Senator drafting bill to criminalize Apple’s refusal to aid decryption [Updated]

Update (2/18/16, 12p CT): One day after floating the possibility of a bill criminalizing the act of refusing to aid federal decryption efforts, Sen. Richard Burr (R-North Carolina) has now backed off that position. "Chairman Burr is not considering criminal penalties in his draft encryption proposals," his spokeswoman, Rebecca Watkins, told Ars in an e-mail on Friday. Our original story appears unedited below.

Sen. Richard Burr (R-North Carolina), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, reportedly will introduce legislation soon to criminalize a company’s refusal to aid decryption efforts as part of a governmental investigation. The news was first reported Thursday afternoon by the Wall Street Journal.

Burr’s office did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment.

Burr published an op-ed in USA Today earlier today saying that Apple has “wrongly chosen to prioritize its business model above compliance with a lawfully issued court order.”

The North Carolina senator referred to the iPhone that was used by Syed Rizwan Farook, who along with his wife was responsible for the December 2015 terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California. That iPhone has been seized by the FBI. Federal prosecutors succeeded in getting a court order Tuesday to compel Apple to aid the government in unlocking that phone, and Apple CEO Tim Cook said he'll fight the government’s request.

As Sen. Burr wrote in USA Today:

The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California has issued an order directing Apple to assist law enforcement agents in unlocking the phone. There are no decryption demands in this case, and Apple is in no way required to provide a so-called backdoor. The FBI needs access to the phone so the agency can better piece together information about the terrorists and whom they contacted.

Many legal experts, privacy advocates, and fellow tech companies have lined up behind Apple in its steadfast refusal to comply. Apple has three more business days to respond in court to the federal court order. As of this writing, it still had not done so.