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Senator Planning Legislation to Punish Companies That Don't Unlock Encrypted Devices

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North Carolina Senator Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is working on legislation that would penalize companies that don't comply with court orders to unlock encrypted devices, according to The Wall Street Journal. The move comes a day after Apple announced that it would oppose an order to unlock the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone 5c.

The bill could reportedly be written in way that modifies the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which compelled communications companies to build their systems in a way that would allow them to comply with court orders.
Mr. Burr hasn't finalized plans for how legislation would be designed, and several people familiar with the process said there hasn't been an agreement among any other lawmakers to pursue criminal penalties. It's also unclear whether Mr. Burr could marshal bipartisan support on such an issue during an election year that has divided Washington in recent months.
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For the past several months, Burr has been pressuring technology companies to work closely with law enforcement to prevent encrypted devices and services from being used to plan and execute crimes, going as far as telling some that they needed to consider changing their business model. He's also claimed that district attorneys have complained to him about encryption as they are "beginning to get to a situation where they can't prosecute cases."

Apple CEO Tim Cook has continually maintained that unlocking any device, or creating any type of backdoor, would weaken encryption across the board and allow both bad guys and good guys to access users' personal data.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Senator Planning Legislation to Punish Companies That Don't Unlock Encrypted Devices
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2016/02/18/senator-punish-bill-dont-encrypt/
Heh, he looks so annoyed/bored in that photo.

Apple's privacy stance (even if just a facade) is one of the main reasons I've remained devoted to their products despite their shortcomings. Windows 10 had way too many privacy issues. Sure, I could disable most/all of them, but most users won't realize that. Google's services are quality, but of course you become subject to data mining.

It's the price we pay for the internet I suppose.. :/
 
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PinkyMacGodess said:
Stupid says what?

He's 'bought and paid for'. Must be a spokesperson for military industrial complex corporations...
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This makes no sense though. The military already shot themselves in the foot with laws like this two decades ago - surely they know better now?

In case you were unaware - we used to have laws that limited how securely data could be stored in consumer devices. Military grade security could only be found on military hardware. Military hardware is expensive. Sometimes people in the military decide to buy cheaper consumer goods because they appear to be similar enough.

And that's how, oops, now you have your data that's supposed to be super secret not securely stored.

They realized their mistake and those laws were done away with. Unfortunately, the reprecautions are still felt sometimes. Old important mainframes that have simply worked for decades and so nobody ever bothered looking at them end up getting hacked, because they don't have proper security on them.

Anyways, all those iPhones on capitol hill would suddenly be a lot more vulnerable to hacking, if Apple were to relent on this issue.
 
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OMG, how did anyone get convicted before there were phones to scrape data from? If the difference between convicting someone and not convicting them requires data from their phone, then it sounds to me like a pretty weak case that has the high potential for being wrong. Unless criminals are taking selfies of their crimes in progress.

What happened to fingerprints and witnesses and all the other stuff? Sounds like to me that we have a bunch of lazy prosecutors who want Apple to do their job for them.

This is all a smoke screen for the fact that they want to spy on the populous and they're using "because crime" to do it.
 
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Yeah, this guy is all about transparency..

Quote: *North Carolina voters should do due diligence on the national security record of Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC). From his frequent appearances on network news shows, it is obvious that he is running for re-election on his cloak and dagger work as the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which makes accountability difficult to establish.

At the same time, it has become clear that -- rather than exercising critical legislative oversight of the intelligence community's most controversial activities from paramilitary drone strikes to N.S.A. bulk collection of phone records -- Mr. Burr all too often is a cheerleader for whatever is going down.

No sooner had he become committee chairman this year when he staged an unheard of stunt in trying to reclaim from the executive branch copies of a classified report -- revealing new evidence of torture via "enhanced interrogation techniques" by the Central Intelligence Agency -- in order to bury it.*

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/willi...hard-burr-the-cloak-and-dagger_b_7464344.html
 
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