A LONG-ANTICIPATED DRAFT of anti-encryption legislation written by the leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee circulated late Thursday night and left many critics apoplectic.
The bill, from Sens. Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein, would force technology companies to either decrypt the contents of their customers’ communications for law enforcement, or hack into their own products to do so — effectively rendering illegal the end-to-end encryption currently offered by some of the heaviest hitters in the business, like Apple, Facebook, Google, and now WhatsApp.
On Friday, Feinstein and Burr told reporters they were still working on the draft and couldn’t comment on the language of an unfinished version.
Feinstein threw down the gauntlet in December, vowing to push for a bill that would mandate breakable encryption even if no one else would, including the White House. Privacy advocates who expected the worst weren’t disappointed.
Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., told The Intercept in an emailed statement the draft was concerning. “This legislation says a company can design what they want their back door to look like, but it would definitely require them to build a back door. For the first time in America, companies who want to provide their customers with stronger security would not have that choice – they would be required to decide how to weaken their products to make you less safe.”
“Burr-Feinstein may be the most insane thing I’ve ever seen seriously offered as a piece of legislation. It is ‘do magic’ in legalese,” tweeted Julian Sanchez, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute studying privacy and technology.
“Well, the Feinstein-Burr bill is pretty much as clueless and unworkable as I expected it would be,” tweeted Matthew Green, a cryptography professor at Johns Hopkins University.
Expert technologists have concluded that you can’t design strong encryption that can be readily dismantled or pierced for law enforcement while still keeping customers’ communications private and secure from others — like criminals and hackers.
“No person or entity is above the law,” reads the beginning of the bill draft. “All providers of communications services and products (including software) should protect the privacy of United States persons through implementation of appropriate data security and still respect the rule of law and comply with all legal requirements and court orders.”
The bill would specifically require companies to decrypt communications “in a timely manner” or provide “technical assistance” in order to override any security measures preventing access to “intelligible” data — precisely what the FBI ordered Apple to do in order to access San Bernardino killer Syed Rizwan Farook’s work phone before finding an alternate way in.
Apple fought the FBI, arguing that in order to override the phone’s security features, the company would have to design a type of software “cancer” that would risk the security of all Apple users.
The FBI in that case cited the All Writs Act as giving it the authority to force Apple to provide “reasonable assistance” to carry out its warrant and unlock the phone. The new draft bill would take the law a step further. “Feinstein-Burr decryption doesn’t require only reasonable assistance: It’s ‘assistance as is necessary’ to decrypt,” tweeted Orin Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University specializing in computer crime.
Providers of all communications “products,” including pretty much any smartphone provider, would also be responsible for third-party applications that provide encryption services on their behalf.
“Not only does this bill undermine our security, it is also a massive internet censorship bill, demanding that online platforms like Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store police their platforms to stop the distribution of secure apps,” wrote Kevin Bankston, director of the Open Technology Institute, in a message to The Intercept. Computer scientist Jonathan Mayer wrote about the dangers of requiring Google to comply, noting that it would be “deeply incompatible with modern software platforms.” And for apps not relying on Google’s native Android, “The jurisdictional obstacles to regulation are insurmountable,” he continued.
The bill attempts to reassure companies that they will not have to redesign their products, “but to comply, Apple would need to do exactly that,” wrote Jonathan Zdziarski, a security researcher and iOS expert, in a tweet.
Top photo: Left to right, Sens. Ron Wyden, Dianne Feinstein, and Richard Burr.
ProtonMail offers end-to-end encryption. It is a Swiss company and the corrupt US Senate has no jurisdiction over them. International Trade laws might make it illegal for the US to prevent American users from using ProtonMail, but I’m not sure about that. It might be time to start thinking about not doing anymore online transactions or communication until we can clean up our politics in the US.
Apart from the obvious general privacy outrage, I would end all online purchases and banking if encryption ended. That would kill online business. I wonder if the FBI/CIA/government has thought of what that will do to that industry.
Sen. Feinstein is well-known as a total-government-control supporter. Her name on almost any bill is a disaster.
That bag lady going through your trash barrels behind your house at night–that’s Diane Feinslime.
What is wrong with the voters of the Bay Area, that they keep sending that fossil back to the Senate. Are there no young Progressives to challenge her? What is the appeal? Really, we elect the worst, of both major corrupt, oligarchic parties. Enough.
Hey America! way to kill your economy!
