Independence Day is the time when Americans celebrate freedom from a tyrannical government in the 18th century. While gaining that freedom, the founding fathers used encryption. They used encryption while risking their lives to gain the freedom we celebrate on July 4th. The EFF documents how many of the Founding Fathers of the United States used encryption to secure our freedoms.
- Thomas Jefferson
was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and the country’s third president. He is known to be one of the most prolific users of secret communications methods. He even invented his own cipher system—the “wheel cipher” or the “Jefferson disk” as it is now commonly referred to. Mr. Jefferson also presented a special cipher to Meriwether Lewis for use in the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
George Washington was the first president of the United States. He frequently dealt with encryption and espionage issues as the commander of the Continental Army. He gave his intelligence officers detailed instructions on methods for maintaining the secrecy and for using decryption to uncover British spies.
- John Adams was the second U.S. president. He used a cipher provided by James Lovell—a member of the Continental Congress Committee on Foreign Affairs. He was an early advocate of cipher systems—for correspondence with his wife, Abigail Adams while traveling.
- Benjamin Franklin in
vented ciphers used by the Continental Congress. In 1748, he published a book that spoke of encryption written by George Fisher, The American Instructor.
- James Madison was the author of the Bill of Rights and the country’s fourth president. He was a big user of enciphered communications. Numerous examples from his correspondence prove that. The text of one letter from Madison to Joseph Jones, a member of the Continental Congress from Virginia, dated May 2, 1782, was almost completely encrypted via cipher. And on May 27, 1789, Madison sent a partially encrypted letter to Thomas Jefferson describing his plan to introduce a Bill of Rights.
- John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, used ciphers for all diplomatic correspondence made while outside the United States. And John Jay’s brother, Sir James Jay, invited a special invisible ink, also known as sympathetic ink, and sent a supply from London to both his brother and then General Washington.
TechDirt correctly concludes that If encryption was good enough for the Founding Fathers to use in the 18th Century … it’s pretty ridiculous that we’re still having this debate now in this age of constant government monitoring, warrantless searches, corporate data aggregation, data sharing, and tools like IBM’s Non-Obvious Relationship Awareness software (NORA). The time is now to fight shortsighted “going dark” claims by the FBI and efforts by clueless politicians like Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) who have plans to ban encryption.
rb-
Seems to me that the biggest threat to 
America this Independence Day is the political ambitions of technically illiterate know-nothings in the gooberment. Be like the Founding Fathers and encrypt something start with HTTPS Anywhere from the EFF.
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.