Attempts by states like California and New York to ban the sale of encrypted phones could be overruled by federal law. The Verge reports that a cross-party bill is being introduced today in Congress by Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX).
The ENCRYPT Act of 2016, or by its longer name, the Ensuring National Constitutional Rights of Your Private Telecommunications Act, would preempt state and local government encryption laws. The two men said today they are “deeply concerned” that varying bills surrounding encryption would endanger the country as well as the competitiveness of American companies. The argument is that it wouldn’t be easy or even feasible to tailor phone encryption capabilities for specific states.
New York last month kicked off the attempt to ban the sale of encrypted phones in the state unless the manufacturer built in a back door, with a virtually identical bill proposed in California later the same month. The moves – which would effectively outlaw the sale of current iPhones in both states – followed similar proposals in the UK last year …
Apple’s strong stance on encryption – using strong encryption for data stored on iPhones and end-to-end encryption of both iMessages and FaceTime – has brought the company into conflict with numerous government and law enforcement agencies, among them the U.S. Attorney General, the FBI, the DOJ and the Homeland Security Committee and CIA.
Tim Cook has repeatedly pressed the White House to back the use of strong encryption to protect the privacy of its citizens, stating that we should not be frightened into giving up those rights. It’s a debate which has even seen Presidential candidates asked how they would respond to Apple’s stance.
As The Verge notes, there are competing bills on the way, so this is an issue unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. I made my own position clear in an opinion piece last year, outlining the three reasons I believe Apple is right to stand firm.
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IF (Capital if there) this bill in genuine, IMO, it’s the first thing the US government has done to try to protect our Constitutional Rights regarding privacy and government snoopy and data collection in the last 15 years.
Let’s see how it gets twisted as it makes its way through the Congress. As a cynic – I don’t hold out much hope. YMMV
Snooping not Snoopy! Snoopy is a STRONG proponent of Individual’s Rights and limiting the governments ability to spy on the citizens. Snoopy was a hero in WWI as he shot down the Red Baron! ;)
I like you.
Its the same government trying to usurp Encryption. It’s not legitimate. It’s a distraction.
A joke comes to mind, seemed relevant:
What’s the difference between USA and USB? One connects to all of your devices and accesses the data, the other is a hardware standard.
What is the difference between USC and USD? You need USD to go to USC…
*crickets*
Our government can not protect it OWN data and government employees has been stolen over and over again. Just how much do you think our government cares about ours. If you go to the doctor your data is already exposed. The very second they build a back door into my iPhone, the hackers will have it. Not sure which scares me more the government or a hacker.
I hope they do not allow this and keep our encrypted phones.
and by the way, obama is asking for billions to beef up the government computer systems . . .after the Healthcare.gov disaster, I say we wait till obama is gone before we waste a penny more on his union friends. obamas idea of a good job is a union job and that is nothing but a waste!
You seem confused, and seem to think anyone cares about your non-Apple related political opinions on this website. Go post your crappy rants somewhere else.
I know seriously, what does any of what he said have to do with Apple and encryption?
And name one president in the past who hasn’t been in bed with some special interest…?
Until we take money out of politics with campaign finance and lobbying reform, just about everyone in our government, even on local and state levels, can be bought and sold to the highest bidder.
Awww did Trumpy Wumpy’s loss in Iowa upset you? Thanks Obama! He made some phone calls to the Iowa Illuminati and told everyone to vote for Ted Cruz. It’s the globalists! Alex Jones was RIGHT!!!
Now that I’ve picked my jaw back up off the floor, time to write my Senators, Representative, and the President in support of this bill! I encourage all US Citizens to do the same
Find your Senator –> http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Find your Representative –> http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/
Send a message to the President –> https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
(Wow, I mean, wow. Bipartisan support on something that makes sense and benefits the people of the country. Maybe Washington is starting to get the message being sent by the people with the results of last night’s Primary in NH. People have had enough of the way things are).
To bad by the time it’s voted on, it’ll be the complete opposite!!!
So how much did Google/Apple donate to the campaigns of these representatives? Of course, it’s quid quo pro. That’s how washington works.
The people to the right of center that would quickly have us believe that this invasion of our liberty is justified in the name of security should always remember the words of Benjamin Franklin, “Any man willing to give up a little liberty to ensure his security deserves neither security nor liberty.” This statement was true at the time of the revolution and is it just as, if not more, true today. We store too much private information on our phones to even think about allowing an easy back door for anyone’s use. The government cannot truly show one serious case where anyone’s life was ever put at risk by not being able to unlock someone’s phone. And if they ever do then shame on the police for being so weak and feeble that they cannot solve a crime any other way. Under the Bush administration with the help of The Patriot Act law enforcement got very lazy. They became accustomed to being able to invade the privacy of citizens in order to get information they other wise would not have had access too. Now that people are realizing the “patriot” act was called so to make us believe we were patriots fighting for freedom when instead we were blindly handing it over to a government that never really had any plans to ever hand it back.
