FRESNO (KMJ) — A federal anti-encryption bill, part authored by Senator Dianne Feinstein, is being publicly criticized by those in the tech community.
The California Congresswoman, along with fellow Senate Member Richard Burr, have together written a bill which would force firms to break open encrypted data for law enforcement.
The ‘Compliance with Court Orders Act of 2016’ would (as the name suggests) require people and companies to comply with a court order for data, and would stop any encryption techniques being used to make it unreadable.
The bill’s text states that any information requested should be provided in an “intelligible format”, or if it’s encrypted then the entity is required to provide assistance as is necessary to make the information intelligible/readable.
In a joint statement, Senators Burr and Feinstein say they can’t discuss the bill as it’s still being finalized. but the aim is to establish that no individual or company is above the law.
“The underlying goal is simple”, continues the statement. “When there’s a court order to render technical assistance to law enforcement or provide decrypted information, that court order is carried out”.
The bill would also want to license distributors, to make sure that they provide access to to the government. That would mean some phone apps, for instance, would not be able to offer encryption without law enforcement being able to unlock it too.
But Director of New America’s Open technology Institute Kevin Bankston told tech magazine Wired that in his two decades of experience it’s “easily the most ludicrous, dangerous, technically illiterate proposal” he’s ever seen.
