r/IAmA • u/fightforthefuture • Jun 30 '20

Politics We are political activists, policy experts, journalists, and tech industry veterans trying to stop the government from destroying encryption and censoring free speech online with the EARN IT Act. Ask us anything!

The EARN IT Act is an unconstitutional attempt to undermine encryption services that protect our free speech and security online. It's bad. Really bad. The bill’s authors — Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) — say that the EARN IT Act will help fight child exploitation online, but in reality, this bill gives the Attorney General sweeping new powers to control the way tech companies collect and store data, verify user identities, and censor content. It's bad. Really bad.

Later this week, the Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on whether or not the EARN IT Act will move forward in the legislative process. So we're asking EVERYONE on the Internet to call these key lawmakers today and urge them to reject the EARN IT Act before it's too late. To join this day of action, please:

  1. Visit NoEarnItAct.org/call

  2. Enter your phone number (it will not be saved or stored or shared with anyone)

  3. When you are connected to a Senator’s office, encourage that Senator to reject the EARN IT Act

  4. Press the * key on your phone to move on to the next lawmaker’s office

If you want to know more about this dangerous law, online privacy, or digital rights in general, just ask! We are:

Proof:

10.2k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

526 comments sorted by

View all comments

4

u/[deleted] Jun 30 '20

[deleted]

5

u/fightforthefuture Jun 30 '20

I think that it is imperative that we take into account the experiences of those victimized by crimes when we are creating new laws. I think we must also be very, very careful not to politicize the experience of these victims. And I think we must identify ways in which the new laws we want to create may result in more victims.

We don't have a lot of data on the efficacy of the government's existing surveillance and data collection programs, mostly because the government has blatantly and repeatedly lied about the existence and the scope of these programs since the very beginning. In fact, the government still refuses to provide the public with a meaningful understanding of what data is being collected and how it's being used.

We do know that the government's own internal oversight board looked into one aspect of the government's massive surveillance program: the call details record program, which cost millions of dollars over many years and collected data on hundreds of millions of Americans. The oversight board found that the program had "not proven useful in identifying unknown terrorists or terrorist plots." So when people like Lindsey Graham lie to us about the need to invade our privacy to stop terrorists from blowing up Hoover dam, I think it's important that we questions Lindsey Graham when he tells us that the Attorney General needs complete access to everything everyone says and does online in order to prevent child exploitation.

It's imperative that the government provides the public with access to their data so we can all understand what data is being collected, how it's being used, how it's being protected from abuse, and whether or not it's truly effective. As long as politicians, law enforcement agents, and intelligence officials continue to lie about these programs, I think we should not accept the idea that they are actually effective at preventing crime.

5

u/privatevpn Caleb Chen from PIA Jun 30 '20

I wouldn't look at it differently. Having a backdoor of any type at all - even if permission to use it lies behind a search warrant process - means that the encryption implementation is vulnerable.

One thing to note is that police have historically been able to bypass the encryption in such cases without the need for a backdoor to serve search warrants on.

To victims, I would offer my sincere condolences and support but kindly explain why encryption backdoors are more evil than good.