects them to each other, to the world, to all the knowledge of the world, to events happening in the world.

 

To discount it merely as a kind of trivial object is like saying Food is just something we seem to value more than we should.

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