Washington — CCIA joined companies, technologists, and civil liberties groups in a letter to President Obama Tuesday requesting the Administration reject proposals that would require companies to build technical weaknesses or backdoors into encryption in their products. Strong encryption helps protect the public against the ever-growing threats from identity theft to mobile device theft to hackers to spying by foreign governments.
The Computer & Communications Industry Association supports encryption as a way to protect personal information and maintain users’ trust in technology. The following can be attributed to CCIA President & CEO Ed Black.
“Calls for the limitations of citizens’ ability to use encryption, or for the inclusion of backdoors into secure technologies are not technically sound, wise, nor Constitutional. Empowerment of our citizens to protect themselves and their data should be a cornerstone of our national and democratic security framework. Even the White House Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies has joined with most leading security experts to agree that strong encryption of data is necessary to protect against hacking and other computer fraud and abuse.”
“Essential tools to protect against cybercrime and national security threats are undermined, not aided, by purposely inserting security vulnerabilities into secure products. In addition to misperceptions about the security issues involved, it is central to our Constitutional freedoms that it should not be an easy thing for the government to read our communications or avail itself of the most intimate details of our lives—regardless of the motivation or context. Limiting encryption is not only abusive of the rights of US citizens, but will also cause serious problems with our allies and trading partners.”
