1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,440 Hello. My name is India McKinney and I am the Director of Federal Affairs at the Electronic 2 00:00:05,440 --> 00:00:10,260 Frontier Foundation. And so we are going to talk about the coming war on encryption part 3 00:00:10,260 --> 00:00:15,080 three and how you can fight back. So thank you for being here. Hopefully you're in the right 4 00:00:15,080 --> 00:00:27,240 space. So before just going to time myself here so I don't run out of time. All right. So 5 00:00:27,240 --> 00:00:32,480 before we get started I want to make something a little bit clear which is that I am a political 6 00:00:32,480 --> 00:00:36,880 hack. I am not a hacker. I am not an engineer. I'm actually not an attorney even though I work 7 00:00:36,880 --> 00:00:42,480 for EFF. I've spent 10 years in Congress. I started as an unpaid intern and I ended as a 8 00:00:42,480 --> 00:00:48,640 legislative director for a member of Congress from California. And so what that means is I speak 9 00:00:48,640 --> 00:00:56,500 the language of Congress and I have learned to speak the language of EFF. But it is 10 00:00:56,500 --> 00:00:57,220 definitely still a political hack. So I want to make something a little bit clearer which is 11 00:00:57,240 --> 00:01:00,740 all a work in progress. It's not something that I'm particularly fluent in. But that means one 12 00:01:00,740 --> 00:01:06,640 of the things that I do well is I know what Congress is going to hear when you talk about 13 00:01:06,640 --> 00:01:12,200 your these issues. When we talk about these issues here it sounds different than what 14 00:01:12,200 --> 00:01:18,360 Congress hears. And if that sounds like foreshadowing that's because it is. So we're 15 00:01:18,360 --> 00:01:22,160 here to talk about encryption but the story doesn't actually start with encryption. We're 16 00:01:22,160 --> 00:01:26,680 going to start talking about FOSTA-SESTA which was the FOSTA is an acronym that's 17 00:01:26,680 --> 00:01:33,400 stands for the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act. And SESTA is 18 00:01:33,400 --> 00:01:38,600 the Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act. These bills had nothing to do with encryption but they 19 00:01:38,600 --> 00:01:45,100 had everything to do with protecting kids from bad people on the internet. It was a carve out 20 00:01:45,100 --> 00:01:50,260 to Section 230 that was going to make platforms liable for some of the content that they were 21 00:01:50,260 --> 00:01:56,660 hosting that could be related to promoting or facilitating sex trafficking. And I'm going to 22 00:01:56,660 --> 00:02:02,300 get into that a little bit later but we obviously at EFF we super hate this bill. Um some of the 23 00:02:02,300 --> 00:02:09,420 biggest players in the tech space didn't want to be up against the kids sex trafficking bill. 24 00:02:09,540 --> 00:02:12,740 They didn't want to come out. They thought it was bad PR. They thought I don't know what 25 00:02:12,740 --> 00:02:16,840 they thought I don't work for them. They didn't want to come out and fight that fight. So we 26 00:02:16,840 --> 00:02:21,040 were fighting it along with some other folks in civil society because we could see with some of 27 00:02:21,040 --> 00:02:26,640 the downstream effects for making platforms more liable for content that is telling them that sex 28 00:02:26,640 --> 00:02:31,580 on their platforms was going to do to free expression on the internet. We fought super hard. 29 00:02:31,800 --> 00:02:37,400 We did all the things that we do at EFF. We had blog posts. We had action alerts. We sent emails. 30 00:02:37,540 --> 00:02:43,300 We sent newsletters. I spent a ton of time in Congress talking to people directly, and I had 31 00:02:43,300 --> 00:02:49,840 staffers come and say to me, we totally get what you're talking about. We think this is super 32 00:02:49,840 --> 00:02:54,400 important. We'll be with you if it comes, if we do this again with terrorism, but I just can't tell 33 00:02:54,400 --> 00:02:59,140 my boss to vote against the kids' sex trafficking bill. I just can't. Politically, I can't tell my 34 00:02:59,140 --> 00:03:06,020 boss to do that, and the thing is, as a former staffer, I totally get it. This was new in my 35 00:03:06,020 --> 00:03:11,820 career at EFF. I hadn't been that far away from working in Congress. I couldn't have told my boss 36 00:03:11,820 --> 00:03:18,480 that either. Section 230 was a new issue for me. I had never heard of this law that founded. I'm 37 00:03:18,480 --> 00:03:22,760 going to use the internet all the time, but I still never heard of Section 230. Nobody in my 10 38 00:03:22,760 --> 00:03:24,380 years in Congress came to talk to me about it. I had never heard of it. I had never heard of it. 39 00:03:24,380 --> 00:03:29,020 Nobody came to talk to me about Section 230. Nobody came to talk to me about free expression on 40 00:03:29,020 --> 00:03:33,980 the internet. It wasn't a thing. It wasn't a problem. So when this bill came up, and all these 41 00:03:33,980 --> 00:03:40,340 people are talking about these terrible things that are happening online, and these victims can't 42 00:03:40,340 --> 00:03:44,720 get justice from these terrible platforms that are exploiting them and doing all of these terrible 43 00:03:44,720 --> 00:03:49,020 things, and we have to hold these internet platforms accountable for these terrible things 44 00:03:49,020 --> 00:03:53,740 that are happening online, members of Congress are like, yes, that sounds reasonable. We should do 45 00:03:53,740 --> 00:03:53,980 that. 46 00:03:54,380 --> 00:04:05,260 And so we fought very, very, very hard, but only fewer than 3,000 people, EFF is a member-supported 47 00:04:05,260 --> 00:04:12,300 organization. We have about 30,000 members. We had a bunch of people read our blog posts and our 48 00:04:12,300 --> 00:04:17,220 actions, but fewer than 3,000 people took that action to send a letter to Congress to say that 49 00:04:17,220 --> 00:04:24,360 this is a bad bill. Don't vote for it. So it passed. Once it passed, a whole bunch of people 50 00:04:24,360 --> 00:04:29,080 were caught. The whole bunch of things happened. People took various parts of their website 51 00:04:29,080 --> 00:04:35,680 down. Craigslist closed entire sections of their website. Um, WordPress took people off the 52 00:04:35,680 --> 00:04:40,880 platform. Like many different things happened downstream effects. And people all of a sudden 53 00:04:40,880 --> 00:04:45,720 realized that just because they weren't sex trafficking because they were good people, they 54 00:04:45,720 --> 00:04:49,820 were normal people, they were regular people. Obviously, the sex trafficking bill won't affect 55 00:04:49,820 --> 00:04:54,340 me. Turns out, it does because the platforms have tried to reduce their liability. The fear of 56 00:04:54,340 --> 00:04:58,540 didn't just take away things that were related to sex trafficking, because that's a little bit 57 00:04:58,540 --> 00:05:05,200 fuzzy. Content moderation is really hard. They took away things relating to sex. They took away 58 00:05:05,200 --> 00:05:11,480 things related to dating profiles online. They took away things related to just adult content. 59 00:05:11,780 --> 00:05:18,280 And because, according to someone somewhere, queer content obviously equals sex content, 60 00:05:18,420 --> 00:05:23,260 they took away a lot of queer content. And so in the years that followed, we had a whole bunch of, 61 00:05:23,260 --> 00:05:28,040 like if we would do Ask the EFF, with B-Sides, at DEF CON, at other places, we always had really 62 00:05:28,040 --> 00:05:33,240 angry people coming up to us and saying, EFF, why weren't you there? Why didn't you stop this? 63 00:05:34,040 --> 00:05:38,740 And so my response was always, I was literally there in Congress, shoving our one-pagers under 64 00:05:38,740 --> 00:05:44,440 the door of the cloakroom when the vote was being taken. Where were you? Where was your email to 65 00:05:44,440 --> 00:05:50,060 your member? Where was your message on Reddit about this bill? Where were you? Because people 66 00:05:50,060 --> 00:05:53,160 just weren't there. So that is relevant. 