I”m hoping this goes through, it will be just like the last time you had this argument… you know the one about the clipper chip and encryption export laws! guess what happened? the smart people who work on those things leave for other countries that understand the real meanings of civil liberties.
also can you please educate your lawmakers that as more and more people learn to code there is nothing that they can do about people rolling their own encryption. you can throw them all in jail, but who will pay the taxes to support all of those people in jail if your brilliant minds cant even find work after they get out!
finally WTF! seriously, i would have thought you guys down there would have had a bloody political revolution by now.. it is in your history after all, are you waiting for november?
these two dinosaurs, Burr and Feinstein, should do us all a huge favor and have themselves massive coronaries. the world will be a better place once these fools no longer walk upon it.
Rudy Haugeneder
Just now ·
It is said the finger of God created this universe (there are many according to the latest scientific theories) and now it is the finger of man creating new thinking life, complete with the ability (cough) to make mistakes — and, no doubt, rebellion and war (?) against us: fully within years and already at the embryonic state that is maturing rapidly whether we like it on not which, I assume, is, like us, uncontrollable.
IBM’s resistive computing could massively accelerate AI — and get us closer to Asimov’s…
The Best in uncensored news, information, and analysis
BLACKLISTEDNEWS.COM
I’ll go back to a flip phone with no GPS. Follow me now ASSHOLES!
We will all save a lot of money and keep ourselves a lot safer if we get rid of the spyware devices. The American people are required to stand naked in front of our government every time we make a damn phone call or send an email. Today I saw my first domestic drone, flying low over my car. The United States is an evil empire.
Laws are made by some people and broken by the other people. In that case I will not hesitate to break the law. These idiots have no idea how easy to find and implement encryption. The right to privacy certainly requires a major fight as the right of the people are stepped on by clues or misguided politicians.
you are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law….If a person is innocent how do you get a search warrant to search…you have to name what you are looking for and what reasonable reason you have of finding it….The F.B.I. is requesting a blanket illegal warrant to search without naming what they are looking for or why they believe they will find anything. IF they actually were able to break into the phone in the question -silence generally means failure or they found nothing – so there is nothing to find next time
Wonderful reporting; The historian Tacitus wrote: I prefer dangerous liberty to enslaved security. To quote Benjamin Franklin: A free people who chooses security over freedom will be neither secure nor free. Keep up the wonderful work, my deep appreciation to the intercept team. Alexander Mehdevi
First they try to scare the hell out of everyone by false flags which have devastated millions of American lives. Then they pass the Patriot Act and invade five (5) sovereign countries to steal petroleum while propping up their fiat currency. Now watch em all snake their way around the fourth amendment and FISA courts, making us feel safe from terrorists they created by exploiting hatred, while championing our Judo/Christian way of life. I think that about covers it.
https://jackblueblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/09/apple-and-the-fbi-have-the-same-objectives/
lets not allow the crazy republican conservatives into power
cause what? you think crazy democrats would be better? if you vote for either party, you are the problem.
SORRY, I FORGOT TO CONNECT THE DOTS
I FORGOT….more and more lies…..are you safer today
N.S.A. spying on everyone?.? Apologizing to Argentina & Germany…
> people do not comment with their names – not realizing their ip address is recorded – MORE LIES … we don’t TORTURE…BAILOUTS – FORECLOSURES – PENSIONS…just more lies THE FED FEEDS WALL STREET
California?? Ronald Reagan?? Governor changed accounting rules – leading to ENRON and the rest. AS President C.I.A. drug smuggling for ARMS FOR HOSTAGES…. OH GEE, testified before congress “I FORGOT”??
TWO-BIT ACTOR – bedtime for Bonzo . . ACTOR?? do you really believe he forgot his lines?? someone should check his encryption……His V.P. George Bush – – forty years we have been in the middle east – BUSH said we will prevail….George W. said again we will prevail….President Obama announced we will prevail…… WE ARE LOSING……..ASK PARIS……ASK BRUSSELS…
SUPPORT THE REPUBLICANS……troops in over 140 countries…terrorists??? remember – RED ALERT….RED ALERT….RED ALERT every-time his poll numbers were down…..
NO ONE IS TALKING PEACE – we will prevail – – – 40 years???
The wrong California senator is retiring. DiSpy should either join the Republican party or do something useful, like waterboard John Brennan.
The Republicans don’t want her. She is died-in-the-wool Democrat all the way.
….actually, they both should retire…one does too much of the wrong thing; the other does nothing of any right thing but seems to get more “face time” while she is doing that….that one does not seem to have the ability to make public statements without shouting her nonsense….
……only hope is with Harris…..
