FBI Threatens to Force Apple and Google to Decrypt Their Phones

"Congress might have to force this on companies," he said. "Maybe they'll take the hint and do it themselves."—FBI Director James Comey

FBI Director James Comey. (Screen capture from YouTube video)

By Jason Koebler
Everyone is stoked that the latest versions of iOS and Android will (finally) encrypt all the information on your smartphone by default. Except, of course, the FBI: Today, its director spent an hour attacking the companies and the very idea of encryption, even suggesting that Congress should pass a law banning the practice of default encryption.

It's of course no secret that James Comey and the FBI hate the prospect of "going dark," the idea that law enforcement simply doesn't have the technical capability to track criminals (and the average person) because of all those goddamn apps, encryption, wifi network switching, and different carriers.


It's a problem that the FBI has been dealing with for too long (in Comey’s eyes, at least). Today, Comey went ballistic on Apple and Google's recent decision to make everything just a little more private.

"Encryption isn’t just a technical feature; it’s a marketing pitch … it’s the equivalent of a closet that can’t be opened. A safe that can’t be cracked. And my question is, at what cost?" Comey said. "Both companies [Apple and Google] are run by good people, responding to what they perceive is a market demand. But the place they are leading us is one we shouldn’t go to without careful thought and debate."

In a tightly moderated speech and discussion at the Brookings Institution—not one technical expert or privacy expert was asked to participate; however, several questions from the audience came from privacy-minded individuals—Comey railed on the "post-Snowden" world that has arisen since people began caring about their privacy.

Comey's speech and thinking was out-of-touch and off on many levels: He continually referred to potential "bad guys" as the only ones using encryption, and suggested that, with default encryption, people who are wrongly arrested won't be able to unlock data within their phones that could exonerate them.

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