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

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.

Comments

Congress is just mad someone is beating them

[hsmith]

To the punch of stripping Americans of their right to encrypt their data.

Re:Congress is just mad someone is beating them

[Anonymous Coward]

No they aren't. The cell phone makers don't want to have to bear the expense of making a California or New York edition phone so they have lobbied their congress critters to that effect.

Re:Congress is just mad someone is beating them

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what lobbying efforts in your favor feel like. Enjoy it while you can. It's rare.

Re: Congress is just mad someone is beating them

[I'm New Around Here]

The right to be secure in your person and papers is certainly Constitutionally protected.

Re:Congress is just mad someone is beating them

[mysidia]

This can easily turn against us with 1 amendment to the bill tagging on an extra requirement such as sharing of encryption keys with the feds.

Re:Congress is just mad someone is beating them

[MobSwatter]

This can easily turn against us with 1 amendment to the bill tagging on an extra requirement such as sharing of encryption keys with the feds.

Exactly, did we not learn anything with 'guided encryption' standards with RSA's not so random number generator? If they are so worried about 'da torrorists', perhaps the gubbermint should stop picking fights and arming them.

Re:Congress is just mad someone is beating them

[MitchDev]

More likely Google and Apple (and Samsung, etc) dumped money into their congress critters to get this to avoid having to produce different phones/OSs for each state...

The government doesn't need nor should they have Backdoors and bans on encryption. Citizens have more rights than the government, and they need to learn that, even if it's the hard way

Re:Congress is just mad someone is beating them

[MitchDev]

"If they are so worried about 'da torrorists', perhaps the gubbermint should stop picking fights and arming them." Of maybe they should remember they are supposed to work for us, the citizens and uphold the Constitution. Maybe then Americans wouldn't consider the government the enemy...

Re:Congress is just mad someone is beating them

[Jawnn]

This is what lobbying efforts in your favor feel like. Enjoy it while you can. It's rare.

Nonsense. The 1% always knows what's best for the rest of us, even if we don't. Why else would we keep electing representatives who are so deeply in the 1%'s pocket?
Oh. Wait...

Re: Congress is just mad someone is beating them

[demonlapin]

Given the nature of wireless communications, it's a lot less abusive of the commerce clause than almost anything else coming out of Washington.

Re:Congress is just mad someone is beating them

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Unfortunatly from my reading of some of the available material on this it appears that the feds are saying states can't do it but they could. I haven't found the actual bill yet so I don't know what it actually says but this seems to be the case. I just assume the worst and it will likely only be somewhat worse than that when it comes to the US government proposing something.

Re:Congress is just mad someone is beating them

[wolrahnaes]

I haven't found the actual bill yet so I don't know what it actually says but this seems to be the case.

The bill is literally linked in the summary. I'll link it again here: https://assets.documentcloud.o...

It's a page and a half of actual content, even with the narrow columns and oversized font they use for whatever reason.

Re:Congress is just mad someone is beating them

[MobSwatter]

"If they are so worried about 'da torrorists', perhaps the gubbermint should stop picking fights and arming them."

Of maybe they should remember they are supposed to work for us, the citizens and uphold the Constitution. Maybe then Americans wouldn't consider the government the enemy...

Yes, but that is a complicated problem in the US that was solidified in 1864 when the District of Columbia became property of a corporation filed in the Queen of England's name and interest in wellbeing of the United States became non domestic. What is worse is they have played that game into a 20 trillion dollar debt based on playing the paper after running off with the gold and entertaining us all with puppets. The interesting part of that is England is in itself a proxy and well known for the commission of fraudulent financial crimes, occupied and operated as a front for the Khazar mafia (now modern day Crimea and origin of organized crime) of which I believe the banksters are descendants of and also the location of the original Church of Peter and birth place of Orthodox Christianity all based on the power of black magic. So yeah, it's a clusterphuck that makes Russia look more consistently more appealing as they were the ones that organized a strike against Khazar that set them back but did not take them down, instead they were forced to choose a religion that turned out to be Judaism which created the association of Jews and bankers when the actual problem is Khazar and it's black magic banksters cooking the books with a simple Ponzi scheme that could never work long term. When these idiots offer a new currency, they should be told to do something with a chainsaw, twice. Sovereign nations should manage their own money supplies and trade through trusted non centralized exchanges, not these pricks.

