I'm here on 14th Street in New York City, where hundreds of people are
messaging friends and family with their phones.
But while they're texting the FBI, advocacy groups and government agencies
are all battling over who can read those text messages.
Most messages like those sent from WhatsApp, which was the most popular
messaging app in 2019 or Apple's imessage are encrypted.
That means that they are kept private from everyone except the intended
recipient. And while these platforms aren't perfect, Jeff Bezos' phone was
recently accessed through a malicious video message via WhatsApp.
Many people rely on the privacy that encryption provides daily.
Encryption is basically how you lock your door online.
Some law enforcement agencies and dignitaries like Attorney General
William Barr would argue that the protection provided by encryption also
protects criminals and terrorists.
There are situations where we would want the government, for example, to
be able to get access to certain information.
The president believes tech companies like Apple should be building
encryption with so-called backdoors.
I don't care, we have to get it.
We have to find out what's going on.
The benefits of encryption as a tool are practically countless.
And few would argue that on either side, the issue is who should be able
to use that encryption and for what.
On the one hand, you have law enforcement and government agencies who are
arguing that they need access to information in order to be able to
prosecute criminals versus those that are arguing that we need encryption
to protect the functioning of our democracy.
And many human rights activists, privacy experts and members of the tech
community believe it is essential to online and physical safety.
If we don't have encryption.
If we don't have that level of anonymity.
Then we we simply can't exist online.
And sometimes that might mean non existent life.
Encryption saves lives.
It saves lives.
You might be surprised how many services use encryption to keep data
private. Banks use encryption for mobile payments and deposits.
imessage and signal use end to end encryption to secure message data.
And encryption is also used to protect sensitive data like health data.
Your web browser has strong encryption in it.
Like whenever you buy something online, there's really strong encryption
happening in the background of it to protect your credit card and your
your your transaction.
To put it very simply, when information is sent from user A to user B.
The information is converted into a jumble of nonsense.
That nonsense is encrypted and decrypted according to a key.
User B uses that key to decrypt the information and this is all done
digitally. Encryption is the science of secret codes, but it is
essentially just math.
It's applied math.
It's not fancy in terms of technological things.
It's it's fancy math.
It's important to stress that encryption is a tool.
It scrambles data to an unrecognizable state even for the government.
The argumentment for most is what data should be scrambled?
Bank data, government communications.
These things are often regarded as data that should be scrambled and
therefore secured.
Do we really need there to be lawful access into the command and control
channels that are used for operational technology, say, to run a dam or an
electric power plant? There's no reason you would ever need, quote
unquote, lawful access to that system.
Personal communications like messages sent with WhatsApp are some of that
scramble data that's facing scrutiny.
On the other hand, there are other channels that you can imagine where
there might be a more valid tradeoff between what the protection that
encryption provides and the needs of law enforcement to do investigations.
But who is to say who can scramble what data?
I don't think it's appropriate for the government to decide that they get
security and we don't.
And curiously, you know, I mean, if if law enforcement actually went
around your neighborhood and said, look, you know, there's burglars on the
loose so we want you to leave your front door open.
So in case you're a burglar, we can come find you without having to break
down your door. Most people would say, that's crazy.
Go back and learn your job.
You're supposed to be protecting me.
And the line between digital and physical safety can be a thin one.
For example, the E F F has worked with victims of domestic violence to
help them stay safe and secure.
Being able to have communications over WhatsApp, whether you're trying to
find your way to a shelter, find a shelter, arrange for whatever is going
to happen when somebody's gonna come get you or you're gonna get yourself
out making sure that you can cover your tracks about who helped you, where
you went and where you got help can be the difference between life or
death for people who are escaping domestic violence situations.
Encryption is also protecting human rights activists and folks who are
living in countries with dictators and persecutory policies.
Esra built a social platform called Ahwaa, where individuals who identify
as LGBTQ plus can virtually meet and talk with each other in Middle
Eastern and North African countries such as Egypt, where homosexuality is
not expressly illegal, but where the government has used laws against what
they call debauchery, among others, to criminalize LGBTQ plus individuals.
Encryption is very important us.
I mean, we are operating in such a sensitive part of the world where
censorship and surveillance are the norm, where individuals are tracked
not just because of what they believe, but simply because of who they are.
Their very identity, their very existence is in fact a crime.
Because Ahwaa is public, yet anonymized and encrypted.
People are able to share experiences, share resources and share
life-saving advice.
If somebody, for example, says, I'm a lesbian in Saudi Arabia, I have
suicidal thoughts because I can't reconcile my identity with my faith.
You know, and then people can come who can relate to that topic without
needing to sign in and see what other people are writing in terms of
support, in terms of resources.
Where can I go to get any types of counseling, mental health, i f you're a
trans individuals, where can I go to get some hormonal therapy without
risking my life? You know, this is what Ahwaa really stands for is
accessibility with the responsibility for security.
On the other side of the issue s ome argue that encryption actually masks
threats to national security and the security of civilians.
Not all access all of the time is bad.
And maybe we want to take some of the risks that are associated with
having lawful access.
Understanding that they pose risks.
And we still want to do that anyway.
On December 2nd, 2015, Syeed Farook and Tashfeen Malik opened fire in the
city of San Bernardino, California, leaving 14 people and the two shooters
dead. During the investigation, the FBI obtained Farouk's iPhone, but
could not access it through the passcode.
They went to Apple to unlock it and Apple couldn't help.
I think it's frankly disgraceful.
I think it's a disgrace what they're doing.
And I think that ultimately Apple will have the blood of dead Americans on
their hands for these kinds of decisions.
Apple's encryption was so good, according to Apple, that Apple itself
couldn't access the encrypted data on the phone.
