Technology giant Apple will become one of the preferred companies for child pornographers and terrorists if it doesn't change its tough encryption, GOP Sen. Tom Cotton warned Monday.
In a stern blast, the Arkansas lawmaker took
Apple CEO Tim Cook to task for his explanation on
CBS News' "60 Minutes" Sunday night that a "backdoor" the FBI might use to target a terrorist or child pornographer could also be used by a repressive government, agency or activist group.
"The reality is if you put a backdoor in, that backdoor's for everybody — for good guys and bad guys," Cook said.
But Cotton isn't buying the argument.
"Apple is a distinctive company that has improved the lives of millions of Americans," Cotton said in a statement. "But Tim Cook omitted critical facts about data encryption on '60 Minutes' last night."
"He claimed that Apple does not comply with lawful subpoenas because it cannot," he continued. "While it may be true that Apple doesn't have access to encrypted data, that's only because it designed its messaging service that way."
Cotton scolded that "as a society, we don't allow phone companies to design their systems to avoid lawful, court-ordered searches."
"If we apply a different legal standard to companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook, we can expect them to become the preferred messaging services of child pornographers, drug traffickers, and terrorists alike — which neither these companies nor law enforcement want," he warned.
The encryption debate has heated up in the wake of law enforcement officials' claims that terrorists who carried out attacks in Paris last month had
some encrypted messaging applications on their phones.
The Obama administration earlier this year decided against advocating for new legislation to force companies to develop ways to give the government access to people's messages,
The Hill notes.
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