Re:Congress is just mad someone is beating them

[macs4all]

More likely Google and Apple (and Samsung, etc) dumped money into their congress critters to get this to avoid having to produce different phones/OSs for each state...

The government doesn't need nor should they have Backdoors and bans on encryption. Citizens have more rights than the government, and they need to learn that, even if it's the hard way

Actually, the Government has ZERO Rights. The Government has only POWERS. Citizens, OTOH, have both Rights AND Powers.

ALWAYS keep that in mind.

Re:Congress is just mad someone is beating them

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Unfortunately both are blocked by the stupid proxy here at my work as I did try both links. I guess that is my punishment for not following /. protocol and attempting to RTFA.

Re:Congress is just mad someone is beating them

[davester666]

more like this will morph into a required, country wide requirement for backdoor in every cell phone and a ban on end-to-end encryption.

because we all are terrorists.

Re:Congress is just mad someone is beating them

[rtb61]

Why bother with all the cost and hassle of fighting off silly local state laws. Just supply the phone without the software and provide an international link to download and install the software like, hmm, I don't know perhaps a link to https://play.google.com/store. All you have to do is ensure the store and it's infrastructure is not in that location. Quite simply it makes far more sense to deliver phones in that condition, absolute minimum of software in the package, so that it complies with that locations requirements patents, regulations, what ever and they get the end user to, well, possibly technically infringe by downloading what they want (you only need to keep the host distribution centre up to date with local laws at it's location). Then you can point to your phone as sold and say, encryption nope doesn't do it, swippy stuff doesn't do it, funny faces doesn't do it, decode DVD doesn't do it, in fact the only thing the phone is capable of as sold is downloading software, that the user chooses to install from the internet. So the whole thing is kind of stupid, push comes to shove and it will happen, in point of fact it is actually the most sensible thing to do and they should be doing it by default already ie start off with a bare bones lock screen and the first thing you do is install the latest versions of the software included an upgrade lock screen.

Re:Congress is just mad someone is beating them

[RockDoctor]

Do the TSA and DHS want the job of stopping and searching all people travelling between encryption-friendly and encryption-hostile state?

Sorry, bigger budgets, and more potential to strip-search, grope and fine people. Of course they're going to go for it.

Re:Congress is just mad someone is beating them

[q4Fry]

It is now HR 4528

Illegal phone running

[Nukenbar]

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.

Re:Illegal phone running

[gstoddart]

This is far more than a war on encryption.

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 -- and that's before they even start claiming they don't need a warrant for this shit, which increasingly is exactly what the do.

How this isn't a violation of both 4th and 5th amendment rights is baffling, but apparently digital invalidated those.

If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, comrade.

Re:Illegal phone running

[Solandri]

I actually miss the Cold War. At least back then, our politicians would bend over backwards to avoid doing stuff like this, so they could highlight how we were different from and better than those authoritarian Commies.

Re:Illegal phone running

[vux984]

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?

Re:Illegal phone running

[rtkluttz]

It is actually more (and older) than that. It is a war over who owns the device. This is a continuance of the war over who controls the operating system of the devices. Even in the current state, they can ship me the device in whatever state THEY want it in (they being either the gub'ment or the carrier or the device manufacturer) but the shit is still mine. Stop trying to control what I put on my own fucking devices. This is absolutely the wrong battle that is being fought. Separate the damn code from hardware in law and be done with it.

Re:Illegal phone running

[Locke2005]

I pretty sure the Feds already know my social security number! And, you know what they say about NSA agents: they always have the best porn!

Re:Illegal phone running

[suutar]

Doctrine about the 5th amendment is that the government is not allowed to force you to create evidence (by speaking or writing in answer to a question). It is not considered to protect already existing evidence (your diary in a lockbox). There's been a kerfuffle lately about whether requiring you to decrypt some already existing piece of data constitutes creating evidence or merely accessing existing evidence. However it is not inconceivable that an actually accurate mind reader could be considered "accessing existing evidence", just like reading your fingerprints, dna, or blood content.

Re:Illegal phone running

[BronsCon]

Which is why they worked so hard to end it. Now they can have free reign again.

Re:Illegal phone running

[Phreakiture]

I'm not sure I agree with you. If you think about it, McCarthy was an authoritarian douchenozzle as bad as any caricature of a commie that could be come up with, and he was doing what he did in the name of fighting communism.

