Grassley wants to give civil agencies like the FTC and SEC an exemption.
Nope. The SEC regulates all securities issued by American companies or to American investors. Tesla and SpaceX are both SEC regulated.
PS: Arguably this is the same reason banks are regulated.
That said, perhaps you have a point...
I believe that's why Congress wouldn't give the FBI a law to mandate that companies decrypt data. And, it sort of explains why Sanders and Clinton both said they sought "middle ground" regarding encryption and then never spoke about it again
If you've already made up your mind to do something that pisses off a lot of your constituents or your party's constituents, you should avoid discussing it during an election year. It's too bad, since more debate would've been more educational for everyone, but it is what it is. Politicians can choose what they want to talk about just like we can.
When? Feinstein-Burr is still in play.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/technology/277467-enc...
For further play-by-play you can skim the white house daily briefings for references to encryption and/or feinstein over the last few months [2].
[1] https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/pubrelease/dont-panic/DA_Repor...
[2] https://encrypted.google.com/search?safe=off&q=encryption+fe...
But it might not pass the senate because Grassley doesn't want to discuss it "during an election year"? WTF?!? Where's the controversy? This sounds more like an opportunity for a big bi-partisan win that everyone in both parties could brag about.