Obama is upset that China wants tech companies to undermine their own security

This is very weird: Obama goes on record as saying that the Chinese government is out of line in requiring tech companies to provide back doors to encrypted data—but doesn’t say a word about the same push from the US government. Andrea Peterson reports in the Washington Post:

President Obama came out against back doors in encrypted communications — if the Chinese government can access them. But the president has avoided taking a position on whether tech companies should build in ways for U.S. law enforcement to access secure communications, a policy endorsed by some high-ranking administration figures.

Obama criticized a far-reaching Chinese counterterrorism proposal during an interview with Reuters released Monday. The Chinese plan would require technology companies to build back doors into their products and hand over encryption keys that secure customer data for use in Chinese surveillance programs.

The laws, the president said, “would essentially force all…