No, I think the best way to diff the cold war versus now is with this regex: s/communist/terrorist/g . The players who are doing this shit now would have been the ones doing that shit then if they were born a generation earlier.

History repeats itself over and over. Here's an example: Think Freedom Fries are a new idea? Look up Victory Sausage.

Re:Illegal phone running

[DriveDog]

Outlawing encryption may mean average citizens won't have it, but it'll be the beginning of an enormous arms race between govts and citizens. The War on Encryption, yes, will make the War on Drugs seem easy in comparison.

One factor at work is that justices obviously aren't going to bother to learn about anything that wasn't around when they started law school, so it's going to take quite a few years to fix that.

Re:Illegal phone running

[Jawnn]

Doctrine about the 5th amendment is that the government is not allowed to force you to create evidence (by speaking or writing in answer to a question). It is not considered to protect already existing evidence (your diary in a lockbox).

[citation needed]
Not disagreeing, but would really like to read something halfway authoritative.

Re:Illegal phone running

[suutar]

https://www.law.cornell.edu/an... indicates that the protection is against testimony. I assumed (but did not clearly indicate) that they already know you have a diary in a lockbox, and in fact where the lockbox is, at which point what they need is a warrant, not your testimony. If they don't know about it, then you telling them about it would be testimony.

That said, the phrasing I originally used was based on http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=2... and the discussion on previous pages, and could probably be expressed more precisely.

Re:Illegal phone running

[vux984]

Self-incrimination would be EVEN MORE prevalent in raw thoughts as opposed to vocalizing.

Retreiving your password via a non-invasive mind probe is no different in terms of its function as evidence than a DNA test.

It even avoids the issues with imagined crimes, and fantasy crimes, and misremembered events, vs real ones etc, because its a simple fact.

If the password they read out of your mind unlocks your phone, then they are into your phone. And the evidence there is no different from any other evidence. If such a technology existed, I suspect it would be allowable, at least for the limited use of simply reading a password.

I expect it would and should continue to be illegal to go fishing for "thoughts about committing crimes" or "general dissatisfaction with government"... but even then, if they could extract, for example, a set of specific details about a murder that only the murderer would know, that could theoretically add to the evidence against you, too. I think.

Re:Illegal phone running

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Doctrine about the 5th amendment is that the government is not allowed to force you to create evidence (by speaking or writing in answer to a question). It is not considered to protect already existing evidence (your diary in a lockbox). There's been a kerfuffle lately about whether requiring you to decrypt some already existing piece of data constitutes creating evidence or merely accessing existing evidence. However it is not inconceivable that an actually accurate mind reader could be considered "accessing existing evidence", just like reading your fingerprints, dna, or blood content.

The Supreme Court already outlawed passive IR scanning without a warrant, as using new tech to "see through walls" was not envisioned. So now there's a traditional concept of privacy barrier that new tech cannot cross, even if purely passive and from a public area.

What is really scary is what they might want to do with a warrant. In that case, I would submit the 5th Amendment prevents an involuntary brain scan, even with warrant.

Re:Illegal phone running

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I would argue it is time to take up arms against a government with mind reading tech. That is too much power, even for a democratically elected government.

Re:Illegal phone running

[suutar]

As I recall, the key factor of that decision was that IR scanning was not widely available to the public, and the idea was that the cops shouldn't have too much more capability than normal people without going through due process. http://abcnews.go.com/US/story...

Re:Illegal phone running

[dgatwood]

There's absolutely no difference. In practice, an SSN is useless as a means of proving your identity anyway.

Re:Illegal phone running

[vux984]

I would argue it is time to take up arms against a government with mind reading tech.

And then what? Burn the existing tech, ban research into it, and hope foreign country X doesn't secretly have it?

I agree there is some pretty messed up stuff that could (would) happen in such a world, but I figure mass-proliferation of the tech to everyone would be the only possible stable outcome of such a development.

Overturn States' Rights?

[PPH]

So, when will a California resident be able to purchase a non CARB compliant motor vehicle?

Re:Overturn States' Rights?

[TheCastro1689]

When it hurts the motor companies wallets enough that they bribe, I mean donate money to, congressman that will pass a bill allowing them to be sold their.

Re:Overturn States' Rights?

[PinkyGigglebrain]

Probably sometime just after Hell freezes over. Once a regulation is in place it tends to stay.

