March, 01 2016, 10:15am EDT
Group Behind Nationwide Apple vs FBI Protests Tells Congress: Backdoors in Encryption Make us Less Safe, Secure Phones Save Lives
Fight for the Future issued a statement ahead of today’s Congressional hearing
WASHINGTON
Ahead of today's Congressional hearing featuring the director of the FBI and Apple's general counsel, Fight for the Future, the group behind last week's nationwide protests at Apple stores opposing the FBI's demand for a backdoor into the iPhone, issued the following statement, which can be attributed to Fight for the Future co-founder, Holmes Wilson:
"Many members of Congress don't understand the technical implications here, so let me put in simple terms what cybersecurity experts have been saying for years.: what the FBI is asking Apple to do will make us less safe, not more safe.
This is not a choice between privacy and national security. Backdoors in encryption put us all in danger, and make us more vulnerable to the types of attacks that the government says they're trying to prevent.
Secure phones are saving lives every day. The engineers who maintain the IT behind airports, hospitals, power plants--they use iPhones too. If Congress makes our devices less secure by mandating backdoors, they're putting hundreds of millions of lives at risk.
If we allow the government to set a precedent that they can force private companies to punch holes in the technological defenses that keep us safe, it's not a question of if someone to will exploit that to cause harm to the public, it's a question of when. Congress needs to listen to security experts by unequivocally supporting strong encryption and opposing backdoors."
Fight for the Future's grassroots rallies at Apple stores in nearly 50 cities and at FBI headquarters last Tuesday garnered international headlines and sparked considerable online conversation. Protesters carried signs reading "Don't Break Our Phones" and "Secure Phones Save Lives," countering the narrative that this case is only about personal privacy and working to educate decision-makers about the serious dangers posed by weakening encryption technology.
The group, known for organizing some of the largest online protests in history, is planning another significant action opposing the FBI's demand in the coming weeks.
Fight for the Future is a group of artists, engineers, activists, and technologists who have been behind the largest online protests in human history, channeling Internet outrage into political power to win public interest victories previously thought to be impossible. We fight for a future where technology liberates -- not oppresses -- us.
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