ALA and Internet Archive are Part of Coalition Urging President Obama to Support Strong Data Encryption and Oppose Surveillance “Backdoors”

A letter signed by over 150 organizations and individuals including the American Library Association, EPIC,  Internet Archive, and The Tor Project was sent to the White House today by the New America’s Open Technology Institute.
From the Announcement:

The letter, signers of which include technology industry giants such as Apple and Google, is the latest round in the ongoing debate over encryption first sparked by Apple’s announcement last fall that new iPhones would be encrypted by default. Responding to statements by law enforcement and intelligence officials such as FBI Director James Comey, who have criticized companies’ deployment of encryption and suggested that Congress should legislate to prevent access to encryption that the government can’t break, the letter explains:
Strong encryption is the cornerstone of the modern information economy’s security. Encryption protects billions of people every day against countless threats—be they street criminals trying to steal our phones and laptops, computer criminals trying to defraud us, corporate spies trying to obtain our companies’ most valuable trade secrets, repressive governments trying to stifle dissent, or foreign intelligence agencies trying to compromise our and our allies’ most sensitive national security secrets.
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The letter, in addition to being signed by leading Internet, software, and hardware companies such as Adobe, Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, Facebook, and Microsoft, is also signed by a range of trade associations such as the Internet Association and the Consumer Electronics Association, and dozens of civil society organizations devoted to civil liberties, human rights, and press freedom, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Human Rights Watch and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Read the Complete Announcement
Read the Complete Letter

Filed under: Associations and Organizations, Data Files, Libraries, News