MIT's Technology Review had a good article by Tom Simonite that summarizes the standoff between the Government agencies and technology companies over encryption of communication and files. See this article.
The Government agencies claim that they need to be able to decrypt and monitor all of our phone calls, emails, texts, and computer files in order to "fight terrorism." The privacy advocates, and technology companies say that if our Government is given a "backdoor" into all communication encryption, other governments will ask for the same thing. Also then there would be nothing to stop "bad actors" from either stealing, or figuring out that same back door, and be able to interfere with all of our personal communications, banking, trade secrets etc.
Tom Simonite implies that he thinks that the issue will not be decided until we have a new president in office. He believes that Trump and Rubio would side with the Government, while Cruz and Sanders would side with the tech/privacy advocates. Hillary Clinton has a vague "in between" stance.
The Government agencies claim that if they had access to encrypted messages, calls, and files, they could prevent acts of terrorism. They say they are still having difficulty opening files related to the San Bernardino shootings. I'm very skeptical that they will be able to identify and prevent acts of terrorism before they occur. However I can see that it is useful after the fact to use when prosecuting criminals. The problem is to identify conversations related to planning a crime and separating it from all of the other general noise in the system.
I believe everyone should have access to the toughest encryption possible for our calls, texts, emails and computer & cloud files.
I believe everyone should have access to the toughest encryption possible for our calls, texts, emails and computer & cloud files.
