Another day, another attack on the encryption standards that protect every single person using the internet and computing devices.
Senators Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton and Marsha Blackburn introduced the Lawful Access to Encrypted Data Act in a bid “to bolster national security interests and better protect communities.”
It’s hard to tell whether the authors are trying to attack encryption, or if they simply don’t understand how it works…or both. Either way, the result is the same: This legislation will gut the end-to-end encryption (E2EE) billions of people rely on.
Case in point:
“After law enforcement obtains the necessary court authorizations, they should be able to retrieve information to assist in their investigations. Our legislation respects and protects the privacy rights of law-abiding Americans,” says Graham.
Similarly:
”This bill will ensure law enforcement can access encrypted material with a warrant based on probable cause and help put an end to the Wild West of crime on the Internet,” said Cotton.
The announcement specifically states:
“Encryption is vital to securing user communications, data storage, and financial transactions. Yet increasingly, technology providers are deliberately designing their products and services so that only the user, and not law enforcement, has access to content – even when criminal activity is clearly taking place. This type of ‘warrant-proof’ encryption adds little to the security of the communications of the ordinary user, but it is a serious benefit for those who use the internet for illicit purposes.”
These statements ignore some of the basic facts involved in the encryption debate. Let’s break this down.
- All of the above statements place a great deal of emphasis on a warrant. The encryption debate has never been about tech companies’ willingness or unwillingness to abide by a warrant. The issue, plain and simple, is that you cannot have strong encryption that has backdoors. Experts have been warning about the dangers of weakening encryption for years. They’ve done so here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here and here, as well as countless other places too numerous to list.
Ultimately, this is not a case where these senators can ‘have their cake and eat it too.’ Either everyone has strong encryption that protects them, or no one does. Even these senators rely on encryption to conduct their business. Signal is widely considered to be the most secure messaging app on the planet, in large part because of the type of encryption this legislation targets. It is so secure that the Senate specifically encourages Senate staff to use Signal.
Yet this legislation is so dangerous to the very type of encryption that Signal relies on that the company has already warned that, if it passes, Signal will likely stop being available in the US altogether.
Again, either everyone has strong encryption or no one does…including the senators targeting encryption. - The legislation wrongly asserts that companies fail to cooperate with law enforcement, “even when criminal activity is clearly taking place.” Again, this is not a matter of intentionally failing to cooperate; it is a technical impossibility.
Companies simply cannot create strong encryption that can simultaneously be accessed at will, either by the company, law enforcement or anyone else. In many cases, such as Apple, companies cooperate as much as they possibly can, but they cannot change the laws of physics. - The assertion that “‘warrant-proof’ encryption adds little to the security of the communications of the ordinary user” ignores how the technology is frequently used by the “ordinary user.” The fact is, E2EE protects private communication, securing text messages, video chats, emails and voice calls, ensuring people can communicate without fear.
Businesses rely on E2EE on a daily basis to ensure they can freely discuss internal matters without fear of corporate eavesdropping and espionage. Victims of abuse often rely on these services to communicate with loved ones without their abuser being able to find them. Journalists and activists in areas ruled by oppressive regimes rely on E2EE for their very lives.
The announcement cites several examples where E2EE thwarted attempts by law enforcement. While true, the question remains: How is that different from any other technology?
One example encryption proponents cite is shredder manufacturers. Do these companies have to create shredders that reconstitute a document just because some bad actors use paper shredders to cover their tracks? Of course not. While some do use shredders to cover illegal activity, the vast majority of individuals use them for perfectly legal reasons.
The same is true of E2EE. There will always be those who use any technology for illegal, immoral and unethical reasons. The vast majority, however, will use it as it was intended, for perfectly legal activity.
If passed, however, this new legislation will punish the whole on behalf of the few.