I have a sincere question for @theprivacyfoundation and the #privacy community. The DOJ announced it's investigating Senator Richard Burr, who sold off $1.7m in stock before the coronavirus crash, while assuring the public it was under control. His brother-in-law sold off too. Search warrants were used to collect data from his iCould account and cell phone. With encryption, it would be hard to investigate this case. Privacy makes it harder to root out corruption. What's the response?
@mpanhans Obviously, human trafficking is very bad, but the same people at risk for human trafficking are likely also at risk for being spied upon and manipulated by their abusers. Having a means to privately contact shelters and to use other systems of help actually makes victims safer because of encrypted systems.
Stalkerware is a rampant form of (often sexual) harassment, that can be made better through device and app encryption.
@theprivacyfoundation Thanks for the reply, this is a really interesting point. I'm very sympathetic to increasing privacy, and these are great responses to some of the anti-privacy arguments I've heard.
@mpanhans Thanks for your comment. We disagree with the idea that it would be a better world, and that it's a bit of misdirection.
We shouldn't all give up our freedom to a private life because an investigator's life might be more easy in a few cases. Using proper investigative techniques will likely yield the same outcomes.
@theprivacyfoundation Relatedly, last year Chris Cox left Facebook over Zuckerberg's pivot to encryption. Cox thought encryption made it harder to filter out fake news, hate speech, detect human trafficking. If Cox had won and Facebook had not pivoted to encryption, and Facebook's tools would not be able to be used for human trafficking, wouldn't we be in a better world?