DOJ opposes smartphone encryption — by saying it will kill your kids
In a major loss for reasonable discourse about important issues, the Department of Justice has argued that people should not want encrypted smartphones because they could kill our children. The DOJ's logic is that kidnappers will procure these more secure phones and police, unable to break into the criminal's device, will not be able to save the missing child.
Executives from Apple, whose new iPhones are the primary source of DOJ dismay, fired back by calling the government's rhetoric inflammatory. And tech security experts have noted that, with a warrant, law enforcement will still be able to get crucial data like geolocation from cell phone carriers.
Still, the iPhone in question is likely to be a headache for domestic surveillance agencies like the NSA, which will have to work harder to access iPhone 6 users' content.
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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