
Hillary Clinton Joins the 'Make Silicon Valley Break Encryption' Bandwagon - adrianmacneil
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151119/18032932868/hillary-clinton-joins-make-silicon-valley-break-encryption-bandwagon.shtml
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jrcii
It's disturbing that advocating against encryption may become the latest
device for bolstering the perception of a candidate as being tough on crime or
terrorism. The general public's poor grasp of encryption makes the political
cost of the position small.

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aburan28
I find it comical that they even think they can put the genie back into the
bottle

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pdkl95
Never assume that the people attacking you are doing so because they are
_stupid_. Some people may truly misunderstand encryption, it is extremely
unlikely that Clinton, McCain, the the directors of several TLAs actually
believe they can re-bottle the encryption genie.

Stopping encryption is obviously not the goal.

They may want to put a leash on the power that Silicon Valley has been gaining
over the last few decades. Asking for something impossible is a good way to
set someone up to fail, especially when the you can tie it to various recent
tragedies with the usual emotion-driven rhetoric.

Maybe the goal is just to scare people away from encryption by associating it
with terrorists or the fear of arrest for aiding-and-abetting[1].

What about banking and other business uses of encryption? Nobody ever said the
government was internally consistent; selective enforcement is a powerful
tool. I'm sure those uses will continue to be ignored.

[1] the disgusting comments about hanging Snowden (
[http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/260817-ex-cia-
di...](http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/260817-ex-cia-director-
snowden-should-be-hanged-for-paris) ) could be interpreted as a veiled threat
to anyone that uses encryption