67 00:05:54,780 --> 00:06:04,880 You fast forward, there's a bill called Earn It. And the way that Earn It is structured, it is a bill 68 00:06:04,880 --> 00:06:11,940 where an unelected government commission is convened to create best practices for the 69 00:06:11,940 --> 00:06:17,700 internet. And if you don't do these things that this unelected commission decides are best 70 00:06:17,700 --> 00:06:23,240 practices for the internet, you lose Section 230 protections related to child care, child 71 00:06:23,260 --> 00:06:29,720 protection, and all these other things. So it's the same playbook as FOSTA-SESTA. That's why 72 00:06:29,720 --> 00:06:34,980 it's related. It's the same message. It's the same we're saving the children from the dangers of 73 00:06:34,980 --> 00:06:41,720 the internet. It's super worked in 2018. We're going to try it again. Only because of the 74 00:06:41,720 --> 00:06:45,580 unelected commission and some of the people who were on the commission, including the Attorney 75 00:06:45,580 --> 00:06:50,120 General, including the Secretary of Homeland Security, have this super long history, 76 00:06:50,220 --> 00:06:53,240 specifically as relates to going after CSAM and other things. And so I'm going to go ahead and 77 00:06:53,260 --> 00:06:53,520 give you a couple of examples. There was a bill that was prepared by the State Tribunal 78 00:06:53,520 --> 00:07:00,060 abuse materials of wanting to come after encryption. They don't like encryption because they 79 00:07:00,060 --> 00:07:05,000 think encryption directly leads to the exploitation of children. They have said this publicly. 80 00:07:05,240 --> 00:07:09,360 If you were around for crypto wars two, you know that they said it publicly. If you were around 81 00:07:09,360 --> 00:07:13,180 for crypto wars one, you know they said it publicly. They've been saying this over and over and 82 00:07:13,180 --> 00:07:21,200 over again, and they haven't stopped. So when we read this bill, we realize that this is using the 83 00:07:21,200 --> 00:07:23,240 language of FOSTA-SESTA and I think this is something that many of us know, and the money that's 84 00:07:23,260 --> 00:07:30,580 to go after private messages and encryption. And so we happened to receive leaked bill text. We 85 00:07:30,580 --> 00:07:36,000 got a little bit lucky. We happened to receive leaked bill text. So we had time to do our super 86 00:07:36,000 --> 00:07:41,900 deliberative EFF process and figure out what we think, figure out what a message. And so once the 87 00:07:41,900 --> 00:07:48,020 bill text was publicly leaked, we were ready to go. We hit publish. We had an action. We had a 88 00:07:48,020 --> 00:07:52,440 whole thing. And because we had these two years of the impact of FOSTA-SESTA, the internet was 89 00:07:52,440 --> 00:07:57,200 now paying attention. These messages, even though I'm not exploiting children online, this 90 00:07:57,200 --> 00:08:01,980 message is going to directly affect me and how it impacts how I go about the internet. People were 91 00:08:01,980 --> 00:08:07,560 listening. People were aware. People were engaged. And also because we were able to publish as soon 92 00:08:07,560 --> 00:08:12,060 as the bill got introduced, they never got a positive news cycle about, oh, look at all these 93 00:08:12,060 --> 00:08:15,400 things we're doing to protect the children from the evils of the internet. We were ready. We were 94 00:08:15,400 --> 00:08:21,460 there. Every news article I saw that quoted the sponsors also quoted us or one of the other civil 95 00:08:21,460 --> 00:08:22,220 liberties organizations. 96 00:08:22,440 --> 00:08:31,580 They were working to oppose the bill. So they introduced it in March 2020, and it ended up 97 00:08:31,580 --> 00:08:35,660 passing the Judiciary Committee because of complicated procedures that we can talk about if 98 00:08:35,660 --> 00:08:46,480 you want to, but I'm not going to bore you now. But we got about 50,000 people to write into 99 00:08:46,480 --> 00:08:50,940 Congress in that time period saying, don't vote for earn it. Don't do this. 100 00:08:52,440 --> 00:08:59,520 And that's huge. So it passed this in a Judiciary Committee, but then nothing happened. And so the 101 00:08:59,520 --> 00:09:04,000 thing went like that when nothing happens. Bills don't die like that, especially after it passes 102 00:09:04,000 --> 00:09:08,980 committee. It can always show up on the floor. It can get added to a must-pass package at the end 103 00:09:08,980 --> 00:09:13,100 of the year. Things can show up. But because 50,000 people had already written in about it, 104 00:09:13,140 --> 00:09:17,420 that lowers the chances of those things happening. Because if it does get added to a must-pass 105 00:09:17,420 --> 00:09:21,520 package, I mean, the definition of a must-pass package is that it must pass. So if you have that 106 00:09:21,520 --> 00:09:25,960 many feisty people in the world saying, do not do this, and they're willing to write to their 107 00:09:25,960 --> 00:09:31,280 senators and their members of Congress about it, you don't want to add that to a must-pass package 108 00:09:31,280 --> 00:09:34,360 because you could actually lose votes, and then you have a whole different problem. 109 00:09:37,380 --> 00:09:45,720 So in 2022, they were smarter this time. I sort of, I was expecting this because this is a zombie 110 00:09:45,720 --> 00:09:50,920 bill. It is forever undead. Congress is a two-year process, so it comes in on an odd year. 111 00:09:51,520 --> 00:09:57,800 And then reconvenes, you know, we have elections, and then the next January they start. So all bills 112 00:09:57,800 --> 00:10:03,880 die at the end of a congressional session. So then they start back up again. So I was waiting 113 00:10:04,440 --> 00:10:08,560 for this bill to come back, and it didn't for a long time. But I didn't think we were in the clear. 114 00:10:08,900 --> 00:10:16,440 So all of a sudden, in the end of January, the bill both got introduced, and it was announced 115 00:10:16,440 --> 00:10:20,820 that it was going to mark up in the Senate Judiciary Committee at the same time, which means 116 00:10:21,520 --> 00:10:23,480 out. They are trying to do it. And it's going to take less than a week to figure out what we 117 00:10:23,480 --> 00:10:27,160 thought about this bill, how this bill is different, and to mobilize people to tell their 118 00:10:27,160 --> 00:10:33,980 senators that this bill is still a terrible idea and you should not do it. In six days, 10,000 119 00:10:33,980 --> 00:10:39,080 people sent emails to members of Congress saying, this is still a terrible idea. You should 120 00:10:39,080 --> 00:10:44,440 still stop this. What are you thinking about? And so, again, you know, messages continue to 121 00:10:44,440 --> 00:10:48,640 to pour in after that. And I'm just talking about EFF's numbers. I don't have access to other 122 00:10:48,640 --> 00:10:52,200 friends in civil society and the stuff that they're doing. Or if people just do it on their 123 00:10:52,200 --> 00:10:56,660 own and they don't go through our action center. I don't have access to that. These are our members, 124 00:10:56,760 --> 00:11:05,880 EFF members who did these. So slightly less than 40,000 messages were sent in less than a month 125 00:11:06,360 --> 00:11:13,020 about this. So again, EARN IT never receives a floor vote because you have this many people 126 00:11:13,020 --> 00:11:17,760 who are willing to take action about this in this small of a time frame. The people are engaged, 127 00:11:17,980 --> 00:11:21,400 the people are interested, the people are listening. It's a bad political move to do this. 128 00:11:21,800 --> 00:11:38,580 So great job. However, so it's complicated. So the way the mechanism works in EARN IT is the 129 00:11:38,580 --> 00:11:42,680 commission says, if you don't do these things, you lose Section 230. 