UK Effort to Keep Apple Encryption Fight Secret Is Blocked

As I’ve gotten older and more moderate in my political leanings I’ve unsurprisingly revisited some of my earlier absolute positions (usually but not always very liberal) in light of real world considerations.

Encryption and communications privacy is a position I’ve actually gotten more “extreme” on. No, I don’t think the government should get to see anyone’s communication if they don’t want it to. Yes, I know that will allow criminals of the worst kinds to communicate secretly. I’m okay with that. The alternatives are all worse.

The thing I think a lot of people don't want to acknowledge is that unlike so many issues with grey areas and middle ground, this one is binary: either criminals can have secure communication, or nobody can.

I don't want a world in which nobody can have secure communications, so I must accept that criminals will have it, and police will have to work a little harder to catch them.

It gets worse though. More sophisticated criminals will find ways to do it even if it's illegal, so a law mandating backdoors will hurt the general population and stupid criminals, but not the smart, dangerous ones.