I'd rather have an infosec-competent government than one that's an open book to foreign adversaries. The last few months have been embarrassing. We had one top official run their own email server out of a private basement in suburban New York, unsecured and unmonitored. We had John Podesta, seventy years old, fall for a Russian phishing scheme that involved downloading an executable email attachment, presumably clicking thru the warning and running it anyway.
In the wake of that, political officials may have been scared into caring about infosec. We may be winning the fight against apathy and incompetence -- but we are still losing the fight against hypocrisy.
--
Both the current and previous administrations are full of powerful people who want privacy and security for themselves, while denying the same to the citizens they serve.
The previous administration promised, in 2008, to be the most transparent ever. It proceeded to have an abysmal record with respect to whistleblower prosecution, government transparency, and FOIA obstruction. The new administration looks likely to be even worse.
Laws like the Snoopers Charter, recently passed in the UK, cast an ominous shadow over the whole American security profession. Thoroughly nontechnical old men run our government. We must convince them and the public that strong encryption with no backdoors is critical both for national security and for the preservation of our First Amendment rights.
Call your senators and call your representative. Demand better.