George Orwell's utopian novel "1984" is set in London, which has been renamed Airstrip One. Most people who read the book in high school might have come away with the idea that the "nation" of Oceania was limited only to the former UK. However, a more careful reading of the story will unveil that Oceania encompasses quite a bit of the globe, including what was once known as the United States.
By and large, Americans have grudgingly come to terms with the notion that Big Brother is watching our every move, conversation, and click. I used to live down the road from the National Security Agency complex in Utah. I could walk out onto the deck and see it in the distance, like the dark and hulking like the towers of Mordor, its great eye lurking deep inside. In fact, we are so used to it that at a seminar I attended, people were given gift bags containing handly little attachments for laptop screens to keep the cameras from spying on them.
The UK has been in free fall for some time. Between higher taxes, the spike in immigrant violence, and a host of other problems, residents there have more than enough to be going on with at the moment.
Anyone with a dissenting thought in the UK should expect a knock on their door from the local constabulary if they express that thought anywhere but within the confines of their own heads. When it comes to opposing abortion, people can and have gotten sideways with the cops for the thoughts within the confines of their own heads.
So it should come as no surprise that the UK government wants unfettered and clandestine access to encrypted iCloud accounts. But here is the proverbial kicker: the UK doesn't just want to snoop on its residents' accounts. It wants to be able to take a gander at everyone's encrypted accounts, no matter where they are. That includes yours if you have one.
Keep in mind that this is the same government that sends the cops to people's homes for social media posts. There is a reason C.S. Lewis portrayed Hell as a bureaucracy full of snoopers, informers, secret police, and backstabbers.
According to the Washington Post, security officials in the United Kingdom have demanded that Apple provide them with access to any encrypted data that someone uploads to the cloud. The Post writes:
The British government’s undisclosed order, issued last month, requires blanket capability to view fully encrypted material, not merely assistance in cracking a specific account, and has no known precedent in major democracies. Its application would mark a significant defeat for tech companies in their decades-long battle to avoid being wielded as government tools against their users, the people said, speaking under the condition of anonymity to discuss legally and politically sensitive issues.
Under the auspices of the U.K. Investigatory Powers Act of 2016, the UK's Home Secretary served Apple with a "technical capability notice" providing for a sweeping set of powers to gather evidence. It also allows the government to compel tech companies to comply. It is known as the "Snooper's Charter" and makes it illegal for companies to even reveal that the demand has been made.
Of course, Apple promised us it would never cave to such awful practices, ironically as far back as 1984.
Apple initially refused the request, which first surfaced during the Biden administration. It is likely to stop offering encrypted storage in the UK, which is fine as far as it goes. But the Post notes that the move will probably not mollify the people in the Home Secretary's office.
Notably, the Home Secretary's office would be free to pass whatever it finds along to the U.S., bypassing the laws we have in this country. This amounts to the UK asserting its authority over citizens of the United States. Heaven forbid that someone in the U.S. criticizes the tactics of the increasingly authoritarian United Kingdom, which seems bound and determined to destroy itself because it wants to be a good global citizen.
Even Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee, opposed the law, although he felt compelled to invoke a curse and epithet against Trump in the process. Wyden said, “Trump and American tech companies letting foreign governments secretly spy on Americans would be unconscionable and an unmitigated disaster for Americans’ privacy and our national security.” Well, give him points for trying.
Ostensibly, agencies like the FBI and the UK's home office want access to deal with problems such as terrorism, child exploitation, and sex drug trafficking, and one would be hard-pressed to find someone who does not want to stop these problems. That said, clear-headed Americans remember how Merrick Garland and his supporters at state and local levels defined justice. Britons understand that their government has no problem with sending the police to their doors for an unacceptable post or arresting them for having a pro-life thought near an abortion clinic.
The problem is not justice. Everyone wants justice. The problem is who defines justice and who that person is serving.
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