And, in the more modern era, Edward R. Murrow commented ““A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.”
We are living in that quote, Today!
Funny you mention the fear and Patriot Act. My letter to my Representative (and Senators) mentioned that as well. Something like “This is the right thing to do for the people of the United States. Don’t let fear lead to poor decisions, as we did with the Patriot Act.”
I don’t lnow why you try to make this out as a left vs right issue… it’s not. Many people who identify as being more “conservstive” do so because we value individual liberty and don’t want the government in every aspect of our lives… and that includes keeping them out of our cell phones!
Also: look at the two states trying to implement these policies: they are as left as you can get!
We need to stop all of the stupid left v right fighting and come together to defeat stupidity like mandatory backdoors…
Well, MA might be a tad more left than NY (literally and politically) but you are right.
This is the problem with US Politics today. It has become a team sport. Everyone picks a team and damn anyone that (a) opposes them (because you can no longer be against a bad issue because it is bad, it means you are a racist/sexist/elitist/any other -ist) and (b) is on the opposite team.
It’s getting old. And that is why I think Sanders/Trump won NH last night. People are sick of what is going on. They aren’t even all that different. They are both “anti-establishment” in effect. Which might be just what we need.
We used to come together as a country, but starting with Newt Gingrich vs Bill Clinton, then the Dems taking “revenge” for this against W, then the GOP upping the ante against Obama, we can no longer get anything done. What does get done is a royal mess because one team won’t help the other team “win” – so we all are losing.
Yup. Rand Paul (republican) is heavily against the NSA warrantless spying, so is Ron Wyden (democrat).
This is a bi-partisan issue for sure, has nothing to do with left vs. right. It’s surveillance state apologists vs. ppl who respect the Constitution.
Hey, it should be illegal for taxpayer dollars to support a state government IT infrastructure of web and email servers unless they provide the public tax payers the back door. Right?
I like it, I like it.
I say let them outlaw encryption. My life is boring and they’ll be sorting thru A LOT of mundane stuff about me. However, hacker groups like Anonymous will quickly show them how that’s a very bad idea by getting into all THEIR personal stuff and I tend to believe that a lot of what they do, they don’t want out in the public.
Apple is grossly irresponsible to deliberately obstruct law enforcement.
Other corporations will support law enforcement on receipt of a warrant. Even Apple does this on some services. Only some of their services use law enforcement obstructing encryption systems – iCloud does not, iCloud email does not, apple-pay does not. All of these would be open to disclosed on receipt of lawful warrant, yet Apple states these services are still secure.
The idea that law enforcement access, on warrant, automatically means a security weakness is proven wrong – Apple is doing this to support their sales, not our privacy.
I don’t agree with bans – it enables greedy multi-billion dollar corporations to present themselves as the victim.
I say create a civil liability for suppliers of products/services that deliberately obstruct law enforcement, the corporation has been warned this is happening and the product/service is then used in crime. Enable the real victims to sue if a greedy corporation’s products/services are used in the commission of crime and the corporation has already been warned it is obstructing law enforcement. Lets see how they like the publicity when the first family of a child sex abuse victim bring it to court and the media publicise all the details on a day by day basis. If the greedy corporations genuinely believes there are no victims of their policy – then they should have no reason to fear this. Others – such as Microsoft, Blackberry, all the telcos etc etc – who cooperate with lawful warrants, would really have nothing to fear.
You’re straw-man’ing all over the place.
Email is not the same thing as instant messaging; neither is Apple Pay (I don’t see what that even has to do with this at all — if courts need bank or CC records, they go to the banks \ CC companies).
Let me ask you this — After seeing Ed Snowden’s documents about PRISM where it shows Google’s cloud infiltrated by the NSA with the “SSL added and removed here :)” complete with super creepy government smiley face, do you really think Google’s services are secure?
Do you really think Microsoft and Blackberry’s services are secure?
I thought all the government had to do was get a warrant?
Why are they hacking into Google’s \ Yahoo’s \ Blackberry’s PRIVATE intranet \ cloud?
If you or I did that, and there was evidence of what we did, we would both be in prison right now.
And, when they bother to get a warrant, they apply to the FISA Court – which has been seen to be nothing more than a “rubber stamp” that grants approval for the surveillance, no matter how slim or far reaching the request.
Talk about spreading FUD – the whole process has been so corrupted by our “Government” in the name of “protecting us” from terrorism, child pornographers and spousal abusers. I call BS – It’s just Big Brotherism running in to rob us of our rights to privacy.
As Jason Corbine posted earlier in this thread, Benjamin Franklin said, “Any man willing to give up a little liberty to ensure his security deserves neither security nor liberty.”
Mr. Smith – I respectfully postulate that you consider relocating to North Korea or China or many of the Middle Eastern countries where there is no “personal Freedom” but the government is protecting from all the threats of the world – except their own government.
Thank you, finally some law makers who are on our side. State legislation on technological / encryption bans are ridiculous — this is an issue that needs to be determined by the federal government.