Despite the risks to online commerce, international high-tech sales, security of trade secrets and the fact that it won’t actually make encryption useless to criminals, decryption backdoors to let law enforcement access encrypted communications could become U.S. law in 2016 – and a nightmare to enterprises – especially if terrorists succeed in carrying out major acts of violence.

So far the arguments against such a law have prevailed, but that could change if public opinion turns strongly in favor of it, which is more likely in the wake of events that generate fear.

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