> On this issue, Biden was clearly on the wrong side of history (and some of the fundamental tenets upon which the US was founded).
Probably on the wrong side of history, but it's pure historical revisionism to say it opposed any principle the U.S. was founded upon. Common law courts in England had broad subpoena powers (just like modern U.S. courts). Moreover, investigators had unlimited access to private documents pursuant to a validly executed warrant. The founders never contemplated a "document the government could never get at." What they contemplated was a series of protections against the government's ability to get documents.
My thinking on the subject of Biden's failed attempt to require that the government be able to recover encrypted information is more akin to attempting to require that everyone leave a copy of their house keys with the local police station just in case they decide to get a warrant to search your house. That is conceptually identical to what Biden proposed, yet such an idea would be decidedly un-American and any politician that raised such an idea would be publicly skewered.
It's not "conceptually identical" at all. With some legal due process, the police force can violently breach the front door of your house if you refuse to let them in, and similarly open locked safes. Though this process may be expensive for them, it is not impossible. Cheap, widely available systems to provide provably impenetrable security against government intrusion is a relatively new phenomenon.
Probably on the wrong side of history, but it's pure historical revisionism to say it opposed any principle the U.S. was founded upon. Common law courts in England had broad subpoena powers (just like modern U.S. courts). Moreover, investigators had unlimited access to private documents pursuant to a validly executed warrant. The founders never contemplated a "document the government could never get at." What they contemplated was a series of protections against the government's ability to get documents.