Representative Rush Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, has introduced a bill that would, among other provisions, bar the government from requiring software makers to insert built-in ways to bypass encryption.
What a useless bill. The government doesn't officially require it now - it's just that they'll extrajudicially extort your cooperation if you don't give it freely of your own free will. Ask Joseph Naccio, former CEO of the former Qwest - Qwest refused to allow telecommunications surveillance on the wholescale level permitted by AT&T and Verizon, so the government convicted him on charges of insider trading because he'd traded his own shares with knowledge of the secret contracts they themselves had granted him. (And took away as soon as he took a principled stand against overreach, too.) They didn't officially require cooperation then - but they made damn sure they got it.
It's not a useless bill at all. I don't know about that specific provision, but this is actually the most aggressive anti-NSA bill yet. Its main purpose is actually to repeal both the Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act in full, and it would also require standard warrants for any surveillance request. But it also includes other provisions about backdoors and whatnot. You can read it here:
Oh! I hereby stand corrected. I should have said (and checked) that the provision as described is useless. I know there's reason for cynicism when it comes to Congress, but maybe I'm overdoing it. Thanks for the link!
What a useless bill. The government doesn't officially require it now - it's just that they'll extrajudicially extort your cooperation if you don't give it freely of your own free will. Ask Joseph Naccio, former CEO of the former Qwest - Qwest refused to allow telecommunications surveillance on the wholescale level permitted by AT&T and Verizon, so the government convicted him on charges of insider trading because he'd traded his own shares with knowledge of the secret contracts they themselves had granted him. (And took away as soon as he took a principled stand against overreach, too.) They didn't officially require cooperation then - but they made damn sure they got it.