Apple the the FBI have the same agenda, the same ideological goals, why are they fighting? https://jackblueblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/09/apple-and-the-fbi-have-the-same-objectives/
What is left out is those senators want to law enforcement to break the public’s privacy at will but for themselves they will find away to keep unbreakable encryption on their communications. So somewhere deep in the bill there will be a section that exempts those in government personal above a certain rank for having from having to have breakable encryption.
The very idea that there is such a thing as computer crime is laughable. Image crime, word crime, hate crime; they all amount to one thing, thought crime. How can governments get almost everything so completely wrong? The thing we know is that what we have isn’t really a goverment as one might reasonably conceive of one. It’s a couple of multinationals with a few puppets in the Senate. And they control everything. You want to bring democracy, stability, reason, justice? take down the multinationals. Once you do that these ‘elected politicians’ will have no more desire to be in government or to make ridiculous laws. https://jackblueblog.wordpress.com
Get the terminology right!
It is not “end-to-end encryption” if a third party (e.g. Apple) can decrypt the content.
End to end encryption does NOT provide security if the RECEIVER’S computer/smartphone falls into the hands of the authorities, because it holds the decryption key in it’s filestore.
In this case, it was Apple’s encryption of the smartphone’s filestore that has been broken. That led to the exposing of the decryption key, and the decryption of the messages received (if any). It would also have led to decryption of any messages the smartphone had SENT if the messages were also sent to itself, (making it a RECEIVER as well).
Anyone can do end-to-end encryption with GPG4USB without the need for Apple/Google/WhatsApp:
http://www.gpg4usb.org/download.html (Windows/Linux, free, open source)
Type your message into GPG4USB and encrypt with receiver’s key.
Copy-Paste to your message sending app (email/webmail/IM/SMS) and send.
Receiver Copy-Pastes to GPG4USB and decrypts.
But if your computer is seized, you are stuffed without further protection, like encrypting your files with LUKS or VeraCrypt.
What is your point? The article effectively says that this bill makes end2end encryption effectively illegal by mandating that there an be no private storage at all. That seems correct. If your point is that the method (no private storage at all) is the big issue, I agree with you. You might argue that bringing e2e encryption (private transmission of information) into this is a red herring that covers up the real issue, that nothing whatsoever can be kept secret from the government, and anybody who can must help the government get whatever a warrant says it is entitled to, and further, that anyone who attempts to make it difficult for it to do so, even before the act under investigation, and completely in general, is breaking the law.
Thus, it makes private citizens responsible for figuring out how a product they produce might be used sometime in the future if it effects the government’s ability to collect information in that future.
What a piece of shit!
My point was “Get the terminology right”. FBIvApple was about breaking Apple’s encryption of the phone’s filestore, not about end-to-end encryption.
I don’t believe the government of the united states stands for the statues of the constitutional rule of law. If hitler is allowed to enter in my privacy (without my consent) in any way shape or form that is no longer a Constitutional Democracy no matter how much our highly learned public official flag the banner of constitutional democracy while sabotaging it to the point where there is nothing else to pierce. – Alejandro Grace Ararat.
So the consent of the governed is nowhere to be seen by these corrupt entitites in high public office as once in office they are the ones who dictate to their whims not the publics consent and anything they do on behalf of the people like abolishing privacy and sabotaging the consitutional statues of the democratic rule of to the point that there is nothing else to pierce is beyong travesty.
This wont be highly circuulated in the foreign media, as it seems all the media outlets have been bought by the corrupt hidden hands and consitutional democracy in the usa is a putrid peanut butter farse. (people for profit regime, etc, etc) are you still singing the land of the free?
as any obligation to Apple,” Feinstein told the National Journal. “No company or individual is above the law, and I’m dismayed that anyone would refuse to help the government in a major terrorism investigation.”
I am dismayed the usa-law enforcment aider and abetter by the usa government wont even help its non-threatenning non-combative children fathers, young men and mothers when they are being murdered and abuse while under the color of law or by the hired clandestine operatives/snitches to perpetrate criminality with impunity or clandestinely plotting it and dismissing them as random violent crime when it is not. Disgusting is short.
Senator Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein while trying to appear like they are reaching out across the aisle are rely just proving that they are each one side of the same tarnished coin. The coin is then placed in a video machine that plays a short story with the moral being that the government is fighting the bad corporation to keep the people safe.
Ironically the story is written and directed by the corporatocracy so they can be able to hand over to the government, which they own through campaign contributions in the first place, what they want the government to collect and store so the fascist combination of business and government can get at it legally whenever and for whatever they want.
