We cannot trust our government, so we must trust the technology

Apple’s technology is a response to users’ thirst for technology that can secure their privacy and autonomy in a world where they cannot trust any institutions, whether government or market.

It is therefore the vital national security interest of the United States that we build an institutional system of robust accountability and oversight for surveillance and investigation powers. We need meaningful restrictions on collection and use of data; we need genuinely independent review, with complete access to necessary information and a technically proficient capacity to exercise review.

Perhaps most importantly, we need to end the culture of impunity that protects people who run illegal programs and continue to thrive in their careers after they are exposed, but vindictively pursues the whistleblowers who expose that illegality.

Only such a system, that offers transparently meaningful oversight and real consequences for those who violate our trust, has any chance of being trustworthy enough to remove the persistent global demand for platforms that preserve user privacy and security even at the expense of weakening the capabilities of their policing and national security agencies.

Apple’s case is not about freedom versus security; it is about trustworthy institutions or trust-independent technology. We cannot solve it by steamrolling the technology in service of untrusted institutions.

[“Source-theguardian”]