Hillary Clinton wants“Manhattan-like project” to break encryption

US should be able to bypass encryption—but only for terrorists, candidate says.






Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has called for a "Manhattan-like project" to help law enforcement break into encrypted communications. This is in reference to the Manhattan Project, the top-secret concentrated research effort which resulted in the US developing nuclear weapons during World War II.

At Saturday's Democratic debate (transcript here), moderator Martha Raddatz asked Clinton about Apple CEO Tim Cook's statements that any effort to break encryption would harm law-abiding citizens.





"You've talked a lot about bringing tech leaders and government officials together, but Apple CEO Tim Cook said removing encryption tools from our products altogether would only hurt law-abiding citizens who rely on us to protect their data," Raddatz said. "So would you force him to give law enforcement a key to encrypted technology by making it law?"

Clinton said she "would not want to go to that point" of forcing companies like Apple to give encryption keys to law enforcement.

"I would hope that, given the extraordinary capacities that the tech community has and the legitimate needs and questions from law enforcement, that there could be a Manhattan-like project, something that would bring the government and the tech communities together to see they're not adversaries, they've got to be partners,"


Though Clinton said she has "confidence in our tech experts" to solve this problem, she has continued pushing for weakening encryption despite warnings from Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other tech companies that putting encryption back doors into their products would weaken data security for everyone.

Cook discussed encryption further last night on 60 Minutes. The Apple CEO explained encryption back doors would help anyone—not just law enforcement—access people's private information.

"On your smartphone today, on your iPhone, there's likely health information, there's financial information," Cook said. "There are intimate conversations with your family, or your co-workers. There's probably business secrets and you should have the ability to protect it. And the only way we know how to do that, is to encrypt it. Why is that? It's because if there's a way to get in, then somebody will find the way in. There have been people that suggest that we should have a back door. But the reality is if you put a back door in, that back door's for everybody, for good guys and bad guys."


http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/12/hillary-clinton-wants-manhattan-like-project-to-break-encryption/

Clinton's Big Brotherish proposal at Saturday's Democratic debate was both troubling and vague


You might imagine that Clinton — of all people — would be sensitive to the liberty interests of hiding personal communications from prying eyes. This is the public servant, after all, who as secretary of state maintained a private email server — with the benefit to Clinton of being able to vet and delete her own communications before they became a permanent part of the public record.

In this context, it was troubling Saturday evening to hear Clinton's response to a question about the power of high technology to ensure privacy. Blasting "encrypted communication that no law enforcement agency can break into," Clinton said, "I would hope that, given the extraordinary capacities that the tech community has and the legitimate needs and questions from law enforcement, that there could be a Manhattan-like project — something that would bring the government and the tech communities together to see they're not adversaries, they've got to be partners."

The reaction from America's most famous privacy whistleblower was swift:

Edward Snowden ✔ @Snowden
Aaaaaaaaand Hillary just terrified everyone with an internet connection. #DemDebate
3:07 AM - 20 Dec 2015

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/edward-snowden-clintons-call-for-a-manhattan-like-project-is-terrifying-20151220#ixzz3uyvrxGFl