US Efforts To Regulate Encryption Have Been Flawed, Government Report Finds (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader writes from a report via The Guardian: U.S. Republican congressional staff said in a report released Wednesday that previous efforts to regulate privacy technology were flawed and that lawmakers need to learn more about technology before trying to regulate it. The 25-page white paper is entitled Going Dark, Going Forward: A Primer on the Encryption Debate and it does not provide any solution to the encryption fight. However, it is notable for its criticism of other lawmakers who have tried to legislate their way out of the encryption debate. It also sets a new starting point for Congress as it mulls whether to legislate on encryption during the Clinton or Trump administration. "Lawmakers need to develop a far deeper understanding of this complex issue before they attempt a legislative fix," the committee staff wrote in their report. The committee calls for more dialogue on the topic and for more interviews with experts, even though they claim to have already held more than 100 such briefings, some of which are classified. The report says in the first line that public interest in encryption has surged once it was revealed that terrorists behind the Paris and San Bernardino attacks "used encrypted communications to evade detection." Congressman Ted Lieu is pushing the federal government to treat ransomware attacks on medical facilities as data breaches and require notifications of patients.

Comments

Develop a far deeper understanding

[RabidReindeer]

If legislators ever bothered to try and understand anything before passing laws about it, government as we know it would cease to exist.

Re:Develop a far deeper understanding

[PopeRatzo]

we (as a species) will have some system of government where experts in their field are the ones who decide how best to regulate that field

That's what we have in the financial industry now. Almost all of our financial regulations have been written by people who make their living in the field.

Don't assume that expertise means caring what's best for society. It just means you know what's best for you. Technocracy can be an express train to dystopia.

Re:But the Paris attackers DIDNT use encryption

[Jason Levine]

I was going to say that but you beat me to it. The Paris attackers used burner phones and SMS. Unencrypted SMS. If worldwide police agencies can't detect the digital equivalent of postcards being sent through the mail, what makes them think that a) terrorists will care enough to go through the trouble to encrypt their communications and b) they could even find the supposedly encrypted messages when they're just tossing more hay on the pile while searching for the same needle.