We asked every member of Congress with a CS degree about the Apple/FBI battle

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15 points·netneutrohno··2 comments

I don't know why someone would believe that politicians with a CS degree would be any less of a politician. It's not that politicians without CS degrees can't comprehend nuanced arguments on security. It's just in their best interests to expand the power of the legislative body.

If they were approached under the guise of "we're here to ask all CS majors", then, like any good politician, they will tailor their answer to "it's a complex question, and I value security, but we all need to work together", which is really a non-answer.

I'm not even particularly sure why content expertise is relevant here. There are a lot of arguments both for AND against the FBI that demonstrate a poor understanding of the underlying science. But there are also strong arguments both for AND against the FBI that are backed by a strong understanding of the underlying science. Ultimately, the question at hand is social and political -- not technical.

That's why so many arguments technical people make in favor of Apple miss the point entirely -- they think that it's a technical problem, but it's actually not. In fact, I'm much more interested to hear the opinion of an ethicist or political historian or public policy expert than the opinion of a technical person.

> It's just in their best interests to expand the power of the legislative body.

That's also true of politicians who do have technial expertise. E.g. Herman Cain has a masters in CS.

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