I will however point out that the CARB regulations have done a lot to improve and maintain the air quality over the years. The air in LA would look like what they have in Beijing now if it wasn't for those regulations. That said I do have issues with the CARB regulations myself, I have a 35 year old car that I could upgrade its fuel and intake system to something more efficient and cleaner but none of the new equipment has been certified by CARB yet so I can't install it. If the regulations just required the car to pass emissions testing but not restrict the technology the car could use more older cars might get upgraded and the air would be cleaner for it.

But if it is a choice between a car I rarely use (I have a newer car for my commuting) and being able to breath I'll take the latter

Re:Overturn States' Rights?

[njnnja]

Unlike the right to be secure in your effects, there is no constitutional right to buy a car with any particular characteristic, including a high level of emissions. Therefore the Feds have an important say in the encryption debate, but in car emissions, much less so.

Since the answer about CARB compliance isn't found in the bill of rights, it is just up to legislators to decide how they want to run their states. And from a practical standpoint, one can argue that non-CARB compliant cars cause bigger problems in large and dense cities. As a result, states with large and dense cities might conclude that the difficulties of making and distributing different versions of cars are more than offset by the benefits of lower emissions, while states without big cities (or lots of car manufacturers) might balance the scale in the other direction and allow higher emissions.

But even though you made a bad analogy, at least you made a *car* analogy and for that you should be commended.

Re:Overturn States' Rights?

[sls1j]

When you convince the legislatures that those CARBs have gluten in them, of course.

Re:Overturn States' Rights?

[fustakrakich]

They can buy it when it no longer spews poison into the air that we all have to breathe. I don't believe encryption has that problem.

Re: Overturn States' Rights?

[spitzak]

I think he is saying the car is exempted, but he is not allowed to modify it, even if his modifications would make it less polluting.

Re:Overturn States' Rights?

[msauve]

"here is no constitutional right to buy a car with any particular characteristic,"

You seem confused. The US Constitution doesn't grant rights (although it does list some specific ones, just for good measure), it grants powers to government. Where a power is not specifically given, it is left with the states or the people. The right to free speech exists because the government is given no power to regulate speech, not because it's listed in the Bill of Rights. That's only there to reinforce that fact.

The federal government is given the power to regulate interstate commerce, which it uses to regulate emissions on vehicles sold in interstate commerce. They could, if they wanted to, prevents states from enforcing stricter standards since those interfere with interstate commerce.

"the Feds have an important say in the encryption debate, but in car emissions, much less so."

Huh? Exactly what power allows the Feds to regulate encryption, per se, more than car emissions? It could be argued that they might regulate it with regard to products sold in interstate commerce. But, encryption is used for speech, a right of the people, and one which is specifically enumerated, so there's a pretty strong argument they can't do that. In the case at hand, they're talking about preventing states from interfering with interstate commerce by preventing states from requiring insecure encryption. That doesn't interfere with speech rights at all.

Re:Overturn States' Rights?

[Just Some Guy]

So, when will a California resident be able to purchase a non CARB compliant motor vehicle?

Hopefully, approximately the same time it becomes OK for me to crap on your lawn. Your encrypted messages to your wife don't harm me or the state. Your high-pollution vehicles make it harder for me to breathe.

Re:Overturn States' Rights?

[radarskiy]

"Exactly what power allows the Feds to regulate encryption, per se, more than car emissions? "

The 2nd and 4th Amendments, each in combination with the 14th Amendment.

Re:Overturn States' Rights?

[PPH]

Since the answer about CARB compliance isn't found in the bill of rights,

Better than the Bill of Rights, it's in the Constitution itself. Article IV, Section 2: "The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States."

If I can purchase, possess and operate a non CARB compliant vehicle in any one state, California cannot prevent me from doing so there. As that applies to phones, I could just hop over to Nevada or New Jersey), purchase a phone with uncrippled encryption and bring it home.

Re: Overturn States' Rights?

[PinkyGigglebrain]

Sadly the exemption you mention was removed by Gov. Schwarzenegger within months of him first getting into office. The regulations originally made any car 30+ years older exempt from the smog tests.

My car was 29 and due for what would have been its last smog test when the Govenator screwed it all up. They also closed the loophole where you could take the car out of state for the mods, if the car was originally manufactured for CA then it MUST have all the smog equipment installed and functioning that it was originally equipped with. I'm not 100% sure but I think there is also a requirement for cars sold out of state to be retrofitted, I bought my car in Utah and had to get all the smog equipment added to it but I don't remember if the car was originally manufactured for CA and had its original equipment removed or what.

