Donald Trump's campaign fired numerous broadsides against the tech sector, including calls for closing off parts of the internet to limit militant Islamist propaganda and urging a boycott of Apple products over the company's refusal to help the FBI unlock an iPhone associated with last year’s San Bernardino, California shootings.
Trump has also threatened to bring an antitrust action against Amazon and demanded that tech companies such as Apple build their products in the United States. How many of these will actually happen, or if were just said for "effect" is another matter. In the election it was clear that the Prince of Orange was just opening his mouth and letting the wind blow his tongue around and then backtracking later.
But the encryption issue could be a greater mess. The problem has dated back to the 1990s and the Republicans want to pass legislation requiring that companies build 'back doors' into their products
Hank Thomas, chief operating officer at Strategic Cyber Ventures and a veteran of the National Security Agency told Reuters that Trump is going to be the guy who is probably going to mandate back doors.
“I don’t think he’s ultimately going to be a friend to privacy, and the fearful side of me says he will get intelligence agencies more involved in domestic law enforcement.”
Jan Koum, co-founder of the WhatsApp messaging service said that WhatsApp would be "extremely vocal" against any such effort, as it "would damage the reputation of American companies in the global arena."
One-party dominance makes efforts to enact any legislation in Washington more likely. The only think that might stop this is a coalition of Democrats and libertarian-leaning Republicans. This unlikely alliance has repeatedly acted as a bulwark against efforts to expand surveillance or undermine digital security.
Trump is likely to expand surveillance operations at the NSA according to Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Brennan Centre for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Programme. He has stated that he wants to maintain a national database of Muslims and put mosques under surveillance.
