A leading Democratic senator said on Wednesday that she would propose legislation to weaken end-to-end encryption.
“I think this world is really changing in terms of people wanting the protection and wanting law enforcement, if there is [a] conspiracy going on over the Internet, that encryption ought to be able to be pierced,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said during a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, has repeatedly voiced concerns about the strength of encryption used by tech companies like Apple, which does not allow the company itself or anyone else to access the content of users’ communications.
FBI Director James Comey agreed with Feinstein. “I would very much like to get to a world where if a judge issues an order, companies are able to comply with it,” Comey said. “Either to unlock a device, or to provide the communications between terrorists or between drug dealers or kidnappers. I very much would like to see that.”
However, Comey declined to endorse Feinstein’s prospective proposal. “The question of whether the answer is compelling them to do that by legislation is one that I can’t answer sitting here,” he added.
Lawmakers like Feinstein and her counterpart on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., have said encryption practices may have contributed to the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino. To date, the information released suggests that no encrypted devices were used in either incident.
Yet Comey suggested that one of the two perpetrators in a May attack in Garland, Texas, used encryption. “That morning, before one of those terrorists left and tried to commit mass murder, he exchanged 109 messages with an overseas terrorist. We have no idea what he said, because those messages were encrypted,” Comey told the committee.
On Thursday, White House officials including Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer Ed Felten and White House cybersecurity coordinator Michael Daniel are set to meet with privacy advocates who oppose efforts to weaken encryption. President Obama has generally voiced opposition to proposals that would change existing encryption policies.
