“Declaring that strong encryption is essential to the nation’s security, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told a tech industry audience Wednesday that he’s ‘not a believer in back doors,’ or encryption programs that leave openings for outsiders to read coded files,” Brandon Bailey reports for The Associated Press. “Carter said he wasn’t commenting on the FBI’s legal battle with Apple over an encrypted iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino, California, mass shooters. But his statement shows the complexity of the encryption debate at a time when the nation’s law enforcement establishment is feuding with tech companies over the use of encryption in consumer products.”
“Responding to a question about the iPhone case, Carter told an on-stage interviewer that he couldn’t comment because ‘it’s a law enforcement matter,'” Bailey reports. “But he went on to say that for the military, ‘data security is an absolute necessity for us. We’re foursquare behind strong data security and encryption.’ Carter drew applause from the audience when he added, ‘I’m not a believer in back doors or a single technical approach to what is a complex problem.'”
“Carter also cautioned against setting policy on the basis of one case,” Bailey reports. “He urged government and industry collaboration to resolve data security issues, adding that it would be undesirable to have legislation ‘written by people who won’t have technical knowledge, maybe written in an atmosphere of anger or grief.'”
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