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

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.