A growing number of lawmakers in Washington are calling for ways to bypass encryption in order to find would-be terrorists before they strike. But executives in Silicon Valley are as resistant as ever, and the stage is set for the clash to escalate this year.
“Maybe the back door isn’t the right door … I understand what Apple and others are saying about that,” Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton said during her party’s third presidential debate on Dec. 19. “I just think there’s got to be a way, and I would hope that our tech companies would work with government to figure that out.”
Over the course of the same statement, Clinton acknowledged that proponents of encryption may have valid arguments, but she subsequently appeared to call for tech companies to create “back doors” to bypass such encryption, simply without a law requiring it. She added that a modern-day “Manhattan Project” would be in order, in which tech experts would work with government to effectively find ways to break encryption.
Finding suitable private sector partners for such a project would-be challenging. Google, Facebook and Apple all offer products that have some level of encryption installed by default. Apple CEO Tim Cook has been the most vocal in explaining his company’s position. “If the government lays a proper warrant on us today, then we will give the specific information that is requested, because we have to by law,” Cook said in a Dec. 20 interview. But, he added, “In the case of encrypted information, we don’t have it to give.”
Google CEO Eric Schmidt has taken a quieter approach, though a variety of the company’s products, like Gmail, offer end-to-end encryption and, like Apple, Google offers full-disk encryption on its operating systems. In concrete terms, that means the hardware powering 96.7 percent of the world’s smartphones is encrypted beyond the ability of governments to surveil.
When the two companies implemented full-disk encryption in 2014, fewer people outside of law enforcement were paying attention. In the year to follow, encryption has become more prominent in the eyes of the public, due largely to the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., in the closing days of 2015.
Since those attacks transpired, lawmakers like Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Richard Burr, R-N.C., and John McCain, R-Ariz., have called for legislation that would create the “back doors” necessary for law enforcement to access encrypted data. Some, like Clinton in the presidential debate, have looked at it from a more collaborative perspective.
“We need your personal involvement,” House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz, quoted in Politico in August, recounts telling Cook. “Apple is one of the biggest companies in the world, and they’ve been hiding in California, a non-participant in the political arena. But we need Apple, and you personally, to be engaged in Washington.'”
It seems likely that the tech community, led in part by Apple, is going to become more engaged over the next year, though it may not be on the same side as Chaffetz’ colleagues.
“I view encryption like many view the Second Amendment,” tech billionaire Mark Cuban said in a November statement over his “Cyber Dust” messaging application, which is encrypted. “Encryption is a fundamental underpinning of the freedom of speech.”
It is analogous in at least one sense: Some believe that what Cuban asserts as a fundamental right represents a menace to society.
“As a society, we don’t allow phone companies to design their systems to avoid lawful, court-ordered searches,” Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said in December. “If we apply a different legal standard to companies like Apple, Google and Facebook, we can expect them to become the preferred messaging services of child pornographers, drug traffickers and terrorists alike, which neither these companies nor law enforcement want.”
If, as Chaffetz stated, California is not participatory in Washington politics, Silicon Valley may soon represent an exception as it becomes embroiled in the encryption debate lying ahead.
