Welcome to the Tech Policy Podcast. I'm Evan Svastrober, your host. On today's show,

banning encryption. In the wake of terrorist attacks in Europe and elsewhere around the globe,

some lawmakers, particularly in the United States, are turning their sites on encryption

as the enabler of terrorist acts.

Because while the vast majority of encryption is used for cybersecurity and for preventing things like identity theft, as with all technologies, they can also be used for bad.

And some have alleged that terrorists have used encrypted messaging apps to evade law enforcement

and carry out acts of terror. So last week, Senators Feinstein, a Democrat from California,

and Richard Burr, a Republican from North Carolina, introduced the Compliance with Court

Order's Act of 2016, which is a bill that would do some things with encryption.

And joining me to discuss this is Julian Sanchez, senior fellow at the Cato Institute.

Julian, thanks for joining the show.

I'm glad to be here.

They didn't actually introduce it yet, I should add.

This is a discussion draft that was leaked.

Ah.

And so it's not clear whether they still plan to make some tweaks to it, but it's a little

disturbing that they've been working on this for months, and this is the apparently most recent

and refined version they've come up with.

Well, right.

As with so many leaks in Washington,

they are completely intentional. So I guess that's why I let myself slip and say that they

introduce the bill because it is perfectly plausible that one of the two offices leaked the bill

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