Sign the Petition and Urge President Obama to Stand Up for Strong Security

Today, New America’s Open Technology Institute, in coalition with groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Access, launched a petition on the White House’s “We the People” site urging the President to issue a statement in support of strong encryption and in opposition to any proposals to weaken it to facilitate law enforcement or intelligence community access.

The Crypto Wars were fought and won in the 1990s, when the government tried and failed to find a secure means of ensuring access to encrypted communications. However, since October 2014 when FBI Director Comey began calling on companies to insert vulnerabilities into their encryption technologies - crypto backdoors - the debate has reignited and we are in the midst of the Crypto Wars 2.0.

This time the stakes are much higher. The massive security threats that technologists feared in the ‘90s are no longer theoretical. Our everyday dependence on the Internet has made them very real.

Over the last year, Congress has held numerous hearings on the expanded use of encryption, civil society has held debates about the FBI’s complaints that it is going dark; and security experts have published a new paper proving why crypto backdoors are as bad an idea today as they were 25 years ago. OTI also led a group of nearly 150 civil society groups, major companies, and security experts in a letter to President Obama, urging him to vocally and unequivocally oppose mandatory crypto backdoors.

More recently, FBI Director Comey and representatives from the Department of Justice began arguing that crypto backdoors do not represent fatal security flaws, citing that companies choose encryption they can unlock for business purposes. But as OTI’s recent Passcode op-ed shows, that argument misses the point. The fact that companies and their users choose weaker encryption in favor of convenience shows that “universal encryption” is not the threat the FBI makes it out to be.

Despite all of this, the White House has yet to issue a definitive statement in support of encryption and in opposition to efforts to undermine it. The most recent information to shed any light on the White House’s position comes from the recently leaked memos from the White House’s encryption working group.

One memo shows that the group considered several technical means of inserting crypto backdoors into encrypted communications and devices, but ultimately warned that each “solution” undermined security in varying degrees. The group also concluded that regardless of what technical solution the government or companies instituted, bad actors would always have access to unbreakable encryption.

The other memo, written by the National Security Council, lays out three approaches that the Administration could take to encryption policy:

Option 1: Disavow legislation and other compulsory actions;

Option 2: Defer on legislation and other compulsory actions; or

Option 3: Remain undecided on legislation or other compulsory actions.

If this “We the People” petition reaches 100,000 signatories in the next two weeks, the White House will be required to issue a response. Now is a crucial time to push the Administration to take a stand in favor of strong encryption.

Option 1 is the necessary choice. In a world where even democracies like England and India are considering burdensome back door mandates, the issue is ripe for true global leadership from the White House. We need America to set a strong example and champion encryption as a key engine of Cybersecurity, economic growth, and human rights. Sign the petition, and urge President Obama to be that leader, and to disavow legislation and compulsory actions that weaken encryption in the U.S. and abroad.