That was my thought, too. That assertion is a re-working of the sentiment that only people who have done something wrong have something to hide, and it's a dangerous one.

Let's be honest, improved encryption is going to restrain the government's ability to enforce the law. Beyond pedophiles, there are definitely going to be cases where innocent people get hurt as a result.

I'm okay with that. The whole idea of our government and society is that the mass of law-abiding and decent people are stronger than the criminal and malicious minority. People are by and large responsible, which is why they can and should govern themselves. Limiting the government's ability to snoop and intrude on citizens is a crucial check on the very real (if long-term) threat of government over-reach.

But let's not kid ourselves that our privacy, and its constraints on the government, is without consequences.

The government currently kills people as part of exercising its policing powers, which most people agree are overly aggressively used.

If this lowers that rate, it's possible that the difference in beatings, shootings, and home invasions will be basically even, because there isn't a large portion of the criminal element which is waiting for better encrypted cellphones to do these things (hint: other things about cellphones make these problematic, and most depend on other evidence anyway when prosecuted), where there is a reason to think that police being restrained in using illegal investigation methods will decrease the rate at which police use other illegal investigation methods.

> there are definitely going to be cases where innocent people get hurt as a result

That's only true in a vacuum. Can you think of a case that has no other factors than an encrypted file, where someone, as a result, "got hurt?"

Please provide the guesstimates, or rework the following formula for me:

X = how well the government is currently enforcing the law Y = amount of innocent people getting hurt K = role of encryption in all this

Y = X × K

What would you say K is? Is it big enough to be talking about it?

People that are OK with innocent people getting hurt never seen to realize that this usually guarantees that criminals get away with their crimes by the wrong person being convicted. Is that also something you are OK with?

It's a hard step in logic to go from criminals getting off due to insufficient evidence from encrypted iPhones, to the wrong person being convicted.

Maybe he is trying to explain why so many people in his department have recently purchased Apple phones. Latent criminal tendencies are the only possible explanation.