Why not?
I mean, if the cops turned up at your door with a search warrant, you'd let them in, right?
I mean, if the cops turned up at your door with a search warrant, you'd let them in, right?
To me, this is a bit of a no-brainer. A government agency wants my help to do something. Do I trust them? Do I help them? Well... yes. They're the government. Incompetent sometimes, irrelevant a lot of the time, inefficient, sure. But ultimately there to provide a service for me as a citizen. If they need my help, then I should probably help them.
I understand that Americans don't trust their government like this. I'm not sure why not.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)
Those two spring to mind immediately, and I'm not American, I'm Australian.
Personally, I don't understand why anyone trusts their Government more than the bare minimum required to support the rule of law.
If they just wanted to search _my_ stuff, sure. But if the only reason that I'm even capable of assisting the government in spying on somebody is that they are my customer, neighbor, friend, or user then I will not offer that assistance. That would be evil. Don't be evil.
Of course I'll say yes, and I hope it's true. Thankfully, I probably won't ever have to find out. But if it does come to that, and I choose wrong, I know I won't write a blog post about it.
Check out what the fbi was doing to people a few years back hacking into victim's networks.
If we give up faith in those things then we will succumb to a lawless, might-makes-right society. What makes you think you know better than the duly elected and appointed representatives of the people? Ok, fine. Tell it to a judge. But if you lose, then comply.
TL;DR: I don’t like “the man” either, but in the end, the man is us. We thwart him at our peril.
No, it often is. I don't think I need to cite examples.
I'm not advocating for anarchy, and I haven't given up faith in the justice system as a whole. However, there are still many things that I will not do, despite being legally compelled. Leveraging my relationships, professional or personal, to help an agency with a dirty track record spy on people is among those things.
Statements like this...
> Tell it to a judge. But if you lose, then comply.
...are extremely problematic. You can argue that most of the time, in a social order that you believe to be a net positive, you should comply rather than rebel. But phrasing it as an absolute perpetuates any existing authority, no matter how corrupt, forever. If you are sufficiently confident that the right thing to do, taking into account all the disruption it may cause, is not to comply, then you are still morally obligated not to comply.
What is right and what is legal do not always agree. And yes, that is still true even in a society that theoretically allows for change "through the proper channels". Even in the US, many of the most important changes to the law have been made by breaking it. Again, I don't feel the need to cite examples, since we have entire days of the year to celebrate most of them.
The great thing about technology is that it doesn't have to put up with things like useless warrants. Using encryption is the equivalent to have a reinforced door protecting you from people who want to do harm to you that ignores all warrants and cannot be broken or talked down. Thank god for encryption that works, it literally saves lives from the current crops of tyrannical governments worldwide.