Markos Moulitsas: We must protect privacy

In September, lock-picking and security enthusiasts posted CAD files of the Transportation Security Administration’s master key, able to open all TSA-approved luggage locks. With those files, anyone with a 3D printer literally has a key to every piece of luggage running through our nation’s airports. 

In other words, when you give the government a key to your valuables, it won’t be long before someone else has a copy. 

{mosads}This is why so much is at stake in the security showdown between Apple and the Obama administration. Ostensibly, the Department of Justice and the FBI simply want Apple to provide keys to unlock the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists who murdered 14 and wounded another 22 in December. Apple contends that it cannot do so without compromising the security of every iPhone. Even if you aren’t worried about the government snooping into your business (“I have nothing to hide!”), everyone should be worried about hackers gaining access to what’s stored on their devices.

It would certainly be terrible if a thief used a hacked key to get into luggage, but that’s nothing compared to the riches contained in a modern cellphone: bank accounts, credit card numbers, digital signatures, sensitive communications, physical location, even access to cars and properties. Our lives are increasingly digitized, and the smartphone pulls it all together, offering unparalleled convenience. 

That is why Apple and other device makers have focused so heavily on security — without serious encryption, we are at the mercy of hackers. In fact, absolute security is so important now that even Apple has refused to give itself such keys, aware that the second a key exists somewhere, the potential for misuse is unacceptably large. 

Enter the government, clearly frustrated at its inability to peer inside modern devices. 

Last November, the Manhattan district attorney’s office reported it had been unable to execute 111 search warrants because of locked iPhones. The FBI repeatedly issues dire warnings that include both “terrorism” and “child pornography.” The issue is of such monumental importance to the government that President Obama himself has weighed in. 

“If it was technologically possible to make an impenetrable device where there’s no door at all, then how do we apprehend the child pornographer? How do we disrupt a terrorist plot? How do we even do a simple thing like tax enforcement?” he asked at an appearance at the South by Southwest tech conference. “We can’t fetishize our phones above every other value. The dangers are real.”

The construction of an unbreakable device is already real, which is why the government’s new tactic is to try and force (or shame) Apple into creating an entirely new version of iOS that includes a government back door — to retreat from a device that protects user information into one that opens up the possibility of malicious intrusion. This is not a matter of “fetishizing our phones” but of protecting our financial and personal security from those who would violate it. As Apple CEO Tim Cook said, “Terrorists will encrypt. They know what to do. If we don’t encrypt, the people we affect are the good people. They are the 99.999 percent of people who are good.” 

Aside from very real and salient questions about government overreach on security matters fueled by Edward Snowden’s revelations, the fact is, there can never be a magic key that grants the government — and only the government — access to our most closely guarded personal information. 

Moulitsas is the founder and publisher of Daily Kos.