He definitely doesn't look that hip.
You have to hand it Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) when he's talking about national security, privacy rights, and technology. Particularly technology, because he's one of the rare ones who actually keeps up. Like his
pretty brilliant use of Rap Genius—the site that explains and annotates rap lyrics—to respond to a recent op-ed by FBI Director James Comey. In the op-ed, Comey argues that the use of encryption by people who want to actually have secure communications is a national security threat: "There is simply no doubt that bad people can communicate with impunity in a world of universal strong encryption," he says.
In some cases, Wyden gets a little snarky to prove his point:
The 4th Amendment gives the government the authority to search a person’s belongings, it doesn’t restrict how individuals can secure their belongings. Security doors and safes also make it more difficult to access a person’s possessions, but Director Comey has not proposed banning wall safes or weakening locks. That would rightly be seen as laughable.
But he's very serious about the damage surveillance hawks want to do by creating backdoors into encryption software, making it easier for the government (and hackers who will look for and exploit those backdoors) to crack communications.
Undermining encryption will not solve the tension between those seeking to enforce the law and those seeking to break it. And making strong encryption illegal will not stop bad actors from using it.
What will change is that good, law-abiding Americans will lose their ability to communicate privately without breaking the law. And trying to restrict the use of encryption would cast suspicion on those who legitimately seek protected communications, such as journalists, whistleblowers, attorneys, and human rights activists.
Good arguments, Sen. Wyden, and great and fun place to be making them.