House Bill Would Stop States From Banning Phone Encryption

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2499117,00.asp

Two members of Congress are trying to stop states from weakening
encryption.

Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Blake Farenthold (R-Tex.) introduced a bill
on Wednesday that would stop states from mandating that a company
intentionally weaken its smartphone encryption to facilitate law
enforcement action.

The bill, known as the ENCRYPT Act, is surprisingly short, saying simply
that no state or local muncipality can place restrictions or rules upon
device manufacturers, app developers, or product sellers. More
specifically, it targets the idea of forcing companies to more easily
allow those local governments to "have the ability to decrypt or otherwise
render intelligible information that is encrypted or otherwise rendered
unintelligible using its product or service."

The bill was presented to Congress just weeks after New York and
California lawmakers introduced their own bills that would ban the sale of
encrypted smartphones. Since Apple and Google encrypt their most recent
operating systems by default, though, that would make it difficult to sell
iPhones or Android-based devices in those two states. Neither bill has
seen activity since being introduced, however.

"Different rules in different states create a myriad of issues and will
actually make it more difficult for law enforcement officials. We need a
unified approach to this issue that both protects security and privacy
while enabling law enforcement to keep us safe," Rep. Farenthold said in a
statement. "The California and New York proposals do not solve the
problem. We need to keep free market and trade between the several states
robust, not promote a false sense of security and require things like
backdoors and golden keys that can be exploited by hackers."

"The ENCRYPT Act makes sure that this conversation happens in a place that
does not disrupt interstate commerce," Rep. Lieu said.

Regardless of what happens on Capitol Hill, all these bills again bring up
the issue of encryption. Law enforcement officials have criticized Apple
and Google for hardening their communication platforms. Indeed, if an
iMessage user were to communicate with another, it would be impossible for
Apple, as well as law enforcement, to intercept that communication. Law
enforcement agencies say such features put the public at risk. Apple and
Google, among others, say they're protecting individual rights to privacy
and security, and have no plans to alter their OSes.



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