As encryption spreads, U.S. grapple with clash between privacy, security

Robert Alexander/Getty Images A woman talks on her smartphone as she leans against a wall of a shop selling cow skulls in Santa Fe, New Mexico. For months, federal law enforcement agencies and industry have been deadlocked on a highly contentious issue: Should tech companies be obliged to guarantee U.S. government access to encrypted data on smartphones and other digital devices, and is that even possible without compromising the security of law-abiding customers?

Recently, the head of the National Security Agency provided a rare hint of what some U.S. officials think might be a technical solution. Why not, said Adm. Michael S. Rogers, require technology companies to create a digital key that could open any smartphone or other locked device to obtain text messages or photos, but divide the key into pieces so that no one person or agency alone could decide to use it?

I dont want a back door, said Rogers, the director of the nations top electronic spy agency during a speech at Princeton University, using a tech industry term for covert measures to bypass device security. I want a front door. And I want the front door to have multiple locks. Big locks.

Law enforcement and intelligence officials have been warning that the growing use of encryption could seriously hinder criminal and national security investigations. But the White House, which is preparing a report for President Obama on the issue, is still weighing a range of options, including whether authorities have other ways to get the data they need, rather than compel companies through regulatory or legislative action.

The task is not easy. Those taking part in the debate have polarized views, with advocates of default commercial encryption finding little common ground with government officials who see increasing peril as the technology becomes widespread on mobile phones and on text messaging apps.

Apple catalyzed the public debate in September when it announced that one of the worlds most popular smartphones would now come equipped with a unique digital key that can be used only by its owner. Even if presented with a warrant, Apple could no longer unlock an iPhone that runs its latest operating system.

Hailed as a win for consumer privacy and security, the development has dismayed law enforcement officials, who say it threatens what they describe as a centuries-old social compact in which the government, with a warrant based on probable cause, may seize evidence relevant to criminal investigations.

What were concerned about is the technology risks bringing the country to a point where the smartphone owner alone, who may be a criminal or terrorist, has control of the data, Deputy Assistant Attorney General David Bitkower said at a recent panel on encryption hosted by the nonprofit Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee. That, he said, has not been the standard American principle for the last couple of hundred years.

Tech industry officials and privacy advocates take a different view. I dont believe that law enforcement has an absolute right to gain access to every way in which two people may choose to communicate, said Marc Zwillinger, an attorney for tech companies on encryption-related matters and a former Justice Department official. And I dont think our Founding Fathers would think so either. The fact that the Constitution offers a process for obtaining a search warrant where there is probable cause is not support for the notion that it should be illegal to make an unbreakable lock. These are two distinct concepts.

The increasing use of encrypted storage extends well beyond the iPhone or the similar option that Google offers though not by default on new versions of its Android operating system. Windows and Apple offer simple settings to encrypt the contents of personal computers, and several cloud storage companies encrypt the data they host with keys known only to their customers.

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As encryption spreads, U.S. grapple with clash between privacy, security