BitTorrent CEO: Our privacy is more important than national security

The easiest way for governments to take away people’s freedom and privacy is to tell them that it’s for their own safety, or the safety of their children. The NSA uses the “preservation of national security” as both and excuse and a justification for spying on tens of millions of American citizens, often in ways that are blatantly illegal, but BitTorrent CEO Eric Klinker believes that that’s a load of crap. According to him, the privacy of American citizens is more important than national security. 

To the vast majority of technology enthusiasts the term ‘BitTorrent’ means one thing – the sharing of large files with like-minded individuals quickly and freely across the Internet. Often confused with the file-sharing protocol of the same name, the organization providing the tools for much of that sharing is technology company BitTorrent Inc. Indeed, BitTorrent Inc. currently employs the brains behind uTorrent, the most famous P2P file-sharing software in the world. While public torrents are without doubt the major bread-winner for BitTorrent Inc, for the past two years the company has attempted to realign itself as a privacy-focused enterprise. In 2013 it even went as far as launching a billboard campaign to alert the public over the prying eyes of the National Security Agency. This week during a series of conferences to promote development of companies in Latin America, BitTorrent Inc. CEO Eric Klinker reinforced his privacy agenda with a powerful message. According to Klinker, the privacy of the individual trumps even the security interests of nation states.