Silicon Valley Heavyweights Say Encryption Bill Is 'Unworkable'

— -- With the court order against Apple to break its iPhone encryption in the San Bernardino case now vacated and failing to set a legal precedent, Congress may be the next frontier when it comes to trying to compel technology companies to help authorities access data when it could help in certain cases.

Apple, Google, Facebook and a list of other Silicon Valley heavyweights who are members of the Reform Government Surveillance Coalition sent an open letter to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Burr and the panel’s Vice Chair Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who earlier this month circulated proposed legislation that would compel companies to help authorities access data on the power of a warrant or court order.

Calling the bill's policies "well-intentioned but ultimately unworkable," the letter, dated Tuesday, says creating government-mandated security vulnerabilities, often referred to as a back door, would "weaken the very defenses we need to protect us from people who want to cause economic and physical harm."

"This mandate would mean that when a company or user has decided to use some encryption technologies, those technologies will have to be built to allow some third party to potentially have access. This access could, in turn, be exploited by bad actors," the letter says.

The coalition of companies "respond expeditiously to legal process and emergency requests for data from government agencies" but also design their software and hardware to include features that strongly protect customer privacy "in the face of threats from both criminals and governments."

"We support making sure that law enforcement has the legal authorities, resources, and training it needs to solve crime, prevent terrorism, and protect the public. However, those things must be carefully balanced to preserve our customers’ security and digital information," the letter says. "We are ready and willing to engage in dialogue about how to strike that balance, but remain concerned about efforts to prioritize one type of security over all others in a way that leads to unintended, negative consequences for the safety of our networks and our customers."

Last week, Microsoft filed suit against federal officials for the right to be able to tell customers when law enforcement officials request their emails and other data.

Brad Smith, Microsoft's president and chief legal officer, said in a blog post that Microsoft has been sworn to secrecy by the U.S. government regarding 2,576 legal demands. Of those secrecy orders, Smith said 1,752 had no fixed end date, meaning "we effectively are prohibited forever from telling our customers that the government has obtained their data."