Encryption, drone regulation, and net neutrality are likely to be top of mind in both Washington and Silicon Valley this year.
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Encryption, or encoding messages to prevent unwanted parties from snooping, is regarded as a crucial tool for communicating and doing business on the web. But for American law enforcement, the mass adoption of strong encryption tools — which would prevent even technology companies from decrypting private messages — poses a national security dilemma.
The FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies say that encryption can lead to tremendous harm. Being prevented from reading encrypted communications, they say, interferes with their ability to solve crimes and prevent terror attacks. U.S. officials argue that criminals and members of ISIS use encryption to escape the reach of justice. But technologists, privacy advocates, and even the White House maintain that efforts to weaken American encryption standards would do more harm than good.
Proponents of strong encryption say that granting law enforcement special access to devices and apps would necessarily compromise our security. This would leave citizens, businesses, and government networks vulnerable to malicious hackers and foreign spies, they argue. (If a special "backdoor" is created for law enforcement, can't determined bad actors sneak in too?) While the Obama administration decided not to seek legislation to alter encryption standards in October, appearing to temporarily settle the issue, law enforcement officials have used the Paris and San Bernardino terror attacks to make their case again.
While the FBI has not presented evidence that encrypted communication prevented law enforcement from thwarting the attacks, they will point to the looming threat of terrorism to push for Silicon Valley to change its stance this year.
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