Last week, EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova announced that she was going to propose a law on law enforcement access to encrypted data.

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Yesterday, at George Washington University, an energetic panel of government officials, scholars and policy advocates from business and civil society discussed the role of tech companies in an age of international terrorism.  There is more to this thorny issue, but the panel began with a good outline of the issues at stake. The panel met at a sad time when the world is mourning the loss of life from the attacks in Brussels.  Coming after attacks in Paris, San Bernardino and Istanbul, we are clearly at a critical junction in the struggle against violent extremism.  And that made today’s topic tragically timely and relevant. So what are the responsibilities of tech companies in an age of international terrorism?  I’d say that they have three:

Welcome news arrived over the holidays in the form of editorial support for strong encryption from the Economist magazine. The opinion piece entitled, When Backdoors Backfire, observes pointedly: “Without encryption, internet traffic might as well be written on postcards.” It concludes: “Rather than weakening everyone’s encryption by exploiting back doors, spies should use other means…That is harder and slower than using a universal back door—but it is safer for everyone else.”

This first appeared in InfoWorld’s Tech Policy Perspectives Column.

On Tuesday, November 17th, SIIA hosted an event on Capitol Hill that featured Members of Congress, Hill Staff, and Industry who were all charged with the task of explaining how data-centric security measures could be used to protect federal information and information systems.  In light of recent attacks on federal IT systems and the data theft of millions of Americans, this subject is of heavy importance for citizens and national security.

The Senate Committee on the Judiciary has scheduled a hearing entitled “Going Dark: Encryption, Technology, and the Balance Between Public Safety and Privacy” for Wednesday, July 8 at 10:00 a.m., in Room 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.  Among the witnesses is FBI Director James Comey who is expected to testify that national security and law enforcement officials need their own special access to encrypted material.  The world, he will say, is going dark.