In recent months a fierce debate over encryption has been heating up in Washington and Silicon Valley. There are many complex, interrelated issues, both technical and political, but it essentially boils down to two sides: tech companies want to make it nearly impossible to break into the gadgets they produce, even for themselves, by giving users control over the keys, and government wants to be able to force companies to hand over the keys or weaken the locks.

Purely from a security standpoint, the tech companies’ desire makes sense. If you’re a serious lock-making company, you wouldn’t want to purposely leave open the possibility of breaking the lock if you knew how to stop it. But the political questions are more intractable. A government can always break a physical lock, with or without the keys, but the same cannot be said for “digital locks.” So should the government be able to compel private individuals and corporations to provide access? And, more importantly, will this be effective at addressing issues of crime and terrorism?

The three remaining presidential candidates roughly capture the wide spectrum of views on the topic. As usual, Hillary has waffled. She talks about the need for “dialogue” between the technology and law enforcement communities and about her vague hopes for a “Manhattan-like project” in which technologists will magically solve the issues at hand, in direct contradiction of what technical experts have been saying. The former Secretary of State is not known for her grasp of technology, and it shows here where she fails to make any concrete policy proposals for what is a political issue, not a technical one.

Meanwhile, The Donald is more open about his position than Hillary, but he appears to be no more informed than her. This makes it a bit difficult to discern exactly what he thinks about the topic, but he appears to favor maximizing the power of government to force companies to break their encryption. This is a pretty reasonable assumption to make based on his statements calling for a boycott of Apple for defying the Department of Justice, asking for Bill Gates’s help in “closing up” the Internet, and stating that those who talk about encryption enabling free speech are “foolish people.” However, Trump has a problem when even his most inane, conspiratorial supporters disagree and have a more nuanced understanding than him.

The last man standing is Bernie Sanders. In my previous article, I criticized his views on universal free college, arguing that while the idea is technically possible, even a basic understanding of economics suggests there are much smarter ways to make college accessible. Here, however, Bernie has shown that he has a more nuanced understanding of the issues at hand. But that isn’t saying much given the apparent ineptitude of his competition. While he too has waffled a bit, saying he’s for “both” Apple and the DOJ, he correctly put the onus on government rather than tech experts, to make a value judgement.

Overall, Bernie’s is the most honest approach. As Sussex Professor Andy Stirling has argued in Nature, policymakers often insist that scientific and technical experts provide them an answer in order to avoid taking responsibility. In fact, the policymaker is the one who should be making the value judgement to ensure democratic accountability, based on experts’ plural and conditional advice. Furthermore, while politicians are necessarily generalists and cannot reasonably be expected to understand the nuances of every issue, Bernie is notable for not having any obvious gaffes here.

That is not to say that Bernie is right, particularly because he hasn’t expressed a strong position on the issue one way or the other, but it does mean that he certainly comes off as the least foolish. The same cannot be said of The Donald or Hillary, both of whom would do well to gain at least a basic understanding of key issues before running their mouths off. The reality is that there is an inescapable trade-off that will have to be made by whoever is the next president regarding personal and national security. The question they will have to answer is how much of a cost in personal security is an increase in national security worth? Technical experts will be able to give options but will not be able to resolve it, so it will be up to our policymakers to do so.

Let us hope that they study up on the issues a bit more between now and the inauguration.

(AP photo)