While covid19 distracts, attack on 4th amendment in the works

Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) have introduced the EARN IT Act (S. 3398) As a means of protecting children from sexual exploitation. In general, what it’s critics say it could do is, under penalty of law, force the removal of encryption from email, texting, apps, etc. Obviously, this would be another huge attack on our dwindling privacy freedoms.

I’ve read it and you can read the bill here:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/3398/text
As usual there’s the need to read between the lines. From what I gathered, there’s at least 2 points of concern:

• The bill requires "Best Practices" to be developed and implemented AFTER the bill is passed. So the field is wide open to whatever they deem is needed to discover child sexual exploitation.
• SEC. 9. RULE OF CONSTRUCTION. [scroll waaayy down on the bill] It says:

"Nothing in this Act or the amendments made by this Act shall be construed to require a provider of an interactive computer service to search, screen, or scan for instances of online child sexual exploitation."

If the provider isn’t required to search then who will? I think we all have a pretty good guess on that. Unless I missed it, this bill also doesn’t require a provider to report findings of exploitation. I think expanding Mandatory Reporting to this arena is a no brainer. There’s no provisions for supporting/directing/funding law enforcement nor for rescuing the children. I remember hearing an interview of a child pornography investigator being asked about the children. He said there was no attempt to locate them. I fear this is the norm.

I can see why critics are saying this act undermines our privacy. Isn’t encryption our last defense we have left? And then there’s VPN. The bill includes references to location. Of course if they want to find stuff, these things have to go and I can’t imagine it not being included under "Best Practices".

Something certainly must be done to end child sexual exploitation. But there’s other ways, probably more effective, to do this without creating another violation of our rights.

A couple of other links for your consideration with actions you can take:

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/reject-earn-it-act-s-3398-which-threatens-free-speech-encryption-privacy-and-nations-cybersecurity

https://act.eff.org/action/protect-our-speech-and-security-online-reject-the-graham-blumenthal-bill

Thanks for reading and please spread the word.