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Federal Bill Could Override State-Level Encryption Bans (thestack.com)

Posted by timothy on from the rules-don't-make-rights dept.

An anonymous reader writes: A new bill has been proposed in Congress today by Representatives Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Blake Farenthold (R-Tex.) which looks to put a stop to any pending state-level legislation that could result in misguided encryption measures. The Ensuring National Constitutional Rights of Your Private Telecommunications Act of 2016 comes as a response to state-level encryption bills which have already been proposed in New York state and California. These near-identical proposals argued in favour of banning the sale of smartphones sold in the U.S. that feature strong encryption and cannot be accessed by the manufacturer. If these bills are passed, current smartphones, including iPhone and Android models, would need to be significantly redesigned for sale in these two states. Now Lieu and Farenthold are making moves to prevent the passing of the bills because of their potential impact on trade [PDF] and the competitiveness of American firms.

2 of 140 comments (clear)

  1. Illegal phone running by Nukenbar · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I just love the idea that we are going to create a whole new "War on encryption" that might be even less winnable than the War on Drugs.

    Instead of people running guns from less restrictive jurisdictions, we will now all be criminals importing phones because we want to buy phones win normal industry standard encryption.

    1. Re:Illegal phone running by vux984 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This is a war on your ability to have secrets from the government they're not allowed to access by going to a third party

      Its not "a third party" its "any party at all".

      Other than the contents of one's own mind, we've never actually had that ability until recently.

      The very best you could do was put your one time pad in a safe which they could open with a warrant and several hours with a drill.

      Digital didn't take away your ability, it actually for the first time, gave us something new... places to put secrets that COULDN'T be easily broken into by law enforcement. This is new for them.

      Of course the idiots out there are proposing nonsense like backdoors, or banning encryption etc which are never going to end well if they came to pass. But the adults in the room should be able to have a real conversation about it. Do we treat the contents of securely encrypted systems as an extension of the mind, and vastly increase the total amount of data that is effectively untouchable to law enforcement short of coercion/torture (which is itself illegal).

      And on the flip side, what happens if they develop a method of pulling secrets directly from your mind that isn't invasive/destructive. Will that suddenly create a situation where they can get a warrant for the contents of your mind? The 5th amendment is a pragmatic one, you have the right not to testify because they can't make you talk short of torture... but what if they could simply read your mind remotely? And pluck your passwords out. Sci-fi / fantasy? Maybe. Maybe not.

      Another possible future is the augmentation of the mind itself directly... imagine an SSD for the brain, *IN THE BRAIN*. What would the legal status of that be in terms of warrant access?