130 00:11:43,020 --> 00:11:47,600 So one of the things is, if you don't have a back door or if you don't allow to have law 131 00:11:47,600 --> 00:11:51,400 enforcement have access to the message. It's a little, because the commission hasn't convened 132 00:11:51,400 --> 00:11:54,100 yet. They haven't written their messages. We don't know what it would exactly look like. 133 00:11:54,240 --> 00:12:00,840 We do know the public statements of the DOJ, DHS, and many other law enforcement officials. And 134 00:12:00,840 --> 00:12:06,060 more recently, Senator Graham and some of the other senators, they do not want private messages 135 00:12:06,060 --> 00:12:10,960 at all. They think private messages creates a vulnerability for law enforcement. And if law 136 00:12:10,960 --> 00:12:13,000 enforcement can't see any of the messages, they don't want private messages at all. So it's a 137 00:12:13,020 --> 00:12:18,640 problem and that needs to be changed. That's been very public. So I'm not making that up. I don't 138 00:12:18,640 --> 00:12:24,540 know exactly what that would look like, but I know what the goal is. So I want to break down, 139 00:12:24,700 --> 00:12:28,200 so those numbers that I showed you in the last slide, I want to break that down a little bit 140 00:12:28,200 --> 00:12:33,420 more. So one of the things that happened in the markup, because it still happened in the early 141 00:12:34,320 --> 00:12:41,140 February, late January period. So these are five senators who were willing to speak out publicly 142 00:12:41,680 --> 00:12:43,000 against this bill. And they're willing to speak out publicly against this bill. And they're willing 143 00:12:43,020 --> 00:12:44,800 to say publicly that it is a threat to the queer community that is supposed to protect children 144 00:12:44,800 --> 00:12:49,240 from online exploitation. And so this is a really, really big deal in the language of Congress. 145 00:12:49,680 --> 00:12:54,360 These members are willing to say publicly, this is a threat to the queer community. 146 00:12:55,160 --> 00:12:59,980 This is a problem. This is a badly written bill. There are constitutional problems. 147 00:13:00,340 --> 00:13:04,800 I would like to see amendments before the bill moves. We want to specifically fix the threat to 148 00:13:04,800 --> 00:13:08,240 encryption. And I'm just really concerned about this bill. 149 00:13:13,020 --> 00:13:18,000 numbers that we know that those offices received through our action. Fun fact, in the 150 00:13:18,000 --> 00:13:21,540 process of trying to find out these numbers, we realized that there was a problem with the 151 00:13:21,540 --> 00:13:26,060 Senate API and some offices don't actually let you click through with the EFF action 152 00:13:26,710 --> 00:13:31,660 process. We've worked on that, but it's not perfect. But so this is just, it doesn't take 153 00:13:31,660 --> 00:13:37,440 much. I mean, Senator Booker, New Jersey's not a particularly large state, but Senator 154 00:13:37,440 --> 00:13:43,240 Booker received fewer than a thousand messages, but in a week period, a week-long period, 155 00:13:44,180 --> 00:13:47,960 saying this is a problem and we would like you to do something about it. And that's what it 156 00:13:47,960 --> 00:13:55,540 took for him to have the grassroots support to raise concerns about this bill. So he's 157 00:13:55,540 --> 00:13:59,620 continued to raise concerns about this bill because he knows this is something that his 158 00:13:59,620 --> 00:14:04,560 constituents care about. And so these are things, like they are listening, but it requires 159 00:14:04,560 --> 00:14:05,060 numbers. 160 00:14:08,180 --> 00:14:14,720 So now we're in the current year. So not only is EARN IT back, as it always will be, um, this 161 00:14:14,720 --> 00:14:19,060 is a zombie bill. It is a forever undead bill. I am confident that we can kill EARN IT every 162 00:14:19,060 --> 00:14:23,620 time they put it up, but it's, we have to kill it every time. It's going to come back every 163 00:14:23,620 --> 00:14:29,000 Congress for the foreseeable future. This is what they want to do. The sponsors of this bill are 164 00:14:29,000 --> 00:14:35,380 true believers in this bill and they really want to see this happen. But in addition, because 165 00:14:35,380 --> 00:14:42,160 EARN IT has run into some challenges at the procedural level, the chairman of the Judiciary 166 00:14:42,160 --> 00:14:47,500 Committee, Richard Durbin, has also introduced another bill called Stop CSAM, the 167 00:14:47,500 --> 00:14:51,880 Strengthening Transparency and Obligation to Protect Children Suffering from Abuse and 168 00:14:51,880 --> 00:15:00,300 Mistreatment Act. Doesn't that sound like a thing we should all support? So again, this is a 169 00:15:00,300 --> 00:15:04,960 little bit of a Section 230 carve out for civil claims against online platforms for 170 00:15:05,380 --> 00:15:11,640 injuries involving CSAM and it specifically allows the use of encryption to be introduced as 171 00:15:11,640 --> 00:15:23,160 evidence of facilitation of illegal material. Um, there's also some mens rea things that go 172 00:15:23,160 --> 00:15:28,940 along with that, but again, the target is clear. It's a little bit more clear actually than 173 00:15:28,940 --> 00:15:35,020 EARN IT. They get at it a little bit directly, but the target is clear. And so in addition to that, 174 00:15:35,800 --> 00:15:44,120 initially, the Cooper Davis Act S 10 20 didn't target encryption, instead it was an ECPA carve 175 00:15:44,120 --> 00:15:54,460 out. That specifically said if a provider has, sees that one of the, or a platform sees that 176 00:15:54,460 --> 00:16:02,600 somebody has um, written materials related to fentanyl related to fentanyl use or sale, they 177 00:16:02,600 --> 00:16:08,500 They have to send that person's IP address, identifying information directly to the DEA, 178 00:16:09,180 --> 00:16:13,220 so the DEA can investigate whether or not they are smuggling fentanyl and doing whatever. 179 00:16:13,840 --> 00:16:17,480 That includes all uses of fentanyl, including legal uses of fentanyl. 180 00:16:17,520 --> 00:16:23,940 So if you're a cancer survivor, if you have had a baby, if you're a medical person, if 181 00:16:23,940 --> 00:16:29,040 you're a policymaker talking about the fentanyl problem, all of that would still qualify under 182 00:16:29,040 --> 00:16:34,040 S-1020 and have to be reported to the DEA for them to do an investigation. 