This discussion should never be framed as a choice between legal solutions and technical solutions. They are complementary.
The legal approach is correct and easy for the public to understand. Explained correctly it is also popular. The government used to have to do things like get a warrant and investigate specific crimes. They couldn't listen to everyone's phone conversations all the time and they shouldn't be able to do this on the Internet either. Digital dragnets are illegal and unconstitutional.
The technical approach is also correct. If you're building something that makes it harder for criminals inside the government to commit more crimes, you're doing work that is profound and in the best interests of society. Anyone with passion and technical skill can participate in this work. It's the right thing to do.
Both efforts help each other. Keep the government in line and accountable to the people. Make it harder for people inside the government to do the wrong thing. All approaches deserve support and should leverage each other's work. They should cooperate with law-abiding, constitutionally empowered government authorities as well. There are good guys in the government too.
Technical and legal solutions are not complementary, they're relatively unrelated. Legal rules addressing behavior are about what we "should" do. Technical rules are about what we "can" do. Technology is about implementation and enforcement, law is about what we consider to be the correct result.
But the main place where law and tech come together is enforcement. For law to work at all, it has to be enforced relatively evenly. Technology may make a law's enforcement impossible or easy, but it does not make it more or less "right" in the abstract.
And legal is about what recourse we can seek afterwards, when we understand we've messed up the implementation and security had failed.
Relying on legal protections alone is absurd. Relying on technology without any legal recourse for failures maybe somewhat less so, but still not suitable for this "real" world we live in. Not without reconsidering our approaches and attitudes to way too many things.
> And legal is about what recourse we can seek afterwards, when we understand we've messed up the implementation and security had failed.
Not at all. Legal rules are about what we "should" do, what's right and what's wrong. However, legal rules need to be enforced to be effective. If you create a legal rule that's impossible to enforce and everyone flouts it, not only does your rule not get enforced, but it also creates doubt in the entire legal system.
So legal rules ought to consult with what's possible and impossible, but they should not be dictated by them.
The legal approach is correct and easy for the public to understand. Explained correctly it is also popular. The government used to have to do things like get a warrant and investigate specific crimes. They couldn't listen to everyone's phone conversations all the time and they shouldn't be able to do this on the Internet either. Digital dragnets are illegal and unconstitutional.
The technical approach is also correct. If you're building something that makes it harder for criminals inside the government to commit more crimes, you're doing work that is profound and in the best interests of society. Anyone with passion and technical skill can participate in this work. It's the right thing to do.
Both efforts help each other. Keep the government in line and accountable to the people. Make it harder for people inside the government to do the wrong thing. All approaches deserve support and should leverage each other's work. They should cooperate with law-abiding, constitutionally empowered government authorities as well. There are good guys in the government too.