If passed, it could fulfill a long-standing dream of U.S. law enforcement: the end of private, encrypted messaging on the Internet.

The Department of Justice and the FBI have long seen encryption as a threat. In 1993, the Clinton administration promoted the installation of a “Clipper Chip” in consumer devices that would allow for easy government eavesdropping using key escrow.

When researchers repeatedly demonstrated that this flawed idea would compromise privacy and security for everyone, not just criminals, the idea was scrapped.

But U.S. law enforcement agencies spent the next 25 years villainizing the widespread adoption of encryption and highlighting a series of awful criminal acts in their efforts to scare elected officials into requiring backdoors.

In recent years, they’ve used acts of terrorism like the mass shootings in San Bernardino and Pensacola to press for draconian changes to the law. More recently, officials like Attorney General William Barr have blamed encryption for sexual crimes against children.

... Nearly all information that the public gets about these crimes is filtered through law enforcement and organizations that work closely with law enforcement. Because of that, it’s very hard for policymakers to make informed decisions that address both public safety and civil liberties concerns.

Meanwhile, we face immense challenges to building secure systems, and strong encryption is one the best tools we have available to protect ourselves. Encryption preserves the ability to have private, secure communications in an increasingly insecure world.

Members of the government, the military, and law enforcement themselves use encryption to protect their communications, as do journalists, activists, and those at risk of domestic abuse, among many others.

We should not sacrifice the power of these fundamental technologies, even in the name of important law enforcement goals.