Mike Nudelman
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) and Apple both seem to understand the marketplace.
Apple is betting bipartisan concern about intrusive government snooping will help sell phones, and Paul is creating a pretty impressive presidential campaign based on the same play.
Apple and Google have rolled out new default encryption technologies on their latest phones that even the companies would not be able to unlock. This means the companies would not be able to comply with court orders to turn copies of their customer's communications over to law enforcement. In what seems to be a coordinated counter, FBI Director James Comey and NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton fired back about the challenge this would pose to the legitimate needs of law enforcement.
Comey got the contours of the debate just right.
He's clearly aware of the massive public backlash against government surveillance following the disclosures leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden last summer. Comey asked whether the "post-Snowden pendulum … has swung too far" and correctly pointed out Congress would ultimately have to answer that question.
In a way that it seems only technology issues can, this fight has created new age political coalitions that might give a hint to who the GOP chooses to be its candidate in 2016.
Very little is left of the traditional alignments that used to pass laws in Washington. The coalition of farm-state and big-city members who used to join forces for agricultural subsidies and mass transit has withered as both interests have come under attack by Tea Party opponents. Appropriation-driven coalitions like the one that pushed the transportation bill have been crushed under the same political weight. Even what was arguably the most powerful cross-party coalition — the one that supported the Defense spending that touched so many districts — has been upended in recent years by the departure of Republican votes that won't back using money on, well, anything.
Amid this changing landscape, technology battles have opened up the door to two new possibilities that are intriguing.
One is the chance that, since these issues are by definition new and not really burdened by being about spending money or supporting Obama, they it may actually get us that rarest of Washington accomplishments — a law.
There has been considerable turnover in Congress. At the beginning of this session nearly 40% of members had between zero and eight years of service. These newer (but not necessarily younger) members of Congress don't need to rely on their more senior colleagues to help them unpack issues like Net Neutrality, content piracy, or digital privacy.