--- title: Democratic Debate: Candidates Flub Encryption Question description: The debate over whether encrypted apps should have "back doors" has nothing to do with warrants and court orders. canonical: https://time.com/4184063/democratic-debate-encryption/ author: Haley Sweetland Edwards article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-01-18T05:58:19.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-05T08:40:50.040Z article:section: Politics og:title: How Democrats Flubbed the Encryption Question og:description: At Sunday's debate. og:url: https://time.com/4184063/democratic-debate-encryption/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt137b781a7a78ffe0/69887986a988ca16416b62a0/democratic-debate-omalley-clinton-sanders-004.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: CHARLESTON, SC - JANUARY 17: Democratic presidential candidates Martin OMalley (L), Hillary Clinton (C) and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) participate in the Democratic Candidates Debate hosted by NBC News and YouTube on January 17, 2016 in Charleston, S og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Democrats Flubbed the Encryption Question twitter:description: At Sunday's debate. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt137b781a7a78ffe0/69887986a988ca16416b62a0/democratic-debate-omalley-clinton-sanders-004.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Democrats Flubbed the Encryption Question at Debate > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=de333eba-bb55-4b96-a52e-e8c2c30a0f0e&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Watch YouTube Users Ask Questions at the Democratic Debate [Watch (HLS stream): Watch YouTube Users Ask Questions at the Democratic Debate](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/AshQvn7I.m3u8) (1:25)  _Published 2016-01-18_  by [Haley Sweetland Edwards](https://time.com/author/haley-sweetland-edwards/)  ## Haley Sweetland Edwards Jan 18, 2016 5:58 AM UTC  by [Haley Sweetland Edwards](https://time.com/author/haley-sweetland-edwards/)  ## Haley Sweetland Edwards Jan 18, 2016 5:58 AM UTC None of the three presidential candidates at the [Democratic debate Sunday night](http://time.com/4183952/democratic-debate-full-text-hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders/) appeared to understand the controversy over encryption technology that, in recent months, has pitted top national-security officials against the CEOs of Silicon Valley’s biggest tech firms. Earlier this month, senior Obama Administration and national-security officials [met with top executives](http://time.com/4172866/white-house-silicon-valley-encryption/) at Facebook, Apple and Twitter to discuss, among other things, the problem of how to prevent criminals and terrorists from using encryption to hide from law enforcement. The issue, in a nutshell, is that end-to-end encryption, an increasingly ubiquitous technology, makes it impossible for anyone to unscramble the content of messages that have been intercepted in transit between end users. So even if law-enforcement officials at, say, the NSA or the FBI were to get a warrant to spy on an encrypted text conversation, all they would be able to access was a mess of scrambled numbers. Law-enforcement officials think that’s dangerous because it creates a digital safe haven for criminals and terrorists. They would like to force tech companies like Apple and Facebook to manufacture what’s known as “back doors” into their encrypted devices and apps, such as iMessage and Whatsapp, so that government agents, with warrants, could unscramble messages if and when they needed to. **Read More:** [_Why We Can’t Unscramble the Fight Over Encryption_](http://time.com/4180260/why-we-cant-unscramble-the-fight-over-encryption/) Silicon Valley’s brass, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, think that’s a terrible idea. Any back door that can be used by law-enforcement officials can also be exploited by hackers, cybercriminals and snoops of all stripes, they say. That could be bad for people like you and me, who keep lots of private information on their devices. But it could also be bad for democracy and civil liberties writ large. Consider, they say, what would happen if Chinese officials could access a back door on Facebook’s Whatsapp and peer in on any dissident or reformer’s private conversation. In other words, the debate over encryption gets to the heart of our most basic values as Americans. What if [FBI Director James Comey](http://www.wsj.com/articles/fbi-seeks-to-reframe-encryption-debate-1451417252) is right when he suggests that encryption could make it harder for law-enforcement officials to prevent the next terrorist attack? Are we willing to endure that possibility in exchange for better protection for our private information? Must we give up some security in exchange for civil liberties? But when the issue came up during the Democratic debate, none of those sticky wickets were addressed. “Tech companies are responsible for the encryption technology to protect personal data, but the government wants a back door into that information,” said [YouTube star Marques Brownlee](https://www.youtube.com/user/marquesbrownlee), in a pre-recorded question for the candidates. “So do you think it’s possible to find common ground? And where do you stand on privacy vs. security?” Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley went first, offering a hard-to-follow analogy about front doors and back doors that earned applause from an apparently bewildered audience. “I believe whether it’s a back door or a front door that the American principle of law should still hold that our federal government should have to get a warrant, whether they want to come through the back door or your front door,” he said. **Read More:**[_Top White House Officials Talk Encryption in Silicon Valley_](http://time.com/4172866/white-house-silicon-valley-encryption/) Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders went next. “I voted against the USA Patriot Act for many of the reasons that Governor O’Malley mentioned. But it is not only the government that we have to worry about, it is private corporations,” he said. “You would all be amazed, or maybe not, about the amount of information private companies and the government has in terms of the websites that you access, the products that you buy, where you are this very moment.” Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton began by congratulating Obama Administration officials for meeting in Silicon Valley on Jan. 8 to start “exactly this conversation about what we can do, consistent with privacy and security,” but she avoided the question of whether the government should force tech companies to put back doors into encrypted apps. “We need better intelligence cooperation, we need to be sure that we are getting the best intelligence that we can from friends and allies around the world,” she said. If Democrats are going to come up with a platform on encryption, though, they might need to decode the tech talk for themselves first. ## Transcript I believe there's a huge conflict of interest when local prosecutors investigate cases of police violence within their own communities. For example, last month the officers involved in the case of 12- year old Tamra Rice weren't indicted. How would your presidency insure that incidents of police violence are investigated and prosecuted Fairly. << I'm twenty- three and my audience is around the same age. Getting my generations vote should be a priority for any presidential candidate. Now I know senator Sanders is pretty popular among my peers but what I want to know is how are all of you planning on engaging us further in this election? Hello from Minute Earth. Fossil fuels have long kept our cars moving and our light bulbs lit. But we now know that burning these fuels releases heat trapping gasses that are warming the planet, causing seas to rise and contributing to extreme weather events like South Carolina's devastating flooding last year. Fighting human caused climate change means giving up our global addiction to fossil fuels and shifting the bulk of the worlds energy supply to alternative sources. Some countries have acted decisively to make this transition. But here at home we still get a whopping 82 % of our energy from coal, oil and natural gas. In the US political gridlock, pressure from industry lobbyists and insufficient R and D, have made an already tough battle against climate change even tougher. Tech companies are responsible for the encryption technology to protect personal data. But the government wants a back door into that information. So do you think it's possible to find common ground? 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