Major civil liberties advocates are asking President Obama to “publicly affirm” his support for online data encryption, even as the administration’s law enforcement organs work to cripple the information security technology.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Demand Progress, the American Civil Liberties Union, Access, and others, including Twitter, have made the request in the form of a WhiteHouse.gov petition. If it garners 100,000 supporters, it will trigger an official response from the administration.
“The government should not erode the security of our devices or applications, pressure companies to keep and allow government access to our data, mandate implementation of vulnerabilities or backdoors into products, or have disproportionate access to the keys to private data,” the remonstrance said.
It added that “no legislation, executive order, or private agreement with the government should undermine” Americans’ right to encrypt.
In a statement released alongside the petition, Access’s senior legislative manager, Nathan White stated that President Obama must work to ensure strong encryption can occur “in the interest of public safety, human rights, and corporate innovation.”
Spearheaded by FBI Director James Comey, law enforcement and intelligence entities have since last year been lobbying Congress to weaken end-to-end cryptographic technology, claiming that it could be used by violent terrorists, drug traffickers, and kidnappers to evade authorities.
Those efforts, however, have yet to bear fruit. Technology-savvy lawmakers and experts in the field have long argued that introducing backdoors or mandating the storage of encryption keys would fundamentally erode the security of the internet.
Last week, NSA Director Adm. Michael Rogers admitted as much under questioning from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on cyber threats.
“As a general matter, is it correct that any time there are copies of an encryption key—that also creates more opportunities for malicious actors or foreign hackers to get access to the keys?” Sen. Wyden asked the NSA chief during committee proceedings.
“If you want to paint it very broadly like that for a yes or no, then I would probably say yes,” Rogers reluctantly admitted.
As The Sentinel has reported, administration officials have, in recent months, softened their tone on the need for anti-encryption legislation. Anonymous administration officials confirmed that this is part of an organized strategy, in an interview with the Washington Post.
The paper reported, in fact, that “momentum has grown among officials in the commerce, diplomatic, trade and technology agencies for a statement from the president ‘strongly disavowing’ a legislative mandate and supporting widespread encryption.”
There has only been one documented instance, so far, of encryption technology hindering an investigation. According to a New York Times report published earlier this month, Apple was unable to comply with a court order to turn over iMessages related to a federal investigation involving guns and drugs, because those messages were encrypted.
