FBI renews call for wider wiretap powers
Washington (AFP) - FBI chief James Comey renewed a call Thursday for broader law enforcement authority to tap into emerging technologies, saying the Edward Snowden revelations have led to unwarranted mistrust of law enforcement.
Comey said the revelations about widespread surveillance have led to a climate which could hinder the ability to catch criminals and terrorists, underscored by new efforts to encrypt smartphones to make them inaccessible to investigators, even with a warrant.
"Perhaps it's time to suggest that the post-Snowden pendulum has swung too far in one direction -- in a direction of fear and mistrust," Comey said in a speech at the Brookings Institution.
"There will come a day -- and it comes every day in this business -- where it will matter a great deal to innocent people that we in law enforcement can't access certain types of data or information, even with legal authorization. We have to have these discussions now."
Comey's comments sought to renew the debate about the FBI "going dark," or being unable to access encrypted calls and messages from new apps and services which fall outside the traditional realm of "wiretaps."
The FBI had been calling for changes to the US law covering wiretapping in 2013, but that debate was shelved after the revelations from former NSA contractor Snowden in June 2013 about vast surveillance of telephone and online communications.
Comey said the leaked Snowden documents exaggerated the capabilities of agencies like the FBI.
"In the wake of the Snowden disclosures, the prevailing view is that the government is sweeping up all of our communications. Of course, that's not true," he said.
"And if the challenges of real-time interception threaten to leave us in the dark, encryption threatens to lead all of us to a very dark place."
- 'Front door' access -
Comey said the announcements in recent weeks by Apple and Google to encrypt their smartphones so that law enforcement cannot access them, even with a warrant, provided a "catalyst" for him to revive the debate from 2013.
The encryption initiatives "energized me to say we have to have a conversation about this."
Comey last month warned that the new encryption by default could lead to problems for law enforcement, even as privacy activists applauded the efforts by the companies.
In his Brookings comments, Comey said he was not looking for a "back door" into devices and systems which could be exploited by malicious actors.
"We want to use the front door, with clarity and transparency, and with clear guidance provided by law," he said.
"We are completely comfortable with court orders and legal process -- front doors that provide the evidence and information we need to investigate crime and prevent terrorist attacks."
But even as Comey spoke, some activists criticized the new effort.
Trevor Timm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said on Twitter that Comey's proposal "literally makes no sense. The FBI wants a backdoor but also wants to pretend it's something else."
Christopher Soghoian of the American Civil Liberties Union, who attended the Comey speech, argued that in order to provide what Comey is seeking "the only logical access is to provide a key, and if the key is there someone will try to steal it."
