Apple -- FBI, Win -- Win. This Decision Matters Asks: Why Not?
Advocacy group This Decision Matters proposes a win-win solution to the Apple-FBI, Privacy vs. Security Conundrum, launches petition to garner support
SAN FRANCISCO, March 8, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The technical ability to automate industry and government compliance with Congressionally legislated policies developed to balance 21st century law enforcement priorities with civil liberties, already exists. The question is whether the political will exists in Congress.
This Decision Matters, a group of California-based companies, is pursuing a collaborative conversation in conjunction with Congress that examines how the current public policy vacuum the FBI is attempting to fill with the 1789 All Writs Act can, instead, be filled with 21st century public policy that does not place a major American industry, economic engine, and innovative core competency in serious jeopardy.
Citizens, employees and leaders of other information technology companies who share a similar view are invited by This Decision Matters to add their signatures to the petition asking that Congress, not an Executive Branch agency, lead the debate to define the appropriate balance between society's legitimate interests in effective law enforcement and National security, and individual citizens' and companies' interests in preserving their Constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties and privacy from over-zealous intrusion by unelected government bureaucrats.
This conversation and the resulting solutions should not pit National security and law enforcement against privacy and civil liberties. It should focus on examining multiple solutions that actually enhance intelligence community and law enforcement capabilities while simultaneously strengthening citizen civil liberties and privacy protections.
"In the San Bernardino case," says Mitch Ahlenius, organizer of This Decision Matters, "the result would be that every American citizen would know, and be able to personally verify, that their Congress was, in fact, actively and continuously assuring each of them that their personal liberties, personal devices, personal data, and personal lives were free from unwarranted government or industry surveillance."
This Decision Matters knows, however, that technical solutions alone cannot solve the problem. They need to be deployed in concert with appropriate public information sharing policies and contracts that smart software can read and act on as easily as smart software reads and acts on Web pages.
This necessitates a public discussion between Citizens, their representatives in Congress, and information technology companies to construct win-win-win, 21st century solutions, as opposed to the current zero-sum, all-or-nothing, adversarial rhetoric that is currently being volleyed around.
We are not absent of a greater alternative. With so much at stake, our group wanted to give people a bigger platform to voice their solutions.
Media contact:
Mitch Ahlenius
+1 719-649-6680
Video - http://youtu.be/abM6DEJJ6vc
SOURCE thisdecisionmatters.com
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