22 Dec DHS Secretary Tasked to Find Balance Between Encryption and Effective Law Enforcement
In a letter made public last Tuesday, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said that he believes that a compromise between effective law enforcement and strong privacy protections can be struck.
Last October, McCaul asked DHS Secretary Elaine Duke to form a group of experts to study how encryption affects federal, state and local law enforcement investigations. Information from the study can then be used by these government agencies, together with tech companies, to come up with a solution to challenges brought by strong encryption.
In a bipartisan report by two House committees, it was found that weakening encryption would not result to the reduction of crime and terrorism, but lawmakers like McCaul and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., were noted to have pushed for alternatives that would protect privacy without impeding law enforcement.
Source: NextGov
