Comey: Encryption the “hardest question I’ve seen” in gov’t

“Because it’s really about who do we want to be as a country, and how do we want to govern ourselves”, Comey told the House Intelligence Committee.

FBI director James Comey told a USA congressional hearing yesterday (Feb. 25) he believed the technology of the iPhone belonging to an assailant in the San Bernardino, California shootings is uncommon enough that a ruling on a federal court order to unlock the phone won’t create a “trailblazer” case. Apple was expected to file a formal objection on Friday.

Nevertheless, Comey conceded that the case would have an impact on future government requests to technology companies.

In other words it will, in fact, set a precedent regarding how courts handle law enforcement requests for companies to create tools to bypass their own security and encryption measures. He acknowledged at one point that Apple had been very helpful in the months leading up to the court clash and said that there were “no demons” in the debate. Apple’s attorneys also say the legal order is a new expansion of the 1789 All Writs Act, which has been used to require third parties to help law enforcement in investigations. “So we just need to make sure that the bureau explains what the costs are so that people don’t look at us five years from now and say, ‘Where were you guys when this happened?'”

“We think we have to follow that lead”.

Comey said there had been “plenty” of negotiations with Apple before the government sought the judge’s order.

Apple has made clear it has no intention of complying.

Apple has said Congress, not the courts, should resolve the dispute. “I think the probability is probably low, but it could be”.

The Justice Department is proposing a “boundless interpretation” of the law that, if left unchecked, could bring disastrous repercussions, the company warned in a memo submitted to Magistrate Sheri Pym that aggressively challenges policy justifications put forward by the Obama administration in the last several days.

In a statement issued on Thursday, Apple said the security software installed in the iPhone constitutes protected speech and should not be undermined by the Justice Department.

Pym directed Apple to help the Federal Bureau of Investigation hack its phone by creating specialized software that will let investigators bypass time-delay and self-destruct security protocols so that it can repeatedly and quickly test passcodes in what’s known as a brute force attack without risking loss of the phone’s data after 10 tries. In an interview with NPR’s Morning Edition, San Bernardino sheriff Jarrod Burguan said that he thinks the phone at the center of the litigation may not contain any valuable information, although he supports the FBI’s efforts to compel Apple’s help in obtaining the data inside.

Apple pointedly noted the U.S. government itself fell victim to hackers, when thieves stole the personal information of tens of millions of current and former federal workers and their family members from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.