Also a factor is I don't have the money to ship my car out of state to get modded and take the chance that I would have to get all the mods undone when I brought it back if the CARB decided to be dicks about it.

I'll have to look into the waiver you mentioned, back when I was originally researching all this I didn't come across anything like that, but I might not have been looking in the right areas.

Re:Overturn States' Rights?

[PPH]

it's economic pull

Enjoy teaching your kids out of Texas Board of Education approved textbooks.

Re: Overturn States' Rights?

[PinkyGigglebrain]

correct. Unless the CARB has per-approved the hardware you can't just drop it in. I've been told I could make the mods and take the car to a referee station and it would be up to them to grant a special case approval, but I was warned those were rare and it I didn't get the approval I'd have to undo all the mods or not register the car in the state. If I had the money to burn I'd give it a try but sadly I don't have that much "fun money" to burn. As it is it still passes smog, but also gets really bad mileage so I only use it when I need to.

Re:Overturn States' Rights?

[msauve]

Huh? You seem even more confused than the OP.

Re:Overturn States' Rights?

[Jawnn]

Oh, would that I had mod points today. Well played, sir. Well played indeed.

Re:Overturn States' Rights?

[Jawnn]

"the Feds have an important say in the encryption debate, but in car emissions, much less so." Huh? Exactly what power allows the Feds to regulate encryption, per se, more than car emissions?

That whole privacy thing. You know, Constitutionally protected right, and all?

Re:Overturn States' Rights?

[msauve]

"That whole privacy thing" gives the feds the right to regulate encryption?

You'll need to provide some logic to support that claim.

Re:Overturn States' Rights?

[djinn6]

The Supreme Court interprets the Privileges and Immunities Clause as states being forbidden from discriminating against citizens of other states. Assuming no federal laws prohibit it, California can ban the use of phones with non-backdoored encryption in the state, so long as the law applies to Californians just as much as it applies to visiting Texans.

States Rights!

[Anonymous Coward]

But States' Rights!

Screamed the Libertarians. Oh wait, they like this, never mind.

Re:States Rights!

[moeinvt]

States don't have "Rights" they have "powers".

I don't like anything that comes out of Washington DC. You can be sure that the content of the bill serves the best interests of the corporations, even if there are some unintended consequences which end up benefiting the average person.

Name of the Bill

[Art Challenor]

Given the naming trend for Congressional bills I'd have much more confidence if it was called the "Protect NSA Digital Rights & FBI Access Requirements" or something similar.

E.N.C.R.Y.P.T.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ensuring
National
Constitutional
Rights of
Your
Private
Telecommunications

Do they have staffers who work on this sort of naming stuff?

Re:E.N.C.R.Y.P.T.

[psycho12345]

Possibly, but Ted Lieu may have deliberately named it this way, since he does have a BS in CS from Stanford.

You'd think we settled this in the 90's

[alispguru]

Encryption source code is First-Amendment-protected speech.

(See the Criminal Investigation section)

Don't these legislators (or anyone on their staffs) know anything about what they're attempting to restrict?

Re:You'd think we settled this in the 90's

[gstoddart]

You seem to think they care about such things.

I remain convinced that law-makers, or law-enforcement are particularly concerned with Constitutionality these days.

Powers that started as "yarg, terrorists" are now for basic law enforcement, and increasingly the push to say you have no such rights is what we're seeing.

Governments are increasingly deciding any hindrance to law enforcement, including such pesky things as the law and your rights, are unacceptable.

And people are saying "well, as long as you're keeping us safe, go ahead". And that's alarming.

NOTE TO MODERATORS

[Anonymous Coward]

Moderators, please note that many of the comments in this thread are a troll replying to himself to make it appear like a conversation. It's one jackass who posts this type of spam on a regular basis, replying to himself as AC. And, of course, he never says anything of substance, just one line nonsense.

Here's one example: http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8657315&cid=51359929 (posting about how Republicans want people to die)
Another example: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8685139&cid=51400945 (making BS claims about Facebook tolerating and promoting gun violence)
Yet another: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8700601&cid=51428235 (Claiming that Republicans are always tracking and spying on everyone)

There are others. It's almost certainly one assclown who ought to be banned or at least modded into oblivion. I'm hoping the new owners get rid of some of the shit like this. I don't really mind real trolls that post on-topic stuff. Some of it's actually pretty damn funny. Even some of the old -1 logged-in posters like cyborg_monkey were entertaining. Besides, they didn't waste mod points because they were already at -1 and you could easily avoid reading them. But I'd like to see really stupid nonsense like this go away. As one user said, real trolls would either make us laugh or piss us off; this guy does neither and is just a waste. I'm hoping whipslash will get rid of this fool when he stops apk's spamming.

