Today, TechFreedom joined a coalition of nearly 150 privacy organizations, tech companies, trade associations, and individual security experts in urging President Obama to support Americans’ right to use strong encryption to protect their data and oppose mandatory “backdoors” to enable government access to encrypted data.

The coalition letter reads:

We urge you to reject any proposal that U.S. companies deliberately weaken the security of their products. We request that the White House instead focus on developing policies that will promote rather than undermine the wide adoption of strong encryption technology. Such policies will in turn help to promote and protect cybersecurity, economic growth, and human rights, both here and abroad.

“There’s no such thing as a data security vulnerability that only the ‘good guys’ can access,” said Tom Struble, Legal Fellow at TechFreedom. “If our government forces companies to undermine their own security, it enables cyber criminals, foreign governments, and others to exploit the vulnerabilities. The President should support strong encryption and rebuke his top intelligence and law enforcement officials for asking Congress to pass legislation that mandates ‘backdoor’ access to data.”

The letter’s’ signers include leading Internet, software, and hardware companies such as Cisco, Facebook, and Microsoft, a range of trade associations such as the Internet Association and the Consumer Electronics Association, and dozens of civil society organizations devoted to civil liberties, human rights, and press freedom.

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A copy of the letter with a full list of signers is available here.

We can be reached for comment at media@techfreedom.org. See more of our work on privacy and cybersecurity, including:

  • “The Senate Should Move Quickly on Surveillance Reform,” a statement from TechFreedom
  • “McConnell’s 215 Reauthorization Does Nothing to Protect Americans’ Privacy,” a statement from TechFreedom
  • Coalition letter urging lawmakers to consider amendments to fix the NCPAA, a cyber information sharing bill
  • “A Bold Proposal: Congress Must Establish a Commission to Audit America’s Privacy Laws,” a press release from TechFreedom

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