Just saw these letters on a tour at the Ford Rouge Factory, where they build F-150's, and where Ford got its start. They're relevant to the current flim-flam we're hearing from people who think we need to mandate backdoors to encryption. Their argument is basically: criminals use encryption, therefore we need to ban/break encryption.
But criminals use lots of things that we don't ban or cripple. In this case, cars. These are letters from notorious criminals praising how well Ford's cars enabled them to be criminal. Despite that, we don't ban cars, or require them to have kill-switches that the police can activate, or require them to have recording devices that the police can access, or anything else. We criminalize what criminals do, not the tools they use.
Encryption protects us. Just because it also protects criminals doesn't mean we should make everyone less safe just to catch a few criminals.
But criminals use lots of things that we don't ban or cripple. In this case, cars. These are letters from notorious criminals praising how well Ford's cars enabled them to be criminal. Despite that, we don't ban cars, or require them to have kill-switches that the police can activate, or require them to have recording devices that the police can access, or anything else. We criminalize what criminals do, not the tools they use.
Encryption protects us. Just because it also protects criminals doesn't mean we should make everyone less safe just to catch a few criminals.
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