Burr-Feinstein antiencryption bill a firing offense

[Commentary] The Burr-Feinstein antiencryption bill isn't just bad, it's evidence of a dangerous incompetence in congressional leadership that is undermining America’s security. In fact, the draft bill is compelling evidence that Senate leadership should strip – or at least not reappoint – Senators Burr (R-NC) and Feinstein (D-CA) of their positions on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

If Burr-Feinstein passes, it guarantees that Americans will have worse encryption than the rest of the world. This bill would make us all less safe by requiring that our data be stored in ways that dramatically increase its susceptibility to malicious hackers, identity thieves, and other malfeasance. But this bill doesn't just represent one security mistake or one attack on individual privacy – it's the culmination of a history of bad ideas from the committee's cochairs. Sens Burr and Feinstein have proven incapable of fulfilling some of their most important oversight duties time and again – even failing to hold the CIA to account when it was caught illegally spying on Senate staff. Given their history and this bill, there is now little doubt their removal is actually the best way to ensure that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence stops endangering this country and gets back to doing its job: making sure American surveillance programs are keeping us safe and being conducted legally.

[Sascha Meinrath is the Director of X-Lab and the Palmer Chair in Telecommunication at Penn State University. Sean Vitka serves as counsel for Fight for the Future and is a fellow with X-Lab.]