The White House Thinks It Can Make a Deal With Companies to Break Encryption

The debate over encryption has been raging in Washington for almost a year, with the two sides—the pro-encryption technologists and tech companies, and the FBI—seemingly unwilling to find a compromise, and no solution in sight.

But a passage in a document recently leaked by an anonymous source reveals that the White House might have a solution in mind: The administration would promise not to push any law forcing tech companies to weaken encryption at the request of the FBI, which would then encourage the tech companies to voluntarily install backdoors in their products.

"Some in industry have indicated that a strong statement disavowing legislation is a precondition to voluntary cooperation with the United States Government," a passage in the leaked draft paper prepared, which was written the White House National Security Council staff members in July. "Since the prospects of legislation are dim, this approach could help build cooperation without limiting broader policy options."

NSC draft suggests industry msg is it will cooperate on encryption back doors so long as you don't legislate. Jennifer GranickSeptember 16, 2015

NSC tl;dr: Push tech companies for voluntary cooperation in backdooring crypto rather than legislating it.

EvaSeptember 16, 2015

The White House itself recognizes, however, that "few, if any," in the tech industry find the threat of legislation forcing backdoors "to be credible," according to the leaked document.

The document was published by The Washington Post on Wednesday. The paper reported that it's unlikely that Congress will propose a legislative solution to the encryption debate, and even the intelligence community's top lawyer, Robert Litt, recognized that "the legislative environment is very hostile" in an email he sent to colleagues.

"It could turn in the event of a terrorist attack or criminal event where strong encryption can be shown to have hindered law enforcement," he reportedly wrote.

It's unclear who are the people or companies in the "industry" that the passage is referring to. A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council declined to comment on "alleged internal documents or who may have participated in internal policy discussions."

Ever since the FBI started complaining about Apple's decision to turn on encryption by default on the iPhone, making it almost impossible for cops to unlock it, tech companies have come out to oppose any plan to weaken encryption. In a letter sent to President Barack Obama in May, Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft, among others, wrote that introducing backdoors would make products less secure and "undermine human rights and information security around the globe."

Apple's Tim Cook has also repeatedly opposed the FBI's "incredibly dangerous" view. In 2002, Microsoft rejected an offer to voluntarily give the NSA bulk access to customer's data, and a few years later, it declined to backdoor its encryption product BitLocker.

Facebook and Microsoft declined to comment for this story. We also reached out to Apple, Google, and Yahoo and will update this story if we hear back.

This story has been updated to add the responses from Facebook, Microsoft, and the White House.