FBI surveillance backdoor might be open to hackers
This past May, according to news reports, the FBI lobbied the White House not to oppose a new piece of legislation the FBI's lawyers had drafted.
The proposed law would force companies such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter to build "backdoors" into their software so that law-enforcement agencies could eavesdrop on communications.
But privacy advocates say building backdoors into communications software and hardware may create more problems than it solves for law enforcement — and may make the country more vulnerable to cyber attacks. The FBI would neither confirm nor deny the existence of the legislation or its White House visit, but it's something the bureau has nonetheless been asking Congress for.