Beyond that, the assistance ordered by a federal judge would overhaul the
system that disables the phone after 10 unsuccessful password attempts.
Tim Cook called the order chilling.
We did not expect to be in this position at odds with our own government,
but we believe strongly that we have a responsibility to
help you protect your data and protect your privacy.
We have a tremendous problem with data breaches and lack of security in
the digital world, and encryption is one of the very few tools we have
that can help protect us.
And so it's tremendously important that we stand up for it.
Putting what was being called a backdoor in the IOS framework would allow
the FBI to access the contents of iPhones everywhere, as is legally its
right with a warrant, but would also leave the operating system much more
vulnerable to hackers and other governments.
It does come across often as the as the government side sort of more or
less demanding a unicorn, right?
We just want the tech sector to provide access to their products, but only
for us and only under the conditions that we say.
And of course, the tech sector says, well, that's not possible cause math.
The FBI took Apple to court about the issue, but found another way into
the iPhone without Apple's help.
Yet we're being asked to create a method to hack our own phones.
The case was dropped, but the debate still continues.
Encryption is good. The right way is to leave Apple alone.
The government's being lazy investigations to hard, so we're just going to
sacrifice your civil liberties .
The price we pay for this privacy is that privacy covers criminals and the
crimes they commit. Drugs and gun sales, human trafficking.
These are all done in the very dark secret and private corners of the
internet. Where are we willing to risk not getting information for
investigations? Where are we willing to risk potentially having the bad
guys gain access to a channel because of you know weakened encryption?
All of our rights have tradeoffs and we as a society have to decide if we
want to make that tradeoff.
But I think we should recognize the downsides to the rest of us of taking
away our security and balance that against making it maybe slightly harder
and maybe a few cases for the FBI to to catch somebody who's done
something wrong. Facebook is now in the political spotlight, having
declared its dedication to end to end encryption for messaging apps,
WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
In an open letter to Facebook.
U.S. Attorney General William Barr, along with dignitaries from the UK and
Australia, warned that, quote, "Security enhancements to the virtual world
should not make us more vulnerable in the physical world."
And that, quote, "children's safety and law enforcement's ability to bring
criminals to justice must not be the ultimate cost of Facebook taking
forward these proposals."
He wants government bodies to have legal access to data that could be
involved in a crime.
Important people get security, but little ordinary people don't get
security. These are challenges that people like him can't even fathom, you
know, because you've never been in a situation where your very identities
criminalized. Over 100 organizations signed a letter urging Facebook to
continue its pursuit of end to end encryption against the wishes spelled
out in the letter from the US, UK and Australian governments.
These organizations included the ACLU, Human Rights Watch and the
Electronic Frontier Foundation.
We felt it was important for Facebook to stand its ground and to
understand that, you know, that people like us who work on behalf of
users, you know, if if Facebook stands with their users on this, we'll
stand with them. The leaders of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger responded
to the attorney general, William Barr, in another open letter saying,
quote, "The backdoor access you are demanding for law enforcement would be
a gift to criminals, hackers and repressive regimes, creating a way for
them to enter our systems and leaving every person on our platform more
vulnerable to real life harm."
I believe Facebook is absolutely correct to resist this.
I do not think we want to be creating vulnerabilities because they're
going to get exploited.
I've heard from people, friends and family, who say, why should I be
worried that the government has my data?
I'm not doing anything wrong or jokes that the government would be bored
with my data. But Esra says that she might have to shut down Ahwaa if
encryption were forcibly weakened.
I think the risk would multiply so much that we would just completely feel
paralyzed. That we will no longer be able to grow, maintain and sustain
all of these initiatives. And the Internet as a whole would lose so many
voices, so many communities, so many narratives, so many perspectives that
we really need in order to grow and expand and decentralize, generally
decentralized the Internet so that it's more representative of
marginalized voices that have been silenced for too long.
There's also the concern that taking encryption away from some people
won't stop the criminals who will find other ways to communicate
privately. If we set up lawful access to certain channels, the media of
the adversaries will simply move to channels where that law enforcement
access does not exist.
When you think about the real bad guys of the world that we're talking
about ISIS or or terrorist groups, they're gonna have access to strong
encryption. And an American policy calling for backdoors in encryption
would create an international precedence.
If Apple creates this backdoor then China's gonna say, oh, well, that's
nice. Iran's going to say that's a beautiful backdoor Turkey same thing
right . From 2014 w hen Apple started encrypting users iPhone content
to 2016, Manhattan's, then district attorney said he was in possession of
one hundred and seventy five iPhones that could have provided evidence in
legal cases. Encryption has the potential, as we've seen, to thwart the
efforts of law enforcement to catch criminals and prevent crimes.
The Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
The Fourth Amendment right to be free of search and seizures.
These are all rights that give us protection against law enforcement that
has downsides. That means that sometimes bad guys might go free.
But we know that in order to keep the rest of us free, we need to have
this balance in the role of law enforcement.
Amnesty International says there is no middle ground.
If law enforcement is allowed to circumvent encryption, then anybody can.
They feel that either everyone is protected from community activists to
terrorists, from regular people to governments, or no one is protected.
This is an incredibly complex area that we will have to grapple with as a
society, and I would much rather us grapple with it proactively and arrive
at some policy decisions than make you know bad decisions in the wake of a
disaster. One way or the other.
A lot of people sometimes think, oh no, this issue is exaggerated.
And the bigger concern is what if militants are using encryption.
That's why we should ban it, because in order to protect millions of
people, we need to risk the lives of a hundred thousand people.
Well, that's not true. I think that argument is incredibly weak.
I think there's a lot that we can do to balance the two.
You may not know it, but you rely on encryption every day already.
And this isn't the government trying to prevent you from getting
something. This is the government trying to take away something you
already have.