183 00:16:34,880 --> 00:16:44,800 In committee markup, they added language to this bill that would put facilitators, make 184 00:16:44,800 --> 00:16:51,360 facilitators liable if they deliberately blinded themselves to the content that was 185 00:16:51,360 --> 00:16:56,940 happening on their platform, which again means encryption. The sponsors of the bill say they 186 00:16:56,940 --> 00:16:59,020 didn't intend to do that. They added language to this bill that would put facilitators liable if 187 00:16:59,040 --> 00:16:59,420 they deliberately blinded themselves to the content that was happening on their platform, which 188 00:16:59,420 --> 00:17:03,260 means encryption. But the intent of the bill does not matter. The words on the page say you 189 00:17:03,260 --> 00:17:07,800 deliberately blind yourself and if you cannot see the contents of the messages because it's 190 00:17:07,800 --> 00:17:11,460 end to end encrypted and the providers cannot see the content of the messages then you have now 191 00:17:11,980 --> 00:17:18,440 deliberately blinded yourself. Now encryption is on this bill, too. But I think it's also 192 00:17:18,440 --> 00:17:22,940 important to talk about that because it's not just about content of your private 193 00:17:22,940 --> 00:17:28,500 communications, it's everything. Like this is part of the message about it's not just about 194 00:17:28,500 --> 00:17:32,440 encryption anymore it's about all of the messages and it's about the ability to 195 00:17:32,440 --> 00:17:37,400 have a private conversation earlier this year on Valentine's Day a little gift 196 00:17:37,400 --> 00:17:42,280 from the Senate Judiciary Committee to I think me personally there was a hearing 197 00:17:42,280 --> 00:17:46,360 called protecting our children online and they had a bunch of hearings 198 00:17:46,360 --> 00:17:52,840 including a parent of a child who committed suicide after online bullying 199 00:17:52,840 --> 00:18:00,160 somebody from NCMEC and a former New Jersey cop and one of the things 200 00:18:00,160 --> 00:18:05,800 the former New Jersey Spears specifically said in his opening statement which I 201 00:18:05,800 --> 00:18:10,160 watched again this morning just for you is what I didn't pick up on the first 202 00:18:10,160 --> 00:18:15,260 time is the law enforcement should be able to see all of the messages and he 203 00:18:15,260 --> 00:18:20,820 specifically called out for as a problem and this is a problem for law 204 00:18:20,820 --> 00:18:22,420 enforcement that they're not able to do the 205 00:18:22,420 --> 00:18:22,760 investigation 206 00:18:22,760 --> 00:18:28,520 that they need to do in order to protect children online because private communications are 207 00:18:28,520 --> 00:18:33,280 happening clearly from bad people with malicious intent. If you are using encryption, if you're 208 00:18:33,280 --> 00:18:37,240 using Tor, if you're trying to have a private conversation, you are clearly hiding something 209 00:18:37,240 --> 00:18:42,880 and it is law enforcement's obligation and it's Congress's obligation to support them to go after 210 00:18:42,880 --> 00:18:46,560 those messages. And so they'll say a lot of the good stuff after that about like, we should have 211 00:18:46,560 --> 00:18:49,540 a warrant and there should be a process and there should be blah, blah, blah. But at the end of 212 00:18:49,540 --> 00:18:55,160 the day, what they want is to read all of your email, to read all of your texts, to see all 213 00:18:55,160 --> 00:19:01,260 everything. No private messages. Side note, the U.S. Patriot Act is also a free authorization at 214 00:19:01,260 --> 00:19:05,280 the end of the year. So we'll talk about that later. I mean later, later. There's no language. 215 00:19:06,480 --> 00:19:12,460 So that's the current landscape of what we're talking about. And so currently all three of 216 00:19:12,460 --> 00:19:17,220 these bills have passed the Senate Judiciary Committee. And again, it's a procedural thing. 217 00:19:17,300 --> 00:19:18,400 They've all passed unanimously. 218 00:19:19,540 --> 00:19:24,700 But there's no recorded vote. So in theory, they could be on the floor as early as September. 219 00:19:28,200 --> 00:19:38,140 And there is a really good chance that one or more of them is going to be unless a lot of people 220 00:19:38,140 --> 00:19:46,080 have still written in about EARN IT. Not as many people have written in about Stop CSAM because 221 00:19:46,080 --> 00:19:48,660 it's new and because it has a much better title. 222 00:19:48,660 --> 00:20:00,200 How can you be against stopping CSAM? We had a very terrible, terrible meeting with Senate 223 00:20:00,200 --> 00:20:05,880 Judiciary Committee staff specifically about the Stop CSAM bill where we were raising our 224 00:20:05,880 --> 00:20:10,440 concerns both about encryption and about all these other things. And one of the staffers said 225 00:20:10,440 --> 00:20:17,300 to us, well, we understand that encryption is important for safety and security. But if you make 226 00:20:17,300 --> 00:20:22,920 encryption, like, 8 percent less secure and it makes law enforcement 40 percent more effective, 227 00:20:23,100 --> 00:20:29,040 isn't that a conversation we should be having? So I reported this back to my engineering 228 00:20:29,040 --> 00:20:33,520 colleagues at EFF and watched their heads explode. Because yes, this is a conversation that we 229 00:20:33,520 --> 00:20:42,820 have had before. Yes, there is no way to do that. Yes, we just can't do that. Except that's not 230 00:20:42,820 --> 00:20:47,280 the conversation that's happening in the DOJ. That's not the conversation that's happening in Congress right now. 231 00:20:47,280 --> 00:20:52,220 And some of that is because, I mean, the DOJ is not going to be educating people about 232 00:20:52,220 --> 00:20:56,520 crypto wars one and two because they lost. It is totally in their best interest to be like, we've 233 00:20:56,520 --> 00:21:00,040 never had this conversation. Isn't this super reasonable? We should totally just throw client 234 00:21:00,040 --> 00:21:04,300 side scanning in. It will be fine. Don't worry about it. It's in their best interest to do that. 235 00:21:04,460 --> 00:21:10,080 And so when you're a congressional staffer and you weren't alive for crypto wars one, you weren't 236 00:21:10,080 --> 00:21:14,700 paying attention for crypto wars two, and encryption has always just been a thing that happens. 237 00:21:14,800 --> 00:21:17,260 The Internet has been encrypted. You've had iMessage on your phone. You've had a message on your 238 00:21:17,260 --> 00:21:22,680 iPhone. WhatsApp is a normal thing that you do. And if you're a cool kid, you use Signal. It's normal. 239 00:21:22,880 --> 00:21:27,120 It's just a normal thing that happens. You don't think of it as something that's under threat or under 240 00:21:27,120 --> 00:21:34,820 attack. And that's the thing that has to change. So now we're going back to the foreshadowing. 241 00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:42,120 This is where the language barrier actually starts to matter. So when talking about this, when 242 00:21:42,120 --> 00:21:47,240 you're a scientist or an academic or a technologist, it is hard for you to be able to understand the 243 00:21:47,260 --> 00:21:53,740 language barrier. It's hard for those people as a group to say things are absolute. If you've seen 244 00:21:53,740 --> 00:21:57,980 the movie Oppenheimer, there's actually a part in there where they're spoilers. They're talking about 245 00:21:57,980 --> 00:22:03,200 are we going to blow up the entire atmosphere by doing a nuclear bomb? And so in their theory, there 246 00:22:03,200 --> 00:22:08,820 is a almost zero chance that it could happen, which means it's probably not going to happen. But 247 00:22:08,820 --> 00:22:12,260 theoretically, there is a possibility that this could happen. And so they have this whole academic 248 00:22:12,260 --> 00:22:17,240 debate about this whole thing. And me over here is my little policy self. I'm like, so you're saying, 249 00:22:17,240 --> 00:22:22,160 there's a chance? And so again, they actually do say that to a political person at some point in the 250 00:22:22,160 --> 00:22:26,400 movie, and they totally freak out. And I'm like, yes, that is the appropriate reaction. But for the 251 00:22:26,400 --> 00:22:31,380 scientists, for the theoreticists, for the academics, they understand what they mean when they 252 00:22:31,380 --> 00:22:37,060 say almost none. The same thing is true with academics when you're talking about encryption. Is 253 00:22:37,060 --> 00:22:44,920 there a way that we could make a special back door that only can be used when the attorney general 254 00:22:44,920 --> 00:22:48,900 has the special key that he keeps taped under his