South San Francisco, CA October 3, 2015 Submitted by Sara, Mozilla Team
To Internet Users:
Would you ever hand over a copy of your passwords to government agencies so they could go through your documents or private information?
Of course not! But that’s what some members of Congress and the FBI are asking for. They are trying to force companies to give government agencies access to your personal data — even requiring companies to build new security weaknesses into their systems.
President Obama and his advisors are making decisions right now on the official policy of the US government. Key members of the administration are on our side — we need to raise our voices now to give them the support they need to win this argument. By speaking up, we can safeguard strong encryption and make it easier for elected leaders to protect user security in the future.
Will you add your name to the petition? (This link will take you to the White House petitions site)
At Mozilla, we believe individuals’ security and privacy on the Internet are fundamental. That’s why we’re asking you to sign a petition to speak out against any built-in weaknesses that put your security and data at risk. Any requirement that grants governments access to encrypted data would make us all less safe. Our goal is to reach 100,000 signatures — the threshold for a guaranteed response from the White House. We’re teaming up with dozens of groups like Access and Electronic Frontier Foundation to ensure our voices are heard. Will you add your name?
Encryption turns private information like emails and credit card information into garbled letters and numbers so that only authorized people can translate the messages back to their original form. Building backdoors and sharing encryption keys makes data more vulnerable to bad actors or malicious hackers.
From net neutrality to surveillance reform, we’ve seen the power of everyday people who stand together for the Web we know and love. This is an opportunity for us to prevent weaker encryption. It’ll also make it easier for political leaders to stand up for the open Web in the future.
Thank you for all that you do.
Sara on behalf of the Mozilla team.
PS – If we hit 100,000 signatures the White House guarantees a response to our petition. Will you help us get there by forwarding this email to your friends and family
Petition Text
We petition the Obama administration to:
Publicly affirm your support for strong encryption.
Reject any law, policy, or mandate that would undermine our security.
The government should not erode the security of our devices or applications, pressure companies to keep and allow government access to our data, mandate implementation of vulnerabilities or backdoors into products, or have disproportionate access to the keys to private data.
We demand privacy, security, and integrity for our communications and systems. As a public, we should be confident that the services we use haven’t been weakened or compromised by government mandate or pressure. No legislation, executive order, or private agreement with the government should undermine our rights.
Weakening encryption weakens the entire Internet. Please endorse strong encryption, and encourage other world leaders to do the same.
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