"Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein have finally released a "discussion draft" of their legislation to require backdoors in any encryption..."

The perpetual question arises.... stupid or evil?  I tend to go with the latter.

Is the problem that most citizens don't understand the implications of this?

Why would the Senate suddenly get aggressive on this issue?

Feinstein has _always_ been pathologically hostile towards privacy and security... Burr's endorsement is slightly surprising, except that Feinstein, even in the minority this cycle, still has a pretty strong hold over the Intel committee

Now that you mention it I do recall Feinstein on this soapbox regularly. 

My understanding is that Burr has been moving in this direction for a while, too.

For example:

http://scientificamerican.com/article/a-quick-guide-to-the-senate-s-newly-passed-cybersecurity-bill/