Transcript: Comey Says Authors of Encryption Letter Are Uninformed or Not Fair-Minded by Megan Graham.
From the post:
Earlier today, FBI Director James Comey implied that a broad coalition of technology companies, trade associations, civil society groups, and security experts were either uninformed or were not “fair-minded” in a letter they sent to the President yesterday urging him to reject any legislative proposals that would undermine the adoption of strong encryption by US companies. The letter was signed by dozens of organizations and companies in the latest part of the debate over whether the government should be given built-in access to encrypted data (see, for example, here, here, here, and here for previous iterations).
The comments were made at the Third Annual Cybersecurity Law Institute held at Georgetown University Law Center. The transcript of his encryption-related discussion is below (emphasis added).
…
A group of tech companies and some prominent folks wrote a letter to the President yesterday that I frankly found depressing. Because their letter contains no acknowledgment that there are societal costs to universal encryption. Look, I recognize the challenges facing our tech companies. Competitive challenges, regulatory challenges overseas, all kinds of challenges. I recognize the benefits of encryption, but I think fair-minded people also have to recognize the costs associated with that. And I read this letter and I think, “Either these folks don’t see what I see or they’re not fair-minded.” And either one of those things is depressing to me. So I’ve just got to continue to have the conversation.
Governments have a long history of abusing citizens and data entrusted to them.
Director Comey is very uninformed if he is unaware of the role that Hollerith machines and census data played in the Holocaust.
Holland embraced Hollerith machines for its 1930’s census, with the same good intentions as FBI Director Comey for access to encrypted data.
France never made effective use of Hollerith machines prior to or during WWII.
What difference did that make?
| Country | Jewish Population | Deported | Murdered | Death Ratio |
| Holland | 140,000 | 107,000 | 102,000 | 73% |
| France | 300,000 to 350,000 | 85,000 | 82,000 | 25% |
(IBM and the Holocaust : the strategic alliance between Nazi Germany and America’s most powerful corporation by Edwin Black, at page 332.)
A fifty (50%) percent difference in the effectiveness of government oppression due to technology sounds like a lot to me. Bearing in mind that Comey wants to make government collection of data even more widespread and efficient.
If invoking the Holocaust seems like a reflex action, consider the Hollywood blacklist, the McCarthy era, government inflitration of the peace movement of the 1960’s, oppression of the Black Panther Party, long term discrimination against homosexuals, ongoing discrimination based on race, gender, religion, ethnicity, to name just a few instances of where government intrusion has been facilitated by its data gathering capabilities.
If anyone is being “not fair-minded” in the debate over encryption, it’s FBI Director Comey. The pages of history, past, recent and contemporary, bleed from the gathering and use of data by government at different levels.
Making a huge leap of faith and saying the current government is in good faith, in no way guarantees that a future government will be in good faith.
Strong encryption won’t save us from a corrupt government, but it may give us a fighting chance of a better government.