[Infowarrior] - Here we go....Senate Panel Chief Plans Bill to Criminalize Firms That Don’t Decipher Encrypted Messages

[Richard Forno]

Senate Panel Chief Plans Bill to Criminalize Firms That Don’t Decipher Encrypted Messages

By Damian Paletta
Feb. 18, 2016 4:56 p.m. ET

http://www.wsj.com/articles/senate-intel-committee-chairman-working-on-encryption-bill-1455832584

WASHINGTON—Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R., N.C.) is working on a proposal that would create criminal penalties for companies that don’t comply with court orders to decipher encrypted communications, four people familiar with the matter said, potentially escalating an issue that is dividing Washington and Silicon Valley.

A U.S. magistrate judge on Tuesday ordered Apple Inc. to help the Federal Bureau of Investigation circumvent a passcode-protection system on a phone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, one of two terrorists who killed 14 people at a holiday party in San Bernardino, Calif., in December. Apple has refused to comply with the order.

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.

The bill could be written in a way that modifies the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, a 1994 law that compels telecommunications companies to construct their systems so they can comply with court orders.

A number of companies and developers have in recent years designed encryption tools that are very easy to use and virtually impossible to decipher if used correctly. A popular form of encryption, known as “end to end,” allows only the sender and receiver of a message to see it, and the companies say they are irretrievable once sent. Some law-enforcement officials and lawmakers have said companies should design a way to retrieve these messages if a court order is obtained. But privacy advocates, a number of lawmakers and numerous technology firms have said any effort to create one-time access to encrypted messages would allow foreign countries, hackers and others to steal information using the same tools.

Mr. Burr has spent months pressuring technology companies to work more closely with law enforcement and others to prevent encryption tools from being used to plan and carry out crimes. He warned technology firms that they need to consider changing their “business model” in the wake of the widening use of encrypted communications.

He said last week that he’s heard complaints from district attorneys and federal prosecutors that the use of encryption by suspected criminals has made it difficult, and in some cases impossible, to retrieve evidence.

“District attorneys have come to me because they are beginning to get to a situation where they can’t prosecute cases,” Mr. Burr said at a hearing last week. “This is town by town, city by city, county by county, and state by state...It’s something we need to take seriously.”

In December, he joined with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) in proposing a bill that would require social-media companies to report online terrorist activity. That bill hasn’t advanced so far, but several technology companies have announced plans to step up efforts to prevent the spread of extremist messages.

Write to Damian Paletta at damian.paletta at wsj.com


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