This refers to the editorial, “Exercise in absurdity” (September 23). The Government has found a scape-goat and has blamed a junior official, a scientist, for the encryption policy fiasco. The Government said that the scientist failed to seek advice from his higher authority. This is bad.
The shrill outrage that the draft policy generated from individuals and experts exposed the half-baked and misguided effort that was the encryption policy.
Basic governance dictates that policy proposals be people-centric, but in this instance, the jackboots of the security agencies were too evident. Unless the Government demonstrates that its surveillance and storage systems are hacker-proof and it will not use these to target political opponents, its desire to harvest citizens’ and companies’ private data will face staunch opposition.