The Obama Administration still wants to be your big brother

The Obama administration is planning on delivering a bill to Congress next year that would require all internet-based communications using encryption to comply with federal wiretap orders. This includes providing information on how to decrypt messages on all devices. Currently, RIM, the makers of Blackberry, have been in a tough battle with several countries over the same situation. The new bill from the Obama administration, however, would cover more than just Blackberries and cell phones. It would cover anything that could be encrypted, such as email, facebook, twitter, Skype, and YouTube

RIM has recently been working to resolve disputes with India, the United Arab Emirates and other countries to avert threats to ban BlackBerry services. The countries complained that BlackBerry e-mail encryption posed a national-security risk. India postponed a ban for at least two months after RIM agreed to give security officials “lawful access” to data.

RIM “simply has no ability to read the encrypted information and that it has no master key or back door key to allow access.”

The average voter is almost completely unaware of this situation. They are either uninformed or don’t care about wiretapping. The AT&T scandal passed them by and they believe that their lives are pretty much the same as ten years ago. If they do happen to be informed, they don’t understand that this technology is directed right at them.

Any terrorist who knows what he/she is doing will have written their own encryption that isn’t accessible to any government and they certainly aren’t giving out the master keys for decryption.

Americans in particular should be concerned, given the fact that the government is trying to legalize spying on its own citizens. They can already declare American citizens as terrorists simply by what they say, as well as trying American citizens as terrorists outside of civilian courts. Given the privacy implications to remove secure and private communications, the government can determine on their own whether or not you are a threat. This means any type of political dissent could potentially be quashed by labeling you a terrorist and removing you from public life?

Another concern that Americans should have is the fact that the government has already been doing this for years. They are now just trying to make it legal so that it appears as if they have done nothing wrong.

In the area of security, forcing all systems to have a master de-encryption key makes every type of communication inherently vulnerable. Any encrypted internet service will no longer be secure if it is forced to be compliant with the government.

Steven M. Bellovin, a Columbia University computer science professor, pointed to an episode in Greece: In 2005, it was discovered that hackers had taken advantage of a legally mandated wiretap function to spy on top officials’ phones, including the prime minister’s.

If this bill becomes a law, the communications companies will be forced to bear the burden for the costs of switching to and maintaining master keys. They will, in turn, pass that cost on to you.

A primary reason to fight this bill is that we should never be forced to make law enforcement’s job easier for them. As human beings, we should be afforded security and privacy as a right, even if it’s only to encrypt grandma’s recipes. We should never accept any kind of censorship from the government. We should decide for ourselves what we should and should not see on the internet. Creating legislation where a government can have back doors and hold the power to eliminate entire websites should never be considered the right thing to do. This bill won’t make us any safer. It won’t help average citizens. It doesn’t protect us from anyone or anything.

Most encryption is already good enough but crackable by the NSA. Forcing people to be protected by making them more vulnerable is highly illogical. Terrorists won’t use these systems, which leads to the only logical conclusion in this mess. This bill is aimed at you. It is particularly aimed at your if you wish to criticize government policy and/or voice any kind of dissent. If you don’t fight to stop it now, you won’t be able to later.

If you’d like to help, write your senators and representatives and consider making a donation to the EFF. This should be stopped before Obama gets a chance to submit it.