Congress Pledges To Decide Phone Encryption Issue Pitting Apple, FBI
Advocates for law enforcement and personal privacy on Tuesday clashed at a congressional hearing weighing the issue of smartphone encryption, a debate most recently pitting Apple against the FBI. Speaking at the hearing, U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said the matter is “too complex to be left to the courts and must be answered by Congress.” The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing titled “The Encryption Tightrope: Balancing Americans’ Security and Privacy.” Witnesses testifying at the inquiry included FBI Director James Comey and Apple ( AAPL ) General Counsel Bruce Sewell. Comey and Sewell presented their sides in a case being played out in a federal court in California. A U.S. magistrate on Feb. 16 ordered Apple to assist the FBI in hacking an iPhone belonging to one of the two shooters in the Dec. 2 massacre in San Bernardino, Calif. Apple is seeking to have the order rescinded. Comey said the FBI is simply pursuing every avenue in its investigation to determine possible accomplices and links to terror groups. He admitted the case could set a precedent for other law enforcement agencies and governments to press Apple to crack its encryption. But he says national security concerns win out in this case. Sewell said the court’s order is government overreach and would force it to write special software for the FBI to get around its security protections. It also would lead to security vulnerabilities that would threaten the security of personal and financial data stored on all iPhones its customers use, he said. CEO Tim Cook, who wasn’t at the hearing, has led Apple’s fight in this case. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., suggested the FBI could be exploiting a national tragedy to pursue a change in the law. He said the FBI appeared to be taking an end run around the legislative branch with its judicial requests to hack smartphones. Comey said he isn’t asking for Apple to remove the encryption on its iPhones, only to give it an opportunity to figure out the password without the risk of the data being erased after 10 incorrect tries and to remove time barriers between password tries. It also wants Apple to allow the FBI to electronically submit password tries in a “brute force” attack on the device. “We are asking Apple to take the vicious guard dog away and let us pick the lock,” he told the panel. Some members of the committee sided with law enforcement. U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said he didn’t want to see smartphones become “evidence-free zones.” Sewell said Apple continues to improve the security on its devices because customers demand it. They don’t want their data accessed by cybercriminals and spies, he said. “We see ourselves as being in an arms race with criminals, cyberterrorists and hackers,” he said. “We’re trying to provide a safe and secure place for the users of our devices to be assured that their information cannot be accessed, cannot be hacked or stolen.” On Monday, a federal judge in a Brooklyn drug case ruled that the Justice Department cannot force Apple to provide the FBI with access to locked iPhone data. If the FBI gets access to encrypted iPhones, terrorists are likely to move to encrypted apps to avoid detection, Sewell said. The issue is popping up elsewhere. Early Tuesday, Brazilian federal police arrested the head of Facebook ’s ( FB ) Latin America operations for not complying with police requests to access WhatsApp messages linked to an organized-crime and drug-trafficking case.