Is encryption a fundamental right? Should citizens of the US be allowed to have a technology that completely locks out the government?

I disagree with calling encryption “a fundamental right” because it is not something that has been around for much of mankind’s history, and so that is a difficult thing to say for sure. That being said, I do think that citizens should be able to have a technology that locks out the government. If I knew that, no matter what, the government would only look at my data in the case of an extreme crisis, then I would probably feel differently. However, I have read about extensive government “surveillance” programs that make me question whether I can trust Uncle Sam with all of my personal data. So yes, I do believe citizens of the United States should be allowed to have a technology that completely locks out the government.

How important of an issue is encryption to you? Does it affect who you support politically? financially? socially? Should it?

It is actually not too important to me. I know that most of the time, my data is being used by powerful tech companies in advanced learning algorithms, and I don’t really mind that. For some reason, I feel more comfortable letting Google have all of my data than my own government. It does not affect who I support politically, and I don’t believe it should because I don’t think anyone should have the power to make an executive decision about encryption. It is an ethical issue and has many potential implications, no matter how it is handled. Nobody should be that powerful that they get to decide if people can completely hide their personal data.

In the struggle between national security and personal privacy, who will win? Are you resigned to a particular future or will you fight for it?

Personal privacy. I will fight for it if I have to, but hopefully it won’t come to that. What kind of a messed up society legally disallows people from having personal privacy? “Hey man, text your girlfriend all you want, but if we really want to we can tap into all of your conversations and read them in plaintext.” We might as well strap a recorder to our bodies and walk around taping everything for the government to throw into their database.