Those of you who don’t know what a private key is should still give this piece of news a fair bit of attention; though it doesn’t affect you directly, the indirect effects could be significant:
The UK Government is preparing to give the police the authority to force organisations and individuals to disclose encryption keys, a move which has outraged some security and civil rights experts.
-from Government to force handover of encryption keys, ZDNet.co.uk, 18 May 2006.
Like anything else, a tool is just a tool and, as such, it is not the tool that bears any attributes of morality; it is the user of that tool who is ‘good’ or ‘bad’; ‘right’ or ‘wrong’; ‘legal’ or ‘illegal’, etc., not the tool itself. But how can the government tell the difference between good or bad uses of a tool like encryption unless it can examine everyone’s encrypted communiations for illegality?
It can’t. In all fairness to the law and justice, taking away all citizens’ right to privacy is not an acceptable means to an otherwise virtuous end (catching criminals). Rights are just that: rights! Those who take away rights, regardless of the nicely-worded reasons, are tyrants and dictators and they are not to be tolerated.
I say, don’t outlaw tools; outlaw the criminals who use those tools for bad, wrong, illegal means.
I use public/private key encryption and I am not in any way using it in any manner that could be considered criminal. Regardless, I would go to jail before I’d give up my private encryption key, solely on the principle of my right to privacy.
If I am a law-abiding citizen (and I am) then my privacy is a Constitutionally guaranteed right that I will not surrender by intimidation or coercion. If I may adapt a slogan widely used in the context of gun-rights circles:
“You’ll take my [private key] when you pry [it] from my cold dead fingers!”
2 responses so far ↓
1 chow-stl // May 29, 2006 at 9:26 pm
Mr harlos. Something worth noting is that the UK does not have the traditional safeguards agianst the seizure of their papers and properties which we enjoy in america. In fact, the UK police can enter your home anytime it wishes withour warrent of cause. There are procedural rules which does dictate when and how they enter a home. But those rules are subjected to the whims of police commanders and lawmakers. There is no equivallent rule of law such as our bedrocked bill of rights which prohibit goverment intrusion for any reason without a warrent. As for those who maintain that if you are not doing anything illegal you dont have anything to hide. Well I for one have alot to hid that is quite legal. For instance, I have personal correspondance which I would not want to be in the public domain. In addition I have a series of very sensual photos from a lady friend of mine whom i promised to never show to anyone. So that data is encrypted very tightly. The photos are not illegal, but if i were to givr in to a goverment agencies request to view the data, i would be violating my word to keep the data between myself and my friend. As for the assumption that a person practicing reasonable securing of their personal data is, somehow, guilty by default is quite flawed. I suppose a person who sends snail mail in an envelope instead of a post card is also guilty by default.
2 Richard // May 30, 2006 at 12:07 am
Although I agree that our bill of rights may promise more protections than uk citizens may enjoy, I think the ‘war on terror’ is slowly but surely eroding even these protections because most citizens seem not to care.
As for the rest of your points, I agree with you 100%. Thanks for sharing! :-)
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