Experts Expect Surveillance Power Grab After Paris Attacks

When CIA Director John Brennan took the stage at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., Monday, he told the audience his remarks would be different than the ones he had prepared to give before Friday’s attacks in Paris. “They are different because our sensibilities and our souls have been jarred once again by the horrific and wanton violence perpetrated upon the innocent in the streets, cafes and concert halls of the beautiful city of Paris,” Brennan said.

His remarks may have been different than planned, but they were in keeping with what privacy advocates have come to expect from government officials following terrorist attacks over the last 14 years: grabbing for expanded surveillance powers while the public is still scared enough to let them.

This time, privacy advocates say, the government is targeting Apple and Google, using the Paris attacks to try to pressure the tech companies to install “backdoors” in their systems that would give law enforcement access to encrypted data.

This is not a new ask — the Obama administration has been campaigning for this change for over a year — but now, in the direct aftermath of a tragedy like Friday’s, is when government leaders stand the best chance of succeeding. 

Nate Cardozo, staff attorney at the non-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation, calls the effort to focus on encryption in the wake of the Paris attacks “a cynical and frankly disgusting use of this tragedy for political purposes.”

But at least it’s predictable: This is a pattern that has repeated itself, not just in the United States, where the September 11 attacks were used to justify an unprecedented broadening of government surveillance powers, but around the world. The U.K. passed the controversial Terrorism Act 2006 after the attacks on the London Underground; the Australian government introduced sweeping anti-terrorism laws after foiling an ISIS plot to carry out “demonstration executions” on its soil; and in Canada, three separate measures expanding police powers were introduced after last year’s terrorist attacks. And after the siege at the offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in January, French officials pushed through a far-reaching surveillance law that allows the government to monitor and analyze the metadata of all web users, as well as the phone calls and emails of suspected terrorists, without a warrant. 

Friday’s attacks are already being used to justify a multi-lateral assault on encryption capabilities. In the U.K., lawmakers are calling for a fast-tracking of a bill nicknamed the “Snoopers Charter,” which, besides codifying the collection and storage of web users’ Internet browsing history for up to a year, would require tech companies to turn over users’ unencrypted communications at the request of police and spy agencies.

In his remarks Monday, Brennan previewed the argument privacy advocates expect governments to make in the coming months, saying that such advocates’ “handwringing” is in part to blame for making the efforts “to find these terrorists much more challenging.”

Referring to encryption specifically, Brennan said the terrorists “have gone to school on what… they need to do to in order to keep their activities concealed from the authorities.”