chair and only uses in the most extreme best 255 00:22:48,900 --> 00:22:55,200 circumstances when the president says it's okay? There's a non-zero chance that we could come up 256 00:22:55,200 --> 00:23:00,400 with that someday. And so when you're talking about it from an academic or a scientific context, 257 00:23:00,760 --> 00:23:07,780 that makes sense in context, but politicians hear that and they think, so you're saying there's a 258 00:23:07,780 --> 00:23:14,900 chance. And so what they don't know is all of the other contexts. I don't understand how they 259 00:23:14,920 --> 00:23:18,660 don't know how encryption works. I know that it works because my colleagues who I trust tell me 260 00:23:18,660 --> 00:23:22,320 that it works. And we've had a lot of conversations about end-to-end and client side, and I 261 00:23:22,320 --> 00:23:27,620 believe them because they're very smart, very hardworking people. But I also sort of believe that 262 00:23:27,620 --> 00:23:33,260 it's magic fairy dust. And I think so does Congress. So if it's already magic fairy dust, why 263 00:23:33,260 --> 00:23:38,360 can't you make the magic fairy dust do the thing that you want it to do? Why can't we find a 264 00:23:38,740 --> 00:23:43,860 compromise that keeps everybody safe and secure? Because members of Congress love signal. They 265 00:23:44,920 --> 00:23:50,520 love signal. Why can't we do a thing that lets them keep their signal but also helps us arrest 266 00:23:50,520 --> 00:23:55,060 the bad people who are exporting children? Where is that compromise? That is the political way. 267 00:23:55,220 --> 00:24:00,780 That's the political language. So I can't say, because my academics won't say, my technologists 268 00:24:00,780 --> 00:24:07,380 won't say, that is not mathematically possible. What they say is it's probably not mathematically 269 00:24:07,680 --> 00:24:14,180 possible, which again means members of Congress hear. So you're saying there's a chance and I just 270 00:24:14,180 --> 00:24:20,360 need you to nerd harder, so I'm going to pass a bill that incentivizes you to figure it out. A 271 00:24:20,360 --> 00:24:25,280 year ago we were not talking about generative AI. Now we are. Who knows what it's going to be 272 00:24:25,280 --> 00:24:30,320 like in a year? I need you to nerd harder to figure out a solution to this very real problem. 273 00:24:31,400 --> 00:24:38,360 That's what they hear. So be aware of that when you communicate or you write or whatever. So 274 00:24:38,360 --> 00:24:43,420 you have to figure out a way to provide the whole lot of the context so that they're not thinking 275 00:24:44,180 --> 00:24:51,080 there's a chance. So you're saying there's a chance. So this leads to what you can do about 276 00:24:51,080 --> 00:24:56,500 it. Obviously the first thing that you can and should be doing is voting. Making sure that both 277 00:24:56,500 --> 00:25:01,980 privacy, whether it's communications privacy, whether it's data protection privacy, whether 278 00:25:01,980 --> 00:25:07,540 it's any of those things, that is something that, if that is important to you, should be a part 279 00:25:07,540 --> 00:25:13,640 of how you vote. More important than that, I can't believe I'm saying there's something more 280 00:25:14,180 --> 00:25:17,680 important than voting. But more important than that is communicating to your member of 281 00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:28,180 Congress that you care about these bills in particular. And the way it works is you get one call 282 00:25:28,180 --> 00:25:35,000 or e-mail per issue. And it's not useful for you to call and say I'm India McKinney and I want 283 00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:40,860 you to support encryption. They don't know what to do with that. What they need is I'm India 284 00:25:40,860 --> 00:25:44,160 McKinney. This is my address. I want you to oppose our name. This is my address. This is my 285 00:25:44,180 --> 00:25:50,760 internet. I would like a response. I'm India McKinney. This is my address. I would like you to 286 00:25:50,760 --> 00:25:56,600 oppose the Stop CSAM Act. I would like a response. I'm India McKinney. I would like you to 287 00:25:56,600 --> 00:26:02,760 oppose the Cooper Davis Act. This is my address. I would like a response. For each individual 288 00:26:02,760 --> 00:26:09,900 issue, you send one e-mail. You make one phone call. And if you're really feeling extra spicy, 289 00:26:10,700 --> 00:26:12,380 you get your friends to do the same thing. 290 00:26:19,500 --> 00:26:27,940 This is how we get to those super huge numbers like the 50,000 numbers or whatever. I cannot 291 00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:34,400 overemphasize how unbelievably useful that is. EFF is a very strong voice in this particular 292 00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:39,320 community. We have a point of view. It's very specific. It's pretty consistent. But people can 293 00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:43,380 sometimes tend to drown us out because they don't think that we're actually people. Your friends 294 00:26:43,380 --> 00:26:48,100 know who you are. They know what you think. They know what you do. And so if you say to your 295 00:26:48,100 --> 00:26:53,160 friends, this is really important. I think you should look into this and send a message. That's 296 00:26:53,160 --> 00:26:57,340 how we get those multiplier numbers. It's the multilevel marketing scheme of political action. 297 00:26:57,520 --> 00:27:03,660 But it really, really super works. And so we need those numbers. We get 20,000 e-mails or phone 298 00:27:03,660 --> 00:27:07,820 calls on one of these issues. We can keep it off the Senate floor and we can keep beating it 299 00:27:07,820 --> 00:27:13,360 back. But you do have to do it every Congress. You can't say, well, we beat Ernett last time. We 300 00:27:13,360 --> 00:27:18,960 have to do it again. We have to do it again because Senators Blumenthal and Graham are going to 301 00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:24,340 introduce it every year. And if we get tired, if we walk away from our computers, if we decide to 302 00:27:24,340 --> 00:27:29,120 stop caring, they're going to push it through. They truly believe in this cause. They are going 303 00:27:29,120 --> 00:27:37,340 to keep pushing. So we have to do the same thing. So currently, this is EFF's action center. So 304 00:27:37,340 --> 00:27:43,340 if you go to act.eff.org, that's what you will see. If you go to act.eff.org, that's what you 305 00:27:43,360 --> 00:27:49,180 will see. So this is a handy dandy little shortcut. If you don't want to talk on the phone, you 306 00:27:49,180 --> 00:27:54,680 can just click these buttons. It will populate the thing. It will send it through. There's links in 307 00:27:54,680 --> 00:27:58,860 there. You can share it with other people. Again, this is enormously helpful. We do not collect 308 00:27:58,860 --> 00:28:04,360 any of your information. So we will know where the e-mail goes. But we don't know who sent them. 309 00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:10,380 We have no idea. We believe in the privacy ethos. We don't track you. Privacy Badger would block 310 00:28:10,380 --> 00:28:12,380 that anyway. So we don't do that. 311 00:28:13,360 --> 00:28:19,080 But all of these are either related to encryption or other bills related. There's also the Kids 312 00:28:19,080 --> 00:28:22,660 Online Safety Act, which doesn't include encryption but is about content moderation. So if 313 00:28:22,660 --> 00:28:27,180 you don't want age gating on the Internet, you need to be against COSA, too. So that's what all 314 00:28:27,180 --> 00:28:31,520 of these are. But if you don't want to click through EFF's thing because you don't believe us 315 00:28:32,280 --> 00:28:42,840 that we won't sell your information, there's this phone number. 