This is a friendly message from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Members of Congress have mounted a major threat to your security online.
The Graham-Blumenthal bill deals with the very serious issue of child exploitation online, but it offers no meaningful solutions. It doesn’t help organizations that support victims. It doesn’t equip law enforcement agencies with resources to investigate claims of child exploitation or training in how to use online platforms to catch perpetrators. Rather, the bill’s authors have used defending children as the pretense for an attack on our free speech and security online.
Bottom line: the Graham-Blumenthal bill would give the Attorney General far too much power to dictate how Internet companies must operate. We all know how AG William Barr would use that power: to break encryption.
Barr has repeatedly insisted that communications platforms should undermine their own security in order to give law enforcement agencies access to our private messages. The Graham-Blumenthal bill would finally give Barr the power to demand that those platforms obey him or face serious repercussions, including both civil and criminal liability. Barr’s demands would put encryption providers like WhatsApp and Signal in an awful conundrum: either face the possibility of losing everything in a single lawsuit or knowingly undermine their users’ security, making all of us more vulnerable to criminals.
The so-called EARN IT Act is anti-speech, anti-security, anti-innovation, and unnecessary. Let’s tell Congress to reject it.
Stop the Graham-Blumenthal BillThank you,
Elliot Harmon
Activism Team
Electronic Frontier FoundationSupport our work to defend free speech and security online
About EFF
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading organization protecting civil liberties in the digital world. Founded in 1990, we defend free speech online, fight illegal surveillance, promote the rights of digital innovators, and work to ensure that the rights and freedoms we enjoy are enhanced, rather than eroded, as our use of technology grows. EFF is a member-supported organization. Find out more at eff.org.
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