Maybe this IS about the tech companies after all

[cfalcon]

Maybe the tech companies are even more central to this than it looks. Obviously, they would be behind a federal bill to protect themselves from having to fork products, even if it wasn't the right thing to do.

But there's just TONS of stories about how poor law enforcement is constantly unable to break into phones. There's no stories about this on PCs, even though that's where huge amount of the data are, and have been for many years.

The difference? PC and its competitors have always been open platforms. The government has known that there's no effective way to keep cryptography out of the hands of the bad guys- maybe with extraordinary pressure they could keep it out of the hands of the good guys, but that's it.

Phones aren't. Phones are becoming slightly more open in pieces, and there's plans for some really open phones, but there's not a huge amount of movement there. These aren't attacks as much on us as they are on the mobile software guys, because once they beat them down the push for an open phone will become substantially magnified in volume- enough to make a product that, no surprise, all the bad guys will use, indistinguishable among the medium sized wave of privacy advocates and techies. When faced with an open platform, the government could still try to ban it, but they would have no success among their target pool- and they would just succeed in griefing people.

So is this just a giant drum to scare the tech companies into paying more? It won't save any lives, obviously, and it's not otherwise that rational a play for the government. Maybe it's a bit of a threat for some cash.

Just a thought.

Re:Maybe this IS about the tech companies after al

[MightyMartian]

Shoes are used a lot in crimes, too. Perhaps these states would feel it necessary to put radio transmitters in all shoes sold within their jurisdiction, you know, because TERRORISTS and PEDOPHILES!

Stupid is as stupid does

[Locke2005]

Wouldn't any actual criminals just add 3rd party software to do strong encryption? These bills just create a market for one-time pad encryption support.

Re:Maybe this IS about the tech companies after al

[Locke2005]

Penises are the tools of choice for rapists... we need to regulate penises!

Problem already solved

[Virtucon]

Just ship the China version of cellphones to the US. Problem solved.

Nothing is settled in the US legal system

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

Encryption source code is First-Amendment-protected speech.

There are all kinds of holes in your argument, unfortunately. The Supreme Court could hear a new case testing this and completely invalidate the previous ruling or issue a new ruling that partially invalidates it under certain circumstances. It could be legally ruled that while the source code itself has 1st amendment protection, the actual using of the code does not. And if you don't think that's possible, you definitely don't pay a lot of attention to the US legal system where literally anything can happen depending the judge you get, whether you get a jury or have a judge decide the case, and so on.

Short-sighted

[DaMattster]

Assuming you have Android, all you would have to do is root your own device and put the strong encryption packages on it. Or build them from source. Politicians are notoriously moronic.

Correction

[PinkyGigglebrain]

Sorry, miss-read your comment. The car is not exempt. The exemption clause was removed by Schwarzenegger within months of becoming Governor.

Current use != Original intent w/proof

[s.petry]

I have to point out the obvious, which is that there has been nearly 2 centuries of people pumping money into propaganda to convince people that the Constitution and Bill of Rights means what they want to mean, not what was intended originally. That people continue believing increasing levels of bullshit is not a surprise, incremental change is how things always happen. Propaganda and Sociology are not "new" sciences by any stretch of the imagination, but also not something normal people get taught about.

So read some history and figure out what was intended by the 5th, and you will find that it does not match the currently used "spun" definition. I'll give you an easy one, which history will verify repeatedly. If you need citation start at the Federalist papers, Biographies, and court documents from the US and England.

At the time of the Revolution, British soldiers were searching people's houses for things like diaries. If you had the wrong shit written in yours, you were executed and sometimes sent to a nice London jail. Vague writings were the best, because a person disliked could easily be charged with a crime based on their own words with invented outcomes. Speculative thought crimes like "he was thinking treason" were as common as false allegations, "see he was mad at the Smithers so killed that guy everyone thought was mauled by the bear". It was all about who disliked you and what dirt they could find on you (nothing new there). The limitations in the Constitution were intended to prevent the Government or an agent from searching your crap and using it to possibly invent a crime based on their findings. The part about "speech" is a newly formed pile of shit which people are gullible and ignorant enough to believe.

