The Latest Not-So-Subtle Threat to Tech Companies Using Encryption

This time the kneecap-breaker is Stewart Baker, former counsel general of the NSA and assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security (currently counsel with Steptoe & Johnson LLP).

Baker claims that Blackberry (AKA RIM) should blame its use of strong encryption for its poor market performance. Specifically:

He claimed that by encrypting user data Blackberry had limited its business in countries that demand oversight of communication data, such as India and the UAE and got a bad reception in China and Russia. “They restricted their own ability to sell. We have a tendency to think that once the cyberwar is won in the US that that is the end of it - but that is the easiest war to swim.”

Of course, Baker makes no mention of the iPhone snatching up corporate mobile market-share, or tiny changes in the phone market like, I dunno, the implementation of the Android OS. But who cares about little fish like that when the United Arab Emirates is at stake?

Baker's statements are not competent when viewed as economic analysis. It might seem like Baker is carrying water for the intelligence community, but maybe its as simple as having an atrophied thinking cap from a lifetime in "government service"?