A recent story in the New York Times states that India has threatened to block all Blackberry traffic in the country unless Blackberry's parent company, Research in Motion (R.I.M.), allows the Indian government to intercept the encrypted communications of Blackberry users. For now, R.I.M. is resisting, but it seems hard to believe that they will not succumb to the fear of losing the business of the better part of the Indian subcontinent.

A friend of mine is fond of remarking that, "if you allow the fox to guard the hen house, you should not be surprised when he dines on chicken." Laudable as R.I.M.'s encryption scheme is, it has the fundamental flaw that it is dependent on the good will of the company. R.I.M.'s intentions may be good, but what are its users to do when the heavy hand of the Indian — or the Chinese, or the American — government forces them to disgorge their users' private communications. And as the miserable history of our own Fourth Amendment illustrates, government cannot be depended upon to respect citizens' privacy rights.

Because individuals cannot rely solely on government or business to protect them, they can and should seize control of their own destiny. As the example of WikiLeaks dramatically illustrates, individuals have access on their own to free, strong encryption without depending on government or business. If individuals would only avail themselves of the encryption currently freely available, we would all be a little more free from the ever more intrusive eye of Big Brother.

Postscript: I have previously posted instructions for setting up encryption on home computers.