U.S. Sen. Richard Burr is working on legislation that would require cell phone makers and others to provide a “back door” to allow law enforcement officers to view encrypted data on the devices.
But his spokeswoman, Rebecca Watkins, said he is not considering criminal penalties for companies that refuse to comply, and it is unknown when Burr might bring forth a bill.
Burr, a North Carolina Republican who is up for re-election this year, is in the middle of the debate over encryption because of his job as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and his efforts to advance the view that tech companies like Apple and Google, maker of the Android operating system used in many smartphones, should find ways of helping authorities.
He recently weighed in on the government’s side on the question of whether Apple should obey a federal court order demanding it unlock a phone used by one of the assailants in last year’s mass shooting in San Bernardino, California.
“While the national security implications of this situation are significant, the outcome of this dispute will also have a drastic effect on criminal cases across the country,” Burr wrote in a column in USA Today. “The newest Apple operating systems allow device access only to users – even Apple itself can’t get in. Murderers, pedophiles, drug dealers and the others are already using this technology to cover their tracks.”
Newer iPhones and Android-based phones are designed so that not even their makers can look at their data. Apple and Google say that feature is a response to concerns about the federal government’s broad information gathering revealed by Edward Snowden and to compromise it would put their products at a competitive disadvantage.
The San Bernardino case may strengthen Burr’s resolve to require that phone makers provide a route for law enforcement to unlock the phones.
“Apple exists as a corporate entity with the protections provided by U.S. laws, but it cannot be allowed to pick and choose when to abide by those laws as it sees fit,” he wrote in USA Today.
The Wall Street Journal reported Burr’s bill might contain criminal penalties for companies that produce phones law enforcement can’t get into, but Watkins said the Journal story was “just not accurate.” In a statement to the Citizen-Times, she wrote, “Chairman Burr is not considering criminal penalties in his draft encryption proposals.”
Burr told WSOC-TV in Charlotte, “I don’t want the government to hold a key” allowing unlimited access to smartphone data and he would like to see tech companies and the Obama administration work out an agreement to allow access when needed.
“I just want (companies involved) to respond to a legitimate court order,” he said.
What happens from here is hard to predict. U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who is ranking minority member of the Intelligence Committee, has also supported providing a way for law enforcement to access smartphone data. A poll released Monday by Pew Research Center found 51 percent of respondents believe Apple should unlock the iPhone in the San Bernardino case and 38 percent say it shouldn’t.
Past Pew polls suggest people are more ambivalent about broader data privacy issues, with many wanting to keep the government from knowing too much about them but holding little hope the government or private industry can be kept in the dark. Privacy and technology issues are tricky, and an abbreviated Senate calendar during an election year may not provide a lot of time for senators and other stakeholders to consider such a complicated subject.
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