In the last two months, President Obama has been at the center of various debates regarding security on the Internet. However, his claims have been fairly neutral and he's made it a point to not reveal too much about where he wishes to make changes via policy. Thankfully, Obama used his latest interview to reveal a bit more about his stance on the issues.
RE/Code's managing editor Kara Swisher sat down with Obama during the president's latest visit to Silicon Valley to speak on issues of cybersecurity and consumer protection.
When asked about email encryption, Obama expressed that he was a "strong believer in strong encryption". However, he has an issue with how some tech companies cannot technologically comply with FBI court orders if they were to request access to an email account. This makes it difficult for the police to discover or respond to any potential threats.
Obama also recognized that some people could do a lot of harm if email services left a hole like that open. That's why he expressed that he was more open to having a "public discussion" about the issue than laying down policy.
While this position isn't as definite as some security experts may desire, Obama's policy and perspective is more open than UK Prime Minister David Cameron's, who expressed in January that, unless he got backdoor access to encrypted chat apps, he would ban them from the UK.
