WASHINGTON—The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the leading U.S. science and tech policy think tank, today released a statement from Daniel Castro, ITIF vice president, on the House Judiciary Committee and House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Encryption Working Group Year-End Report:
We commend the committee and its findings that strong encryption is important to the national interest, and any attempts to weaken it would reduce the overall security of citizens and businesses, reduce the competitiveness of U.S. products and services abroad, and fail to keep this technology out of the hands of criminals and terrorists.
The biggest strength of this year-end report is the questions it raises. The next Congress should pick up where this report left off and explore improvements to law enforcement’s ability to request information, establish clear rules for how and when law enforcement can engage in legal hacking, and improve how the government can work in partnership with the private sector to address national security threats. Furthermore, Congress should study whether legislation can help U.S. courts better balance the interests of the individual and the state by allowing law enforcement to compel individuals to decrypted data.
By tackling these trickier issues, Congress can begin to provide law enforcement with the tools it needs without sacrificing broader information security.
To learn more, read ITIF’s report, “Unlocking Encryption: Information Security and the Rule of Law,” and recent Christian Science Monitor op-ed, “Congress Needs to Check Government Hacking Powers.”
