The second Crypto War is in full swing

Published March 19, 2016 4:01am ET



We’ve been waiting for President Obama to deliver an official statement on his administration’s position on encryption, and now we have it. At the annual SXSW conference in Austin last weekend, the president made it clear that he is siding firmly with law enforcement.

Ever since the fall of 2015, pro-encryption and privacy advocates have been anxiously awaiting a response to a White House petition demanding the administration take a stand in favor of strong encryption. The initial response was, at best, tepidly noncommittal. While the president’s most recent statement falls short of affirmative support for backdoor access, it certainly isn’t the response to the Save Crypto petition campaign advocates hoped for.

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