Senate Bill Challenges Online Encryption, Constitutional Rights to Speech and Privacy

Disir

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Sep 30, 2011
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A Senate bill, the EARN IT Act of 2020, introduced by Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) in March 2020, appears to revise regulations aimed at preventing online sexual exploitation of children by establishing a national commission to guide online service providers, such as Facebook and Twitter, in preventing child pornography and trafficking. However, as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others reported, if the EARN IT Act becomes law, it would significantly undermine encryption of online messages, providing law enforcement agencies and government officials with legal access to online content. Although the bill does not use the term “encryption,” it would expose online service providers to “potentially crushing legal liability” if they refused to follow government officials’ orders to break encryption, Sophia Cope, Aaron Mackey, and Andrew Crocker reported for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Their report also highlighted how the EARN IT Act would violate constitutionally-protected rights to free speech and privacy.

The bill’s title—an acronym for Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies—refers to a legal shield that protects online service providers from liability for content posted by the users of their sites, which was established by Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. The bill’s aim, according to its sponsors and supporters, is to make online service providers “earn” their immunity from liability claims over child sex abuse material.

But, as Riana Pfefferkorn wrote in a blog post for the Center for Internet and Society, the EARN IT Act is “a bait-and-switch,” a way to ban end-to-end encryption “without actually banning it.”

Here is the bill:

This is from the Electronic Frontier Foundation

I hadn't come across this before. What do you guys think about this?
 
I am not familiar with this technology so I can't say if this is good or bad. I literally have no way to know if this is good or bad without being "told" by someone else.
My knowledge of computer systems ended with DOS
 

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