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A change in law is infinitely more difficult to achieve… | blogjou

Edward Snowden

Permanent Record

p. 329
13 Nov 2019

A change in law is infinitely more difficult to achieve...


A change in law is infinitely more difficult to achieve than a change in technological standard, and as long as legal innovation lags behind technological innovation institutions will seek to abuse this disparity in the furtherance of their interests. It falls to independent, open-source hardware and software developers to close that gap by providing the vital civil liberties protections that the law may be unable, or unwilling, to guarantee.

In my current situation, I’m constantly reminded that the law is country-specific, whereas technology is not. Every nation has its own legal code but the same computer code. Technology crosses borders and carries almost every passport. As the years go by, it has become increasingly apparent to me that legislatively reforming the surveillancce regime of the country of my birth won’n necessarily help a journalist or dissident in the country of my exile, but an encrypted smartphone might.