The Stances of Major Political Candidates on Digital Privacy

We live in a time where privacy in the digital space is more important than ever. Not only is it unfortunately all too common to read about yet another massive data breach that has struck one of the largest corporations on the planet, it isn’t just big businesses that have to worry about their information being exposed. Personal users are at risk, too – as evidenced by the iCloud hacking scandal that struck many notable celebrities in the fall of 2014.

With a topic as important as this one, it’s really no surprise that the concept of digital privacy in general is turning into a hot button issue ahead of the upcoming presidential election of 2016. The stances of major political candidates on digital privacy, however, shows that we still have a long way to go towards staying protected in the virtual realm.

Hillary Clinton

Democratic front runner Hillary Clinton has talked a great deal about digital privacy, specifically when it comes to encryption. Encryption, be it at the operating system level or at the software level via custom app development, is still one of the best lines of defense that users have against hackers and other people with malicious intentions that wish to do them harm.

Clinton’s stance on encryption, however, leaves a lot to be desired to say the least. She has repeatedly called on Silicon Valley to put an end to the concept of “end-to-end encryption,” which is commonly employed on devices like iPhones. Under this type of situation, even Apple would be unable to access the personal data of users – even in the face of a government subpoena. This is done in an effort to keep people as safe as possible, but Clinton has argued that the government should always have a backdoor into the digital lives of people all over the world. Opponents have argued that this completely undermines the idea and effectiveness of encryption in general and that if these backdoors exist, encryption may as well not exist at all because the likelihood of them being abused is too high.

Donald Trump

Current Republican front runner Donald Trump has also said controversial things when it comes to digital privacy, but not necessarily in the same way that Clinton has. While Trump has also shown a disrespect for the very nature of encryption, his comments also show a gross misunderstanding of the way the Internet works in general.

Trump has repeatedly said that he wants to “close off” certain areas of the Internet to help prevent enemies like ISIS from using it, as if such a thing were actually possible. At the same time, he has said that the United States government should have unfettered access to the personal data of these users in an attempt to learn as much about ISIS as possible, though exactly how he plans to accomplish this remains to be seen.

Bernie Sanders

Democratic underdog Bernie Sanders hasn’t devoted as much time to the concept of digital privacy as his opponents – yet – though he does have the strongest stance as far as things like encryption are concerned. In addition to the fact that he voted against the Patriot Act, Sanders has repeatedly gone on record as saying that he worries about creating an Orwellian society in the United States. Though he has not specifically said that he opposes government access to encrypted data via backdoors like his opponents have supported, his comments would lead any rational person to believe that this is very much the case with the Senator.

Ted Cruz

With so much of Ted Cruz’ campaign being built around a general distrust of the government in general, it should come as no surprise that he actually supports encrypted data to a much larger degree than many of his rivals. This support, however, comes with a pretty big catch – many worry that he is simply not educated enough to make the right decisions in this regard. He admitted to a crowd at a recent campaign event that he didn’t know what CISA was, for example. CISA is perhaps the single most controversial Internet privacy related bill ever created and could potentially allow the government to intercept data without the need for going through the normal warrant process.

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