“A national debate over smartphone encryption arrived in Sacramento on Tuesday as legislators defeated a bill penalizing companies that don’t work with courts to break into phones, siding with technology industry representatives who called the bill a dangerous affront to privacy,” Jeremy B. White reports for The Sacramento Bee.

“The bill did not receive a vote, with members of the Assembly Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection worrying the measure would undermine data security and impose a logistically untenable requirement on California companies,” White reports. “Assembly Bill 1681 would authorize $2,500 penalties against phone manufacturers and operating system providers if they do not obey court orders to decrypt phones.”

“Assemblyman Jim Cooper, D-Elk Grove, a former sheriff’s deputy who led an Internet crimes task force, called it ‘mind-bogglin’ that search warrants allow access to peoples’ houses but not necessarily to their phones,” White reports. “Apple, Google and organizations representing the tech and wireless industries took the opposite view, arguing the bill would both erode personal privacy and imperil security by exposing information to hackers and other criminals. Other opponents included the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Bankers Association. ‘Fundamentally weakening the security of smartphones in the way AB 1681 envisions not only doesn’t make us safer, it actually makes us less safe,’ warned Internet Association lobbyist Robert Callahan, who called encryption ‘an incredibly important tool in today’s interconnected, Internet-enabled world to keep data secure.'”

Read more in the full article here.