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Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

— Benjamin Franklin

… it is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state.

— Bruce Schneier

… in a democracy, it is possible for bad people to occasionally get elected – sometimes very bad people. Normally, a well-functioning democracy has ways to remove these people from power. But the wrong technology infrastructure could allow such a future government to watch every move anyone makes to oppose it. It could very well be the last government we ever elect.

— Phillip Zimmermann

“Those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear” you claim, until the day you wake up to discover that the government has outlawed you because of your politics, religion, lifestyle, union, protest group, hobby, illness, friends, relatives, ancestors, whatever, and that it is by then much too late to protest. Who can tell what some future government might deem unacceptable?

Susan Stepney

Professor of Computer Science, University of York, UK

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