| I 100% believe every anecdote you just presented. I'm sorry that those things happened, especially when unpunished. As you said, cops are just people. Most people are okay. Some are heros, some are monsters. Weeding out the monsters is notoriously difficult, especially when a profession like law enforcement has definite appeal to them. It also appeals to the heros. I can give anecdotes about friends who are cops that risked their lives to save strangers, even the bad guys. I know more than 1 cop who arrested a guy, and had the suspects family thank them for how they saved their life in the process. I can also bring up anecdotes about how people who were so passionate about security were also criminals hiding criminal deeds. I could assume, and assert, that since I've personally seen people use their phones' security to hide evidence of murder, and infant rape, that all people who care about their phones' security are the same. But that'd be a disservice. It'd be a disservice to those who legitimately care about security for legitimate reasons, because freedom is important, and fragile. It'd be a disservice to others who aren't sold on either side of the discussion. And it'd be a disservice to myself in that it makes me seem very narrow minded and narrow viewed. Its letting fear overcome observation. There are 700,000 cops in America alone. Undoubtedly some are unqualified garbage. Some are malicious monsters. Some are believe the ends justify the means. Some are paragons of truth and justice. Some aren't malicious, or dumb, but only care about their careers and are shortsighted with all else. We can't make sweeping statements either way, it does nothing to help. There have undoubtedly been cases of cops using rubber hose decryption. There have been warrants falsified intentionally and unintentionally. But cops wanting to be able to execute search warrants on phones isn't as simple as "We want more power, more control". There are countless legitimate cases of human trafficking, murder, and sadly worse. We, as a society, have to figure this stuff out. We have to find the balance between "Give us all your secrets" and "Do whatever you want without question". But we can't have this conversation to find the balance, until we admit that we are on a scale. |
So given the choice between giving the police more power and less power, I would much rather they have less power.