Durov Arrest First Salvo of Final Battle in the 30-Year War on Privacy
Ian DeMartino | On Monday, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was detained in France immediately upon landing in the country. He was eventually charged with a litany of crimes, including “importing a cryptology tool.” It is only the latest attack in a war against privacy that goes back more than three decades. | The 90s – In late January 1991, a then 48-year-old senator from Delaware named Joe Biden, introduced Senate Bill 266: the Comprehensive Counter-Terrorism Act of 1991. Buried in the last third of the proposed bill’s text was a section on “electronic communications” that imposed requirements for providers of electronic communication services. Essentially, SB266 would have required companies to create backdoors to enable the government to snoop on their customers, making it impossible to have truly private conversations digitally.