John,
Doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals across America are working overtime to keep patients safe from COVID-19.1 But there is another threat to healthcare and other essential services that keep us safe: The EARN IT Act.
Sign the petition to tell Congress: “Don’t kill online encryption! Reject the dangerous EARN IT Act.”
The International Criminal Police Organization — or INTERPOL — recently announced that it has detected a “significant increase in cyberattacks against hospitals around the world” in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.2 Hospitals and other healthcare facilities make ideal targets for malicious hackers because lives literally depend on the computer systems hospitals use to store sensitive data and monitor the vital signs of critically ill patients.3
Half of all hospitals in the United States use encryption to protect their critical computer systems.4 But if Congress passes the EARN IT Act into law, it would kill encryption technology meant to keep us safe from cyberattacks.5
The authors of the EARN IT Act want us to believe that this dangerous new legislation is meant to protect children from online exploitation. In reality, it’s a transparent attempt to give law enforcement agents the power to read every message sent online.6 Time and time again, security experts have told us that breaking encryption for law enforcement and intelligence agencies will make all of our systems vulnerable to attack.7 We simply can’t protect hospitals, communication systems, and even nuclear facilities from digital threats if we don’t have strong encryption.
Sign the petition demanding your lawmakers stop the EARN IT act before it’s too late.
Regards,
Dayton at Fight for the Future
Footnotes:
1. Huffington Post: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/this-is-what-medical-workers-fighting-coronavirus-want-you-to-know_l_5e7e4d72c5b6256a7a2a01c5
2. Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2020/04/08/cyber-attacks-against-hospitals-fighting-covid-19-confirmed-interpol-issues-purple-alert
3. Wired: https://www.wired.com/2016/03/ransomware-why-hospitals-are-the-perfect-targets/
4. Health IT Security: https://healthitsecurity.com/news/healthcare-data-encryption-used-by-half-of-us-organizations
5. The Center for Internet and Society, Stanford Law School: https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2020/01/earn-it-act-how-ban-end-end-encryption-without-actually-banning-it
6. Electronic Frontier Foundation: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/earn-it-bill-governments-not-so-secret-plan-scan-every-message-online
7. New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/08/technology/code-specialists-oppose-us-and-british-government-access-to-encrypted-communication.html
Fight for the Future works to protect your rights in the digital age.
