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 The long-awaited legislation from Senators Richard Burr and Dianne
Feinstein, the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate
Intelligence Committee, may be introduced as soon as next week, one
of the sources said.
It would expose companies like Apple Inc, which is fighting a
magistrate judge's order to unlock an iPhone connected to the
mass-shooting in San Bernardino, California, to contempt of court
proceedings and related penalties, the source said.
Senators are expected to circulate the draft bill among interested
parties next week and hope to introduce it soon after, though a
timetable is not final, the source said.
The Senators' proposal would not seek criminal penalties, as some
media reports have stated, the sources said.
 The controversial proposal faces an uphill climb in a gridlocked
Congress during an election year and would likely be opposed by
Silicon Valley.
Tech companies have largely supported Apple in its legal fight
against the Justice Department, which is seeking access to a phone
used by Rizwan Farook, one of two shooters in the San Bernardino
attack last December in which 14 were killed and 22 wounded.
It is particularly unlikely the proposal will gain traction in the
U.S. House of Representatives, which staked out positions strongly
supporting digital privacy in the wake of revelations about
government-sanctioned surveillance of communications by former
National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
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Last year, amid stiff private sector opposition, the White House
backed away from pushing for legislation to require U.S. technology
firms to provide investigators with mechanisms to overcome
encryption protections.
But the issue found renewed life after the shootings in San
Bernardino and Paris. An August email from Robert Litt, the top U.S.
intelligence community lawyer, obtained by the Washington Post,
noted that momentum on the issue "could turn in the event of a
terrorist attack or criminal event where strong encryption can be
shown to have hindered law enforcement."
Separately, Democratic Senator Mark Warner and Republican
Representative Michael McCaul last week introduced legislation to
create a national commission to further explore solutions to the
so-called “going dark” problem, where strong encryption has made it
more difficult for law enforcement to access communications
belonging to criminal suspects.
(Reporting by Mark Hosenball and Dustin Volz; Editing by Bill Rigby)
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