Dark Wire

I once knew a man arrested and held for a bank robbery he did not commit. It's a much longer story, but while he was held, he told me about how the other inmates would all watch "Law and Order" while rooting for the "bad guys" because the police were not following the rules of engagement when hunting down criminals. It was the first time I had thought about what it must mean to real-life people locked away on actual charges and what media reflects about their experiences. While reading this book, I found myself shouting, "No way!", "How can that be legal?", "Who allowed that!" and it made me remember this experience from long ago. This is an excellent book that is painful for privacy advocates to read, but it is an important story. It's constructed in a way that immerses the reader in the point of view of law enforcement while laying out the wider world of crime that leverages encrypted phones. Joseph Cox does an excellent job of letting the reader understand the motives of law enforcement and the impact of their actions so the reader can simply absorb what is happening before calling into larger questions about privacy, legality, and the legal practicality of a program like this. For that reason, I hope this will become standard reading in criminal justice classes. It's constructed in a non-technical manner, so the average reader won't get lost in technical jargon. It's respectful to the law enforcement personnel who are trying to make a difference while painting a highly complex topic that needs to be discussed.