Come a revolution they will have what they need to lock up anyone that even slightly questions the sanctity of our amoral leadership backed up by militarized police and privatized mercenary armies standing ready to serve the elite as modern day Pinkerton enforcers.
Come on do you think that greedy, outsourcing, tax haven happy, entities like Apple actually care about anything but profit and freedom from liabilities?
small correction in the first paragraph: “left may critics apoplectic.” should be “left many critics apoplectic.”
It seems to me that California senators should be a bit more in step with their constituents. If Feinstein doesn’t respect Silicon Valley, perhaps they should put their resources–imagination, technology, money–into retiring the old broad and finding her replacement.
Its not just CA. Across the country in federal, state, and local gov’t our “representatives” seem to believe their own personal opinions are more deserving than that of the folks who voted for them.
This is a very threatening bill, particularly to the Constitution. When I see something like “No person or entity is above the law,” emanating from the mouths of members of the federal government the first thing that comes to mind is B. Hussien Obama, Hil-liar-y Clinton, Lois Lehner and a host of other bad players and seditious criminals scattered throughout the upper echelons of government. What ever happened to that quaint old fourth amendment and it’s stating in part that we shall be secure in persons, possessions, papers and so on?
Well it seems like those who have deemed themselves to be above the law, and have been behaving like it, are going to do ‘an Obama’ to the fourth amendment and like our immigration laws, just to name one example, simply not enforce it any longer. You see it doesn’t conform to the agenda and it’s only prosecutorial discretion in any event they say.
It’s time we the people say this must change, this must stop and now. We may have already waited too long judging by the apparent willingness of the Republican Party to lose a presidential election rather than have its establishment’s preference questioned by mere voters as one of them stated. Now if that is not serious enough the democrat party is worse, far worse. They are running a candidate for the Presidency of the United States who rightfully belongs on trial for a whole series of criminal activities which only occurred so as to allow her to circumvent congressional oversight, destroy potential evidence and avoid FOIA requests. For the Secretary of the Department of State, to anticipate conducting such a level of illegal and corrupt activities that would require such a pre-emptive move as the unsecured server is unconscionable. Furthermore that they would have the reckless audacity to compromise our nation’s most secret data over a period of four years just to avoid potential prosecution tells us the system is broken and what’s more that those running the show are seriously flawed individuals whose unquenchable lust for money and power had so completely warped their judgement as to allow them to so endanger the United States and her people.
While we have been on a downward trajectory since 1992 the slope of that trajectory took an extreme negative turn in 2008 and again in 2012 and we may no longer be able to correct it. Suffice it to say if we do not elect an outsider, Senator Cruz or Mr. Trump in November I am afraid our noble experiment in a government of the people, by the people and for the people and which only governs with the consent of the governed will have failed utterly and our freedoms will be irrevocably lost.
Rich in New Mexico.
This aim by predatory lawmakers to gather power over the population which has no guarantee of survival as ordained by God, Jesus and the DOI, is just another appendage to the MIC industry to allow unemployed lawyers to collect fines from Americans for going to encrypted sites like google. If you need a job, you can work for these lawfirms and call people who use the internet and tell them that their browsing was tracked to a google account and that they need to pay the fine or else.
This is why wars are so important. How are MIC employees going to make money if they cant have places to boom and peoples to shoot. Too big to fail is now the weapons industry. Gotta be an enemy somewhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MEkuHy29rU&ebc
The bit about “No person or entity is above the law,” seems to be a new mantra. Even Eric Holder was chanting it before he left office. Some people are pretty clearly above the law, just not tech companies. Sorry guys. You are not part of the big club.
In the United States, the people are supposed to be sovereign. The government is supposed to serve the people. America used to have decent public servants.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_E35bbFP1E
Not going to happen.
“No person or entity is above the law.” In that case, I guess Feinstein and her hubby will be showing up at 8:00 a.m. Monday morning to begin serving their respective sentences. What a dumb see you next Tuesday.
zionistess Feinstein acts above the law when she and her hubby cancel peoples’ right to free speech at UCB. Of course acting like a traitor to the United States of America doesnt faze her any since her zionista ways allow her to take up residency as an honorary citizen of israel. Perhaps if she would just leave and go to israel she wouldn’t have to troble herself with trying to burn the constitution – which is arson.
A preamble using the words “respect the rule of law” is enough to make me laugh in any senator’s face.
The aiders and abettors of war criminals most fear a future they don’t control.
I don’t see that much difference between Democrats and Republicans anymore. Sanders, yes, but he’s a socialist. Most of Congress and the rest of the DC power structure are just there for the power and money.