History will show you the "meaning" of all of the wording in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Contrary to bullshitter and con-artists statements, there is no ambiguity or accidental language in the documents. None, zero, zip, nada, nill, null, etc.. etc...

Re:Current use != Original intent w/proof

[vux984]

Yes, but what is your actual point here?

The fact remains that if you are suspected of treason, due to circumstantial evidence, and a hair found at a known drop site -- and they use that to get a warrant to search your home, where they find your diary in a safe, listing your intelligence leaking, along with papers containing intelligence you were planning to leak.

The 4th and 5th amendments are not designed to protect you from prosecution in that scenario.

Law enforcement has been legitimately allowed to search your property for evidence of a particular crime.

Encryption currently can block that search, so that even WITH a LEGITIMATE warrant they can't get at that evidence. They can get a warrant to search you, recover your laptop, and then not be able to break into it to get at the information inside.

Historically they've always been able to break into any safe. The bill of rights, 4th, 5th amendments etc have never protected anyone from this sort of legitimate investigation, and never were intended to.

The digital age has given us un-crackable safes, and law enforcement is struggling to figure how to deal with that.

Re:Current use != Original intent w/proof

[s.petry]

Seriously, you can't see the difference between a Police officer finding evidence at a crime scene, and a Police officer reading your personal emails to find something? Are you really trying to claim that the founders were so goddamn naive they believed that people in power are, and would always be altruistic?

There is a world of difference between a random search, and a warrant being issued due to evidence related to a crime. If you don't see the difference and are not just a troll, I hope your masters pay you well.

Re:Current use != Original intent w/proof

[vux984]

Seriously, you can't see the difference between a Police officer finding evidence at a crime scene, and a Police officer reading your personal emails to find something?

Of course I see the difference. And nobody disagrees with you that a random search is a problem. But nobody here (except you) is talking about random searches.

Those were made illegal for good reasons. Those should be illegal now and in the future too for the same good reasons. We all agree on that.

The issue here is the *warranted search*. Up until now, if the police got a warrant they COULD search your papers/diary etc. Now EVEN with a warrant they can't do that. And that is a "problem" of sorts.

Re:Current use != Original intent w/proof

[vilanye]

It is not a problem with encrypted data. It is a good analogy with a safe or a diary written in some given code..

The police can get a warrant for the contents of your safe, but they can't force you to open it. They can hire a safe-cracker, but if they can't find one that can break in to your safe, you still don't have to give up the combination and the cops are out of luck.

Encrypted data is the same. They can't force you to give them the passphrase but they can hire someone to try and crack it. If no one can, the cops are out of luck.

What if I had a paper diary and I wrote it in my own language(encryption)? The cops can get a warrant for it and hire analysts to try to decipher my language and if no one can, the cops are out of luck. They can't compel me to translate it to English.

I don't see how you have a problem with any of this.

Re:Current use != Original intent w/proof

[vux984]

They can hire a safe-cracker, but if they can't find one that can break in to your safe, you still don't have to give up the combination and the cops are out of luck.

Quite. But how realistic is this? How many safes out there can the police not get cracked? Its a theoretical limitation with no real implication on actual law enforcement activity.

Contrast this with "everybody and their un-crackable cellphone".

If someone made a physical safe the cops couldn't break into, and people were buying them by the millions law enforcement would be in a similar tizzy about it. Except I doubt that can happen, nothing one can build can't be ground down again. And the cost of such a safe would be extreme.

Contrast with encryption where the cost of encryption is negligible, and uncrackable. (aka "free with 2 year contract")

Encrypted data is the same. They can't force you to give them the passphrase but they can hire someone to try and crack it. If no one can, the cops are out of luck.

Exactly. But they aren't ok with being "out of luck" so often.

What if I had a paper diary and I wrote it in my own language(encryption)?

You'd be surprised how easy it would be to crack in practice. In most cases invented languages would be little more than some window dressing on an existing language, with some simple ciphers etc. Couple that with other relatively detailed knowledge they have about your movements and activities and they almost have a Rosetta stone.

But sure, we can hypothesize you invented the equivalent of martian for the sake of argument, and nobody can make anything of it.

The cops would be out of luck.

