AG Barr, Sen. Wyden Reopen Encryption, Surveillance Debate

the Senate floor, attacked the Trump administration, warning of what he considers the potential for surveillance abuse. “By enabling dangerous criminals to cloak their communications and activities behind an essentially impenetrable digital shield, the deployment of warrant-proof encryption is already imposing huge costs on society,” Barr said. Cartels are using digital shields to block lawful investigatory access, he said, citing the societal costs of associated drug trafficking. Warrant-proof encryption also hampers investigations of domestic and foreign terrorists, he said, citing an inability to access messages from a 2015 terrorist attack in Garland, Texas. “The status quo is exceptionally dangerous, unacceptable, and only getting worse,” he said. Barr and President Donald Trump can’t be trusted with such “unprecedented power” over data access, Wyden said: “Their record shows they do not feel constrained by the law. They have not been bound by legal or moral precedents.” Barr testified in 2003 that “the president is not restrained when it comes to surveilling” U.S. citizens and claimed the Patriot Act didn’t go far enough, Wyden said: Barr “has contempt for our laws and the Fourth Amendment.” He criticized Barr for relying on “a tired, debunked plan to blow a hole in one of the most important security features protecting digital lives of the American people.” Weakening encryption by creating a back door for government exposes people’s personal data to criminals, hackers and predators as well, Wyden said.