"While the President touts finding middle ground, he leads the DOJ to believe that there must be some concession that can be made by technologists."
I agree with this 100%. He's one of those people that think every problem can be solved through force of will, intelligence, and civility - so he's constantly making forceful declarations about how we should get all of the smartest people together, put them in a room, and have them calculate exactly how we can have our cake and eat it too.
The problem is that he thinks that you get the smartest people by selecting the most civil members of each belligerent faction. To him, people who understand encryption constitute one faction, because they all have the same opinion, and with that he guarantees that the smartest people are going to be a minority in that room. If Silicon Valley businessmen, the FBI, NSA, DEA, and anti-Islamic hawks are also separate factions, he can set up a situation where 99/100 people in the room are talking about what should be done, and only one has any understanding of how it works or the capability of implementing it. 90% of the remainder are quoted anonymously in the NYT saying "I think the ultimate solution will land somewhere in the middle."
I agree with this 100%. He's one of those people that think every problem can be solved through force of will, intelligence, and civility - so he's constantly making forceful declarations about how we should get all of the smartest people together, put them in a room, and have them calculate exactly how we can have our cake and eat it too.
The problem is that he thinks that you get the smartest people by selecting the most civil members of each belligerent faction. To him, people who understand encryption constitute one faction, because they all have the same opinion, and with that he guarantees that the smartest people are going to be a minority in that room. If Silicon Valley businessmen, the FBI, NSA, DEA, and anti-Islamic hawks are also separate factions, he can set up a situation where 99/100 people in the room are talking about what should be done, and only one has any understanding of how it works or the capability of implementing it. 90% of the remainder are quoted anonymously in the NYT saying "I think the ultimate solution will land somewhere in the middle."