EncryptionTech companies urge rejection of push by FBI, DOJ for electronic devices “backdoors”

In a 19 May letter to President Barack Obama, a group of Silicon Valley tech companies, cyber-security experts, and privacy advocacy groups urged the president to reject the implementation of “backdoors” in smartphone and computer encryption.

As Fox News reports, the signatories included major firms such as Apple, Google, Facebook, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Twitter, and Yahoo. Additionally, there were forty other companies and trade groups, as well as public-advocacy organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who signed the letter.

“We urge you to reject any proposal that U.S. companies deliberately weaken the security of their products,” they said in the letter. “We request that the White House instead focus on developing policies that will promote rather than undermine the wide adoption of strong encryption technology.”

The letter offered evidence of the  strong objection of the tech industry to demands from the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to allow secret backdoor passages into consumer electronics, which would make it possible for law enforcement to read encrypted private communications and data.

“Encryption threatens to lead all of us to a very dark place,” said FBI director James Comey in a speech in Washington last October. He noted that not even Apple and Google could decode their own encryption of their own devices.

“We’re making it increasingly difficult for us with lawful authority, especially in our criminal work, to be able to intercept the communications of drug dealers, organized criminals, of bad people of all sorts,” Comey added. “We’re encountering devices that we cannot get access to even with lawful authority.”

Much of the fear on the part of tech companies and insiders is that American technology is viewed with suspicion following the revelations of Edward Snowden’s leaks about the abilities of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) backdoor access to personal devices. Consumer demand for encryption that cannot be cracked has also increased.

“Strong encryption is the cornerstone of the modern information economy’s security,” the letter went on to say. “[It] protects us from innumerable criminal and national security threats. This protection would be undermined by the mandatory insertion of any new vulnerabilities into encrypted devices and services. “Introducing mandatory vulnerabilities into American products would further push many customers,” it adds, “to turn away from those compromised products and services.”

Obama has stated that he understands the need for encryption, but also believes that law enforcement officials need a way in.

“If we find evidence of a terrorist plot,” he said in January, according to the Wall Street Journal, “And, despite having a phone number, despite having a social media address or email address, we can’t penetrate that, that’s a problem.”

Even some former government officials, however, disagreed with the president’s stance. Among the letter’s signees was Richard Clarke, the national security adviser to President Bill Clinton and both Presidents Bush.

“Comey was the best FBI director I’ve ever seen,” said Clarke, but added that “he’s wrong on this.”