Saturday, March 12, 2016

Will it be good for us to have no rights at all?

On 2 December 14 people were shot to death and 22 seriously injured in a shooting in San Bernadino, in the US, by a couple of Pakistani origin. The police found an iPhone 5C belonging to one of the shooters, Syed Rizwan Farook, which has advanced security features. The FBI asked Apple to create a software which will bypass the security feature so that they can try millions of passwords to break into its contents. Apple CEO, Tim Cook resisted the FBI demand, saying that it will endanger the security of millions of people who use Apple devices, not just phones. A magistrate ordered Apple to comply with the FBI demand but Apple has appealed the decision and says it intends to fight to the Supreme Court.Whenever any government takes away our rights it is presented as a service which will be good for the people. Like our government, which tagged the Aadhar Bill to the budget as a money bill to avoid any discussion in the Rajya Sabha. This sinister act forces every citizen to provide prints of all 10 fingers, iris scans and photographs in chilling reminder of George Orwell's 1984, where Big Brother controls all information. The government says that it will enable it to pay subsidies directly into bank accounts of the poor, eliminating theft, but it is completely silent on why it is spending billions of rupees collecting particulars of the middle class who do not receive any subsidies. Similarly the government wants to eliminate cash transactions, ostensibly to eliminate black money. How pious is that? There is no discussion on how the government will be able to track movements of whoever they want simply by finding out where they have used their debit or credit cards. Denmark has already gone largely cashless, which has allowed its government to slash interest rate to negative which means that people are charged if they save money in banks. This is a financial assault on people because they cannot avoid the charge by keeping their savings in the form of cash. The real intention of the government is to increase tax collections by tracking every transaction but if every plumber, electrician or mason is forced to pay tax on income over Rs 250,000 a year there will be an increase in poverty. Sadly, while there is debate about government diktat in other countries there is none in India because politicians know that they can win elections by distributing handouts. Meanwhile, the FBI has admitted that it wants Apple to unlock other phones as well and is using the All Writs Act of 1789 to get its way. If the FBI wins there will be 2 consequences. One, Apple is already working on an encryption software which even its own engineers will not be able to break and two, other governments will also demand the 'backdoor' key. In the end the US may have to share control of the internet with other countries, like China. Is that what it wants?

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