Encryption is a Human Rights issue: Your Privacy and Pree Speech Depend on It

Tags: 2010s Human Rights

Authors: Kalia, Amul

Published: December 2016

URL: https://www.learnliberty.org/blog/encryption-is-a-human-rights-issue-your-privacy-and-free-speech-depend-on-it/

Abstract: In December of 2016, Amul Kalia, a staff member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, wrote, emphasizing the importance of encryption, through the lens of American history. Kalia highlighted the less technologically advanced uses of encrypted communications implored by the Founding Fathers of the United States (Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and James Madison), such as coded messaging and ciphers, to argue that encryption is “crucial to a free society.” Consistent with many pro-encryption advocates, Kalia rejected the U.S. government proposals to build “backdoors” into encryption programs, labeling them “nonstarters” that are both anti-democratic and more specifically, inconsistent with the First Amendment. Kalia also expanded his discussion beyond the United States, to assert that “encryption is a global human rights issue,” as it permits people to have privacy and freely express themselves.