PJ Vogt

Because now, some criminals who want privacy have learned that they're better off using the same tools everyone else does, encrypted messaging apps like Signal.

Which means if the FBI runs another similar sting operation, they might be scraping up messages not just from the Microsofts of the world, but from you, or from people you know.

Joseph believes we need to decide if that's a trade-off we're comfortable with.

I mean, it's funny.

I found reading your book, it confounded some of the ideas I'd walked into it with, which is to say, as a journalist, I feel like it wouldn't be terribly surprising for me to say, like, my biases are towards privacy.

And obviously, you know, the same encryption technology that is going to be used by political dissidents is going to be used by people doing all sorts of terrible things.

And my feeling tends to be that privacy is worth it.

Reading this particular story where it's a phone company used by almost exclusively criminals and where the crimes that are being documented are incredibly violent, incredibly heinous, I was very much rooting for the surveillance state in a way that I don't always do.

First of all, I'm just curious how you felt.

Did you feel that way?

Because I feel like you are also a privacy-minded person, but this is at least one case where I feel like perhaps...

I don't know, you can see the FBI side of things.

Right, because the thing that you're pointing to is

I don't traffic cocaine.

The podcast industry is not doing that badly.

You don't?

I have people who use Signal because people they know use Signal.

You know, the Microsofts of their life came and said, like, just use this thing, it's cool.

I know people who participate as customers in illicit drug markets and use Signal.

When I first got it, everybody I knew was a journalist or a low-level lawbreaker.