James Comey, Dianne Feinstein Team Up To Mislead About Encryption; Promise Legislation To Undermine National Security

from the ugh dept

This is hardly a surprise, but after Congress had more or less realized that passing a law to undermine encryption wasn't a good idea, the clueless surveillance state hawks have used the Paris and San Bernardino attacks as a chance to go for it again. In a hearing this morning, FBI Director James Comey -- who has long been leading the charge -- explained that he thought tech companies ought to change their business model to drop end-to-end encryption. Ridiculously, he argued that there's no "technical issue" in undermining encryption, just a business decision:

Now, Comey said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday morning, extensive conversations with tech companies have persuaded him that “it’s not a technical issue.”

“It is a business model question,” he said. “The question we have to ask is: Should they change their business model?”

Comey is being misleading to disingenuous here. Yes, anyone can undermine encryption. And, yes, I guess you could argue that undermining encryption and weakening security for all your users is a "business model" issue in that they won't trust you any more and might look for alternative providers. But that's not the real issue. Comey's trying to shift the debate, because he knows that what he's really asked for is impossible. He's asked for backdoors that only law enforcement can use. And basically every computer security expert has explained that the only way to do that would be to expose everyone to more threats. And Comey seems to think that's okay.

Let me repeat that. The head of the FBI, who is supposed to be protecting American citizens, thinks it's okay to make everyone less safe, based on the unproven theory that it'll make his own job a little easier.

And, not surprisingly, Senator Dianne Feinstein, was right there ready to assist. She cited the Paris attacks as evidence for why "the world is really changing"

“I suspect what happened was in the aftermath of Snowden, particularly Europe got very conservative with respect to encryption. The companies back away. Now, that’s changing with Paris and God forbid what might happen in the future. So what I’m trying to say is, I think this world is really changing in terms of people wanting the protection and wanting law enforcement, if there is conspiracy going on over the Internet, that that encryption ought to be able to be pierced.”

Again, this is the same Senator who just a month ago was practically screaming about how important cybersecurity is, and now she says that the single biggest factor in protecting information online -- encryption -- should be done away with.

And, indeed, while others have held back, Feinstein has said she's working with Senator Burr on legislation to effectively break encryption:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that she would seek a bill that would give police armed with a warrant based on probable cause the ability “to look into an encrypted Web."

"I have concern about a PlayStation that my grandchildren might use," she said, "and a predator getting on the other end, and talking to them, and it's all encrypted. I think there really is reason to have the ability, with a court order, to be able to get into that."

A spokesman for Feinstein's office told the Daily Dot in an email that the senator has been working with Judiciary Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) the issue of encryption and that Burr's office is taking the lead on potential legislation.

None of that makes any sense. First of all, the Playstation is not encrypted end-to-end, and if she's concerned about who her grandchildren are talking to on the Playstation maybe she should look into that, rather than having the government undermine the very foundations of basic computer security on the internet?

Hopefully cooler heads prevail in Congress, but we've seen Feinstein and Burr team up to do tremendous damage through fearmongering before, and apparently it's not going to stop any time soon.

Filed Under: backdoors, business mod, congress, dianne feinstein, encryption, going dark, james comey, legislation, richard burr