James Comey and Dianne Feinstein are at it again pressing for legislation to compel device manufacturers to enable law enforcement to bypass device encryption. In a sense, nothing is new. Comey is trotting out the same arguments—many or most of which have been debunked—and uses the abracadabra words “national security” to shut off argument because no one, after all, can be against national security.
The funniest part of their spiel is the oft repeated, “None of us want backdoors” when, of course, that’s exactly what they’re asking for. Feinstein’s last attempt at a bill was so bad even her Senate colleagues understood it couldn’t work and would have devastating unintended consequences. There’s no reason to hope this try will be any better.
Feinstein’s hypocrisy on this subject is especially annoying. She’s fine with having the government pry into every bit of the communications and online activity of citizens who aren’t even suspected of wrongdoing but nearly had a heart attack when the CIA spied on her and her staff. In the linked post I wrote that I thought Feinstein’s tantrum was hilarious. Now I think it’s just disgusting.