Encryption Policy

For almost 30 years, law enforcement and intelligence agencies have complained that traditional sources of intelligence are "going dark", that the advent of strong encryption will render it impossible to do their jobs. They have therefore argued that Congress should compel tech companies to build a mechanism for government to gain "exceptional access" to encrypted data—essentially, permitting easy decryption by the government. For about as long, most non-government security and cryptography specialists have been warning that technically, this is an extremely dangerous thing to do. Should exceptional access mechanisms be mandated by law?

The debate will consist of three sections: a presentation by each side, a rebuttal, and questions. Presentations must address both the legal and technical aspects of the question. Each side should prepare two opening statements of about 4 minutes each; one should be by a CS student and one by a law student—but there is no requirement that each student "stay in their lane". In fact, we encourage just the opposite. Each side will then get 4 minutes rebuttal. The rebuttal should be just that: rebutting points that the other team has made, or noting things that they have missed in your presentation. After that, there will be questioning, primarily by the rest of the class. The total time will be about an hour.