202-224-3121. This is the general 316 00:28:43,360 --> 00:28:48,640 number for Congress. You call this number. A very cranky woman will answer the phone. You say that 317 00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:53,180 you want to be connected to your senator. She will patch you through. And so, again, you say your 318 00:28:53,180 --> 00:29:00,460 name. You say your address. And you say, I want you, the senator, to oppose this bill. I would 319 00:29:00,460 --> 00:29:06,620 like a response. That is how you get into their database, the Constituent Management System, 320 00:29:06,860 --> 00:29:13,000 CMS. They keep track of who calls, but they have to know that you're a constituent and they have to 321 00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:16,100 know that you're a real person and they have to know that you're not calling about the same thing 322 00:29:16,100 --> 00:29:22,000 15 times. Just like you get one vote per election, you get one vote about this. So it's much 323 00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:31,720 easier or it's a better use of your time if you get 15 friends to make 15 phone calls than to do 324 00:29:31,720 --> 00:29:34,980 it 15 times yourself. And if you don't like talking to people, you can totally do it after 325 00:29:34,980 --> 00:29:38,980 hours. They have voicemail. The interns check it every day. Sometimes it fills up, so that's a 326 00:29:38,980 --> 00:29:42,980 little bit of a risk. But, again, if you don't like talking to people, you can do it after 327 00:29:42,980 --> 00:29:44,720 after hours. And if you don't like talking to people, click our actions. They're really great. 328 00:29:48,780 --> 00:29:55,980 So, again, sharing the actions to groups that you're a part of. Like-minded people. Friends, 329 00:29:56,260 --> 00:30:00,220 coworkers. That is one of the biggest and most important things that you can do if you actually 330 00:30:00,220 --> 00:30:04,100 do care passionately about protecting encryption and the ability to have a private conversation. 331 00:30:05,320 --> 00:30:09,860 Spread the gospel. Like, we have to talk about this and we have to be publicly talking about this, 332 00:30:09,860 --> 00:30:14,480 because i do actually think this is a real threat i have heard rumors that the fbi is currently 333 00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:18,560 putting together a spreadsheet of investigations that have been stymied because of encryption 334 00:30:19,260 --> 00:30:24,280 and they're going to present that to some of their law enforcement friendly colleagues in the senate 335 00:30:24,280 --> 00:30:28,980 and the house in the hopes that they will again push legislation that creates liabilities for 336 00:30:28,980 --> 00:30:33,100 platforms and companies that provide encrypted communications this is not a threat that is 337 00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:39,980 located only in the u.s the eu and the uk are also looking at similar things there is currently 338 00:30:39,980 --> 00:30:45,860 a bill in the uk where apple has said that if this bill passes icloud and imessage will no longer be 339 00:30:45,860 --> 00:30:52,760 offered in the uk because it directly goes after encryption this is a real threat globally and 340 00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:57,080 this is a thing that we have to work together in order to beat back if every person here at 341 00:30:57,080 --> 00:31:01,780 defcon sends an email to congress or to their elected representative in their home country 342 00:31:01,780 --> 00:31:02,860 we can make 343 00:31:03,100 --> 00:31:10,420 an unbelievable difference it doesn't take that long it matters in the aggregate if we all do that 344 00:31:10,420 --> 00:31:19,060 we can stop these bills if we don't well i have job security but i don't know that i can do it on 345 00:31:19,060 --> 00:31:25,760 my own and so that is all i have prepared for you i wanted to leave time for questions 346 00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:30,940 and so if you do have questions i do have a little prize for you if you have questions 347 00:31:33,540 --> 00:31:34,340 yeah 348 00:31:48,180 --> 00:31:54,140 so the question is australia passed a backdoor law and how does australia pass that 349 00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:55,840 out 350 00:32:06,860 --> 00:32:11,020 so enforcement is the question is how do you enforce an open source project so there's 351 00:32:11,020 --> 00:32:17,540 different mechanisms for that and i'm not familiar with australian law um i know that the united 352 00:32:17,540 --> 00:32:23,120 states doesn't so much care about australian law so it may the open source project may not 353 00:32:23,120 --> 00:32:25,680 be allowed to exist in australia but i honestly don't know 354 00:32:27,500 --> 00:32:28,600 in the u.s 355 00:32:28,600 --> 00:32:29,280 um 356 00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:41,620 you'd get sued or you'd get prosecuted by law enforcement depending so a lot of these bills 357 00:32:41,620 --> 00:32:47,440 um so the thing with both earn it and c-sam is it allows for civil claims so if you have been harmed 358 00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:57,480 by somebody who um texted c-sam over an encrypted server you as an individual were allowed to sue 359 00:32:57,480 --> 00:33:02,880 the company for damages that also allows for class action suits against the companies for 360 00:33:04,780 --> 00:33:12,300 damages so if you're and so the the concern is like what apple said in the uk is rather than 361 00:33:12,300 --> 00:33:16,580 deal with that type of liability we're just not going to offer this product so now the product 362 00:33:16,580 --> 00:33:21,100 is just by the company the product is no longer offered because they can't take on that liability 363 00:33:21,560 --> 00:33:26,820 or they choose not to take on that liability which makes sense i can't blame them 364 00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:30,160 you can get your sticker by the way 365 00:33:48,480 --> 00:33:52,100 oh so that's a really great question could we do the same thing on the other side put a list 366 00:33:52,100 --> 00:33:57,180 together of all of the investigations that were not signing by encryption well you know i don't 367 00:33:57,180 --> 00:34:02,780 know that we need to do that i mean january 6th happened and a lot of those conversations happened 368 00:34:02,780 --> 00:34:07,240 over signal and whatsapp and law enforcement still got access to those messages and a lot of 369 00:34:07,240 --> 00:34:12,200 that stuff is public and so i mean i don't know that we need a list it's in the newspaper 370 00:34:16,160 --> 00:34:17,080 to balance 371 00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:26,920 for so that yeah so for public opinion the thing is the public likes encryption the public likes 372 00:34:26,920 --> 00:34:31,520 privacy anytime you pull privacy it's like 97 of people are pro privacy and i don't really 373 00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:32,760 understand what the other three percent are 374 00:34:32,760 --> 00:34:39,720 doing um yeah thanks um so i don't think we need to worry about public perception 375 00:34:39,720 --> 00:34:47,940 it's lawmakers being concerned that people like us are overblowing the risk 376 00:34:48,700 --> 00:34:51,640 and so it's not actually as bad as we say that it's going to be 377 00:34:53,780 --> 00:34:56,020 and oh no think of the children so yeah 378 00:35:07,200 --> 00:35:11,940 so there definitely are some people who um think client-side scanning counts 379 00:35:11,940 --> 00:35:17,940 as regular encryption