Sen. Grassley Asks DOJ To Get Back To Pushing James Comey's Mandatory Encryption Backdoors Plan
from the damn-this-administration's-showy-shrugs-over-encryption! dept
It's hard to figure out just where Sen. Charles Grassley stands in terms of his assessment of the FBI's trustworthiness. Grassley demanded the FBI answer questions on its presumably warrantless use of Stingray devices. He also called it out for refusing to update Congress on the status of its investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails.
But now that the debate over encryption and "going dark" seems to have come to a halt, Grassley is now encouraging the DOJ to take up FBI Director James Comey's lead and find a legislative "solution" to the supposed encryption problem.
FBI Director James Comey appears to have conceded defeat when it comes to legislation to require communications companies to make encrypted communications available to law enforcement on the basis of a search warrant. But Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley is not having it.The letter points to some recent press coverage that suggests the administration has walked away from seeking mandatory backdoors to the encryption provided by Apple and Google. Apparently, a few "technically feasible solutions" have been put together by a "working group" but have not been discussed or otherwise made public. Grassley wants to know what these are and why the DOJ isn't pursuing these options.
"I believe that the administration should use every lawful tool at its disposal and vigorously investigate each and every potential solution to this serious problem," wrote Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in an Oct. 8 letter to Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.
I believe that the Administration should use every lawful tool at its disposal and vigorously investigate each and every potential solution to this serious problem, as your testimony before the Committee implied it would.Grassley then goes on to cite efforts being made by the UK and France, as if the broad wording and overreach of their anti-terrorism proposals were something to be admired and emulated.
Moreover, countries like Great Britain and France are much further along in their national dialogues on how best to balance privacy and public safety with regard to and are currently contemplating specific legislative proposals to address the threat posed by widespread inviolable encryption.Yes, but the "national dialogue" these countries are engaging in only includes pro-surveillance administrations and the intelligence agencies that stand to benefit from expanded powers and the increased budgets that come with them. The other stakeholders -- the citizens of these countries -- have been cut out of the discussion. Even in Comey's own words, the "threat" posed seems manageable ("dozens") and other evidence out there suggests encryption is rarely a problem for law enforcement or intelligence agencies, who have other ways of obtaining data and communications that do not require attacking encryption head-on.
Grassley appears to believe a legislative solution is the best approach. While this administration has demurred, another administration is on its way in little more than a year -- one that could take advantage of Congressional majorities to push through mandated encryption backdoors.
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Filed Under: backdoors, chuck grassley, doj, encryption, fbi, going dark, james comey
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Waste of taxpayer dollars. The DoJ has been told many times what the solution is, but they seem to be tone deaf to the answer.
I'll repeat it here, on the chance Grassley reads the site: The solution to back door encryption is to keep the fucking door closed.
The solution provided at no expense to the taxpayers.
You're welcome.
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Does anyone remember that some states passed laws ...
This is no different. It is an attempt to legislate a mathematical impossibility.
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Re: Does anyone remember that some states passed laws ...
King Canute would be proud.
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Re: Re: Does anyone remember that some states passed laws ...
So far you're 0 for 2. Care to try a third?
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Re: Does anyone remember that some states passed laws ...
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Re: Does anyone remember that some states passed laws ...
On the other hand, tomatoes are officially vegetables for some purposes (tariffs on imports), which is the pretense by which ketchup and later pizza became vegetables for other purposes (acceptable school lunches).
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Re: Re: Does anyone remember that some states passed laws ...
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I was with them as far as the imports thing
But yeah, at the point that we're using that as justification to define ketchup and pizza as the vegetable part of a student-child's allegedly square lunchtime meal, we're getting into the gray-zone of defining something as nutritious by fiat
Which serves as better example than the few pi-related laws at commanding nature through legislature. Food gets a lot of it, since things are often approved to be nutritious, edible and harmless before we have any facts to determine otherwise.
I do remember at one point we were discussing simplifying Pi to 3 in the aughts for classroom purposes, for the sake of improving math scores. I think it got shot down before it became a bill.
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Stop using encryption.
We just use obfuscation in the form of a mathematical formula applied to the data to enhance its opaque characteristics during traversal of the internet backbone and last-mile carrier routes for the safety of our users binary encoded traffic.
"Oh, Okay"
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Thirsty
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If US encryption has back doors...
Additionally, no other country will purchase any US compliant security/encryption enabled equipment (Cisco, Microsoft, Apple, etc) due to the US having the backdoor to all their data.
So let's just bring it on and kill the US tech industry. You're worried about tech jobs moving overseas? That will do it.
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Successess?
How have these powers affected crime rates?
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Re: Successess?
But the rates are down DESPITE the excesses of LEO, not because of them.
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This is what they fear; that people use their right to privacy to fight corrupt and unjust governments.
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Assley
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Do the world a favor
Enlighten him about this topic. Keep it calm, and accurate. You might be surprised.
I used the DVD / BluRay encryption wars as a solid example of the uselessness of encryption with predefined decryption keys or with a master key by which all other keys are generated and files decrypted.
Every time they (the MPAA) modify the encryption of their movies, it's only a matter of days or even hours before it's broken and openly available for decryption.
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