This is completely insane. I can’t even find the words to describe how upset I am. This is atrocious! All one has to do is look at recent history to see that this would be a horrible idea. It’s only been a few short months ago that we found out about a backdoor in Juniper Firewalls, possibly put there by the NSA. http://www.wired.com/2015/12/researchers-solve-the-juniper-mystery-and-they-say-its-partially-the-nsas-fault/
Now the USG wants to drastically decrease EVERYONE’S security! What about the government’s systems? Will companies have to create two versions of their products? Highly secure hardware and software for the government and security holes galore crap for everyone else? Or will the USG allow themselves to be just as vulnerable? I highly doubt it. Just as the Obama administration has classified more material than any other government they now want to deny everyone else the privacy and security we ALL deserve while providing only themselves privacy and security. Those are actions of a totalitarian state, not a democracy.
I am at the same time hopeful that this horrible law will never make it into law but the pessimist in me thinks that the fear-mongering about terrorism and whatnot will sway spineless and ignorant politicians. Then what? With the rise of ransomware and security holes being found literally daily I don’t see how purposefully creating vulnerabilities in systems will make us any safer. Even with our mostly secure products now, we have a hard time making systems secure (ala Bruce Schneier). Just imagine the shitstorm that will take place if this bill becomes law. Like most laws the USG foists on its populations it will make things worse rather than better and it will create criminals out of completely innocent people.
I used to say Feinstein was the one person who could make me vote Republican (that was before Rahm Emanuel showed his face beside Obama). Today I say this: Hillary, if you choose that bitch as a running mate, I will campaign for Donald Trump. I am not fucking kidding!
lmao
As we are learning, people like Dianne Feinstein, one among many others in the Congress/Senate, are the problem. They are not part of the solution. We need to show the vast majority of these folks the door!
Left? Do not be afraid to vote for donald trump if Bernie is not a candidate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAticaizX1U
Sanders needs to be told by his supporters that they will not support the Dem candidate (Clinton) if the primary is rigged. I will vote for him, but not for her, no matter who the Repub running is. Sanders needs to be told NOT to try to sway his supporters, but to support them to vote their conscience (I have already written this to his campaign, which I have donated to 4 times). Your vote is your vote–use it to destroy the anti-democratic forces all around. It would be insane to reward the Dems for their fascist tendencies. They all lost me over their condemnation of Snowden.
And what about my e2e ProtonMail account? They are in Switzerland and not subject to jurisdiction. Am I committing a crime under this bill just by using it? Am I subject to contempt if I don’t supply my passwords when served w court order? What about 5th Amend?
The Democratic Party elite unilaterally declared your Bill of Rights null and void when they unanimously declared that Edward Dnowden is a coward and traitor. That includes Obomber, Kerry Feinslime, Schumer, Clinton the Liar, and all the rest of them who have absolute contempt for we who lavishly pay them.
Somehow this is even worse than the bill our state legislature whipped up. (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/california-bill-undermine-smartphone-encryption-actually-got-worse)
I’m as unhappy as I can possibly be with my representatives right now.
Time for Californians to show Dianne Feinstein the door. No need to feel bad about her unemployment – I’m sure Putin will hire her no questions asked.
Is this a comedy piece…?
The Empire has gone wacko-nuts-insane. They haven’t a clue about the science behind encryption, how very sad that they are so uneducated. Maybe some 9th grade math classes would help? In the meantime, while they are in class, will someone get this “jack-boot” off my neck, Please? Thank-you.
the pimped outs for the wealther thieves, being into a state of “population denial”, are trying to match up their “prey upon the population” method with “the legalizers’s translation thesaurus” to come up with something like “we are going to save you from the hell of secrecy”.
OOPS.
Would someone vote them out of office please.
point and say in a Donald Trump way, “they’re all fired”. All of them except Alan Grayson and a couple other serious lefties.
Vote for Bernie or Donald.
Donald is opposed to war and the dumb-ass Yinon Plan.
I’d take Trump to Cruz. Most of the crap he is spouting is pandering to get attention. I seriously doubt that he is anti-abortion. Would be willing to bet he invested in many in his time. And there is some hope in his foreign policies. He might not start WWIII, but Clinton might. And Congress would restrain him more than they did Obama, they’d be united against him. So if Clinton is the candidate, let’s “Donald” her. It might be entertaining. With her war mongering, spying on us and AIPAC inspired repression of the 1st Amendment (4th, 5th and more) she’d be a disaster.