Justice Department Proposes Secret Searches of Computers in Homes, Offices

August 20, 1999
Filed under Health Privacy
The Justice Department is planning to ask Congress for new authority allowing federal agents armed with search warrants to secretly break into homes and offices to obtain decryption keys or passwords or to implant "recovery devices" or otherwise modify computers to ensure that any encrypted messages or files can be read by the government. With this dramatic proposal, the federal government is basically saying: "If you don't give your key in advance to a third party, we will secretly enter your house to take it if we suspect you have evidence of criminal conduct."