For Would-Be Terrorists, Twitter is the ‘Devil on Their Shoulder — Federal Bureau of Investigation Director

The testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee marked the latest front in a high-stakes dispute between the Obama administration and some of the worlds most influential tech companies, placing squarely before Congress an ongoing discussion that has shown no signs of an easy resolution.

Comey’s problem is the almost universal agreement among cryptographers, technologists and security experts that there is no way to give the government access to encrypted communications without poking an exploitable hole that would put confidential data, as well as entities like banks and power grids, at risk. The companies have written to the Obama administration and used public speeches to press their case.

“Encryption is a great thing. Until then, what is the point in telling us anything at all?

But rather than call for legislative help in compelling companies to build in specialized access, the two officials said they intend to continue conversations with providers hoping they can come up with an adequate resolution. So all the American health care and information technology data that is held in India may be weakened by lower encryption standards. Indeed, the ready availability of personal information may explain why a new report by the United States Courts found that there were actually fewer instances of law enforcement requesting a wiretap of encrypted communication previous year than there were in 2013.

Appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Comey said that ISIS’s sophisticated propaganda on social media allows it to reach 21,000 English-language followers on Twitter, and that potential recruits are often moved onto encrypted mobile-messaging platforms that investigators say are hard to intercept. “The tools we are being asked to use are increasingly ineffective in our national security work and in our criminal work”, he said.

Tech companies call the concerns overblown and have steadfastly promised to protect customer privacy.

According to excerpts of her remarks, Yates will tell the committee that privacy interests “are not absolute” and must be balanced against public safety.

“These proposals are unworkable in practice, raise enormous legal and ethical questions, and would undo progress on security at a time when Internet vulnerabilities are causing extreme economic harm,” the report’s authors wrote.

Despite the Justice Department’s characterization that widespread encryption presents an extreme challenge to law enforcement, Yates and Comey were unable to offer any insight into the number of DOJ investigations that have been undermined or thwarted by individuals using encryption. He’s gone as far as to say that such encryption allows people “to place themselves beyond the law”.

“Strong encryption has revolutionized the online marketplace and protects American businesses and consumers from cybercrime, espionage, identity theft, stalking, and other threats on the Internet”.

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In recent weeks, law enforcement agents have made dozens of arrests of alleged ISIS sympathizers across the country.

“And you can not say, ‘Well, we’ve got to do it on the Fourth”.

“We face people who are highly unpredictable”, Comey said. Don’t include URLs to Web sites. In this case, we may fix spelling and punctuation.