Barr’s Encryption Push Is Decades in the Making

There's a balance that must be struck between the efficiency of law enforcement and the freedom of citizens. Personally, I lean heavily towards the latter, and I think this is the reason:

My life and the lives of those I know are affected by criminals or terrorists with absurdly low frequency. I'm sure this is true of many Americans; perhaps more true now than ever in history.

So why is it that there is so much support for tough-on-crime policies that decrease popular freedom in obvious ways? Why does it seem like the less people are affected by crime, the more they abhor it and feel the need to root it out to the last, no matter the cost? There are diminishing returns here. The price we pay to track down the last criminal on Earth will be _everything_.

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -Ben Franklin

No one likes to say this but your average citizen is either not smart enough or doesn't care enough to understand statistics... so sensationalism wins.

But encryption doesn’t have “mostly safe”. It has safe and not safe.

There isn’t a meaningful in between.

Quote: "He views the current conflict as similar to one that was emerging when he led the Justice Department in the early 1990s, they said, when law enforcement’s wiretapping efforts were disrupted by newly emerging digital technology."

Translation (also this can be viewed as a resume for entire article): The powers in charge are pissed off because they lost a tiny percent of their control and want it back.

Go through each of the Bill of Rights, and for each produce a scenario where that right would be used by a criminal to protect him or her from planning, executing, and avoiding detection of a crime.

All individual rights are carved out from the default government, which is the one that takes absolute authority over all within its domain. North Korea is closest to this ideal today, but most vanilla monarchies were like this in the west.

Law enforcement officers (and politicians) must confront the simple fact that they must accept the restraints that the law places on them, even if it means letting the bad guy get away with it. Getting the bad guy at any cost ("Tango and Cash" style) makes a fun movie but it undermines the freedoms that our ancestors (by both blood and principal) fought and died for.