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Comment by specialist | Hacker News Reader

Exactly.

The privacy & crypto policy fights is a replay of the election integrity fight. We democracy defending noobs (in the USA) walked right into the trap of trying to rebut the vendor's appeal to authority and the torrent of bullshit they spewed.

Big Tobacco easily found scientists eager to support their mendacity, for a price. Of course the FBI, NSA, etc. have experts for hire peddling their freedom destroying agenda.

In contrast, the German activists successfully argued that private voting and public counting is a basic human right.

In addition to being The Correct Answer (morally, ethically, legally, logically, etc), such as affirmative position also has the benefit of being easier to communicate.

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Not sure what the better argument is- just saying that first- but "specialist" mentioned "higher moral authorities" than the bill of rights. Since the US uses these higher authorities to sell patriotism, I get why someone might think it's a good idea to fold cryptography in with that. Yet I can't imagine how that would be done. In any case, it is important how this battle is won - its justification will shape our future battles. If someone can be called anti-American or "not a patriot" if they bring up legit critique (Chomsky) or if they are an atheist or a Muslim---then it's a sign that observing basic human rights is exactly NOT what a government (the US especially) wants to do, no matter HOW they "sell" authoritarianism to the public. So far, in order to be elected president here, it seems one needs to at least pretend to be Christian. We need to move to arguments that are implicit in our engagement with new ideas. It seems that the basic right to cryptography must be philosophically designed into systems as a feature of their existance, unapologetically. For example:blockchain. Let the idea of cryptography be nationless-- a feauture of globalization. In that way, you tie it to something those in power hold dear and it becomes difficult for them to hold one view without admitting the other. That said, we have been experiencing a troubling complete breakdownn of all reason and consistency in these philosophies and govt. policies. example: the increase in arrests of black people in posession of small amounts of marijuana especially in cities where posession has been decriminalized. (The Intercept, yesterday)

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