Everyone wants a bite of the Apple debate

Two more congressional committee chairmen are weighing whether to join the fight for a piece of the encryption debate, as Apple and the FBI continue to fight over whether the phone maker should help the government gain access to a phone connected to 2015’s San Bernardino (CA) shooting. Four House committees — Judiciary, Homeland Security, Intelligence and Commerce and two Senate committees — Judiciary and Intelligence — are already involved in the issue. Leaders of the Senate Homeland Security and Commerce committees said that they might throw their hats in the ring as well. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Ranking Member Tom Carper (D-DE) organized an off-the-record discussion with tech leaders on encryption, “just to make sure that all the members as much as possible understood the complexity of this issue,” Chairman Johnson said. The Chairman didn’t elaborate on that meeting, but apparently it took place two weeks ago and included representatives from Apple, Google, Microsoft and others. Chairman Johnson said it’s possible his panel will weigh in with hearings or legislation, but for now his driving principle is “have the government here take the Hippocratic Oath — first do no harm.”