Ok, how many people do you think in the world are inventing the equivalent of martian to write their criminal diaries? Are even capable of it? How many police investigations have been hampered by it?

The police don't have a problem with this, because it practically NEVER happens.

The issue they have with encryption is that every criminal from a purse snatcher to the head of the Yakuza uses computers, tablets, smartphones, etc. So its an actual obstacle to actual investigations instead of a hypothetical issue that never happens.

I don't see how you have a problem with any of this.

In an ideal world, I'd want police to be able to break into an encrypted device with a warrant. Why wouldn't I want that? But for better or worse, in the real world, for the first time ever we have somewhere we can put our documents that is easy, convenient, inexpensive, and is secure enough to keep even global super powers from getting in with all their resources combined. Never mind the local police detachment.

I don't have a "problem" with it, in the sense that I think we should ban encryption or backdoor it because those are both stupid non-solutions. But it is a legitimate problem that law enforcement faces that has no good solution.

Re:Current use != Original intent w/proof

[vux984]

The closest analog to modern encryption is the pyrotechnic safe; attempting to drill it results in an explosion and a fire inside.

Where I can I buy one? Sure I've seen them in movies. Do they actually exist?

If they exist how reliable are they? No criminal is going to want his books and cash to burn out if the neighbors kid crashes a car into a tree on your yard. Or a small earth quake.

I literally can't find anything about them at all. The closest is that using themic lances against normal safes can burn the papers in them.

Perhaps some psycho might rig a bomb inside a regular safe, but that's probably enough to get you convicted just for that, even if you walk on the original case.

In any case this hardly seems to be a problem law enforcement is constantly running into.

Re:Current use != Original intent w/proof

[vilanye]

But they aren't ok with being "out of luck" so often.

The Constitution and Bill of Rights doesn't exist to make life easier for cops. In fact, it was designed to do the exact opposite.

Working as intended.

The cops don't have to be okay with it. If they don't like it they can move to a police state where cops have all the power and the citizens have none.

That the cops can't break my encryption before the sun destroys earth is not a problem of any sort.

Yeah, most safes can be cracked. Others destroy the contents when cracked. Yes, most hand-written cyphers can get cracked, what if it was complete gibberish? I like that the founders purposely make things harder for law enforcement. Again, none of this is a problem.

You seem to be hand-wringing over the mere possibility that something is 100% secure, for reasonable definitions of 100% secure and cops "don't like it".

That the cops don't like it is a good sign. Anything that makes the cops work harder is a good thing.

The bill is 2 or 3 sentences, you can READ it

[raymorris]

This bill is written like a state bill - you can read it. It's only a few sentences. This isn't 1,000+ pages "we have to read it to find out what's in it" Obamacare.

Re:The bill is 2 or 3 sentences, you can READ it

[dgatwood]

Your concern is duly noted, citizen. But fear not. By the time it gets out of committee and actually makes it to the floor of either house, it will have at least 1,000 pages of amendments tacked onto it. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Sincerely,
Your Congresscritter

"have to PASS it to find out what's in it"

[raymorris]

Obviously I meant to write "have to PASS it to find out what's in it". Apparently I have trouble saying something so Pelostupid even when I'm trying to.

Re:Maybe this IS about the tech companies after al

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

Womyn rapists, shitlord.

Re:Not sure that keeping secrets is new.

[vux984]

My guess is in the days before the WW2, they would have had difficulty in breaking ciphers too.

They didn't usually need to break them if they could get a warrant to search the space you kept the key.

THAT is what has changed. Up until now, sure they might not be able to simply "break" the encryption easily simply when presented with encrypted materials, but law enforcement could always get the keys with a warrant if they knew where you kept them.

Remember this is *law enforcement* not international espionage. Law enforcement historically had the means to break any criminal's use of 'encryption', because they could always, at least in theory, obtain the keys through regular police work. The codebook, or cipher, or one time pads, etc were always there somewhere. And they could search a suspects home to find the safe hidden under the carpet with a warrant, and then drill it open with a warrant.

In the digital age, they (reasonably and legitimately) still want the ability to get into the safe. The trouble is nobody makes a drill that get in before the universe expires.

If unobtanioum impervium had been discovered and safes constructed from it literally could not be opened, law enforcement would be in the same tizzy. There would be these "safes" that they could get their hands on but couldn't open.

Especially if these safes were cheap to build or buy, and people could synthesize unobtanium impervium from common household supplies.