WASHINGTON D.C. —­­ Today, TechFreedom and a coalition of Internet companies and civil society groups urged the White House to take a stand on behalf of digital safety and security. The coalition filed a “We the People” petition asking the President to publicly affirm support for strong encryption, and to reject any law, policy, or mandate that would undermine our security.

The petition reads:

The government should not erode the security of our devices or applications, pressure companies to keep and allow government access to our data, mandate implementation of vulnerabilities or backdoors into products, or have disproportionate access to the keys to private data.

“Not only does weak data security jeopardize consumer data, it puts American tech companies at a global disadvantage,” said Tom Struble, Policy Counsel at TechFreedom. “Backdoor access for law enforcement only adds to the perception that American tech products are ‘tainted.’ In the wake of major breaches at OPM and other federal agencies, it’s irresponsible for the President to remain silent while his FBI director embarks on a global anti-encryption campaign. It’s past time that the White House support strong encryption as the best way to secure our data from cyber attacks.”

Coalition partners include: Access, American Civil Liberties Union, American Library Association, Computers and Communication Industry Association, Demand Progress, Dropbox, DuckDuckGo, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Fight for the Future, Freedom of the Press Foundation, Free Press, Human Rights Watch, the Internet Infrastructure Coalition (i2Coalition), New America’s Open Technology Institute, Niskanen Center, Silent Circle, Sonic, Taskforce, TechFreedom, The Tor Project, and Twitter.

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

  • Coalition Letter urging President Obama to support Americans’ right to use strong encryption and oppose mandatory “backdoors” to enable government access to encrypted data
  • 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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