Public applauded last month when Stanford investigators exposed the widespread sharing of child porn on Instagram. Had the same Stanford researchers focused more on censoring child porn than on censoring disfavored political views, we would all be better off.
But that successful investigation now appears to be part of an international effort to justify the invasion of our privacy. The British Parliament may soon pass legislation that would allow the police and military the right to read your private, encrypted text messages. And Public’s readers will recall our scoop that eBay billionaire Pierre Omidyar, and his grantees, are also demanding the right to read your texts.
It all might seem like a trivial issue having nothing to do with the broader crackdown on free speech globally.
But the demand by militaries and intelligence agencies around the world to read our private messages is one of Public’s most alarming discoveries of the last six months.
A UK television exchange yesterday between a British television host, Cathy Newman, and a Member of Parliament, Damien Collins, shows why.
It opened with Newman and Collins grilling the American president of a private, encrypted text messaging corporation, Signal, over why she’s not doing more to stop child pornography.
“What do you do if there are child abuse images being shared on Signal?” demanded Cathy Newman of Channel 4 News.
They were debating legislation, sponsored by Collins, that would allow the government to break encryption in order to stop child pornography.”
“This gets down to the brass tacks and the rules of mathematics, the rules of physics,” said Signal’s President, Meredith Whittaker. “There is either encryption that protects everyone —”
“But there's child abuse images that could be shared on your platform that you wouldn't know about!” said Newman. “Or you would know about it, but you won't tell law enforcement.”
“Encryption either protects people or it doesn't,” explained Whittaker. “What's being proposed in this bill… is a mechanism that would allow the evisceration of privacy, safety, and encryption.”
Collins, who is sponsoring the legislation that would allow the police to read private text messages, jumped in.
“I think, Cathy, your question is a really important one,” he said in his low and calm voice. “I think people need to know, and the regulators will have the right to ask, these questions.
Then, turning to Whittaker, Collins said, “You don't allow people to use Signal to break the law. So how do you enforce that? What do you do? How do you enforce your own terms of service.”
Building off the work of his contemporaries at Stanford, Collins had deftly taken the offense. The problem was corporations like Signal not letting the police break encryption. The subtext was clear: wasn’t Signal President Whittacker just covering for child abusers?
“How do you do it?” he demanded. “Do you just take the police's word for it or — “
“Do you wanna shadow me at work for a week?” said Whittaker, defensively.
“No,” said Collins, “I just —”
“— Is that what you're asking?” she asked
“What I'm saying is,” he said, “how do you do it? You say you take action, but how?”
“It depends on the situation,” she said. “And we don't discuss confidential encounters with law enforcement.”
“Do you investigate the account,” Collins pressed. “The user's account?
“Absolutely,” she said, “when warranted. But we're not going into those details.”
At this point, Whittaker broke away from the box Collins had tried to trap her in. She explained why what Collins was proposing was a fundamental attack on the rights that humans have held sacred for thousands of years.
He Knows It’s Wrong. Just Look At Him.
