US law enforcement officials to argue for encryption backdoors before Congress
Later on Wednesday, two key U.S. law enforcement officials will testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee to argue in support of backdoors in various consumer encryption platforms, a report said.
FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates will argue that there is no absolute right to privacy, since it must be weighed against public safety, according to the Associated Press. A number of people in American law enforcement have claimed that growing levels of encryption have made it difficult to monitor criminal and terrorist communications.
"I believe that we have to protect the privacy of our citizens and the safety of the Internet," an excerpt of Yates' prepared remarks reads. "But those interests are not absolute. And they have to be balanced against the risks we face from creating warrant-proof zones of communication."
An assortment of technology companies, Apple among them, have contended that privacy is essential and that any legally-mandated backdoor could be exploited not only by the U.S. government but by criminals and foreign governments. Encryption has increasingly become a selling point, particularly after 2013 revelations about the scope of National Security Agency surveillance programs, which regularly scoop up vast amounts of data about people not suspected of any crime.
Both Apple and Google have become proponents of full-disk encryption on mobile devices, although latter's progress has been slower. Apple has touted iOS 8 as being so difficult to crack that, even when served with a warrant, it would be unable to decrypt an iPhone's data.
In June, Apple CEO Tim Cook delivered a speech at the Electronic Privacy Information Center's Champions of Freedom event, asserting that people have a "fundamental right to privacy," which is demanded not only by the American public but by morality and the U.S. Constitution. He also brought up the issue of backdoors, calling them fundamentally flawed.
"Criminals are using every technology tool at their disposal to hack into people's accounts," he said. "If they know there's a key hidden somewhere, they won't stop until they find it."
FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates will argue that there is no absolute right to privacy, since it must be weighed against public safety, according to the Associated Press. A number of people in American law enforcement have claimed that growing levels of encryption have made it difficult to monitor criminal and terrorist communications.
"I believe that we have to protect the privacy of our citizens and the safety of the Internet," an excerpt of Yates' prepared remarks reads. "But those interests are not absolute. And they have to be balanced against the risks we face from creating warrant-proof zones of communication."
An assortment of technology companies, Apple among them, have contended that privacy is essential and that any legally-mandated backdoor could be exploited not only by the U.S. government but by criminals and foreign governments. Encryption has increasingly become a selling point, particularly after 2013 revelations about the scope of National Security Agency surveillance programs, which regularly scoop up vast amounts of data about people not suspected of any crime.
Both Apple and Google have become proponents of full-disk encryption on mobile devices, although latter's progress has been slower. Apple has touted iOS 8 as being so difficult to crack that, even when served with a warrant, it would be unable to decrypt an iPhone's data.
In June, Apple CEO Tim Cook delivered a speech at the Electronic Privacy Information Center's Champions of Freedom event, asserting that people have a "fundamental right to privacy," which is demanded not only by the American public but by morality and the U.S. Constitution. He also brought up the issue of backdoors, calling them fundamentally flawed.
"Criminals are using every technology tool at their disposal to hack into people's accounts," he said. "If they know there's a key hidden somewhere, they won't stop until they find it."
Comments
They represent the opinions of their boss, and he's not so fireable.
They probably cut class they day the Bill of Rights was taught.
One more year! One more year!
The Fourth Amendment, like much of the Bill of Rights, has pretty well been tossed out by the courts and ignored by the rest of government.
Quite honestly—and despite the Snowden revelations—I fully expect the incursions on our personal liberties to increase, not decrease with the next president. My preferred candidate will probably not be elected and we'll get another dummy who just rubber stamps the demands of the existing corporatocracy. As the tax base continues to shrink and the debt balloons to $30+ trillion dollars (an inescapable and unpayable debt), the prying into our every move and demand for our every dollar will get worse..
We shouldn't give up our freedoms for public safety.
Foolish quacking. All presidents serve under the mandates of the intelligence and thought police apparatus that never changes from one administration to the next. Just ask Jack Kennedy. It will be as bad or worse under the next, just as it was worse under the previous.
... And Dick Cheney was the Prince of Peace?
No one said that. Obama just happens to be the current Idiot-in-Charge.
These people are enemies of the Constitution and the American people and should be fired immediately.
Law Enforcement has stopped so many terrorist attacks by monitoring the communications of potential terrorists. But because this all happened behind the scenes so to speak you don't believe it. If there was a successful attack, you would blame them for failing to do their job even though it is people like you that make it more difficult than it should be.
That's simply wrong and that is proven by their own testimony to Congress. They've wasted hundreds of billions on programs that have improved nothing and only serve to bloat the government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act#Controversy
F U, govt. If there is a backdoor, anyone can attempt to crack it and some nefarious users could be successful.
We shouldn't give up our freedoms for public safety.
I would go so far as to say that giving up our freedom in the right to privacy is giving up our public safety.
I do not believe in what Snowden did. I do believe that our government needs to be more honest and somewhat more transparent about what they do - but don't just create another group/agency to review what needs to be kept silent and what the public is allowed to know.
This notion of a backdoor is stupid - if it is invented by man it can be broken by man.
The NSA even admitted they haven't stopped a single terrorist attack with all this snooping.
You want to secure the country, secure the borders. Terrorists are sneaking over and getting ready.
That's more like it. Although the stance taken by Tim Cook is the first hopeful sign I've seen in 60 years of watching this paranoid government work. (I remember the McCarthy and HUAC hearings, the instant suspiciousness of the Kennedy assassination, the overthrow of Allende, that sort of thing.)
The basic right to privacy is something we have not had to debate in a meaningful way until now, when our entire mental life is contained in a little slab in our pocket. Cook is leading the charge on this. Very brave, very smart. It may force a basic change in outlook and weaken the idea of a police state, which as far as I can tell, goes all the way back in the US to the appearance of the labor movement in the 1800s. But I haven't studied that early history.
I do know that by the late 40s the police state here became fully fledged when the OSS . . . well, you know the story.
These people are enemies of the Constitution and the American people and should be fired immediately.
Law Enforcement has stopped so many terrorist attacks by monitoring the communications of potential terrorists. But because this all happened behind the scenes so to speak you don't believe it. If there was a successful attack, you would blame them for failing to do their job even though it is people like you that make it more difficult than it should be.
You are concerned about them protecting us as a target. The real point is to not do things that make us a target to begin with. The ounce of prevention is wholly misplaced.
I just want to make sure that everyone understands that they do not have benevolent intent with these demands.
This has nothing to do with public safety. The government isn't just trying to eliminate a security hole. They want to maintain the ability to spy on all citizens, as they have been able to do for a long time. Personal encrypted technology is now encroaching on that ability, so naturally they want to eradicate it.
Just want to make sure everyone is aware.
Unless they do what we do - come from above. Shock and Awe terrorism.