Wyden's drive to protect privacy is smart -- and on-time: Editorial Agenda 2014

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Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden in Washington, D.C. last month.

(AP Photo)

Even though the Sony hacking scandal makes for juicy water cooler conversation (who knew studio suits doubted Angelina Jolie's talent or thought it funny President Obama might enjoy slavery films?), it hardly approaches in significance the security breach by Edward Snowden. Computer records furnished to journalists by the former government techie showed, among other things, that the National Security Agency had for years secretly vacuumed up huge amounts of telephone metadata from private as well as public sources. It became plain as day, as if anyone had doubted it, nothing anywhere anymore is private.

Just eight weeks ago, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey publicly said Apple and Google were moving too fast in developing software that would fully encrypt the contents of cellphones, keeping photos, emails and stored contacts away from prying eyes – encryption so impenetrable that not even the makers of the devices could break in and snoop. Comey, worried about the government's ability to troll cyberspace in the name of protecting citizens and the nation against threats, suggested the Obama administration would seek Congress' help in requiring that manufacturers build in a "back door" on their products to allow the government in to poke around. Apparently lost on Comey then was that any back door allowing the NSA or the FBI or the Central Intelligence Agency to snoop around would also allow foreign governments and hackers to find a way in, multiplying security breaches and compromising the privacy of citizens.

Editorial Agenda 2014

Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, this month introduced a bill that would ban government-mandated back doors into cellphones and computers. Though Congress took no action, Wyden now promises to revisit the subject in the New Year once Congress reconvenes. The bill, titled "The Secure Data Act," was simple in its underlying purposes: Protect privacy and help restore trust in government while ensuring that technology companies such as Google and Apple are driven by innovation rather than hobbled by design compromises. Wyden cited a record of self-defeat, too, by other governments that had forced their will upon manufacturers: In 2005 it was revealed that an unknown individual or group took advantage of Greece's mandate for technological back doors and had used them to listen in on phone calls, some by senior Greek government officials. Ouch.

Wyden is right to pursue this now and in the next session. He is right, especially, in reminding folks what's at stake: liberty and freedom, both of which ride on the reasonable expectation of personal privacy.

In an essay published in the Los Angeles Times, he unmasked the ire lurking behind his Capitol Hill smile: "For years," he wrote, "officials of intelligence agencies like the NSA, as well as the Department of Justice, made misleading and outright inaccurate statements to Congress about data surveillance programs – not once, but repeatedly for over a decade. These agencies spied on huge numbers of law-abiding Americans, and their dragnet surveillance of Americans' data did not make our country safer." He specifically called out Comey as leading the intelligence network's efforts to compromise everyone's privacy.

Sony's bad luck is another matter, even if it represents a serious data security breach, and the suspects range from hackers to a foreign government or both. America's bad luck would be for everyone to accept that any American intelligence agency could decide at any time to dial in and know the particulars of anyone's life.

That's not what a democracy is about. It's certainly not how freedom looks.