Government can't let smartphones be 'black boxes,' Obama says

You could review the segment on encryption starting at the 1:24 mark and/or read 95% of President Obama's views on encryption in Patently Apple's transcript that is presented below for your convenience.

Now, seven years later, Obama said technology is more important to the USA government than ever before.

The question we have to ask is if technologically it is possible to make an impenetrable device or system where the encryption is so strong there's no key, there's no door, at all.

The president said that while there must be some concessions to personal privacy (he cited airport security as one such existing concession) he said he was "way on the civil liberties side" of the debate.

"Now technology is evolving so rapidly, that new questions are being asked, and I am of the view that there are very real reasons why we want to make sure that government can not just willy-nilly get into everybody's iPhone's or smartphones that are full of very personal information and very personal data".

Apple and the federal government are embroiled in a legal fight over Apple's refusal to help the FBI access an iPhone used in the San Bernardino terrorist attack.

President Barack Obama will aim to encourage civic engagement and use of technology to solve problems, like helping needy families get diapers for their children, when he appears at a decades-old tech festival in Texas.

Obama's appearance Friday at South by Southwest Interactive will be the first by a sitting USA president. "If your argument is strong encryption no matter what, we can and should create black boxes, that I think does not strike the kind of balance that we have lived with for 200, 300 years, and it's fetishizing our phones above every other value".

The FBI has been unable on its own to unlock the phone and wants Apple to create a programme specifically for that phone to help the bureau get to the data on it.

It's been a tough 24 hours for Apple's ongoing PR effort to convince the American public that denying the government access to iPhones isn't irresponsible or anti-American, but rather pro-consumer. He also said he couldn't discuss specifics.

But he called on technologists to help tackle big problems in new ways. The conversation focused on technology to increase political participation, launching a broadside at GOP leaders in Texas - the state with the nation's worst voter turnout and whose cumbersome election laws are the subject of litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court. "To say to all of you, as I'm about to leave office, how can we start coming up with new platforms, new ideas and new approaches across disciplines and across skill sets".

He acknowledged skepticism about the government in the wake of the revelations about USA surveillance programs by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

Before taking in the tech festival, Obama stopped at Torchy's Tacos in Austin, where he spent $18.40 on tacos and burritos for himself and members of his staff. Obama also slipped a $20 bill into the tip jar.

Clinton and Sanders spar in Florida debatePolls ahead of the Florida primary have Clinton leading with an average of 60 percent support compared with Sanders' 31 percent. After her 66-point victory Tuesday in Mississippi, Clinton has won 760 pledged delegates, to Sanders' 546.

Source: Government can't let smartphones be 'black boxes,' Obama says