Obama Should Have Been Publicly Ridiculed During the White House’s Cybersecurity Summit at Stanford [+video]

Photo Credit: APBy Mary Theroux. President Obama held a much-publicized White House Summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection at Stanford last Friday, culminating with his signing onstage a new executive order calling for “collaboration” between government and technology companies to fight cyber crime.

Tech executives from Google, Yahoo, and Facebook to their credit declined invitations to attend, while Apple CEO Tim Cook took the stage to advocate for privacy rights.

A far cry from days past when President Obama used Silicon Valley as an ATM machine to refill his campaign coffers. Regardless of how much Obama’s now being a lame duck may account for the change, we can but hope this shift in sentiment in the Valley remains permanent.

The audience attending the summit apparently saw no irony in Mr. Obama’s declaration that, “When people go online, they shouldn’t have to forfeit the basic privacy we’re assured as Americans.”

A noble sentiment, agreed, but Mr. Obama bears much of the responsibility for this forfeiture himself, having authorized the government programs under which these basic rights are violated—not once, but repeatedly, including annual re-authorizations of the NDAA, and multiple other programs that result in the wholesale capture and indefinite storage of every detail of every innocent American’s life. Every email, phone call, everyone’s location at any given time, every internet transaction, online search, etc.: you name it, Mr. Obama’s administration is purposely depriving every American of privacy rights every minute of every day—with tech and telecom companies duly “collaborating.” (Read more about the cybersecurity summit HERE)

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Apple CEO Tim Cook Defends Privacy at Cybersecurity Summit

By Jeff Gammet. Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke at last Friday’s cybersecurity summit where he made a strong push to protect user privacy instead of handing over access to our digital worlds to the government. The event was orchestrated by the White House as a way to bring together tech industry leaders, academic experts, and government leaders to find a common ground for dealing with law enforcement and national security desires for easy access to our personal data.

No other big tech company CEOs were willing to take the stage and share their thoughts, but Mr. Cook didn’t hesitate. He said, “Everyone has a right to privacy and security,” making it clear he does not support the idea of giving government agencies back doors into our personal data.

Instead of creating new security threats that governments and hackers alike could exploit, Mr. Cook called for strong privacy and security measures to protect technology users. He said,

If those of us in positions of responsibility fail to do everything in our power to protect the right of privacy, we risk something far more valuable than money—we risk our way of life. Fortunately, technology gives us the tools to avoid these risks, and it’s my sincere hope that by using them and by working together, we will.

Apple has already taken steps to keep its customer’s data safe from prying eyes by refusing to store our personal information in a way it can decipher. Text-based chats are encrypted, too, and Apple doesn’t have the software keys needed to read their contents—those are held only by the conversation participants. (Read more from this story HERE)

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