Government Affairs Blog
February 29, 2016
THE APPLE-FBI ENCRYPTION DISPUTE LOOKS LIKE A FIGHT BETWEEN SUBSCRIBER PRIVACY AND NATIONAL SECURITY, BUT IT’S NOT
The media is ablaze with the Apple-FBI encryption debate, cast as a battle between subscriber privacy and national security. Unfortunately, the spectacle misses the point of the underlying story.
After the San Bernardino terrorist attack, the FBI recovered the iPhone of the deceased terrorist suspect but couldn’t access the phone’s contents in decrypted form. Apple had redesigned that generation of phones with a technology called “encryption by default” to block such access by law enforcement and everyone else. The only way to overcome the technical hurdle would be for Apple to undertake an unusual process, such as writing a special software update that would disable the phone’s password-protection feature.
February 5, 2016
COULD THE GOVERNMENT AND SOCIAL MEDIA PROVIDERS COMBAT ONLINE TERRORIST RECRUITMENT?
Last month several U.S. national security officials met with top Internet industry CEOs in Silicon Valley to enlist their help in the surveillance of online terrorist recruitment. Soon after, Google announced two steps in the anti-recruitment direction. One initiative would let non-profit organizations place counter-radicalization ads in response to certain terrorist-related search queries. The other would make counter-radicalization videos easier to find in search results.
December 23, 2015
IS THE NEW CYBERSECURITY ACT A SURVEILLANCE ACT IN DISGUISE?
In the recent Congressional rush to pass an omnibus spending plan and keep the federal government running for another year, House Majority Leader Paul Ryan quietly inserted a cybersecurity bill. Then the whole package was signed into law.
Congress had been trying for years to pass cybersecurity legislation. They felt increasing pressure to act each time a well-known entity fell prey to a cyber attack. The latest versions of the cyber law drew widespread support from both major political parties, both houses of Congress, the White House, and the Chamber of Commerce. So the birth of the cyber statute seems like a success.
November 24, 2015
WILL THE PARIS ATTACK PROMPT AN UPDATE OF CALEA?
The November 13th terrorist attacks in Paris triggered an immediate expansion of electronic surveillance in the U.S. Within two days of the attacks, CNN and other news outlets reported that the FBI had sharply increased its surveillance of potential terrorists, especially those suspected of involvement with the Islamic State, or “ISIS.”
U.S. leaders in law enforcement and intelligence also revived complaints that their surveillance teams are “going dark.” They pointed to the widespread adoption of strong encryption and techniques used to evade surveillance. Does this mean U.S. law enforcement will soon ask Congress to update the CALEA (lawful surveillance capability) mandate on communication service providers?
November 4, 2015
HOW STATE LEGISLATURES ARE CHANGING THE BALANCE OF PUBLIC SAFETY AND PRIVACY
On Oct. 8, 2015 the California state government enacted the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (CalECPA). The new law, which takes effect January 1, 2016, significantly changes the obligations of communication service providers to disclose subscriber records in law enforcement investigations. Like similar laws passed recently in Maine, Virginia and Texas, CalECPA sets a higher standard of due process for law enforcement to collect communications content, metadata, and geo-location information.