Oppose S.2316 / H.R.4518, the Cooper Davis and Devin Norring Act

I'm writing to urge you to vote against the Cooper Davis and Devin Norring Act (S.2316 / H.R.4518). While the intent to combat fentanyl deaths is understandable, this bill would fundamentally damage digital privacy and encryption across our country. The legislation requires messaging apps, social media platforms, and cloud services to report suspected drug activity in users' private messages directly to the DEA—with no warrant required. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation has explained, this creates an "encryption trap": end-to-end encrypted services cannot scan private messages, so the reporting duty pressures them to either break encryption or scan on-device before encryption happens. The American Civil Liberties Union strongly opposes this bill alongside the EFF and more than a dozen other civil society groups. Their concerns are well-founded: unlike child abuse material, mere discussion of drug use is protected speech. Yet platforms facing liability for non-reporting will have strong incentives to over-scan and over-report using automated tools known for high error rates. This means ordinary conversations about treatment, addiction recovery, or medical marijuana could get flagged and forwarded to federal investigators—no judicial review, no probable cause, no notice to the people whose messages were swept up. The bill even includes language suggesting companies that maintain encryption might be seen as "deliberately blinding" themselves to violations. The drug war has already expanded surveillance powers dramatically over the last fifty years. This bill opens another door directly into private conversations. We don't need to sacrifice encryption and privacy for the government to fight drug crimes—there are less destructive investigative methods available. Please join the ACLU, EFF, and other digital rights organizations in opposing this bill. My family's digital privacy matters.