Issa: ‘Unlawful, Unwise and Unsafe’ to Mandate Apple Undermine Its Encryption Technology

In an appearance on CNBC on Monday, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) doubled down on his statement he issued last week that the government forcing Apple to create a backdoor to undermine its encryption technology was “unlawful, unwise and unsafe.”

He said such a mandate would be burdensome for Apple and there are other means for the government to obtain what it is seeking.

“Sara, I think it goes past that,” Issa said. “It’s not unlocking it. It’s not like, you know, here, here’s the cloud. They have already given the information they have. They have already executed what they can execute. What they’re being asked to do is to develop a backdoor and hand it over to the FBI. That, in fact, is way beyond the — if you will, the interpretation of statute that goes to 1977. It is burdensome to say we want you to develop software. And Sara, let’s put it in perspective of the industry. The FBI, the NSA — they can hire former Apple or non-former Apple people. They can subpoena the source code. And they can try to crack it. But what they’re actually asking is they’re asking a company to create their own backdoor and then maintain it would be the next request.”

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