FBI Director Christopher Wray: ‘Encryption Is An Urgent Public Safety Issue’
FBI Director Christopher Wray considers encryption to be “an urgent public safety issue,” Reuters reports. Mr. Wray publicly stated his opinion on encryption today, during a speech at a cyber security conference in New York, sparking more debate on the controversial issues of privacy and safety.
According to Wray, encryption is an issue because it disables the law enforcement from accessing electronic devices. Although Mr. Wray considers encryption to be a problem, he claims that a solution to this problem is “not so clear cut.”
“We face an enormous and increasing number of cases that rely heavily, if not exclusively, on electronic evidence. A solution requires significant innovation, but I just do not buy the claim that it is impossible,” Wray said.
In December, 2017, Wray told House lawmakers that the FBI was unable to access data on more than half the mobile devices the agency had legal authority to pry open. The law enforcement agency was unable to access data on about 7,800 mobile devices.
“The rapid pace of advances in mobile and other communication technologies continues to present a significant challenge to conducting lawful court-ordered access to digital information or evidence,” Wry told House lawmakers, asserting that terrorist and criminals increasingly use encryption technology and adding that even the Islamic State is free to reach potential recruits like this.
As the FBI’s attempts to require that devices allow investigators a way to access encrypted data continue, digital security experts and technology companies reportedly consider this to be a threat to internet security and something that could potentially empower malicious hackers.
Wray is not the only intelligence official to criticize widely available encryption. In 2016, former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, infamously blamed NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden for advancing commercially available, strong encryption, claiming the leaks have had a profound impact on the intelligence community’s ability to gather information. Furthermore, Snowden’s revelations about mass surveillance have, according to the Intercept‘s Jenna McLaughlin, accelerated encryption’s widespread availability.
According to biography.com, Christopher Wray is a former assistant attorney general at the U.S. Department of Justice. Born in New York City and a graduate of Yale University, Wray joined the U.S. Department of Justice in 2001. He oversaw legal and operational actions of the Department following 9/11. In 2004, Wray was reportedly notified of abuses that led to the death of an inmate at an Iraqi prison, but later downplayed any knowledge of inmate abuse.
Wray took over as FBI chief in August 2017, after President Donald Trump fired James Comey. The Trump administration seems to be taking a tougher stance on encryption than previous administrations. In October 2017, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein criticized technology companies for building strongly-encrypted products.
