Obama Stays Silent on Reform of NSA’s Crypto Subversion

Obama Stays Silent on Reform of NSA’s Crypto Subversion: President Barack Obama in his State of the Union on Tuesday failed to address an issue that affects everyone on the internet — the NSA’s subversion of cryptographic standards and technologies.

Privacy advocates and business interests were crossing their fingers that Obama would announce he was following the recommendations of a presidential panel that recently urged a dramatic overhaul of the NSA’s efforts to undermine encryption on a global scale.

It was the second public address to the nation this month, and both times Obama overlooked the cryptography debacle disclosed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

When Obama outlined a host of reforms to address the Snowden revelations in a Jan. 17 public address, the 44th president was also mum on whether he would accept the crypto recommendations of the “President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies.”

There would have been no better time for Obama to address the global community about a hot-button issue that has sparked a cottage industry of crypto-product makers and one that is impacting the tech sector’s ability to conduct business overseas.