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N. Carolina Senator Drafting Bill To Criminalize Apple's Refusal To Aid Decryption (arstechnica.com)

Posted by timothy on from the authority-trumps-consent dept.

Ars Technica reports that North Carolina senator Richard Burr says he plans to introduce legislation "to criminalize a company's refusal to aid decryption efforts as part of a governmental investigation." In a USA Today op-ed, Burr, griping that "[t]he newest Apple operating systems allow device access only to users," even Apple itself can't get in," drags out the usual bugaboos: "Murderers, pedophiles, drug dealers and the others are already using this technology to cover their tracks."

Updated Friday 12:40pm EST: The Wall Street Journal reports Senate Panel Chief Decides Against Plan to Criminalize Firms That Don't Decipher Encrypted Messages

6 of 296 comments (clear)

  1. Except he already decided NOT to submit the bill by Trailrunner7 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ars might want to update its rewrite of the WSJ story. Burr isn't submitting the bill. http://www.wsj.com/articles/se...

  2. Re:Dear Owners by oneiros27 · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's 13 years old, but I still recommend as an introduction "The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Absolutely, Positively Must Know About Unicode and Character Sets (No Excuses!)" : http://www.joelonsoftware.com/...

    --
    Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
  3. Prosecuted and pled guilty by XXongo · · Score: 5, Informative

    But when someone intercepted, recorded and released an embarrassing conversation made by Newt Gringrich in Gainesville, FL after this law was passed, no one was prosecuted.

    The people who taped the conversation were, in fact, prosecuted, and pled guilty to illegal wiretapping. see: http://www.nytimes.com/1997/04...

    WASHINGTON, April 23— The Justice Department today filed charges against a Florida couple who said they had intercepted and recorded a conference call last December among Speaker Newt Gingrich and other Republican leaders.

    The Federal authorities in Jacksonville, Fla., announced this afternoon that the couple, John and Alice Martin, had been charged with an infraction, violating the Communications Privacy Act by using a radio scanner to intercept the radio portion of the conversation. It is the mildest criminal charge the couple could face in the case and carries a maximum penalty of a $5,000 fine. The Government said the Martins had agreed to plead guilty to the charges, and said the couple would cooperate with a continuing investigation into how a recording of the conversation wound up in the hands of a New York Times reporter.

    Or, for more details: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/jba...

  4. Re:Except he already decided NOT to submit the bil by Salgak1 · · Score: 4, Informative
    I've seen this before, so I did a little searching. Looks like a CATO paper, and based on NYC wage-equivalent for two people receiving full benefits, and that's $60,180.

    http://www.cato.org/publicatio...

    Can't find anything to substantiate the $75K figure. . .

  5. Re:Dear Owners by whipslash · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's a work in progress. Trust me. I want it fixed also.

  6. Re:Except he already decided NOT to submit the bil by reboot246 · · Score: 1, Informative

    Can you not read? The top 1% includes the billionaires, and they pay more in taxes than you make.

    I know a billionaire who has fed 10,000 Haitian children per day since the earthquake. What have you done lately?