Privacy Alert: United States Government Wants WhatsApp To Stop Encrypting Messages

It has been revealed that the government of the United States is secretly negotiating with the popular messaging application, WhatsApp to decrypt its messages.

According to the New York Times, some White House officials are considering opening up a new legal battle to compel WhatsApp to stop encrypting messages if the secret negations breakdown between the government and the company.

WhatsApp is owned by Facebook. The application allows customers to send messages and make phone calls over the Internet. In 2015, WhatsApp started to encrypt messages and conversations that passed through its platform, to enhance its customers’ privacy.

However, in an ongoing case, a federal judge has approved a wiretap telling WhatsApp to hand over messages that relate to an active investigation. The nature of the case is not clear. But officials have said that it does not involve a terrorism investigation.

The encryption method used by WhatsApp means the content of the messages cannot be accessed by WhatsApp, or investigators. WhatsApp uses an end-to-end encryption method, and with this method, only the sender and recipient of the message can access it.

It’s believed that White House officials are first negotiating with WhatsApp to decrypt messages at request of frustrated investigators. But if the company turns down the request, officials are considering taking the company to the law courts. Some officials are also reportedly pressing the Justice Department to ask a judge to force WhatsApp to help the government obtain the information that has been encrypted.

The Times reported that government officials, and those who are involved in the negotiation with WhatsApp, are doing it anonymously. This is because the wiretap order, and all the information associated with it, are still under seal.

Although both WhatsApp and the Justice Department have declined to comment on the case publicly, tension is mounting between the government and the company. The company seems ready not to allow the government to have any sort of influence over its operations.

A civil liberties group, Electronic Frontier Foundation said in a statement, if the government decides to push WhatsApp further; it would represent a “dangerous legal attack on encryption.”

This issue between the government and WhatsApp comes after an order from a magistrate said Apple should create an operating system to allow the FBI access to the iPhone of one of the attackers of the San Bernardino shooting. Apple has appealed against the decision of the magistrate. The appeal is due to be heard on March 22nd, 2016. Apple has claimed that the government demand is a total breach of customers’ privacy, maintaining that the order of the magistrate would effectively require the company to create a “backdoor” to allow the FBI to access the information.

Recently, privacy and civil liberties groups criticized the Obama administration for signing the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act into law (CISA). The CISA allows companies in the United States to share cyber information. The Act protects the companies from being sued for breach of secrecy or trust by consumers.

Activists against the CISA have argued that President Obama has indirectly brought back the surveillance program. This is because cyber information shared would go to federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the National Security Agency. Activists believe privacy in the United States is now under serious threat.

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The US Government Has An Internet Kill Switch — And It’s None Of Your Business

The Supreme Court has refused to hear a petition concerning the Department of Homeland Security’s secretive internet and cellphone killswitch program.

United States — On Monday the Supreme Court declined to hear a petition from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) that sought to force the Department of Homeland Security to release details of a secret “killswitch” protocol to shut down cellphone and internet service during emergencies.

EPIC has been fighting since 2011 to release the details of the program, which is known as Standard Operating Procedure 303. EPIC writes, “On March 9, 2006, the National Communications System (‘NCS’) approved SOP 303, however it was never released to the public. This secret document codifies a ‘shutdown and restoration process for use by commercial and private wireless networks during national crisis.’”

EPIC continues, “In a 2006-2007 Report, the President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (‘NSTAC’) indicated that SOP 303 would be implemented under the coordination of the National Coordinating Center (‘NCC’) of the NSTAC, while the decision to shut down service would be made by state Homeland Security Advisors or individuals at DHS. The report indicates that NCC will determine if a shutdown is necessary based on a ‘series of questions.’”

Despite EPIC’s defeat at the hands of the Supreme Court, the four-year court battle yielded a heavily redacted copy of Standard Operating Procedure 303.

The fight for transparency regarding SOP 303 began shortly after a Bay Area Rapid Transit (“BART”) officer in San Francisco shot and killed a homeless man named Charles Hill on July 3, 2011. The shooting sparked massive protests against BART throughout July and August 2011. During one of these protests, BART officials cut off cell phone service inside four transit stations for three hours. This kept anyone on the station platform from sending or receiving phone calls, messages, or other data.

In July 2012, EPIC submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the DHS seeking the full text of Standard Operating Procedure 303; the full text of the predetermined “series of questions” that determines if a shutdown is necessary; and any executing protocols related to the implementation of Standard Operating Procedure 303, distributed to DHS, other federal agencies, or private companies.

After the DHS fought the FOIA releases, a district court in Washington, D.C. ruled in EPIC’s favor, but that ruling was later overturned by the court of appeals. The appeals court told EPIC the government was free to withhold details of the plan under the Freedom of Information Act because the information might “endanger” the public.  In 2015, the digital rights group asked the Supreme Court to review the ruling by the federal appeals court.

With the Supreme Court’s refusal to address EPIC’s petition, the issue seems to have reached a dead-end. The American people are (once again) left in the dark regarding the inner-workings of another dangerous and intrusive government program. It is only through the hard work of activists and groups like EPIC that we are at least aware of the existence of this program — but knowing bits and pieces about the protocol is not enough. In order to combat such heavy-handed measures, we need to have access to the government’s own documents. Hopefully, there is already a whistleblower preparing to release these details.

What we do with the information we do have is up to each of us as individuals. We can sit back and watch the United States further devolve into a militarized police and surveillance state — or we can spread this information, get involved locally, and create new systems outside of the current paradigm of control and exploitation.

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This article (The US Government Has an Internet Killswitch — and It’s None of Your Business) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Derrick Broze and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Image credit: Tmthetom.