An anti-encryption bill disguised as child safety legislation has cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee and will be reintroduced on the Senate Floor. The bill contends to hold companies liable for users who may upload child sexual abuse material (CSAM) to their sites. While this is an important issue, it is already addressed in other, settled legislation. But what is this really about?
Lawmakers want to force companies to include backdoors in their end-to-end encrypted systems to allow them to be monitored for CSAM. Many in the tech community feel like this is a slippery slope to a surveillance state, where private companies are forced to spy on their own users for the government. Once the government gets a small peek into private conversations, who knows where it could end, and many feel this is an attack on encryption itself.
