A coalition of tech giants have written an open letter to Congress

Ever since Apple refused to assist the FBI in cracking the San Bernadino terrorist’s iPhone, there’s been a massive debate about encryption in the United States that shows no signs of slowing down. If you’re not sure where Congress stands on the debate, I’m sure the fact our beloved legislature is currently planning to ban strong encryption entirely will tell you all you need to know. Naturally, Apple is very much opposed to this, as is most of the tech industry, which is why Facebook, Google, and Microsoft have partnered with Apple to write an open letter to Congress expressing their concerns.

Four major technology coalitions, representing just about every major tech company at least once, have come together to write an open letter regarding encryption to Senators Dianne Feinstein and Richard Burr, Vice-Chairman and Chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence. The letter is quite firm in its opposition to the current plans in Congress to ban strong encryption, and raises a number of key points about the needs for strong encryption, and how keeping a digital skeleton key secure to the US government would be fantasy. The coalitions represented in the letter are Reform Government Surveillance, the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), the Internet Infrastructure Coalition (I2C), and The Entertainment Software Association (ESA), all big names, and between them representing Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Netflix and many, many more. The Compliance with Court Orders Act of 2016, which is what the letter directly addresses, would require tech companies in the US to store data in a form that could be retrieved by the US government with a court order, in wake of the showdown with Apple over the decryption of an iPhone.