Wyden and Biggs Urge New Intel Chief Gabbard to Protect Americans’ Communications From Foreign Surveillance

UPDATE 2/25 - Director Gabbard responded to Sen. Wyden and Rep. Biggs, agreeing to investigate the reported UK order to weaken iCloud encryption, writing, "This would be a clear and egregious violation of Americans’ privacy and civil liberties, and open up a serious vulnerability for cyber exploitation by adversarial actors." Read the full letterhere.
Washington, D.C.– U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Representative Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., today urged Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to protect U.S. communications from demands by the United Kingdom that will leave all Americans less secure and more vulnerable to spying by China, Russia, and other adversaries.
Wyden and Biggs wrote in response to reports that theU.K. ordered Apple to build a backdoor into encrypted iCloud backupsto enable government surveillance of messages, photos and other files. Apple is barred from even disclosing the U.K. order to the public, or members of Congress, according to the Washington Post.
“If the U.K. does not immediately reverse this dangerous effort, we urge you to reevaluate U.S.-U.K. cybersecurity arrangements and programs as well as U.S. intelligence sharing with the U.K.,”Wyden and Biggs wrote.“The bilateral U.S.-U.K. relationship must be built on trust. If the U.K. is secretly undermining one of the foundations of U.S. cybersecurity, that trust has been profoundly breached.”
Creating a backdoor for the U.K. government would open a glaring new security weakness in all encrypted products subject to the reported order. Weakening American cybersecurity is particularly shortsighted following China’s “Salt Typhoon” hack of U.S. phone networks — which included tapping President Trump and Vice President Vance’s calls. In response, U.S. cybersecurity officialspublicly recommendedAmericans to use encrypted services to secure their calls, texts, and other communications against foreign hackers and criminals.
According to apublic reportpublished by the U.K. Parliament’s intelligence oversight committee in 2023, the U.K. benefits greatly from a “mutual presumption towards unrestricted sharing of [Signals Intelligence]” between the U.S. and U.K. and that “[t]he weight of advantage in the partnership with the [National Security Agency] is overwhelmingly in [the U.K.’s] favour.”
Read the full letter to DNI Gabbardhere.
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