Make no mistake, the new “EARN IT” bill will effectively ban encryption.
We should have seen this coming, as key sponsor of the bill Senator Lindsey Graham said just a few months ago that if Apple, Facebook, and other tech companies don’t put backdoors into their devices “We will do it for you. You’re either the solution or the problem.”
On its surface the bill will save sexually abused children by setting up a commission that could dictate best practices for many different kinds of websites.
But the reality is, the Earn it bill isn’t about stopping child porn.
As the Electronic Frontier Foundations said:
“The bill deals with the very serious issue of child exploitation online, but it offers no meaningful solutions. … Rather, the bill’s authors have shrewdly used defending children as the pretense for an attack on our free speech and security online.”
It would give the government an open ended power to control content of apps, blogs, messaging platforms, basically a huge chunk of the internet. It does this by modifying the Communications Decency Act's Section 230.
Section 230 is the most important law protecting free speech online. And threatening to take this essential legal protection away from platforms that didn’t comply with their guidelines is a direct attack on internet free speech.
Furthermore, none of the guidelines have actually been written yet. The Bill gives the commission a blank check to write whatever they want, and those behind the bill have made it very clear that they breaking encryption is at the top of that wish list.
Snowden said "That such a law is even being considered by Congress, is a national disgrace."
https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1237707215903096834
Every major freedom of speech and privacy advocacy group right now is calling it an abomination. If you would like to help fight against it, please contact your representative using this link:
https://act.eff.org/action/protect-our-speech-and-security-online-reject-the-graham-blumenthal-bill
Information about the bill:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/graham-blumenthal-bill-attack-online-speech-and-security
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/graham-blumenthal-bill-new-path-doj-finally-break-encryption
https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1237708457635205120?s=20
https://reason.com/2020/03/18/the-earn-it-act-is-the-new-fosta/
First hearing on the bill:
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Its time to ban governments.