Attendants of this year’s RSA Conference—an event drawing thousands of digital security professionals, cryptographers, engineers, as well as tech companies and intelligence agencies looking to recruit—expressed skepticism of President Trump’s commitment to privacy.
Silicon Valley’s response to President Donald Trump has been famously chilly. Tech leaders are organizing political opposition and tech workers are pledging to resist surveillance efforts and even taking to the streets to protest the new administration. But less has been written about the digital security community’s reaction to Trump’s election.
In his role as president, Donald Trump is at the helm of the world’s most powerful digital surveillance apparatus, which can access to the private lives of millions of people with the touch of a button (and, depending on the circumstances, a nod from the FISA Court). Can we trust President Trump to wield his authority ethically and thoughtfully, given his disturbing statements on security issues during the election?
We wanted to give security professionals—who dedicate their lives to rooting out digital security threats—a chance to weigh in on the issue. To gather some of their perspectives, we sent reporter David Spark to this year’s RSA Conference to ask attendees what they think the Trump administration will do protect their digital privacy. Watch and see for yourself how some members of the security world feel about the incoming president’s position on protecting private data:
Are you an engineer or security professional who would like to add to the conversation? We’d love to hear how you respond to this question. Create a quick video on your phone, write a blog post, or post on social media, then share it on Twitter with the hashtag #TrumponPrivacy.
Special thanks to David Spark (@dspark) and Spark Media Solutions for their support and production of this video. The background music heard at the end—the song Hydrated—is licensed CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 by Kronstudios. EFF original work (i.e., every thing but the background music heard at the end) is licensed CC BY 4.0.
