The Obama administration has made no secret that it wants the nation’s biggest tech companies to provide government spies backdoor access to users’ private digital communication. But according to the contents of a newly public White House memo, administration officials have also been working behind the scenes to circumvent digital privacy protections.
The memo, obtained by The Washington Post, details the efforts of a White House working group assembled to conduct a months-long government investigation of the best ways for law enforcement officials to get their hands on encrypted data.
Obama officials such as FBI Director James Comey have repeatedly argued that tech giants like Twitter, Facebook and Google aren’t doing enough to help the government spy on people in the U.S. and abroad.
The solution, according to the Obama Justice Department, is forcing tech service providers to include backdoor access for law enforcement agencies to view user content.
“The FBI has a sworn duty to keep every American safe from crime and terrorism, and technology has become the tool of choice for some very dangerous people,” Comey told an audience at a Brookings Institution event last year. “Unfortunately, the law hasn’t kept pace with technology, and this disconnect has created a significant public-safety problem.”
The administration’s efforts to get tech giants to help government spies intensified last year after Apple and Google announced new steps to keep consumers’ digital communications data safe from law enforcement, hackers and identity thieves via unbreakable encryption. Following the announcements, law enforcement officials at all levels condemned the heightened security standards. Even then-Attorney General Eric Holder called out the tech companies, saying it was “worrisome” that they would make it easier for criminals to thwart officials in the name of user privacy.
Nonetheless, Silicon Valley’s biggest players have mostly resisted government demands for backdoor access to user data.
In fact, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Nate Cardozo told NPR’s “Marketplace” earlier this year that the firms are poised to make encryption even more solid in the future.
“End-to-end encryption is coming,” he said noting recent moves made by Apple and Facebook. “It will keep us more safe from criminals, from foreign spies, from prying eyes in general.”
The government, meanwhile, is increasingly changing its strategy from asking tech companies for more access to demanding access to user files: When access is denied, lengthy court battles ensue.
And based on the newly public White House memo, the Obama administration appears confident that it will win its fight to weaken encryption. The White House working group assembled by the president has identified four “technically feasible” methods by which the government could unencrypt user data once a precedent is set in court.
One method involves forcing communications providers to include a second encrypted port for use only by law enforcement and only after a warrant has been issued.
A second, more nefarious option would involve developing government spyware not unlike that already in use by hackers for government agents to gain access of targets via software updates.
Another option involves a splitting up an encryption key between tech companies and the government which, under court order, could be combined to break user privacy protections.
The final option would force tech companies to move encrypted data demanded by a court to an unsecure location for government use.
Tech experts refer to all four proposed methods as “backdoors” to encryption.
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