Tag: Encryption

Our D.C. team is working hard to protect your rights. Please donate to Access Now to help them work harder than ever in 2016.

Today, we met with the senior White House staff who set the U.S. technology and cybersecurity agenda.

The Save Crypto petition got 100,000+ signatures asking President Obama to stand up for strong encryption. Now the White House wants to hear from YOU about why YOU support encryption.

Halfway between our first Crypto Summit and Crypto Summit 2.0 at RightsCon, we look at the past, present, and future of the encryption policy debate.

Last week, Obama Administration officials revealed that they will not force technology companies to weaken encryption to give government officials special access to users’ data. However, this is only a partial win for advocates of smart digital security policy. As our U.S. policy manager Amie Stepanovich explains in a post at Just Security, ambiguity remains with regard to the administration’s stand on encryption.

Today Access and the Electronic Frontier Foundation launched a campaign to demand security and privacy in our electronic communications.

Earlier this week, two foreign journalists for Vice working in southeastern Turkey were arrested, raising concerns about the journalists’ safety and security. In a dark reminder of the “Crypto Wars” of the 1990s, a Turkish official stated yesterday that the main reason that these journalists were detained is that they use encryption. This morning, the news surfaced that the journalists have been released and are free to leave the country, although the charges against them have not been dropped. A local translator who had been working with them remains in custody.

This incident raises serious issues for digital rights and digital security, and could cause a powerful chilling effect for freedom of expression — not just in Turkey, but in other conflict-prone regions around the world.

Access’ Crypto Summit finished after a long day of spirited debate about one of the most pressing concerns confronting technology today — encryption and the future of the internet. Here are a few closing highlights.

Today, Access kicked off our inaugural Crypto Summit, a multistakeholder conference devoted to emerging questions about cryptography and the future of the internet. These are edited remarks from Access’ Technology Director Jamie Tomasello and U.S. Policy Manager Amie Stepanovich from the event in Washington, DC.

Today, senior members of the Obama Administration, including the director of the FBI, visited the U.S. Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees to discuss encryption policy. FBI Director James Comey, along with officials from the Department of Justice and state law enforcement, requested a “dialogue” with the private sector to enable the government to obtain exceptional access to encrypted data. Yet leading security experts have made clear that such access would undermine the security of technology and the privacy of internet users around the world.