Dive Brief:
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A number of tech companies are uniting to fight the encryption bill introduced by Sens. Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., last week.
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The companies, which include Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter, sent a letter to the two senators Tuesday asserting that the bill is "unworkable."
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The bill introduced last week would allow judges to order tech companies to comply with law enforcement requests to access data on encrypted devices.
Dive Insight:
The letter claims the new bill "would weaken the very defenses we need to protect us from people who want to cause economic and physical harm." It was signed by a coalition of tech companies, trade groups and privacy advocates calling themselves Reform Government Surveillance.
Prominent members of the law enforcement community are supporting the bill. But the tech community and privacy advocates oppose it, saying that "any mandatory decryption requirement will lead to unintended consequences," according to the letter.
The tech industry appears somewhat more inclined to a bill introduced in February by House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. That bill would create a national commission to work with law enforcement on better ways to access encrypted data, better preserving digital privacy and security.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee called on lawmakers and technology executives to discuss their views in a hearing about the proposed encryption legislation. Representatives from Apple and the FBI argued their views on encryption and rehashed some details of their recent battle over the hacking of an iPhone used by a gunman in the San Bernardino, Calif., mass shooting.
