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WASHINNGTON. — US President Barack Obama, and Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton met for a secret lunch as they pursue tech industry over encryption, terror threats, it has emerged.
Before their secret White House lunch on Monday, Obama and Clinton made remarks on national security and implied their support for bypassing encryption technology to stop terrorists.
“They discussed a wide array of topics, but this was mostly a social occasion,” Josh Earnest, White House press secretary said of the hour and a half lunch meeting. No press was notified in advance and no photographers were allowed.
If Clinton and Obama weren’t taking a break from politics, encryption surely was one of the “wide array of topics” discussed, as both have addressed it recently.
The ability of tech-savvy smartphone users to protect their communications with non-decipherable codes has become an issue of national security, especially following the Paris attacks in November.
“You’re going to hear all of the usual complaints, you know, freedom of speech, etcetera,” Clinton said to the Brookings Institution’s pro-Israel Saban Forum on Sunday, the Intercept reported. “But if we truly are in a war against terrorism, and we are truly looking for ways to shut off their funding, shut off the flow of foreign fighters, then we’ve got to shut off their means of communicating.
“It’s more complicated with some of what they do on encrypted apps, and I’m well aware of that, and that requires even more thinking about how to do it.”
“We’re going to have to have more support from our friends in the technology world to deny online space. Just as we have to destroy their would-be caliphate, we have to deny them online space,” Clinton continued.
In contrast, Obama offered one line to hint at encryption in his speech from the Oval Office on Sunday.
“I will urge high-tech and law enforcement leaders to make it harder for terrorists to use technology to escape from justice,” he said. No mention was made to legislation, possibly because Obama reportedly gave up on the idea in September, according to The Washington Post. — RT.
Online Reporter