FBI Director Says Prolific Default Encryption Hurting Government Spying Efforts (go.com)

SonicSpike quotes a report from ABC News: FBI Director James Comey warned again Tuesday about the bureau's inability to access digital devices because of encryption and said investigators were collecting information about the challenge in preparation for an "adult conversation" next year. Widespread encryption built into smartphones is "making more and more of the room that we are charged to investigate dark," Comey said in a cybersecurity symposium. The remarks reiterated points that Comey has made repeatedly in the last two years, before Congress and in other settings, about the growing collision between electronic privacy and national security. "The conversation we've been trying to have about this has dipped below public consciousness now, and that's fine," Comey said at a symposium organized by Symantec, a technology company. "Because what we want to do is collect information this year so that next year we can have an adult conversation in this country." The American people, he said, have a reasonable expectation of privacy in private spaces -- including houses, cars and electronic devices. But that right is not absolute when law enforcement has probable cause to believe that there's evidence of a crime in one of those places, including a laptop or smartphone. "With good reason, the people of the United States -- through judges and law enforcement -- can invade our private spaces," Comey said, adding that that "bargain" has been at the center of the country since its inception. He said it's not the role of the FBI or tech companies to tell the American people how to live and govern themselves. "We need to understand in the FBI how is this exactly affecting our work, and then share that with folks," Comey said, conceding the American people might ultimately decide that its privacy was more important than "that portion of the room being dark." Comey made his remarks to the 2016 Symantec Government Symposium. The Daily Dot has another take on Comey's remarks, which you can read here.

Comments

They seem to think they have a say in this

[Anonymous Coward]

Did they learn nothing from the encryption wars of the 1990s?

Re:They seem to think they have a say in this

[Anonymous Coward]

There were encryption wars in the 1990s?

Yes there was.
The government won (by cheating).
The people thought they won but were knifed in the back.

FTFY. You seem to have missed Snowdon's relevations and other recent similar events. It turns out that all the flaws in IPSEC and stuff which stopped it being deployed were engineered by the NSA. The reason that the F35 designs were stolen; the reason why all commercial environments are so insecure, the reason the internet and mobile networks are one big ongoing security hole is that, when they lost the moral and legal arguments the government simply decided to break everyone's toys.

"Adult conversation next year?"

[Cornwallis]

Here's my take on that.

Fuck you. We're not your children . Stop treating us as if we were.

Re:"Adult conversation next year?"

[amicusNYCL]

In other news, the director of the Burgler's Association says that prolific door locks are hurting their business efforts. He was joined by the director of the Peeping Tom's Union announcing that prolific window coverings are hurting their ability to stay competitive.

Wow, that's weird that a technology designed specifically to protect against eavesdropping and unauthorized access makes a spy's job more difficult. You know what I want? I want a bunch of laws to get passed specifically to allow me to do my job with less effort and fewer skills, because my feelings get hurt when I have to actually work and use what I know. When I have an issue on a server that I'm having a hard time figuring out, I want someone to just call my phone with the solution. That would be fantastic, let's get right on that. In the meantime, I guess I'll just have to continue to do my damn job and get paid for the work that I actually do.

Re:"Adult conversation next year?"

[Copid]

It's tough to compare the environment now to what law enforcement has "always" done in history, though. There never used to be a way for them to read every single letter and cable being sent and received everywhere, so in that sense, the power they're looking for is unprecedented, even if they promise only to use it in a way that's analogous to old school manual police work. And even the claim that they've "always" had access to the data they're asking for doesn't entirely hold up. They've never had, say, access to timestamped GPS data about everywhere a person has gone every day or years of archives of mail. In the idealized old days, they could start tapping your phone or reading your mail at a certain point in time and get data for that time window, but not everything you'd done for years before that. There are types and quantities of data about us that exist now because of smart phones and ubiquitous use of the Internet that simply didn't exist in the "good old days" he's pining for.

