Internet Companies write a letter to Trump asking support for encryption and immigration reform

Image Credit: REUTERS

  15 Nov 2016 , 10:32

U.S. internet companies including Facebook Inc and Amazon Inc have sent President-elect Donald Trump a detailed list of their policy priorities, which includes promoting strong encryption, immigration reform and maintaining liability protections from content that users share on their platforms.

The letter sent on Monday by the Internet Association, a trade group whose 40 members also include Alphabet’s Google, Uber and Twitter, represents an early effort to repair the relationship between the technology sector and Trump, who was almost universally disliked and at times denounced in Silicon Valley during the presidential campaign. “The internet industry looks forward to engaging in an open and productive dialogue,” reads the letter, signed by Michael Beckerman, president of the Internet Association, and seen by Reuters.

Some of the policy goals stated in the letter may align with Trump’s priorities, including easing regulation on the sharing economy, lowering taxes on profits made from intellectual property and applying pressure on Europe to not erect too many barriers that restrict U.S. internet companies from growing in that market. Other goals are likely to clash with Trump, who offered numerous broadsides against the tech sector during his campaign.

They include supporting strong encryption in products against efforts by law enforcement agencies to mandate access to data for criminal investigations, upholding recent reforms to U.S. government surveillance programs that ended the bulk collection of call data by the National Security Agency, and maintaining net neutrality rules that require internet service providers to treat web traffic equally.

The association seeks immigration reform to support more high-skilled workers staying in the United States. Though Trump made tougher immigration policies a central theme of his campaign, he has at times shied away from arguing against more H-1B visas for skilled workers, saying in a March debate he was “softening the position because we need to have talented people in this country.”

While urging support for trade agreements, the letter does not mention the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Trump has repeatedly assailed with claims it was poorly negotiated and would take jobs away from U.S. workers. The technology sector supported the deal, but members of Congress have conceded since the election it is not going to be enacted.

Trump’s often-shifting policy proposals on the campaign trail frequently alarmed tech companies and sometimes elicited public mockery, such as when Trump called for closing off parts of the internet to limit militant Islamist propaganda.

Reuters

Emergency agencies choose to not enable encryption on their radio communications

Image: Christiaan Colen, Flickr

  11 Oct 2016 , 10:58

Some police and fire departments are bucking a trend to conceal dispatch communications from the public, acknowledging that radio encryption has the potential to backfire and put first responders in danger.

Agencies with digital radio systems have turned off the encryption to their main dispatching channels and others have decided not to turn it on. They say their officers and firefighters may not be heard during emergencies by responders at neighboring departments with radio systems that either don’t have access to their encrypted channels or aren’t advanced enough to have encryption capability.

Officials also say they are addressing concerns from critics who argue encryption decreases police transparency at a time when it is needed, especially in the wake of shootings of unarmed black people by police officers. “The overwhelming opinion of encryption is that it works great for preplanned tactical environments like SWAT teams staging a situation,” said Eddie Reyes, deputy chief of Amtrak police and chairman of the International Association of Chiefs of Police communications and

Newly appointed FBI head in San Francisco, Jack Bennett was a key figure in iPhone hack

Image Credit: REUTERS

  05 Oct 2016 , 13:40

Special Agent Jack Bennett was at the FBI’s computer investigation lab in Quantico, Virginia, on a Sunday in March when an outside company showed the bureau how it could hack into an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters. The tool would end the FBI’s high-profile fight with Apple over access to the phone, but Bennett said there was no celebration.

“There wasn’t high fives, and there weren’t people singing down the hallways,” he recalled. “It was very much business. ‘OK, let’s move forward to the next steps. Let’s get on the phone. What do we need to do to purchase the tool?'” The iPhone fight exposed a rift between the FBI and Silicon Valley technology companies over encryption, and sparked a debate about the right balance between privacy and national security. Bennett, 52, was a key figure in that battle as head of the bureau’s digital forensics labs, which extract evidence from computers and other devices and were tasked with accessing the San Bernardino shooter’s phone.

Bennett is now in charge of the agency’s San Francisco division, where he views his role, in part, as trying to bridge the divide between Silicon Valley and the FBI. He took over as special agent in charge of San Francisco in May after nearly 30 years in law enforcement. He started his career as a narcotics investigator with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and did a stint with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration eradicating cocaine smuggling operations in South America.

He has investigated child sex crimes and animal rights extremists for the FBI and previously served as an assistant special agent in San Francisco. “The U.S. government sometimes loses sight of what is important to corporations … and privacy is incredibly important,” Bennett said during a recent interview at his office, where a Thompson submachine gun like the type used by agents in the 1930s sits in a glass display case on a coffee table.

Still, he was unapologetic about the bureau’s desire to access the phone. “We were pretty surprised that this turned in such a way that it became this national debate,” Bennett said. “It was never intended to be. … We were trying to get on one phone because we had 14 murdered people.”

The fight between Apple Inc. and the FBI centered on the work-issued iPhone 5c of Syed Rizwan Farook, who with his wife killed 14 people at a 2015 holiday gathering of county workers. The U.S. Justice Department demanded that Apple create software to bypass security features on the phone.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said the FBI was asking his company to create a “back door” that could be used to unlock other phones, exposing customer data. Agreeing to the FBI’s demand would set a dangerous precedent that could lead to