FBI and DOJ threaten tech companies with legislation forcing them to break encryption

Yesterday FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates testified before a Senate Judiciary committee that they are stumped by end-to-end encryption and that while they want to work with the private sector to come up with a solution Yates noted that a legislative mandate “may ultimately be necessary” to force companies to comply.

To back up their stand they also tried playing the terrorism card saying that ISIS is using social media to bolster their recruitment efforts. When a prospective terrorist is first contacted they are told to switch to an end-to-end encrypted messaging system where they can work out their nefarious plans in private. Comey said that the FBI is doing the best they can with existing tools and they have arrested dozens of potential terrorists in the past year, but sooner or later something is going to slip through.

Curiously Yates said that when the DOJ is presented with instances of encryption they no longer even try to secure a wiretap order. When asked how many times this has happened she replied, “Being able to give you hard numbers on the number of cases that have been impacted is impossible.”