So I think the fundamental claim he's making is at least a little bit flawed, and that's before we even get into discussions about whether it's technologically feasible or whether law enforcement can be trusted with the expanded powers.

Listen to the world's smallest violin play...

[Anonymous Coward]

Go fuck yourself, federal government.

Every word is undermined..

[Anonymous Coward]

When law enforcement agencies in the USA think "parallel construction" of the source of their evidence is acceptable or justifiable. Maybe if they hadn't be so underhanded and dirty in the first place, people might believe in them.

Re:Every word is undermined..

[avandesande]

pretty much lost all credibility with blatantly unconstitutional seizure laws

Re:Every word is undermined..

[Rakarra]

The blue wall of silence similarly degrades my trust in police and law enforcement.

I fear our police, FBI, NSA, CIA, TSA, ATF, ICE, etc more than criminals these days, and by a decent margin.

The worst things to have happened to the police in the last decades have been the disappearance of community policing and the decay of the inner city. No longer do the police walk around on the beat as a trusted and respected member of the community that everyone knows and has talked to. Instead, the police have developed a "perpetually under siege" mentality, with an us-vs-them attitude towards the community they patrol, ready to lash out at a moment's notice. They have more in common with partisan suppressors or soldiers fighting terrorists in Iraq during the worst of the occupation rather than the police of decades past.

The "bargain" used to include warrants.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Feds were the ones that violated the "bargain".

FBI Word games

[JustNiz]

> "With good reason, the people of the United States -- through judges and law enforcement -- can invade our private spaces," Comey said, adding that that "bargain" has been at the center of the country since its inception.

Yes, but for specific limited instances and after obtaining warrants for each case.
What Comey/The FBI are actually demanding is our freedom to use encryption be completely removed so that they can perform warrantless mass monitoring on a national scale.

The room is dark ... for everyone

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

Yes, Director, the room you're charged with exploring is dark. It's dark not just for you but for everyone. This include people who want to steal our identities or the contents of our bank accounts, who want to take personal pictures or conversations and broadcast them to the world without our consent, who want to perform corporate espionage, who want to see us to prey upon us and our children. Turning on the light may let you see, but you're outnumbered by the criminals in the darkness who are begging you to flip that switch so they too can see.

If you're willing to step it up and protect us from all those monsters in the dark, then tell us exactly how you plan to protect us and MAYBE we'll let you flip that switch. But somehow I don't think you want to commit the massive amount of resources that will be needed to protect us. If you don't, we want the light to stay off.

Re:The room is dark ... for everyone

[Ken D]

Yes, stop letting them frame the debate as personal "privacy" versus national "security"

This is about personal SECURITY versus national security.

Every day people get hacked, corporations get hacked, the government gets hacked. We need more personal security not less.

Re:It is clear who are the children

[jedidiah]

If that's the best you've got, then you've got nothing.

The Feds got caught with their hands in the cookie jar. They instigated all of this. They have no standing to whine about it.

Part of being "grown up" is owning your mistakes.

Re:And so here we are.

[Zocalo]

He never read it and used it as kindling a couple of months later.

Are you sure you didn't give him a copy of "Fahrenheit 451" by mistake?

Re:And so here we are.

[hondo77]

I don't think "pretty smart" means what you think it means.

They are talking about new laws.

[duckintheface]

The "adult conversation" the FBI says it's planning is a call for criminalization of any encryption that the FBI can't break. They want a back door and if you won't give it to them, they will put you in jail. Or use the powers of the NDAA to hold you without trial or "rendition" you to a country like Egypt where you can be tortured without anyone noticing.

This is an FBI which not only has broken the law regarding surveillance of US citizens, but then lied about it to Congress. The FBI may be correct that some terrorists will succeed because their communications are encrypted. That is better than living under an FBI shadow government that thinks it is above the law. We don't have to speculate about the intent of the FBI. We already know they broke the law and lied to Congress. And still have not been prosecuted for it.