James Comey said Tuesday that he regrets the way he handled the encryption debate that erupted during his tenure atop the FBI between the Obama administration and Silicon Valley.
“I did a number of things that were mistakes in my view,” Mr. Comey told NPR in an interview promoting his new memoir released Tuesday, “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies And Leadership.”
“I think I entered the debate about encryption in a thoughtless way,” he said. “I acted impulsively and commented at a brown bag lunch about how bugged I was by an Apple advertisement, and that was kind of stupid. I should have entered in a more thoughtful way.”
Mr. Comey publicly criticized Apple and Google in late 2014 after both companies announced plans to start encrypting the data stored on their customers’ smartphones by default, and he argued at the time that the practice would make their mobile devices inaccessible to criminal investigators.
“I like and believe very much that we should have to obtain a warrant from an independent judge to be able to take the content of anyone’s closet or their smartphone,” Mr. Comey told reporters at the time. “The notion that someone would market a closet that could never be opened — even if it involves a case involving a child kidnapper and a court order — to me does not make any sense.”
“Google is marketing their Android the same way: Buy our phone and law enforcement, even with legal process, can never get access to it,” Mr. Comey said then.
In his new book, Mr. Comey wrote that Apple and Google’s decision to encrypt smartphone data by default “drove me crazy,” according to Fast Company.
Silicon Valley failed to engage in “true listening” with the FBI, Mr. Comey wrote, adding that tech executives “don’t see the darkness the FBI sees,” like terrorism and organized crime, Fast Company reported.
“I found it appalling that the tech types couldn’t see this,” Mr. Comey wrote. “I would frequently joke with the FBI ’Going Dark’ team assigned to seek solutions, ’Of course the Silicon Valley types don’t see the darkness–they live where it’s sunny all the time and everybody is rich and smart.’”
The encryption debate between Silicon Valley and FBI came to a head in early 2016 when the Justice Department sued Apple in hopes of compelling the company to unlock into an encrypted iPhones owned by a slain suspected terrorist, Syed Farook, though the government ultimately relented after contracting the professional hacking services of a third-party security firm.
“I’m glad the litigation is gone,” Mr. Comey said a couple weeks after the Justice Department dropped its lawsuit. “Apple is not a demon; I hope people don’t perceive the FBI as a demon.”
Mr. Comey was infamously fired by President Trump in May. His successor, Christopher Wray, said in January that digital encryption prevented investigators from accessing data stored on 7,775 devices legally seized by federal investigators during fiscal 2017, creating an “urgent public safety issue.”
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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