so they're saying that yes it totally can be done you should buy my 380 00:35:17,940 --> 00:35:22,340 product and do client-side scanning there are people who are saying that yeah 381 00:35:23,040 --> 00:35:23,600 um 382 00:35:39,620 --> 00:35:42,480 yeah so the question is what happens if 383 00:35:42,480 --> 00:35:44,480 the open source project is hosted somewhere else 384 00:35:45,160 --> 00:35:49,860 that's a really tricky tricky question that i don't really have time to fully get into but the 385 00:35:52,340 --> 00:35:56,960 that's a really tricky question so data doesn't necessarily live in one place even 386 00:35:56,960 --> 00:36:02,500 with open source projects that are hosted in one particular place there's the whole shrems thing 387 00:36:02,760 --> 00:36:08,500 that is happening with where does data actually live and so again congress doesn't really have a 388 00:36:08,500 --> 00:36:14,680 concrete idea that data has a specific source if you have u.s based ties we're going to go after you 389 00:36:15,800 --> 00:36:17,040 if you are in the u.s 390 00:36:21,500 --> 00:36:27,080 prosecutions i mean it depends on it depends it's i can spend a lot of dystopian future scenarios 391 00:36:27,080 --> 00:36:30,700 and i would just really like to avoid all of that and not pass these bills like let's focus on the 392 00:36:30,700 --> 00:36:31,540 goal so 393 00:36:32,760 --> 00:36:36,380 if you're lobbying by a big big companies like how 394 00:36:36,380 --> 00:36:40,320 have they ever pushed 395 00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:46,360 especially if they're trying to be 396 00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:47,120 amazing 397 00:36:47,120 --> 00:36:51,200 selling their size 398 00:36:51,200 --> 00:36:54,380 and letting them have examples 399 00:36:54,380 --> 00:36:55,660 of the nation 400 00:36:55,660 --> 00:36:57,720 especially here in the center of the earth 401 00:36:57,720 --> 00:36:59,900 where there's a lot of evidence you can use to verify 402 00:36:59,900 --> 00:37:02,080 the size there is 403 00:37:05,340 --> 00:37:05,780 so 404 00:37:14,920 --> 00:37:15,360 that's 405 00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:15,960 that's 406 00:37:15,960 --> 00:37:16,600 that's 407 00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:17,260 that's 408 00:37:17,260 --> 00:37:17,320 that's 409 00:37:17,320 --> 00:37:17,580 that's 410 00:37:17,580 --> 00:37:18,360 that's 411 00:37:18,360 --> 00:37:20,780 yes yes so apple's 412 00:37:20,780 --> 00:37:24,840 saying the thing about we're going to pull out of this product like that was an incredibly useful 413 00:37:24,840 --> 00:37:28,680 messaging tool and i will say that continue to say that until i'm blue in the face 414 00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:32,700 but we have to be a little bit careful about how 415 00:37:32,760 --> 00:37:34,900 many international examples we use because 416 00:37:35,440 --> 00:37:37,760 they don't vote in u.s elections so we don't super care 417 00:37:39,340 --> 00:37:40,560 so let me get back here 418 00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:54,140 so that's a great question what else can we do if we do the action center and we 419 00:37:54,140 --> 00:37:55,760 recruit a lot of other people to the cause 420 00:37:55,760 --> 00:38:00,000 i mean a lot of it's about to be an election year a lot of members are going 421 00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:02,740 to have town hall events in their district 422 00:38:02,760 --> 00:38:04,560 which are free and open to the public 423 00:38:05,100 --> 00:38:09,660 going to those as a physical person going to those going to the telephone 424 00:38:09,660 --> 00:38:11,800 town halls and asking questions about those 425 00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:15,440 you know as a staffer i can tell you that we got memos from the boss 426 00:38:15,440 --> 00:38:18,520 about like who showed up what questions were asked like those 427 00:38:19,100 --> 00:38:22,740 tallies are kept and so especially if you bring a group of people 428 00:38:23,200 --> 00:38:26,160 to these in-person events and say this is a thing that's really important to us 429 00:38:26,160 --> 00:38:28,240 in the community what are you doing to protect it 430 00:38:28,820 --> 00:38:31,920 that is kind of huge it takes a lot of work 431 00:38:31,920 --> 00:38:34,360 they're very boring but it's huge 432 00:38:47,420 --> 00:38:52,500 well they're gonna spam you so they're gonna they can't they're not legally 433 00:38:52,500 --> 00:38:54,940 they're not allowed to sell your information but they're going to 434 00:38:54,940 --> 00:38:58,460 respond to your concern and then they may send you other things about other 435 00:38:58,460 --> 00:39:00,420 things that they're doing that they think are related 436 00:39:14,560 --> 00:39:18,480 yeah so i've actually heard that too like it's actually not a big deal if we pass stop 437 00:39:18,480 --> 00:39:22,440 c-sam and like signal goes away in the u.s because you can still sideload it from like 438 00:39:22,440 --> 00:39:26,280 russia or whatever and it's like cool so you're telling me that i should get my 81 439 00:39:26,280 --> 00:39:31,580 year old father to sideload a weird app from russia and we're cool with that so like yes 440 00:39:31,920 --> 00:39:36,840 it doesn't solve the problem the problem is encryption off the shelf protects people 441 00:39:36,840 --> 00:39:41,540 and standard encryption device encryption message encryption the fact that like i message comes 442 00:39:41,540 --> 00:39:45,840 standard encryption the fact that whatsapp is free and easy to download and support it same 443 00:39:45,840 --> 00:39:50,800 with signal that is a huge thing that goes for the privacy and security of normal regular people 444 00:39:51,310 --> 00:39:56,000 who are not going to sideload weird apps from weird countries like if you have a vested interest 445 00:39:56,000 --> 00:40:01,060 in making sure that law enforcement can't access your stuff you're going to go to do these weird 446 00:40:01,920 --> 00:40:06,640 things but that's not the biggest threat the biggest threat is regular people identity theft 447 00:40:06,640 --> 00:40:11,980 went way down you can look at the ftc's numbers once apple started doing automatic off-the-shelf 448 00:40:11,980 --> 00:40:16,760 full disk encryption the numbers of identity theft plummeted because if somebody stole your 449 00:40:16,760 --> 00:40:20,100 iphone now they can't get into it they can't get your facebook they can't get your 450 00:40:20,700 --> 00:40:24,420 passwords they can't get your bank they can't get everything full disk encryption 451 00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:31,360 i mean they did one thing and it radically changed the security of quite a lot of people 452 00:40:31,920 --> 00:40:38,980 so yeah having it be available in the app store or whatever the google play thing is like that's 453 00:40:38,980 --> 00:40:45,080 huge and once you take that away it's going to impact people like my dad not like the actual 454 00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:52,540 criminals yeah yeah there are parts of the u.s government that are very interested yes 455 00:40:54,740 --> 00:40:55,300 yes 456 00:41:01,920 --> 00:41:08,060 so the u.s state department and the dod are also very pro encryption um i actually have a college 457 00:41:08,060 --> 00:41:12,560 roommate who's a foreign service officer and before she went overseas she made us all you 458 00:41:12,560 --> 00:41:16,100 know our little group chat she made everybody move to whatsapp because she wasn't allowed to 459 00:41:16,100 --> 00:41:20,420 communicate with us on non-encrypted platforms and so again that's the type of thing where like 460 00:41:21,090 --> 00:41:24,600 active duty service personnel will have access to encrypted platforms 461 00:41:25,170 --> 00:41:30,380 but i don't work for the state department they can't provide me a mechanism to communicate with 462 00:41:31,920 --> 00:41:32,040 people who are outside of the state department but i would say that the doj or doj is very 463 00:41:32,040 --> 00:41:33,520 the state the doj and the doj accept that it's off the shelf and it's free and it's 464 00:41:33,520 --> 00:41:42,200 supported and so now it works so yes the doj and dhs are super anti-encryption because they 465 00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:48,620 want to read everything the pentagon and the state department are very quietly in i mean they 466 00:41:48,620 --> 00:41:52,840 have said some public things in favor of encryption like they required diplomats to use 467 00:42:01,920 --> 00:42:06,380 of thing that kind of flew under the radar but it's explicit in the briefings if you have a 468 00:42:06,380 --> 00:42:11,380 friend in the military and they're about to deploy it's explicit in the OPSEC briefings before they 469 00:42:11,380 --> 00:42:15,680 leave don't put stuff on facebook put it on whatsapp like if you have to communicate with 470 00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:19,960 people do it on whatsapp do it on signal do it on imessage don't email it and don't put it on 471 00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:31,660 facebook that is actually part of OPSEC we'd like them to be more public they don't do that they 472 00:42:31,660 --> 00:42:34,180 don't really want to call attention to the fact that they like to have secret conversations 473 00:42:36,020 --> 00:42:37,860 so yeah yeah 474 00:42:42,400 --> 00:42:45,380 i can't i can't hear you i can't hear you i'm sorry 475 00:42:48,980 --> 00:42:49,320 okay 476 00:43:04,840 --> 00:43:05,520 um 477 00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:27,340 so again um i really only know united states politics and united states procedures 478 00:43:27,800 --> 00:43:31,640 um so i i can't help that much but 479 00:43:31,660 --> 00:43:35,000 i will say that a lot of the stuff that we have written about encryption 480 00:43:35,640 --> 00:43:38,260 the politics part not so much but the actual substance 481 00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:47,900 please feel free to use that and share it with people and educate people i'm completely 482 00:43:47,900 --> 00:43:53,280 congress-based i'm so sorry so i'll get you but yeah i'm just jumping off a good question 483 00:43:54,620 --> 00:43:57,240 so national security is generally pretty bipartisan 484 00:43:57,240 --> 00:44:00,460 is does it seem plausible that framing 485 00:44:01,660 --> 00:44:03,480 the national security into the digital privacy 486 00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:14,380 yeah yeah yeah no it's absolutely true so there is definitely bipartisan support for 487 00:44:14,380 --> 00:44:17,140 getting rid of encryption and there's bipartisan support for encryption 488 00:44:17,520 --> 00:44:23,240 so there's a huge contingent of current house majority members the freedom caucus who are 489 00:44:23,240 --> 00:44:28,980 very opposed to letting the fbi read their messages or have access to any of their communications 490 00:44:29,500 --> 00:44:31,060 there's a whole lot of 491 00:44:31,660 --> 00:44:35,020 um progressive democrats that are also very opposed to letting the government 492 00:44:35,020 --> 00:44:39,640 read a whole bunch of their message this is not a partisan issue all of these bills that 493 00:44:39,640 --> 00:44:45,220 we're trying to kill are bipartisan the opposition is also totally bipartisan it really comes down to 494 00:44:45,220 --> 00:44:50,660 whether or not you have the grassroots support from your constituents at home to oppose a bill 495 00:44:50,660 --> 00:44:55,720 that says stop c-sam that's really what it comes down to i mean the encryption is not so much the 496 00:44:55,720 --> 00:45:00,840 issue but like if you take a stand against encryption and you lose your election that's hard 497 00:45:00,840 --> 00:45:01,300 you need to 498 00:45:01,300 --> 00:45:05,360 know that people are going to show up to support you taking the position that you want to take 499 00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:10,660 elections actually do matter grassroots support actually do matter politicians actually do pay 500 00:45:10,660 --> 00:45:15,340 attention to the things that people are writing and emailing about absolutely especially in the 501 00:45:15,340 --> 00:45:20,680 house especially right now a lot of elections are decided on very thin margins it's super 502 00:45:20,680 --> 00:45:25,580 super matters we are close to time but yeah 503 00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:44,320 yes 504 00:45:49,540 --> 00:45:52,260 so yes um so 505 00:45:53,280 --> 00:45:55,560 when we were working on an anti-trade 506 00:45:55,580 --> 00:46:02,080 trust bill here in congress last time um there were some conversations about how does that 507 00:46:02,080 --> 00:46:06,560 impact encryption how do you do encryption with interoperability how do you work that out and so 508 00:46:06,560 --> 00:46:12,320 we had language that like we had worked with the sponsors and to like not have that be an issue 509 00:46:12,320 --> 00:46:20,180 here um we have colleagues who do the work in europe and um in the eu and so i know 510 00:46:20,180 --> 00:46:25,200 they're having similar conversations over there and so it's very similar language that 511 00:46:25,580 --> 00:46:27,780 i think is very interesting there is a way to do it but it is something we have to think about 512 00:46:28,460 --> 00:46:32,280 eff is pro-interoperability and we are also pro-encryption and we think they can coexist 513 00:46:33,860 --> 00:46:34,220 yeah 514 00:46:44,240 --> 00:46:46,520 oh yes i thank you 515 00:46:46,520 --> 00:46:47,140 um 516 00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:55,560 yeah so the electronic frontier alliance is uh 517 00:46:55,560 --> 00:46:58,900 groups of people in various places across the country where they are 518 00:46:58,900 --> 00:47:03,240 independently organized. They work with us. There's like bi-monthly meetings or 519 00:47:03,240 --> 00:47:05,540 something where we'll share information and stuff like that, but it's local 520 00:47:05,540 --> 00:47:09,540 people who organize with themselves to focus on issues in their areas. So again, 521 00:47:09,600 --> 00:47:12,640 I'm the Director of Federal Affairs. I really only focus on Congress because 522 00:47:12,640 --> 00:47:15,800 they are keeping me quite busy, but there's quite a lot of stuff that is 523 00:47:15,800 --> 00:47:18,980 actually happening at the state and local levels that is hugely important. 524 00:47:21,640 --> 00:47:25,880 Local city, local groups have gotten a couple of different cities to ban the 525 00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:29,400 use of law enforcement use of facial recognition, for example. Like that is a 526 00:47:29,400 --> 00:47:33,500 huge thing that we can be doing. So there's a lot of EFA groups that are all 527 00:47:33,500 --> 00:47:36,500 across the country. I'm happy to connect you with my colleague Rory who would 528 00:47:36,500 --> 00:47:40,160 like to tell you a whole lot more about that, but if you want to do more that's 529 00:47:40,160 --> 00:47:43,600 another thing to do more. I should have thought about that. Thanks for saving my 530 00:47:43,600 --> 00:47:43,800 job. 531 00:47:48,980 --> 00:47:54,840 You can start one. Yeah, you can start one. Rory would like to help you with 532 00:47:54,840 --> 00:48:05,180 that. Rory at EFF.org. Anybody else? Well, thank you again so much. Thank you.