The backdoor threat to encryption

[Commentary] Leading cryptologists have detailed how backdoors would create “grave security risks.” No amount of magical thinking can undo the contradiction between promoting strong encryption as a defense against the barrage of identity theft, espionage, and other cybercrimes while opening up new vulnerabilities. There is an acute need to strengthen data security everywhere, and no realistic way to leave a door open for good guys and democracies that have rigorous checks and balances but not for cybercriminals or authoritarian states. The time has come for the President to shut the door on backdoors and send a clear message to the world that American technology is a trusted instrument of freedom.

[Kerry is senior counsel at Sidley Austin LLP and a visiting fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution. From 2009 to 2013, he was general counsel and acting secretary at the US Department of Commerce]